also the thing about "we need to focus on the people most vulnerable, and transmascs may be vulnerable but not more than trans women!" is that it doesn't consider transmasc erasure as an active force.
its a take from the perspective that trans men are "vulnerable" is some vague abstract generalized way, not in a way which would behoove anyone to adjust their behavior or take action on their behalf. its the erasure of erasure; the assumption is that trans men probably have enough resources and support anyways, which could not be farther from the truth. some local communities may have more transmasc-focused resources, but many others do not. transmasculine people are left out of vital conversations, are excluded from vital resources, are ignored and forgotten when they are abused and killed.
it treats transmasc erasure as something which is passive in itself and which can be solved passively. which is erasure itself in action. i do not really give a fuck about "who has it worse," it is not about that. it is about the fact that if YOU do not make an ACTIVE EFFORT to advocate for transmascs, to make transmasc suffering and oppression visible and legible, it will not happen. it simply will not happen.
erasure is an active force. we all internalize transmasculine erasure and we can all easily contribute to it; we are expected to contribute to it. trans men&mascs cannot afford the model of "well we only need to raise awareness for the most vulnerable" because our vulnerability is defined by being ignored.
this is why unlearning anti transmasculinity has to start from (un)learning erasure. once you start to see it as an active force/tool of the patriarchy you realize it is the lynchpin that holds so much (especially intercommunity) anti-transmasculinity together. transmaculine absence is so normalized people experience our presence as an intrusion, and people genuinely do not understand why we would ever need to be more visible than we are. it is fucking everywhere.
like idk i remember reading about a trans man in India who, after he came out to his family, was literally locked in a room in their house. just shut up in a basement somewhere, out of sight and out of mind, until he managed to escape (and even then, there's also a trans man in India whose parents sent the police to track him down and kidnap him from a shelter meant specifically for trans people).
or trans men like Sophie Lederer, who was only 19 when he was arrested for "talking silly and claiming to be a boy" in the early 20th century, and the only other thing I know about him is that he spent the rest of his life, over a decade, institutionalized for his transmasculinity. god only fucking knows what was done to him in those years by his wardens.
that is the image of transmasculine erasure. it is boys and men locked in closets and basements and prison cells disguised as hospital rooms for years until they are dead and buried as women. if they even get a headstone at all. it is dead-eyed mothers with three children who have no income or job experience and are married to a cis man ten years older than them who they know would kill them, and possibly their children, if they even mentioned being trans. if you think of transmasc erasure or "invisibility" and imagine a white cis-passing guy working stealth at his office job, congrats! transmasculine erasure is already living like a fungus in your mind. i am trying to make you feel the horror the patriarchy has trained you out of feeling about the state of transmasculine oppression.
