please be patient i have autism

xhe/hir + he/xyr • 23 • anarchist flavoured communist • Magandjin, australia • pansy transsexual •

[cantmakeyouloveme]

[morphodyke-blog]

"transmisogyny is the basis of patriarchy" this is why you cannot be trusted

lmao this sounds so sinister :3

[morphodyke-blog]

how can i say “transmisogyny is the basis of patriarchy” when all good materialist feminists know the goal of patriarchy is the exploitation of women-classed people for reproductive labor, specifically dependent on biological reproduction? well, let’s dive a little more into what i mean by “basis” in this context.

when we talk about the basis we could talk about a lot of things. the historical basis? we don’t know, although gerda lerner has a book i have not read that i hear has some good theorizing about it. the material basis? mentioned above. but when we dive into the reproductive process we see something else: the psychological basis of patriarchy, and the behavioral modification conducted primarily around coercive birth assignment.

for cafab people, the intention is to create the class “woman”, which is basically a trauma and labor dump for everything man decides he doesn’t want to be (and wants to exploit sexually, in the model version where gay people don’t exist).

for camab people, the intention is to create a “man” which basically means abusing someone into a series of ways of shutting down their internal processes until they conform to various cultural archetypal stereotypes of dominance. the whole way you create a “boy” is by using patriarchal ideology and practices to train a type of dominance around perception of sex-class into the mind of a camab child. this *relies* on the idea that boys are *essentially* this way–or to put it another way, that camab children are essentially this construct called “boys”, a construct doomed to become “men”.

the only way to achieve this is by culturally outlawing any alternative paths for camab children. with cafab children, the structure tries to abuse them into the subservient position. with camab children, the structure tries to brainwash them into the dominant system, and therefore they are allowed more leeway: essentially “boys will be boys” which is to say “boys can do whatever the fuck they want”. there’s a risk therefore of slippage, because if boys can be like girls, and people who are like girls are being abused into the subservient position, then boys could become girls. and if that could happen like that, the structure would be destabilized. men would feel emasculated every time they were dominated. WHICH IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENS, because in reality camab kids can become girls, men constantly emasculate each other, etc.

so if you’re designing or memetically evolving patriarchy, how the fuck do you keep the whole thing from coming about because men are constantly patriarchally dominating each other? you have to put in a failsafe: make the idea of a camab person becoming a woman (or really anything other than a man) so repulsive and abject and dehumanized and disgusting that no one would ever ever want to choose to be it, even on the deepest levels of traumatic internalization where gender identity sets in. something so impossible everyone would try to deny it’s existence, while making it the butt of violent jokes. something that, when it appeared, was to be killed or raped or controlled or locked in a fucking basement or tortured or, if it was truly a fucking impeccably good person, held up on a dehumanizing pedastal of idolization that made them seem literally otherworldly.

so, trans women exist as “trans women” (or “faggots” depending on context) because it’s a dump category: the joke, the target, the going-too-far, the impossible, the fetishized, the ostracized, etc. and the reason it is, is that it needs to be to hold patriarchy together. male bonding is based around the fact of male identity, which is equally to say the rejection of what it decides is the female category. (this is not to say that male identity cannot adapt the performative signifiers of non-male identities). transmisogyny, the oppression of trans women, is therefore the psychological linchpin holding the whole thing in place. it keeps cis women from confronting how gender is socially constructed, by naturalizing it (transphobia in general does this). it keeps the family producing boys and men. so, like the exploitation of women’s reproductive labor, the oppression and exploitation of trans women is Vital for the intergenerational transmission of patriarchy. this is why we are considered a threat as bad as nuclear warfare by no less a patriarch than The Fucking Pope. both the oppression and exploitation of cis women (and to some complex defree, cafab nonbinary people) and the oppression and exploitation of trans women form the absolute basis, but transmisogyny is the psychological linchpin that keeps patriarchy in play. you might say, it’s patriarchy’s psychosocial weak point.

[seewetter]

I do have handful of notes:

the above even applies to patriarchal societies relatively welcoming to trans people, like the Sumerians -> trans women were literally treated as otherworldly instead of reviled, but that otherwordly-ness allowed the maintenance of patriarchy in exactly this way

reproductive labour acted as a real-world concern that allowed the category of woman to be created in the way that it was (it is the origin point for sexism and transphobia), but in the 21st century, reproductive labour is just one of many battlefields, the central material battle for the rights of cis women as women is certainly not reproduction, though it is a vital interest and absolutely essential to defend.

The actual core to patriarchy in a society where social power is mostly granted by money and in which money can bend the power of every government and every law is absolutely the financial dependency of homemakers from breadwinners. All of currently existing patriarchy “memetically evolves” around that.

Even once biogeneticists develop birthing pods for babies or cis men get pregnant, even when those phenomena become commonplace, transmisogyny and hostility to women will remain relevant social behaviours as long as this financial dependency is not resolved.

Once the financial dependency is resolved there might still be misogyny or transmisogyny, but at that point they will begin to lose their ability to make sense in a naturalistic fashion. No person will spontaneously intuit some of the foundational ideas of patriarchy and most currently common gender dynamics will cease to make financial sense and dissolve. When that happens, the only thing keeping misogyny and transmisogyny around will be propaganda…and a war of propaganda against propaganda is much more easily won.

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

honestly i’d go even further vis-a-vis reproduction.

the basis of patriarchy doesn’t have to be about controlling babymaking,(or, what OP calls “biological reproduction”) not nearly as much as it needs to be bout controlling socially-reproductive labor.

heres the deal. the physical labor, effort and processes necessary to raise and educate and socialize a human being from birth are extensive, and are so much more involved that just gestation, birth and lactation. this labor includes sanitation, teaching, language, skills instruction, social rituals and leisure, and etc. these are the kinds of labor needed to maintain society, and are called socially reproductive (i.e. they reproduce the conditions for society to maintain itself).

specializing labor, and the division of labor makes all forms of labor more efficient than they otherwise would be. therefore, when you can control the socially labor, you can then leverage other labor forces to either conquering territory or other laborers or increase their labor forms that generate surplus.

after you divide this socially reproductive labor and surplus-generative labor, how then do early patriarchies rationalize this system? well you gender it, with men-as-owners women-as-laborers and queers-as-underclass, all justified by mythmaking, post-hoc rationalizations, and an appeal to sex.

biological aspects of socially reproductive labor then do not necessarily require someone of a certain gender to have a singular type of bodily function to be able to complete, and specifically, gestation and birth requires more than one body type, and educating and socially integrating kids requires more than one person.

focus on the biological process is a lie that patriarchy has told itself to validate its own existence.

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

anyone who says porn addiction is real hates women, and agrees with misogyny and christofash marital rape-culture the entire concept of "porn addiction" was invented by evangelical christofascist pastors to justify marital rape. they told women that they always needed to be sexually available to men because if they werent, then their husbands would look at porn or cheat, and it would be the wive's fault. you cannot agree with the concept of porn addiction and call yourself a feminist

[morphodyke-blog]

i feel like one of the weird divisions in trans lesbian community is between those who strongly identify and probably overidentify with aspects of cis lesbian culture (to cope), and those who strongly disavow and distance from cis lesbian culture (to cope). im very much the former but i have a lot of sympathy for the latter. the cultural exclusion of trans lesbians is a really deep wound and i can’t imagine any of us have a simple relation to it. i feel myself constantly drawn towards the aesthetics and politics of radical (cis) lesbians, and they’ve done a lot for me, but i’m also deeply alienated by them. in many ways i see my engagement as a reclamation of something that i should never have been excluded from. but there’s always something missing. there’s a certain flatness to cis lesbian culture, a desire to hide from the gruesome horror of love and feeling and if i sound emo that’s because emo starts as a cis and trans lesbian discourse for grappling with this (and then is brutally recuperated) (im not even gonna argue about this at this point, gerard way and ray toro are basically already out). like, cis lesbians are missing what it takes to love trans lesbians (not, like, on an individual level, but as a culture), what it takes to love women who have been so brutally excluded from womanhood (you could argue the same about other intersections with lesbianism that totally dehumanize women). at the same time, cis lesbian culture carries with it so many secret contributions to trans lesbians, a real desire and need to escape gender and establish a loving world. and that’s so fucking beautiful? and it’s so fucked up that i and other trans lesbians feel so alienated from that, especially to be alienated around the very difference lesbianism seeks to escape.

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

love is violence, embrace the horror, become a terror to those who prevent your love

cisbianism also carries deep embarrassment of the body, a contradiction between escape from gender vs retreat to sex, an attempt to cloak itself in whatever scraps of the patriarchal cloak of female innocence that the cis can wrap themselves in to escape the implication that the violence will continue no matter what, and to turn away from the very real imperative to revolt against sexing and patriarchy

arm yourselves, train, form community, love, solidarity with the colonized, with the racialized, with the disabled, with the abjected, with your transfeminine sisters, with those of us with no way out unless we go the fuck through

unlearn the cis-socialization and terf-socialization, unlearn the white socialization, kill the rapists and cops and hitlers in your head, (and if you cannot, well… follow your leader), and fight like fucking hell for people who you do not know and may hate, but must learn to love like your dearest friend, sibling, parent

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”

- George Jackson

[gothhabiba]

MRAs invent the term "transmisandry" -> the fact that this is a hate group becomes obvious -> they invent the term "transandrophobia" to disassociate themselves from said hate group -> the fact that this is a hate group becomes obvious -> they invent the term "transmascphobia"

I wonder what will happen this time

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

meanwhile "anti-transmasculinity" has been around for years

[wholesalemagnesiumoxide]

as i see it, the issues with the terms listed in OP are:

they center "transmasc-directed transphobia" as a distinct thing from regular transphobia worth focusing on

they posit misandry / androphobia / mascphobia as an axis of oppression

they're most commonly used for antifeminist / MRA rhetoric

and i don't see how anti-transmasculinity avoids any of these issues. it kind of circumvents #2, sure, but it still reifies the idea of transmasc-directed transphobia and is very easily turned to MRA ends. (it's a synonym, after all.)

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

anti-transmasculinity is a social process of how the patriarchy interacts with transmasc ppl, classifies transmasc ppl, organizes transmasc ppl within patriarchy, and how it organizes violence against transmasculine ppl

i want to go on record to say that trans men and transmascs are oppressed, they are oppressed severely, violently and unacceptably by society, and it is deeply, deeply unfair and dangerous that they are treated like a pawn so often by transphobes, patriarchs, and TERFs, and that transfems who engage in feminist theory as beginners can tend to fail to analyze transmisogynoir in relation w/ anti-transmasculinity and how anti-transmasculinity from the patriarchy+ can uphold and promote transmisogynoir

in materialist transfeminism, analysis of anti-transmasculinity is also a frame of dialectical analysis that looks at the social relations of transmasculinity, the social condition of primarily transmasculine ppl, and the role of anti-transmasculinity as a form of racial-class paternalism that, in patriarchy serves a couple diff roles, which i will discuss here. this is broadly what i mean when i say anti-transmasculinity, learned from studying Black Materialist Transfeminists.

1 - Regendering - anti-transmasculinity is leveraged and exploited against transmasculine ppl to drive them away from transfeminine ppl and fracture trans ppl by regendering transmascs, i.e. attempting to force them back into womanhood through various coercive means, including social (forcing association with ciswomen, classifying them as indelibly female, punishing them w/ exclusion if they don't conform to ciswomanhood), physical (physical violence, punishment, neglect, exploitation or forced labor), and rhetorical (use of oppositional sexism and misogyny rhetoric in media and wider life to antagonize transmasc's and their place in society)

this oppression is used by patriarchy and it's allies (esp terfs, subordinate or local formes of patriarchy like individual Institutional Family units or churches, charities, etc), as fuel for the next part

2 - Resentment - anti-transmasculinity is also used against transmascs as a resentment politic against transfems.

a resentment politic is a tactic and strategy of driving wedges between different social grouping and cause division between them, usually w/ the goal of heightening resentment in a group that hegemonic forces (in this case, patriarchy) is trying to turn against the other group.

put another way: trans men and transmasculine ppl (TMaM's from here cause im lazy) are treated differently, oppressed and attacked w/ differing rhetoric, and patriarchy presents these oppressions w/ different framing, different rhetoric that is spoken to different groups, and different ppl who target the different groups, and different selection of different "acceptable" options to respond to this violence.

acceptable options for responses to violence would include things like attacking TMA ppl on what ppl assume our assigned sex was ("you dont understand AFAB oppression"), or things like exploiting transfeminine debt ("trans women didnt have to experience misogyny from birth") or implying that transfems dont do enough to either conform to womanhood or to break down gender norms ("youre not even trying to be a woman" vs "you just think women are a collection of stereotypes" which are mostly the same argument) obligatorily, most trans men and transmasc ppl do not do this, but this is the goal that patriarchy tries to get transmascs to do to transfems

further, what a given group sees (and what patriarchal forces want to show them) is not necessarily the whole story, and groups generally arent privy to the full affects of how a given oppression works for the ppl targeted by it. ppl dont know what they dont experience and dont see or learn (which is obvs but bears repeating)

what that means is that hegemonic forces can exploit the lack of knowledge by both restricting information flow (esp through social media), influencing information flow (such as terfs pushing caricatures or only showing bad behavior from transfems, patriarchy downplaying certain aspects of trans oppression, or etc), or by promoting bad faith interpretations of words and actions by certain ppl and groups.

in the case of how transmisogyny and anti-transmasculinity interact, patriarchal anti-transmasculinity is used to convince transmasculine ppl of a couple of things:

to identify with patriarchal sex-assignment (patriarchy WANTS transmasc and trans men to see themselves as indelibly female, and goes to great lengths to prop up the idea that males and females are different) to see transfeminine ppl as a threat to transmasculine ppl either b/c of this sex-class propaganda, or through a resentment politic by exploiting jealousy, envy or desire that TMAM may have about TFAW (such as misunderstanding transfem hypervisibility as a benefit or how transfems are seen as gender-weird but masculine) and to promote, through misunderstanding the idea that there is not a shared interest for all trans ppl, but also to obscure the differences between different trans experiences

further, transmisogyny operates in the lives of TMA ppl in ways that are often invisibilized to ppl who are TME. ppl like to talk about transfem hypervisibility and transmasc invisibilization, but its more nuanced than that. transfem hypervisibility only tends to be certain aspects that can be exploited or used against us. some transfems will note that the Black transfeminine experience is not shown when a lot of outrage on social media is focused on behavior from white transfems, often picking the worst people alive to portray. on the other hand, outrage against transmasculine ppl tends not to go as viral or be as sustained or popular, although ymmv and what ppl see is very dependent on who theyre around.

how much socially reproductive, and emotional labor is done by transfems is often obscured as well, and ppl tend not to realize how much they either ask for from us, or take from us. generally we also tend to be less housed, paid noticably less than transmasc ppl (especially for racialized and especially especially Black and indigenous transfems), and suffer more outright deadly violence.

--------------------------------------------------

oppressive systems today almost all rely on organizing different groups of ppl to exploit them differently and to have them serve in certain roles in continuing to perpetuate those oppressions.

patriarchy is no exception in giving some ppl privileges over others and abusing and hazing them to integrate them into the system. patriarchy in the current age (can go over the actual history later or elsewhere) hinges is oppression on a specific fulcrum of transmisogynoir. what this means is that no matter who, or part what group, someone is, what their social station, social roles theyre placed in, or anything else, almost everyone can exploit anti-Black transmisogyny against Black trans women and transfem ppl, who broadly are the most marginalized ppl in a gendered sense in the US context

it benefits patriarchy to shape who sees what, and what is shown about different groups, about different experiences that groups have, because it can stoke resentment between these groups, through which misunderstandings can escalate and shake groups apart.

understanding how anti-transmasculinity is used by patriarchy to drive resentment against transfems, and to sneak in transmisogynistic rhetoric or beliefs that are taken up because the resentment is so strong and convincing, and because there is significant institutional pressure to be transmisogynistic at this time.

further reading here:

Racial-Class Paternalism and the Trojan Horse of Anti-transmasculinity

Nsambu Za Suekama Racial-Class Paternalism and the Trojan Horse of Anti-transmasculinity Introduction March 4, 2023

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

BY THE WAY, i really wanted to ask, as someone who has genuine trouble reading theory and is therefore not that well read (i take months to finish nonfiction theory, even podcasts, audiobooks, etc.), sorry this is very long, you can even ignore it if it's too much or take however long you wish to respond:

1. what are your thoughts on separatism? like lesbian separatism specifically, as proposed in this article [Towards a Women's Mutiny(https://harpies.substack.com/p/towards-a-womens-mutiny)] and many of the author's similar essays, if you have perhaps come across it (not sure if you use substack). As others who think similarly, TIRFs etc.

2. genuinely, what are your thoughts on Radfeminism? I have gone back and forth on being critical of it, then being amenable to it, then not being so sure of it. I've actually tried reading Nsámbu Za Suékama's piece "Why I am a Materialist Transfeminist and not a Marxist/Proletarian/R*dical Feminist" and the jargon at the beginning alone tripped me up and I made it not even quarterway through before I stopped, I'll try reading it again at some point. I have read that radical feminism had genuine achievements but I've also read opinions here & there that many of it's primary theories fall short when taking into consideration the question of trans women & transfeminism and I just, genuinely have no clue. But Materialist Feminism does indeed sound more amenable to me now (I finally understand what Materialist vs Idealist means thanks to you ! as you had explained it in another post)

3. What critiques do you have of Talia Bhatt? I saw you had mentioned about not fully agreeing with her either. As well as Julia Serano, what disagreements do you have with her? I had read like 2 essays from Serano's substack a while back, but I haven't read Whipping Girl. For Talia Bhatt I have not read Trans/Rad/Fem but I think it has many of her substack essays compiled from some excerpts I've seen, and I've read many of Bhatt's essays. For the most part, they seem agreeable to me. Perhaps for Serano I haven't read majority of her work so I don't understand the critiques. For Bhatt, I can say with confidence that I've read a significant amount of her writing, but I don't get how some people say she's reactionary or a "white" feminist (we know she is not white, but it is a commentary on the character of her feminism, and this I've seen from Black transfeminists like G and Suekama on twitter, and a couple others)

4. The question of...trans men's positionality in society. Some truths I absolutely agree with: that trans men have power over trans women, that trans men can & have a historical precedent of oppressing, abusing trans women, that trans men are not oppressed by virtue of being men ("transmisandry/ transandrophobia") but because of being transmasculine specifically, anti-transmasculinity. Yet I don't know, I still find myself having some doubts and objections. I have read, that trans men perform class mobility while trans women perform downward class mobility, and hence trans men acquire power while trans women have more in common with cis women, because by being women they never had "power" in the first place [from this essay: Are Cis Women Our Natural Allies?((https://harpies.substack.com/p/are-cis-women-our-natural-allies) sorry this is the last article I link it's not that long I promise TT].

It's this specific point that makes me scratch my head. Are not both cis women and trans men incentivized to be transmisogynistic, have a history of violent transmisogyny, hell I would even say cis women more than trans men? And in fact cis women gain more social and financial capital by doing so, considering the major leaders of TERFism are ciswomen, and trans men get discarded after being recruited into them?

If we, theoretically, ally ourselves with cis women and build a movement & then a future where we can become a "women's" society, a society by & for those women-aligned with the exclusion of all those who become & wish to emulate maleness, would we still not have to contend with cis women's abuse and oppression? In all honesty, is it really trans men's maleness that makes them that way, or is it them being TME? And for this latter point I have found many Black transfeminists analyze it this way as well instead of framing it in a "trans men assimilate into the male class and everyone in the male class oppresses the female class" (unless I've misunderstood!). So on that point, don't trans men perform much class mobility at all, and the benefits of their maleness superficial? I kind of see it like those who say trans women benefited from being percieved-as-men when they were pre-transitioning, like sure perhaps these girls weren't being catcalled or leered at but that's really nothing compared to the dysphoria + the way the girls are punished from birth for exhibiting signs that they don't wish to assimilate into patriarchial masculinity by peers & family. That is to say, the benefits of trans men's maleness can confer things like, no longer being catcalled outside and being taken more seriously in interpersonal dynamics but the looming specter of societal wide & state-sanctioned anti-transmasculinity, transphobia, transmisogyny, etc really makes this class mobility for the most part negligible. you had mentioned too, in another post, that in the workplace trans men make about as much as cis women.

that is to say, trans men are not the ones who make public spaces unsafe for all women and femmes, trans men are not leading these femicide statistics (often more likely to be counted amongst them), & in general with the way the prison industrial complex & state works we know that trans men for the most part have power over trans women & trans women only in material ways .... but isn't that anyone? So in conclusion of the 4th point - if we were to remove, exclude all transmascs who align more closely with maleness and have little to no connection to womanhood, from our (trans)feminism, from our separatism, from these theoretical women's separatist communes, really, what difference would it make wrt cis women's transmisogyny? Yes, trans men are capable of being transmisogynists....isn't everyone?

when having said this to one transfeminist (self described radical transfeminist), she had told me that I am doing oppression olympics and not considering class dynamics, and that if we include trans men then it allows for trans women to be branded TIRFs, to be assaulted, to be abused, and all the other variety of transmisogyny that is flung at them, because men as a class oppress women & all women are committed to a class struggle against men no matter the marginalization. i agree that men of all marginalization oppress women. just....this still didn't answer my question like. "it allows for trans women to be branded TIRFs, to be assaulted, to be abused " are these not things cis women do as well? i've heard the horror stories of cisfem chasers. like it's just not making sense to me. 

...this class theory makes more sense to me as the gender marginalized vs the ones who are not gender marginalized (cis men for the most part). within the gender marginalized there exists the classes of TME/TMA. but I would like your opinion on that as well.

.....so yeah....those are my questions.... 😭😭

1. what are your thoughts on separatism? like lesbian separatism specifically, as proposed in this article [Towards a Women's Mutiny(https://harpies.substack.com/p/towards-a-womens-mutiny)] and many of the author's similar essays, if you have perhaps come across it (not sure if you use substack).

Separatism is a non-starter. as a way to avoid abuse it fails consistently, instead creating the conditions for exploitation and violence within the group, especially when one identity is primatized (made the primary group identification) over others. part of the issue with radfem communes, sep orgs and collectives was that straggot women exploited lesbians for sex, white women exploited racialized, especially black women for labor, ciswomen exploited trans women as scapegoats, and all these multiply-marginalized ppl were used as repositories of abuse and sexual violence that the privilege-grouped ppl could take out their resentment upon. (recognition of this pattern is one of the reasons why the so-called bogey-tran of the White Drug-addicted quasi-Pedo, groomer, abusive polycult has so much cultural cache, even though that narrative is broadly not how or why violence plays out)

furthermore, separatism makes the group in question necessarily isolated, unable to politically and socially interact with the wider world, respond to changes in the scene, take advantage of beneficial developments, or reorient when new group needs occur. (This is partially why radfem has regressed so fucking far from positions that were relatively rebellious. the other reason is from starting from a bad understanding of patriarchy)

ultimately its a fantasty of just like, fucking escaping from issues?? it asks the Extremely Compelling, Useful and Definitely Not Reactionary question "what if we just decided to not have problems and what if that could be achieved by Leaving And Doing Nothing Else".

I'll engage with the essay itself in a separate post.

As others who think similarly, TIRFs etc.

"What about the T.I.R.F.s?" "Trans Inclusionary Radical Feminists? I don't think they exist."

ultimately theyre trying to solve a problem that they say either doesnt exist or that they think is superfluous to their political project.

Non-existent - they'll often say "radical feminism is already/inherently trans-inclusive!" or that "trans women are included in the class of women". these positions are, ofc, laughable and not to be considered seriously.

Superfluous - because they fail to recognize the centrality of transmisogynoir to how the gender system upholds settler colonialism and imperialist capitalism, TIRFs treat the unique needs, concerns, social history, formes of organization, methods of struggle, and specific class interests of TMA ppl as unnecessary, or secondary concerns, and treat TMA ppl as cadet or sophomore women who have to be made subordinate to Real Women. youll often see them resorting to bullshit like "trans women werent subjected to misogyny from birth so real women matter more" or "trans women have male socialization that they need to overcome" or "trans women are predatory and violent but i guess theyre oppressed and deserve some protections".

ultimately, in any actual movement, they necessarily must be suppressed by revolutionary forces, at best subordinated to the interests of the revolutionary movement or totally expelled from political legitmacy and purged from the body politic.

2. genuinely, what are your thoughts on Radfeminism? I have gone back and forth on being critical of it, then being amenable to it, then not being so sure of it. I've actually tried reading Nsámbu Za Suékama's piece "Why I am a Materialist Transfeminist and not a Marxist/Proletarian/R*dical Feminist" and the jargon at the beginning alone tripped me up and I made it not even quarterway through before I stopped, I'll try reading it again at some point. I have read that radical feminism had genuine achievements but I've also read opinions here & there that many of it's primary theories fall short when taking into consideration the question of trans women & transfeminism and I just, genuinely have no clue. But Materialist Feminism does indeed sound more amenable to me now (I finally understand what Materialist vs Idealist means thanks to you ! as you had explained it in another post)

i feel the same about radfem as i do about the bourgeois revolution. it was conditional and incidentally progressive in relation to its time, but ultimately turned into a way to reinforce the class system, and integrated into social violences that radfems consider acceptable.

any actually-revolutionary movement will involve the suppression of radfem as a reactionary, regressive movement that is invested in the colonization and exploitation and theft of labor from the gendered body, because that is functionally what is has been, and The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does.

3. What critiques do you have of Talia Bhatt? I saw you had mentioned about not fully agreeing with her either. As well as Julia Serano, what disagreements do you have with her? I had read like 2 essays from Serano's substack a while back, but I haven't read Whipping Girl. For Talia Bhatt I have not read Trans/Rad/Fem but I think it has many of her substack essays compiled from some excerpts I've seen, and I've read many of Bhatt's essays. For the most part, they seem agreeable to me. Perhaps for Serano I haven't read majority of her work so I don't understand the critiques. For Bhatt, I can say with confidence that I've read a significant amount of her writing, but I don't get how some people say she's reactionary or a "white" feminist (we know she is not white, but it is a commentary on the character of her feminism, and this I've seen from Black transfeminists like G and Suekama on twitter, and a couple others)

biggest issue with Bhatt is her antiblackness. she was criticized on her discord a couple years back by Black Materialist Transfeminists, who are Black TMA ppl, for how she universalized transmisogyny in the context of the Indian Subcontinent to comment on all transmisogyny, and in response the discord and she rallied to harass the Black TMA ppl across various social media platforms, and she wrote an essay complaining that she was harassed by coordinated campaigns of transmisogynists who attacked her based on her identity. the actual criticism given was of that Subcontinental Universalization, when that is severely limited in its ability to describe transmisogynoir in the context of non-indian european imperialism and colonization since 1492, and how transmisogynoir was constructed as a tool of colonization and genocide of Black and indigenous cultures via destruction of non-Euro gender systems, embodiments and identities, and forcing those groups and people into assimilation and conformity with the Euro gender system. personally, i agree with this assessment of Bhatt, and am in agreement w/ G and NZ Suekama on this. further, there has been several attempts by transfeminists and those who describe ourselves as such to rehabilitate or renegotiate w/ the 2nd wave & radical feminists. i think this is smth of a Useless Exercise for several reasons: -1- the ppl who do so tend to severely downplay just how much transmisogyny vs transfeminine inclusion was an extremely hot topic of discourse, and theres a tendency to ignore ppl like Janice Raymond, Blanchard, Bindel, Greer, who were truly guiding lights in Radfem generally, and how close theyre connected with ppl like Dworkin, Feinberg, Adrienne Rich, etc. -2- in doing so, they often form social circles with radfems who describe themselves as "trans inclusive" (TIRFs), "trans-affirming", "pro-trans" or what have you, but almost invariably hold transmisogynoirist biases, participate in transmisogynoir, believe and preach transmisogynoir in their politics, and generally subordinate the material conditions, social existence and ongoing struggle of TMA ppl. -3- it has occurred several times that transfeminists or transfems who are feminist who try and rehab 2W/RF have opened themselves up to attack *by transmisogynist infiltrators*. Alyson Escalante and Esperanza Fonseca are a great example, laundering the career of so-called "Comrade Brigid" who is now a member of the cryptofascist "American Communist Party", and actively gender critical.

Julia Serrano is important for Whipping Girl imho, but its analysis is definitely early, and Transfeminism has moved on. i think her idea that there was some cohesive "binary vs nonbinary" struggle that was primarily enacted against 'binary trans women' and did not include nonbinary transfems is likely projection and placing primacy on what she experienced rather than really knowing (or being able to know) how all-encompassing transmisogyny is.

4. The question of...trans men's positionality in society. Some truths I absolutely agree with: that trans men have power over trans women, that trans men can & have a historical precedent of oppressing, abusing trans women, that trans men are not oppressed by virtue of being men ("transmisandry/ transandrophobia") but because of being transmasculine specifically, anti-transmasculinity. Yet I don't know, I still find myself having some doubts and objections. I have read, that trans men perform class mobility while trans women perform downward class mobility, and hence trans men acquire power while trans women have more in common with cis women, because by being women they never had "power" in the first place [from this essay: Are Cis Women Our Natural Allies? ((https://harpies.substack.com/p/are-cis-women-our-natural-allies) sorry this is the last article I link it's not that long I promise TT].

trans men's place in society is no conceptually different than the place of a group of men in any given other-wise oppressed social group. disabled men are oppressed but still have relative advantage of patriarchy, are advantaged by other men and patriarchal mechanism, and can gain benefit from the labor, time and work of disabled MaGes and many non-disabled MaGes because of patriarchy. they can leverage misogyny, they can ingratiate themselves into masculinist social circles, etc. now, this isn't universal, or perfect, nor does it always work out for them b/c capitalism, imperialism and patriarchy are all deeply ableist, but it doesnt negate it either.

i personally don't think trans men perform class mobility so much as their paths to engage with or leverage power can change, and how power relates to them changes. they are still at threat of regendering, and in the case of refusing to, social violence, exclusion, economic deprivation, abuse and even murder (all these experiences of which are common w/ transfems) but, broadly, statistically, these are less severe (note i did not say they were rosy or unimportant, or any more acceptable than any other violence), more on-par with anti-cisfeminine violence, and in line with TME MaGes, because, even though the content of the violence they face is similar, the scale is different, and the purpose is different. TME trans ppl are not set up by transmisogynoir to be The Epitomized Social Scapegoat (or whipping girl, if you may). the purpose of anti-transfeminine violence isn't to regender us as female women, but to mulch us in the compost-maker of patriarchal social reproduction, and to serve as active fertilizer for the whole system of patriarchy.

generally im empathetic to the guerrilla essay and to seeking ciswomen as partners w/ shared interests, but personally i've yet to see this play out in a way where ciswomen actually and truly believe and put into practice full faith and credit of trans women as women, where they won't eventually leverage transmisogyny in some way.

so to answer the question "Are Cis Women Our Natural Allies?": i dont think anyone is a "natural" ally of anyone else, even if there are mutual shared interests, even if two groups have a political consciousness of that. solidarity is about developing and maintaining that political consciousness, but more importantly, transforming that consciousness into action against the shared enemies, and to resolve even the issues that arent shared or may contradict one groups interest or another. for example, ciswomen benefit from transfeminine oppression. in shared living situations we often occupy spaces of serving as pro-bono therapy and emotional care, we are punished for not doing enough domestic labor (regardless of how much we actually do) and are exploited for sexual relations. it is in ciswomen's class interest as ciswomen to maintain their access to this labor. if ciswomen want to be allies, they have to be ready and prepared to abolish the flow of this labor, and reverse it themselves.

It's this specific point that makes me scratch my head. Are not both cis women and trans men incentivized to be transmisogynistic, have a history of violent transmisogyny, hell I would even say cis women more than trans men? And in fact cis women gain more social and financial capital by doing so, considering the major leaders of TERFism are ciswomen, and trans men get discarded after being recruited into them? If we, theoretically, ally ourselves with cis women and build a movement & then a future where we can become a "women's" society, a society by & for those women-aligned with the exclusion of all those who become & wish to emulate maleness, would we still not have to contend with cis women's abuse and oppression?

i believe ive adequately answered this just above

In all honesty, is it really trans men's maleness that makes them that way, or is it them being TME? And for this latter point I have found many Black transfeminists analyze it this way as well instead of framing it in a "trans men assimilate into the male class and everyone in the male class oppresses the female class" (unless I've misunderstood!).

well, honestly its both. theyre not somehow not 'male' (with all that maleness implies as far as how they relate to their ingroup, i.e. other trans ppl). they are embodying maleness, gendering their bodies as such, and it informs them. whether they can take advantage of a more hegemonic cismalemanhood is a different question, but CisMaleManhood does grant support and give its blessing to MaGes too. these considerations dont cancel each other out, but rather the ways they support each other and interlock are mutually reinforcing

So on that point, don't trans men perform much class mobility at all, and the benefits of their maleness superficial? I kind of see it like those who say trans women benefited from being percieved-as-men when they were pre-transitioning, like sure perhaps these girls weren't being catcalled or leered at but that's really nothing compared to the dysphoria + the way the girls are punished from birth for exhibiting signs that they don't wish to assimilate into patriarchial masculinity by peers & family.

technically, lateral mobility is mobility, and trans men and transmascs arent not oppressed as marginalized gendered ppl, just differently than ciswomen and trans women are. otherwise i believe i answered it adequately as above.

That is to say, the benefits of trans men's maleness can confer things like, no longer being catcalled outside and being taken more seriously in interpersonal dynamics but the looming specter of societal wide & state-sanctioned anti-transmasculinity, transphobia, transmisogyny, etc really makes this class mobility for the most part negligible. you had mentioned too, in another post, that in the workplace trans men make about as much as cis women.

right, its a lateral movement that changes how the site of power (in this case, CisMaleManHood) engages with the transmasculine and TME person, and how the site of power allows that individual to engage with the site of power.

that is to say, trans men are not the ones who make public spaces unsafe for all women and femmes, trans men are not leading these femicide statistics (often more likely to be counted amongst them),

well, they may not be the ones guiding the current push of transmisogyny, nor the ones who decided it needed to be done, nor the ones primarily planning and carrying it out, but that push is being done by a movement that does take inspiration from them and engages with them, and they very well can, and may! ally themselves with it, or leverage its influence for their benefit, and may not even know if/when they do!!

& in general with the way the prison industrial complex & state works we know that trans men for the most part have power over trans women & trans women only in material ways .... but isn't that anyone?

well, the question becomes, in certain given situations, who is that transmasc or trans man given the ability to leverage power over? what is the goal of that violence (both the individual goal, like "i want this from her", as well as the societal goal "this violence upholds [x] system")? who, and what arguments or sources of power, does that perpetrator appeal to for support? if their violence is stopped, who do they go to for support after? these are the questions we need to ask.

So in conclusion of the 4th point - if we were to remove, exclude all transmascs who align more closely with maleness and have little to no connection to womanhood, from our (trans)feminism, from our separatism, from these theoretical women's separatist communes, really, what difference would it make wrt cis women's transmisogyny? Yes, trans men are capable of being transmisogynists....isn't everyone?

if we were to remove them, it wouldnt functionally change much, because they broadly only have a limited social consciousness of how imperative the question of transmisogyny is. transmisogyny is one of The Primary Spearheads of the fascist reaction in the current period. very few ppl seem to grasp that. the only ones who do are TERFs, fascists and transfems.

more importantly, it doesnt change any of the necessary tasks that we have to perform, like political unification, developing an underground railroad of sorts, creating a militant, disciplined and armed guerilla movement, and a correct understanding of cissociety, transmisogyny and transfemininity

when having said this to one transfeminist (self described radical transfeminist), she had told me that I am doing oppression olympics and not considering class dynamics

fwiw, "oppression olympics" is a perjorative for considering class dynamics. recognizing that men as a class are able to wield power over women through misogyny-as-a-tool (not have in my personal opinion, they don't 'possess' or own misogyny, but have access to it) isn't oppression olympics, and its also not condemnation of given individuals, and in the case of individuals, they may have varying levels of consciousness of their class position, while also obscuring the violence they can and do commit, not recognizing it when they do it, or actively seeking to harm ppl they can have power over, but also may try and prevent that harm, may try and mitigate it.

and that if we include trans men then it allows for trans women to be branded TIRFs, to be assaulted, to be abused, and all the other variety of transmisogyny that is flung at them

so in other words, if we include trans men in the project of liberation they may... do to trans women what is already being done to trans women? how does this change our essential tasks of organizing for survival and resistance?

because men as a class oppress women & all women are committed to a class struggle against men no matter the marginalization.

well... are all women committed to that struggle? id say that, no, many women, some trans women included, are not interested in abolition of the class system. shes taking things as a given based on an individuals class position without recognizing competing interests, internalizations of different violences, ect.

to use an example being hotly debated, we could say that white trans women intrinsically oppress black trans women, which implies that all white trans women are objectively doomed to counterrevolution, or that all disabled trans women are committed to a class struggle against all abled trans women no matter the marginalization... but thats just not necessarily true. (whether or not its true for given individuals, or that there is a tendency for different privilege-classes to abandon or exploit more marginalized ppl w/in certain groups is another question)

your friend is likely recognizing smth that communists would call a "Shared Class Interest" but that doesnt mean all women necessarily want liberation for all other women just by virtue of a class standpoint, and its fundamentally essentialist, and idealist to say that this will or must be the case.

Lenin and Mao talk about the process of organizing resistance and rebellion as a process of identifying individuals who are committed to struggle (really committed, not just vocalizing commitment!), and organizing them into a vanguard, that can then organize the mass struggle and direct political work into a cohesive form, and forceful, dynamic directions of struggle. this doesnt make demands on a given individuals class participation but is about the considerations of the class struggle itself primarily.

i agree that men of all marginalization oppress women. just....this still didn't answer my question like. "it allows for trans women to be branded TIRFs, to be assaulted, to be abused " are these not things cis women do as well? i've heard the horror stories of cisfem chasers. like it's just not making sense to me. 

yes. being TME means that ppl who arent TMA have access to the tools of transmisogynoir. They are more empowered to express that violence against TMA ppl and can more easily benefit from it. but the key here is that they can put those tools down. not all of them will.

this recognition of these systems as things that must be actively upheld, rather than things which are permanently True, means that the questions we ask, and how to deal with them, become 1) much different and focused on the practical path forward and 2) move out of the realm of capitulation, despair and reactionaryism as these ppl will look for scapegoats when their ideas fail to lead to actual liberation as happened to the radfems.

...this class theory makes more sense to me as the gender marginalized vs the ones who are not gender marginalized (cis men for the most part). within the gender marginalized there exists the classes of TME/TMA. but I would like your opinion on that as well.

Lenin talks about which interests of the masses should be promoted in party programs in What Is To Be Done? by saying that the most marginalized, and programs that directly benefit them, should be promoted and shown how revolution and revolutionary orgs can be used to achieve this. it is not a separatist (read: extinctionary) program, it is one focused on real movement forward, and not the frivolous choice to promote one marginalization (gender, specifically womanhood) over others (hyperexploitation, anti-blackness, disability, etc) for no other reason than "im fed up with this section of my marginalized strata", nor is it an attempt to moderate the most radical demands by making them "palatable" (read: weak) to the majority of society.

We have a world to win. We need to act like it. We need to prepare for the struggle.

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

hii. asking you since you are a radical, idk um revolutionary or the like. well, i haven't even touched any of lenin's works. but regardless. how do you live with yourself thede days? i don't know how i do, looking at the devastation of it all. in tehran, iran, to cite a recent example, reading about the fact that its raining oil and the water canals are jammed with oil and the entire city being set on fire. i had my first real scare when a family member of mine was stuck in the gulf arab states and i just idk how the people of lebanon and palestine and sudan and yk have been holding on. what even is the point of college, rhetorical question, nothing i know. i don't live in america and the amount of people around me who are liberal careerist money hungry and just so so uncaring is higher. theres no org here. i've been trying to find likeminded people with little success. i know id feel better if i were doing something. i'm ready to die for it atp because we will die anyway and our comforts are built on others suffering, so whats the point of being a sitting duck. but for now i just move on and attend lectures and all

yeah, the world is fucking scary rn. but that also means that everyone around you is also looking for things to alleviate the fear as well.

most ppl are gonna put things out of their mind, distract themselves, and lean into pleasures and comfort seeking.

i think my first suggestion is read marx, lenin, mao and kropotkin. the Communist Manifesto, What is to Be Done?, On Practice, On Contradiction and Combat Liberalism, and The Conquest of Bread are all really good, digestible and exceedingly hopeful and give good rundowns of the basic concepts and expectations of actually *being* a socialist.

next, its important to identify real, important problems that you can find in your area. some basic questions to ask are:

who is being marginalized?

what skills do i have

are there any working or oppressed ppl who need help?

can i do anything that can be used to recruit others into expanding that

who would be willing to help me

what are the practical problems to actually starting to organize

how can i integrate what i learned in these marxist texts to these Things To Be Done

some things may include

organizing around food sovreignty, such as collecting food and finding places to grow your own to help disconnect ppl from relying on

another may be trying to purchase, stockpile and distribute hormones for trans people

maybe community defense against police or ICE if youre in the so-called US

get creative, think hard about real needs that people have, not stuff like protests (alth protests can be good advertising, doing them is not a goal unto itself), or electoralism (elections are a dead end for organizing outside of the state)

the next thing is to find ppl who you can trust to show up, to not snitch ever, to put in the work, and most importantly, ppl who can recognize when something is not working, or when they fucked up, can reorient, and fix it going forward

this is not easy nor should you expect it to be. but what it is is a path forward, a way out of hopelessness and despair, and towards a way to change (and abolish!) the systems that put us in this position to begin with

good luck, and remember: a lotta people have been where you are. you are not alone and never will be, and people just like you are also waiting for people to step up and figure a way out. you can be the person youre looking for.

[ozempicofficial]

[unintentionalpenis]

[twinkee]

Delivered in discreet packaging my ass.

[wizardshark]

hey whats with that sign

[tlirsgender]

As a principled feminist I'm often tempted to say shit like "are men capable of higher thought" but then I have to remember not to perpetuate gender essentialism and change it to "why do men choose not to think about anything"

[ausgoth]

why is it making that face

[ausgoth]

i have to stop looking at dogs on wikipedia

[lastgirlonearthhh1]

i miss you

[orpheuslament]

i will personally never understand that thing people do when theyre like "i thought this was a good piece of art until i realised its fetish/pornographic" like why does art lose value if the artist was a little horny when they made it. why is that so scary. im sure a lot of the old masters were doing portraits of their lovers slightly bricked up & theyre still displayed in museums. why is sexual arousal not an acceptable source of inspiration when like every other emotion is. well i mean i know why sadly but i do not like it so i'll continue to complain about it

[houndmother]

in the early 21st-century, the “small business” was a sort of small temple run by a local warlord. Patrons could purchase small trinkets and be granted absolution for the sins of their empire. This was called “ethical consumption.”

[byjove]

A large part of the reason families were bigger in the past was because marital rape was not considered rape and birth control/abortion methods were ineffective, dangerous and/or illegal. We can dance around this and act like our great great great grandmothers just loveddddd being mamas so much that they decided out of their own free will to have 11 children. We can pretend that they DECIDED to have big families because it was a financially advantageous decision so they could have more labor around the farm. But a lot of children in the past were fundamentally unwanted and not conceived out of love, children were not a choice women got to make. We need to admit that and stop pretending historical women were inherently more maternal because they were impregnated at the age of 15 and kept having babies until they were 40. That did not make them loving mothers, it did not make them ‘the divine feminine’ and it sure did not make them happy.

[agnes-nielsens]

they call me the information withholder for reasons i won't get into

[saedyne]

i love love love learning about my mutuals via the sparsely-connected tidbits of personal lore they drop in the tags. online friends is my favourite text-based rpg