the problem with being mean to discern real allies from fake ones is that there's no finish line for it. There's no point where you have been mean enough and can now be sure that they're genuine. All you can do is escalate, be more and more cruel, demand bigger and bigger sacrifices until you hit the limit of what a person can take and then take it as confirmation that you were right to be mean and you should keep doing it. it's just not very productive
every time i see that argument that calling transmasc people slurs is good because if they react negatively it means they're a secret transmisogynist i think of dark empath tiktok girlies giving advice on how to spot secret sociopsychopath narcissists. it's the same picture
Is this really what this is about?
I'm not arguing with your original point (consider this a reply to the reblog text) and I'm not trying to dismiss anyone's feelings here, but let's all take a deep breath and get some perspective.
I've been a faggy little cuntboy since at least 2017 and I have been slurred at in public many times. Only ever by cis people, only in contexts where they either couldn't discern my gender, could tell I'm gay, or mistook me for a trans woman. I, trans MAN, have pretty much ONLY felt danger in public when I'm in closer proximity to a cis person's idea of trans women.
At a basic level, trans women have it far worse than we do. No cis man is grabbing his crotch and yelling "theyfab" at you, but they might yell "sh*male." No one is hearing "theyfab" before they get their head beat in, but many do hear "tr*nny." The difference in severity between these slurs - "theyfab" being an off color sort of misgendering, the slurs directed at trans women being representative of actual fucking violence - should show everyone in the notes here that trans women are having a completely different conversation than you are.
I only ever see the words "theyfab" or "cuntboy" passed around online, and only marginally. "Cuntboy" I have only ever seen in kink contexts. I did scroll through the "theyfab" tag, and I saw one example of someone defending it as an insult. She was saying it should only be used towards people who make their AGAB apparent, openly state it, and use it as a shield to discredit trans women. I don't think calling people like that "theyfabs" is productive, but I agree with her point.
Everything else on that tag was tboys raging against this supposedly rampant problem. Tagging it "transandrophobia," posting screenshots of transwomen mid-Twitter-thread giving poorly-phrased opinions with two likes, rescinding their "allyship" towards transfemmes. Over what can at best be called an extremely niche problem that very few trans women perpetuate, and at worst it is a completely made up problem demonizing our sisters (see: screenshot taken out of context of a post with 2 likes).
The shitty part for me is I agree with the original point. It does bother me, and I do think it's ineffective, to just insult and misgender people and pretend it's activism. You're right, and you're right for the reasons you say. I just don't think you or many people in the notes have interrogated the depth of this "theyfab" problem. I think we can all take a breath and literally ignore this problem out of existence.
we haven't closed a month since the murder of Nex Benedict and here you are, using hate crimes as an excuse to justify calling people like him slurs because they don't have it bad enough. I didn't say being called a theyfab is as bad as murder. You brought that up solely for the purpose of minimising the harm of treating trans people like shit. And I don't know what website you're on, but my search brought up multiple examples of theyfab being used derogatorily and zero examples of transmascs "rescinding allyship" over it.
the idea that it's okay to call people by agab because "they make it apparent" is the kind of naked, blatant transphobia you wouldn't tolerate against anyone but transmascs. You wouldn't be okay with Blaire White calling a trans woman "male" because she "isn't trying to pass".
As for the inevitable "you're just saying this to demonise transfems": you know it's not just transfems saying this, right? Were you absent for the entirety of the transmed movement? Mostly transmascs saying all of that, still plenty of transmascs calling other transmascs names. It's only a transmasc vs transfem thing insofar as the concept of transfem allyship is abused to justify it.
alright then, guess we're doing this inaccessible style
sorry, the nerve of coming into my casual ass post to talk about hate crimes only to then get mad because i had the nerve to also talk about hate crimes? Incredible. Admirable even. Wish I had the balls.
You act like this post is a vast overreaction to a minor problem and frankly, that's on you. you read this as far more serious than it actually is and then projected that on me, under the assumption that I am a theyfab as opposed to... just a guy observing a minor internet phenomenon and commenting on it? i don't need to be part of a demographic to think being a dick to them for no reason is kinda fucked. and it doesn't need to be the biggest world-ending issue of all time, worse than literally being beaten to death, in order to be worth commenting on.
