⚧️ Transunity ⚧️

Icon is the transunity symbol (edit by @rombastic). Transunity is a movement encouraging trans people of all kinds to unite in support of eradicating each other's oppression. We fight transmisogyny, nonbinaryphobia, transandrophobia and intersexism here, side by side.

[transunity]

welcome back!!!

thanks! as part of Coming Back, i want to encourange more community interaction on here. send asks, submit posts you want to see us respond to, tell us what you think about transunity theory- even if you think it sucks, tell us why! diverse perspectives are important, and there's only two of us.

[transunity]

knew we had a non-aberrated version somewhere. for all your transunity needs.

[mspec-to-aspec-pipeline]

I hope you don’t mind me adding onto this, but: I did some digging and found this archived Kenchoric post(link), which had transparent versions!

[transunity]

there we go!

[transunity]

knew we had a non-aberrated version somewhere. for all your transunity needs.

[sodomit]

TRANSUNITY

Transunity is a political theory that was actively talked about on Tumblr a couple of years ago, but has since fallen out of the public spotlight. And this is unfortunate, because it could have really improved a lot of the discourse around gender.

There exists a blog under that name ( @transunity ), but it has been inactive for a year. I am not affiliated with that blog anyhow, I never had any personal contacts with its mods, but I want to get their general ideas to circulate again, so I'm trying to bring this back up in a semi organized fashion. My take on transunity is just my take, if you're one of the original coiners, and you disagree, I encourage you to talk about it, because we still have much more in common with each other than different.

GENERAL VIEWS

I believe that one of the fundamental ideas more trans people need to understand is that we're all more or less in the same place in the eyes of the society (when other factors, such as ethnicity or disability, are considered). To be trans is to fail the gender role system, from the point of view of cis people we can no longer be proper men or women. All kinds of trans people regardless of identity are affected by misogyny and misandry (not a type of marginalization by itself, but turns into a vector of oppression when overlapping with a different marginalization), which forms the foundation of transmisogyny, transandrophobia, and exorsexism*. These types of bigotry are not exclusive and unique to specific gender identities either and may be applied to any trans person for as long as it's convenient to the oppressor.

Trans people do not have gendered power over each other, and intra community bigotry is better conceptualized as a form of lateral aggression.

Gender assignment and sex are never strictly binary (especially with inclusion of intersex people, who belong in gender conversations even if they don't identify as trans) and need to be understood as much more fluid and not strictly correlating with one's actual position in life.

WHAT WE NEED TO REDUCE

The following things should be discussed more critically:

- "Powerjacketing" - implying someone has gendered privilege as a means of delegitimizing their words, while in reality they do not have this privilege;

- Malgendering - forcing trans people to choose between being gendered correctly and speaking up about their mistreatment (e.g. questioning trans women's womanhood on the basis of them aggressively defending themselves or trans men's manhood on the basis of them asking for help) or implying there's something wrong with them in a way that reinforces gender stereotypes;

- Assuming that some trans people are exempt from some forms of oppression on the basis of gender assignment/sex (e.g. by calling all trans people who were assigned female "tme"** or claiming trans people who were assigned male are inherently incapable of understanding fear of sexual assault);

- Assuming that oppression of trans people is rooted in gender assignment/sex (such as, calling reproductive oppression "sex based oppression"***);

- Gatekeeping certain identities, such as "transmasc", "transbian", "femboy" as exclusive to any gender assignment/sex;

- Creating a duality out of "transsexual" and "cissexual", where not medically transitioning trans people are assumed to have some kind of a gendered privilege, or to not be trans in any meaningful material way. Various transmed ideas about dysphoria and transition go there too;

- Accusing trans people who take inspiration from each other of appropriation (trans headcanons, kinks, drag culture, etc).

SYMBOL

The following image is the official transunity symbol developed by the original transunity bloggers. Sorry about the glitch effect, I wasn't able to find one without it.

* Transmisogyny, transandrophobia, and exorsexism are not exclusive to specific identities, although they do primarily target traits associated with these identities. They can be conceptualized as bigotry and oppression towards people who are recognized as incorrectly entering respectively womanhood, manhood, and a status beyond gender binary (for the latter no normative form exists****). However, it's not wrong to use them to mean "oppression of trans women" and so forth, for as long as you're not claiming it's exclusive.

** Labels like "tma" and "tme" still may be used, but solely in a self assigned manner. I believe that an individual trans person is capable of evaluating whether they're affected by transmisogyny and in what way, and they should be trusted on this. However, no gender assignment and no current gender identity makes anyone inherently tme.

*** "Sex based oppression" instead of "reproductive oppression" reinforces the idea that people who share a specific body part (e.g. an uterus in context of conversations about abortion) are inherently of the same sex. This type of essentialism is desperately needed by terfs in this discussion, as they're trying to sell the ideas of "sex based oppression" and "sex based privilege" to people they want to recruit in their ideology. Invoking the idea of "sex" as something trans men and some nonbinary people are oppressed through is not the correct way to respond to people who say we don't experience any gendered violence besides "just transphobia", it has shitty implications and helps shitty people.

**** Lack of existence of normative nonbinary gender does not mean that these genders are not recognized by the society as a deviant, marginalized identity, and that binary people cannot be pushed into this zone.

[nothorses]

Hi! I'm one of the people who coined this! This is the original post on the topic.

Thank you for bringing this back into circulation; I have some feelings about it since coming up with and talking about the idea, but like, the core of this to me is that we are necessarily natural allies, that each of us has unique experiences with oppression that all reinforce each other, and that none of us can achieve liberation without addressing the entire system.

Trans oppression is a tree with many branches, and we can't kill the tree by chopping off one branch- or even just a few. We have to fell the whole damn thing. We need to recognize our own struggles in each other's, and each other's struggles in our own, and unite as a community. Trans solidarity, trans unity, is the only way any of us can possibly achieve liberation.

The symbol (which I didn't design, but I was part of the conversation for) encapsulates that idea. Inspiration was taken from the recycle symbol, with each of the arrows feeding into the next. The intention, to my understanding, is to communicate that they are all equally important parts of the same whole. The symbols at the end is each line segment are the same ones at the ends of the more traditional trans symbol:

I don't remember why the upper left was replaced with an asterisk, but my guess/fuzzy memory is just that it was meant to be a more inclusive, less binary-based symbol for nonbinary folks.

I just add this because I think it's important to focus on the solidarity aspect. That was the original core intention: to promote solidarity between different branches of the trans community, and to encourage folks to focus on ways we can act in the positive to come together, understand one another, and support each other across community lines- rather than focusing exclusively or overly on the ways in which we were/are being failed by other trans people.

[transunity]

been a while! i'm reasonably certain the asterisk is a reference to a symbol like this one (photo attached) used in intersex spaces. i can't seem to find the actually symbol online, but i didn't look extremely hard (googled it a bunch). if any of the other mods remember, feel free to chime in! also, i'm checking for a non-glitched symbol right now. i swear there was one, somewhere.

i took a step back because it was getting distressing staying in discourse spaces online, but i still believe in transunity. i don't want it to fade away. i truly do think the only possibility for progress as a community is together, and i'm glad to see more people taking up the mantle.

-mod rjd

[transunity]

Welcome back! After a pretty long break for mental health reasons, I'm back here (and likely on my other sideblogs too). I'll occasionally contribute, although not necessarily with any fixed regularity. - Mod Quark

[transunity]

ought to stop putting this off. hi, gonna try to be active again. sorry if you thought this blog was dead but it's not! -mod rjd

[talisidekick]

The patriarchy isn't gendered in it's evil. It's a collaborative approach. It can't uphold itself if there aren't women and men supporting it's views.

We talk about toxic masculinity and the threats men pose with the power and privilege given to them under patriarchal systems, but what about the toxic femininity wielded by misogynistic women? What about the unique level of power the patriarchy gives to women who conform, and strips from women, men, non-binary, etc. who do not?

There's women who uphold the patriarchy, and they are the backbone to the whole structure. The validation and vindication to do the harm it does to others.

If you need a taste, take a look at how 'gender critical' and transphobic women justify why trans women aren't women. They use 'biological essentialism', the same ideology that gives patriarchal men the absolute ability to prey on women citing a biological need that absolves them of guilt and wrong doing, to paint transgender women as nothing but predatory men by matter of biology. That by being born sexually male, an AMAB person can never be a woman because they are bound exclusively by biological whims they cannot control that AFAB people do not have. They don't chastise cisgender men for this supposed biological difference, as if it's okay to have these supposed 'uncontrollable urges' being a cisgender man. They further back up this false claim by pointing to any behavior if transgender women that is loud, flashy, gaudy, dominant, etc. claiming that even identifying as women, we're unable to act like women, as if to say that being a woman is to act modest, quiet, submissive, etc. I remember not men, but women and mothers telling their children not to speak unless spoken to, not to complain, not to dress flashy, etc, to their daughters growing up. Never their sons.

Toxic femininity is real, it exists, and it supports the same system toxic masculinity does and I want to see crumble. I want a world filled with just as many loud, gaudy, flashy, and rebellious girls, women, enbies, etc. as I see men.

I need three things from the world:

I need cisgender women and men who are staunchly against the patriarchy to stop treating the transgender assault by 'gender criticals' as a "trans only issue".

I need people to recognize that men, cisgender and transgender, aren't an inherent enemy, which means learning to identify toxic masculinity from masculinity. Which is essentially learning that anytime masculinity or an aspect of it is framed as "above women" or "above other men", and "below women" or "below other men"; that it's the toxic kind of masculinity.

I need people to recognize women, cisgender and transgender, aren't the inherent victims, which means learning to identify toxic femininity from femininity. Which is essentially learning any time femininity or an aspect of it is framed as "below men" or "above other women", and "above men" or "below other women"; that it's the toxic kind of femininity.

Ending the binary gender hierarchy is how this system fails. Masculinity and femininity under a patriarchal system is oppressively wielded against women, men, those outside the gender binary, and those that exist within but don't conform, but masculinity and femininity are not it's tools. It appropriates them, and redefines them to hurt those it wants to force into a mold. It makes existing outside it's definitions painful where the easy salvation is conformity.

I propose a different tactic: rebellion.

[transunity]

I saw transunity and somehow read it as transinuity, like ingenuity but trans. I just thought that would be something mildly interesting for you to know

Okay that is an amazing (and ingenious!) idea. Trans ingenuity go!

[caassette]

been on tumblr less than a week and already Trans Discourse is on my timeline front page dash...

idk i kind of just feel like...there are actual real threats right now in the world to all trans people, and like. trying to create in-groups and out-groups within the community is the most braindead thing you can do

they are killing us. they want us dead. any time you try to segregate one fraction of the queer community from another, their job gets a little easier. let me give you an example that happened recently in Texas while I was living there:

June 2022: Log Cabin Republican Praises Trump, "Don't Say Gay", Trans Hate

Also June 2022: Texas GOP's New Platform calls gay people "abnormal"

Log Cabin Republicans are essentially gay conservatives. And as part of trying to be accepted, under Trump, they decided trans people were the out-group and that gay people (specifically, white cisgender gay men) were the in-group.

If I had to guess, they probably figured so long as they also pointed the finger at us and called us groomers and said we were fetishists, they would be more accepted in the republican party.

Guess what happened? Not that! Instead, the Texas GOP, in 2022 (Two Thousand And Twenty Two) decided that being gay was once again Not Okay!

This is what I'm getting at: in queer spaces, always, always, there must be solidarity. There is no such thing as someone who is "not gay enough", or "not really trans", or "just looking for attention."

I, myself, am a binary trans woman. My current partner is a genderfluid transmasculine nonbinary person. Do I spend hours talking with them about how they do or don't face certain forms of oppression, or about how their identity is less valid than mine?

Of course not! We kiss and hold hands and fuck and have empathy for each other.

As a queer person it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to be one hundred percent accepting, validating, and encouraging of ALL QUEERNESS, because the second you decide to draw the line, the oppressor wins.

Maybe you're not a Log Cabin Republican. Maybe you're not advocating for trans genocide while being in a same-sex relationship. Maybe you just, idk, use the word "theyfab." Or you think pansexuals should "just call themselves bi."

It doesn't matter that the line you've drawn is farther left, or smaller, or excludes less of the community.

What matters is that you've drawn it at all.

[genderqueerpositivity]

Transness is not defined by suffering but it is defined with gender dysphoria.

As a medically transitioning person with a gender dysphoria diagnosis,

No.

[transunity]

There is no "checklist" of things needed for someone's identity to be valid. Trans people are trans because of their identity, not because of some medical condition.

Plus, gender euphoria is also a thing!

[quark-nova-deactivated20260116]

I hate how the @transunity message "you shouldn't automatically call someone TME as you don't know what they might have lived through" got distorted into "TME/TMA are evil words that should never be used", like no that wouldn't be transunity if we were preventing trans people from using labels for themselves

[our-queer-experience]

seeing identity politics be so prevalent online is so weird because if a republican lawmaker was sat in a room with a trans woman, a butch lesbian, a trans man, a drag queen and a neopronoun user, they wouldnt give a shit about who was who and which person was more queer. theyd care more about keeping us all out of the general public.

[renthony]

Listen, I know I'm a DIY and outdoorsy kind of butch, but we gotta stop pretending that those are required elements of being butch.

Butches are not automatically your protectors, your home improvement specialists, your wilderness guides, or your big buff weightlifters. And it's kinda weird that you expect butches to serve you.

Especially since nobody seems to wanna respect us until they need us for something. No love for butches until it's, "they'll protect us at Pride!"

Who's protecting us, though? Who's protecting the butches who are disabled, who aren't physically strong, who aren't interested in being your unpaid laborers or your drafted soldiers?

[yharnamsnewslug]

Interestingly enough, this is also something that overlaps with trans men's experiences!

Hmm.... wonder why? 🤔 Wonder why the masculine........ has to protect the feminine......? Wow, it truly is a mystery, I wonder why masculine queer people are always made to be the protectors of the feminine queer people? 😲😲😲 I truly don't know!!

Anyway, butches, trans men, transmasculine people and anyone YOU perceive to be a man or man-lite, is NOT here to protect you. We're here to exist. Our safety also matters and just because YOU see us as big and aggressive and ready to fight doesn't mean we fucking want to. Our lives and our safety also matter.

[butchcurious]

If I may, this also overlaps often with transfems' experiences, and I think it's very much down to the exact same thing—seeing us as more masculine than other women and other queer people, as more capable of physical violence especially, and generally viewing us protectors whether we want to be or not.

I'd say it's less acceptable specifically in progressive spaces than it used to be to express this sort of attitude explicitly about transfems as a whole (though I still see it said like at least once a month), because we're increasingly viewed as a group that needs protection first and foremost. However, it's still very apparent in the way people treat individual transfems on a personal level, either explicitly or implicitly.

[renthony]

Now see, what's really interesting to me is that in the few hours since I posted this, transmascs, transfemmes, cis lesbians, plus plenty of others, have all chimed in to agree with this post and add their experiences--and I, OP, am an intersex agender person!

We have so much in common in the way we get treated both by queerphobes and by people who want to rip things apart with all the infighting and nitpicking and identity policing. The original post's point is, "hey, treat butches better!" but it's evolved into "and while we're at it, let's remember how much we all have in common despite our different identity labels, eh?"

I hate that we all have to deal with this crap, but I like it when posts like this really highlight how much we can relate to each other.

[ponyboyfaceshopping]

I think everyone needs to start posting about how many people have been coming out in solidarity with trans people everywhere in the US especially in vulnerable states, because I’m really touched by what happened at the University of Iowa. These kids shut it down because it’s not just a youtube bigot on their campus it’s so much bigger than that! This is huge

[ponyboyfaceshopping]

People ARE coming out and packing courthouses and protesting on campuses and in the middle of your town and city in defense of trans people in great numbers. Very few people attended this loser’s speech and were publicly shamed for it. There are literally more of us than there are of them and I think we need to keep saying that

[orchidvioletindigo]

Hey as a genderfluid person I think it would be cool if more people would acknowledge that breast forms and gaffs are not exclusive to transfem people and binders and packers are not exclusive to transmasc people

For a lot of genderfluid people, transition goals are a question of what's the least bothersome/most advantageous "default" body to have. That might require medically transitioning but then having cosmetic transition gear to "walk back" sometimes. Maybe a transfem person wants to grow their own breasts with HRT but keep a binder in a drawer for when they aren't feeling busty. Or maybe a transmasc person wants top surgery so they can go out shirtless, but they also want breast forms to fill out dresses

Obviously whether or not this type of transition is attainable is a question of money and privilege, but that doesn't change the fact that these are real, valid, and seldom acknowledged transition goals that a lot of people in my community have

[hms-no-fun]

if a trans woman complains about the ongoing campaign of trans genocide in the united states and the uk and your response is “well it’s not TECHNICALLY genocide yet so you really shouldn’t use that word because it makes us look bad” i think you should perhaps actually just shut the fuck up and read literally any news coverage containing the words “trans” and “desantis,” just for starters

like wow so they’re not literally dragging us to camps??? it’s not literally a nazi germany style holocaust so you can’t call it genocide????? buddy do you think the fascists are BLUFFING?????????? grow the fuck up you child, because if you’re even a little bit not-cishetwhite they’re gonna use the “threat” us trans people represent as a pretext to come after you.

we call it a genocidal agenda NOW because that is THEIR STATED INTENTION. that is the ONLY logical outcome of the policies they’re proposing and the words they say and the hate they foment. we call it a genocidal agenda NOW because by the time it actually becomes a genocide it’ll be TOO FUCKING LATE

[meredith-time]

Just gonna also throw out there that the institute named for person who literally coined the term genocide is calling the policy and practice of the anti-trans movement genocidal so y'all apologists can stop splitting hairs and say what you really think already.

[transandrogyny--turtlebug]

Trans people who don’t or can’t medically transition are so great and brave and awesome and I love you