transvarmint

Transmasc theorist @transvarmint gave permission for his work to be archived before he deleted his blog. Queue posts once daily.

[trans-androgyne]

It is not “coddling” to refrain from telling people “I hate you for the way you were born.”

When I say it hurts the feminist cause to consider men our enemy rather than just patriarchy itself, accusations of “coddling” are a common response I get. I am not asking anyone to put men’s feelings over calling them out for misogyny they enact and perpetuate. I am talking about expressing sentiments in public or to men directly that you despise them for existing at all.

It’s one thing to be traumatized by sexism and vent your feelings about men amongst friends. But normalizing this as a part of mainstream feminism, making it so men have to see these sentiments when they engage with feminist content, drives them away from our movement. You can say men driven away by being openly hated never were going to be feminists in the first place, but I staunchly disagree. It says nothing about one’s views on oppression to not want to be around people who say they consider you an irredeemable monster no matter how hard you try to support them.

This is not about men’s feelings. I do feel that people should care about those too, including because as a transmasc I am extremely aware that seeing these sentiments harms trans men, such as preventing them from being out and transitioning for fear of being hated by those around them. But this is about what is effective in breaking down the structure of sexism. Excluding half the population from being our allies matters. Cis men should be able to use their privilege to shoulder some of the work of fighting sexism. How will they learn how to do so if we ostracize them?

Note: This is not saying that men who see women hating them and respond by becoming MRAs and whatnot are totally fine or women’s fault. It’s just that it is difficult for men to be vocal feminists when people base their feminism off of hating men.

[trans-androgyne]

I continue to consider myself a vocal feminist. But first and foremost, I am an anti-sexist.

I believe feminism should be about dismantling the patriarchy. To do so, obviously we need to fight for women’s rights and acknowledge their severe oppression and disadvantages under this system. But self-proclaimed feminists have been constantly telling me that feminism is exclusively about women. I keep begging people to consider the various ways sexism impacts folks of other genders, including cis men and all trans people. Time and time again, they refuse.

I am tired of being excluded from mainstream feminism even by those who say they’re trying to be inclusive. I just read an article by the HRC about how to make your feminism trans-inclusive, and it was all about how trans women alone should be included and centered. The only mention of people of other marginalized genders was at the end, mentioned along with men as groups feminism indirectly helps. I read several more about the term “inclusive feminism” that were still all about including all women rather than just cis white women. This is not enough.

As a transmasculine non-binary person I am a direct target of sexism. I may not identify as a woman anymore, but I am frequently still treated like one. I still get sexually harassed, I’m still at higher risk for sexual assault and being underpaid than even cis women. We need a movement willing to work not solely for women, and certainly not against men, but against sexism in all its forms. Whether it’s by expanding the mainstream view of feminism or forming a new movement, I hope for one to develop and will do my part to see that happen.

[oxymoronictransfem]

Watching a video by Final Girl Studios and what I have to say about the performance of femininity is that as it relates to transness it is complicated.

From what I've seen and heard, every gendered minority even those who are not trans internalise this idea that they must be desirable or consumable to be of value. The way so many of us can't get out of our minds who we want to please when we get up in the morning and leave the house. It isn't the case for all of us but it seems to imply something.

It implies that that expectation of femininity isn't just applied to femininity but to the absence of cisgender heterosexual masculinity. As if anything that is not that is a lesser social role that has to fulfill similar expectations no matter what that role is. I notice that many trans men still feel this way, before and after transition but obviously especially trans women.

What of people who aren't even allowed into that semi-acceptable social role of cis femininity. Why does that suddenly force someone into a role of feeling the need to be hyperconsumed?

And what of people who refuse that role? Who were attempted to be assimilated into it but refused and yet can't drop what they internalized so they're forced to carry it with them.

To be feminine is to be consumed and to be anything but masculine is to be torn apart for another's benefit.

[transvarmint]

Menstruation is good at what it does and is also a fucking incredibly stupid idea and other creatures dont do it that way. Some people are coming at the angle of the suffering caused by periods, they have caused so much misery to people over the years and we dont get to ignore that just because some misogynists exist

1.) There are other animals that menstruate. Mostly primates and select few other species. Menstruation is rare but not exclusive to humans.

2.) There is a legitimate evolutionary basis for it, it's not a "stupid idea". Evolution does not have "ideas" stupid or otherwise. It has variations and adaptions, some that succeed and others that don't. Menstruation succeeded in some species, and there's a reason for that.

3.) One can talk about the suffering caused by menstruation without positioning it as a uniquely awful biological mechanism. Literally every single biological mechanism we have can backfire. The tube we breathe through and swallow food through are the same, for example, and choking deaths are relatively common. when people choose to single out menstruation as a uniquely "stupid idea" or "evolutionary failure" this is often due to misogyny positing uterus-having bodies as being inherently faulty and inferior.

[qweerhet]

I think it’s because people have often used ‘TERFs hate men’ as a way to implicate trans women as men or argue that TERFs focus primarily on men and not trans women, so people are sort of trying not to do that, plus the fact that TERFs do the most damage towards trans women. In my opinion, I do think TERFs hate men but trans women are A. minorities and B. radical feminism often manifests by just trying to sex segregate as much as possible, so the people they don’t like way over ‘there’ are much less likely to be direct targets of vitriol and violence than the people messing up their dichotomy and trying to come over ‘here’

i agree with your basic analysis, but i stop short of the conclusion that radical feminism's targeting of trans women isn't fundamentally rooted in the way it analyzes men and manhood. many transfems are not men (some are, important to note when making broad generalizations about gender and feminism); radical feminism targeting transfems is targeting women (among tons and tons of other genders, transfem men included), however, the political ideology itself is premised on the idea that the groups it is targeting are solely made up of men, and it is positing an entire framework for how gender operates as an axis of oppression that casts these demographics as male.

like it is factually true that radical feminism's Transgender Problem flows directly from the fact that it perceives gender as the radix of oppression within a binary sex modality. it is patently garbage analysis because sex is not binary and gender is, in terms of societal forces, an abstract set of social conditions enforcing the constructed sex binary (rather than any material or ontological trait of individuals). radical feminism perceives trans women as dangerous, predatory, and a threat to cis women precisely because it perceives sex as a binary that is fundamentally immutable and unchanging. it wholly perceives anyone with an arbitrary number of primary and secondary sex characteristics as a man, on a level where "man" is a biological category that bodies themselves slot into. it's based on an understanding of patriarchy as a structure controlling the means of reproduction, and gender as solely a weapon with with which to maintain control over the means of reproduction (a lot of it is really just failed attempts at transplanting, unchanged, marxist analysis onto the concept of childbearing and its relationship to patriarchy).

i think it's important to keep your analysis grounded in this fact because, well--yes, radical feminism explicitly targets transfems and is a massive source of violence toward transfems in particular and trans people overall, but laser-focusing in on only how it interfaces with transness--particularly to the degree of arguing that it only targets trans women, and doesn't have anything in particular to say about men, because it does not categorize transfems as men within its ideology but rather as super-abusable women that are only misgendered for the purpose of manipulation and extortion--that throws out an entire section of analysis that's. genuinely important to how it affects the material world. like, radical feminism's framing of men and manhood directs a significant amount of violence toward intersex people, for example, and casting sex as an immutable binary category is the entire basis for that violence. if it didn't analyze sex as an immutable binary in which men are cast as owners of the means of reproduction by virtue of their unchanging sex characteristics, that would not have the same interaction with intersexism. you can't accurately analyze the political movement's fundamental intersexism without first understanding this.

[transvarmint]

TE//RFs are so far removed from reality it's actually not even funny 😐

[trans-androgyne]

55% of men voted for Trump.

So did 53% of white women.

Fewer than half as many black men voted for Trump compared to white women by percentage (21%). This isn’t even taking queerness into account, as 13% of queer folks overall voted for him. Do you expect trans men were voting red in droves, when they’re so heavily impacted by abortion and gender affirming care issues?

This is not a men vs. women issue. It’s about who is granted privilege and who isn’t. There are absolutely women in this country with more privileges than certain marginalized men.

Being a woman does not make you a safe person. Being a man does not make you an unsafe person. As a trans person of color I do not trust the average cis white woman more than the average cis white man. Lashing out at all men and only men for the outcome of this election does not solve any problems.

Source. If you have ones that break down votes by LGBT+ identity better I would be appreciative, as I couldn’t find any.

[transvarmint]

Solidarity. <3

💖💗💜

[busket]

garden variety conservative transphobia is going to get worse but radical feminism is also going to get worse. if youre a cis women terfs are going to try to recruit you and make you believe that the reason your rights are at stake is because of trans people. they're going to tell you that all men are your violent oppressors and they're going to include trans women in that category. they're gonna tell you about women who are gender traitors and joined the enemy and they're going to point to trans men. don't believe them. trans people are not your enemy, we have no power over you, and we desperately need your support and your solidarity.

be aware of radfem pipelines and dog whistles too. be skeptical of anyone that talks about the divine feminine or correlates birthing, menstruating, or female reproductive organs with womanhood. be especially skeptical of people who use those biological things as reasons to why women are more spiritual, or more in tune with nature, or just that they're better than men (read: anyone they decide is a man)

radical feminism is an expected reactionary outcome from cis women who are being oppressed by conservatives, especially when all they practice is ciscentric, liberal, white feminism. they feel the need to be radicalized but don't have the experience and information to pinpoint the true source of their suffering. trans people are not your enemy, AMAB people are not your enemy, anyone who identifies as a man is not your enemy. we're all being crushed under the same stone

[transvarmint]

^ Prev tags.

I don't want to derail this post too much because it's important. I just want to say that while we shouldn't put menstruating on some special pedestal of being especially more natural or divine, we also shouldnt be saying shit like this.

Menstruation is not an "evolutionary failure". There's no such thing as a "failure" in evolution to begin with. There are, at most, mutations and variations that get reproduced and those that don't. Any other value ascribed to them is a constructed one. Nature does not work in terms of success of failure, it simply is.

Menstruation is a normal bodily function just like any other. It's is fundamentally no different than defecation or sweating, any function that rids your body of biological waste.

It is a very effective way to get rid of excess uterine lining. We wouldn't have gotten this far if it wasn't.

The idea that menstruation is a failure or an inferior function of the body is heavily steeped in misogyny - that "women's" (anyone who has a menstrual period) bodies are fundamentally unclean and broken.

I'm not attacking prev personally, I'm more addressing a trend that's easy to fall into. When we push back against the bioessentialism that ascribes certain values to certain body parts and their functions - be sure not to push back by saying the opposite. Menstrual cycles aren't uniquely divine but they aren't a biological failure either.

[genderkoolaid]

Can you explain a sentence from your bio? "To create loving males, you must love males"? I don't understand that sentence, because like does that work for all oppressive groups? "To create loving white people, we must love white people" or "to create loving straight people, we must love straight people". That doesn't make much sense to me, especially since women do this all the time. Women always make excuses for men's behavior, give them the benefit of the doubt, are empathetic and sensitive to men and make tons of posts on the internet about male positivity and yet men still commit 80-90% of violent crimes (from what I remember). And I'm not trying to argue or anything, it's a genuine question. How is being kind to men going to bring about the collective liberation of women from the patriarchy?

So this quote needs to be understood in the context of both the book it comes from (The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love) and bell hooks' philosophy of love in general. Here's the full paragraph it comes from:

“Only a revolution of values in our nation will end male violence, and that revolution will necessarily be based on a love ethic. To create loving men, we must love males. Loving maleness is different from praising and rewarding males for living up to sexist-defined notions of male identity. Caring about men because of what they do for us is not the same as loving males for simply being. When we love maleness, we extend our love whether males are performing or not. Performance is different from simply being. In patriarchal culture males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do. In an antipatriarchal culture males do not have to prove their value and worth. They know from birth that simply being gives them value, the right to be cherished and loved.”

People often see this quote or another one and assume a lot about bell hooks' point here, but The Will to Change includes her own experiences of abuse by men and her experiences with misogyny, alongside her observations about how men in her life experienced patriarchal abuse. She is not ignorant of the harms done to women when she says this.

My personal interpretation of her words is this:

The patriarchal expectations relating to how women are expected to "love" men is very different than what bell hooks means to love. Her concept of love requires self-love and self-care, and not being a doormat or adopting a "I can singlehandedly fix that incel by being nice to him!" mindset.

And, equally, how we are taught to "love" men is not good for men either. The patriarchy promises love to men in exchange for appropriate performance of dominance. It says that there are "real men" and "fake men" and only real men are deserving of love. It says that men must be constantly fighting each other, women, and queers in order to be deserving of love and escape punishment. bell hooks' argument is that we as feminists need to see inherent worth in men as people, and reject those patriarchal notions of what makes men worthy as well as the doomerist radfem impulse to label all men as evil and sever all connection forever. Men are people, and women are people, and we are all people in society together, and we always will be, so we need to be able to work together to create loving communities. Whether men are your friends, lovers, relatives, neighbors, patients, students, etc. you do live in a society with them!!! And we (intersectional / revolutionary feminism) cannot win without them. Not just as quiet allies on the side but as meaningful co-conspirators, fellow feminists with just as much a stake in the fight as any woman.

You can read this short chapter of one of her books where she explores love ethic in politics specifically relating to race.

[benji-screem-deactivated2024121]

"you should just DIY your HRT" hey what if I told you that trans men/mascs can and have been arrested (and subsequently killed or put in serious danger) because of that. what if I told you that I spent weeks in jail being denied medical care for because of my (PRESCRIBED!!) possession of testosterone. what if I told you most of the methods of getting testosterone are extremely similar (and can be from the exact same sources) that people get other substances and can be massively triggering to addicts. HEY WHAT IF I TOLD YOU TRANS MEN ARE SYSTEMICALLY OPPRESSED

[whoopsie-collective]

[benji-screem-deactivated2024121]

Very important addition!

[emo-cultist]

Unprescribed testosterone is a schedule III drug in the US because it's considered to have a low risk for physical dependence but a high risk for mental dependence. And because it's used as a PED.

In my state (one with a very high black population), possession of a schedule III drug is a felony. It's also a state where your voting rights will be taken away after committing a felony until after you finish parole.

Under federal law, you can face up to a year in jail for your first offense of possessing a schedule III. Distribution of one can land you up to ten years.

In 2018, a Russian trans man named Vladislav was arrested for importing testosterone from a Belarusian website. It's also extremely easy to find cases of cis people being arrested for possession/distribution of it as a PED.

[certifiedsexed]

ID: A screenshot of tags reading: "what if i told you black transmascs are way more likely to face consequences from illegally sourcing T and many can't afford to take the risk of having that on their record"

Certified Sex ED Post.

[queerautism]

This is just such a fucking exhausting attitude. You can say trans women deserve better (because they do!) without putting down other trans people.

You are familiar with the difficulties faced by your community, because you're a part of it, and are therefore more likely to see those issues and live through them yourself. You are clearly unaware of the issues trans men and transmascs face, because it's not a community you're a part of or familiar with, and you're choosing to decide that means they don't deal with any difficulties.

It's cruel, it's unnecessary, and it's not reality. It's unhelpful. You are rightfully upset about a real issue but lashing out at the wrong people.

[bored-gay-werewolf]

I think its unbalanced to compare bras that hold breast forms to binders in this case anyway

Its pretty well known in trans masculine circles that diy or wrong binding can easily lead to a range of issues from hospitalising you for broken ribs to giving you long term chronic health issues; binders come with a strong warning sign bc of this; its a constant point of discussion which binder brands are safe and which are not (since its all by word of mouth); its also considerd trans masculine 101 and many peoples "trans journy starting point" basically, like the internet is filled with tearful videos of trans boys putting their first binder on

Thats why even smaller local queer communitys might organise binders: to stop young trans masculine people from hurting themselvs with mistakes easily avoided with the right material

Oc bras that hold breast from should be more accessible, even irl in small towns organised by the locals. Unless im missing crucial information about bras which hold breast forms tho their diy alternatives dont break your ribs.

[queerautism]

Though not as immediately dangerous as a bad binder / wearing a binder inappropriately or for too long, an ill fitting bra of any kind can have negative physical consequences for the person wearing it, so it's also important they can access that!

I could be wrong, but I believe the original post is referencing the fact that, in many cases, the easiest way to access a bra which holds breast forms and is more likely to fit some AMAB bodies is through websites that cater not to trans women but to some parts of the kink community that sometimes use such things for feminization as humilliation play. These can market themselves using language common in those communities, which does include certain slurs. Having to deal with that while you're just a regular trans woman trying to buy a bra is obviously not ideal, and can be upsetting!

And queer communities should do a better job with this kind of thing. Ideally there should be resources for every type of trans person. But what's available locally often varies wildly depending on your area, for a million reasons.

[doberbutts]

It's just frustrating because while I am more than willing to say that the bra situation is a problem... it's also not right to attack trans mascs who neither created nor benefit from the system that made this problem to begin with. This was a system made by and for cis men, and it is cis men specifically who benefit from this particular brand of transmisogyny.

In a similar vein, it is not trans fems' fault that binders are expensive, that it can be difficult if not impossible to bind depending on the size of the anatomy we're working with and any previous damage from improper binding or even poorly fitted bras, that various vendors of these products are not selling safe products, that they themselves are frequently not even for trans mascs but for cis people be it cis woman cosplayers or cis men looking for compression. It wouldn't be right to attack trans fems over this problem that they neither created nor benefit from, as it is cis people who once again lay at the helm of this issue.

And- the comparison is not fair because it assumes someone's journey is easier than it may actually be in real life. Idk about anyone else but my local queer community couldn't even find another trans guy to come talk to me (which is why I was mentored by a trans woman!) let alone tell me how to bind safely or where to source one. In fact, I bought an unsafe binder because it was the only thing I could afford, and wore it for years before a trans guy I eventually made online friends with got his top surgery and sent me his old ones. Which, btw, still had the problem of being made for cis men and not trans men, but at least were safer than what I was using at the time.

It wasn't as easy as just buying a 40 dollar binder from gc2b back then because gc2b didn't exist! And it only exists now because a black trans man decided he had had enough of the above problem, and created his own line of significantly safer products at a price point more people could afford. Compared to what's on the market now, they may be now considered less quality, but back then they would have been a godsend. They *were* a godsend when the company launched in 2015. *We* put that work in to create products and websites that respected us! *We* fought for that. Call it a privilege if you (general) like but understand that is after countless dead bodies and real blood sweat and tears to be able to have the relative ease in binding nowadays compared to even just 15 years ago. This wasn't just handed to us by cishet society, and cishet society still fear mongers and tries to ban us from being able to access the resource we fought hard to obtain in the first place.

[knightsbestowedbeauty]

On the Topic of Infantilisation

One aspect as to why the prevalence of anti-transmasculinity is easily dismissed in transgender and ally spaces is the way infantilisation is not properly understood as a direct product of misogyny, a tool intended to impose control, not "offer leniency".

Being treated as "deluded women" entails being violently stripped of all agency, not only when it concerns reproduction & anatomy and transitioning, but life, as well. It bleeds into the treatment of "hysterical women", where transmasculine people, as all marganilised people experience, are considered both pathetically weak and repulsively dangerous. Even if transmasculine people are not primarily seen as "predatory" by certain transphobes, they are still upheld as a direct threat, both to womanhood and manhood.

There is no "concern" or "support" behind viewing transmasculine people as "male-impersonating women poisoned by testosterone" or "self-hating girls being lead" to such a path, because there is an explicit element of oppression that subjects them as beneath cisgender people, including cisgender women. Forcibly detransitioning people & all its attempts and the arrays of mistreatment it encompasses will never been anything but transphobia manifested in a psychological & physically and often sexually abusive form.

Do you know how insane it sounds to say, "being oppressed explicitly because you are perceived as a failed woman needing to be retaught her place and punished for her misconduct is NOT AS bad as being perceived as a rapist, pedophile, etc. because some mask it by saying they are merely fighting for women's rights! That's support, as you are still extended full feminist activism!"?

No, transphobic acclaimed-feminists do not care about transmasculine people; they never have. In fact, some openly approve of anti-transmasculinity as a means to suppress & eradicate transgender manhood and subject cisgender womanhood, even if it involves corrective rape and forced impregnation.

[homestuckautism]

Trying to find studies I can access that evaluate sexual violence and IPV in the trans community is even harder than I thought. There are so few that measure gender differences within the trans community, even just between trans men and trans women. And asking for race to be considered? Might as well have wished for a billion dollars. At least there are a ton of studies evaluating those in trans women, especially trans woc. But I cannot find a single one about trans men or transmasculine people specifically. If anyone has any leads that someone who isn't in university anymore might be able to access, they would be incredibly appreciated.

[luxiomahariel]

i think this is a misunderstanding that a lot of people have when trans men/mascs discuss how we experience oppression so i wanted to put this in it's own separate post. i very much appreciate genuine questions like these and wanted to share my response in hopes of more people understanding where trans men/mascs are coming from.

[transvarmint]

I mean i think you're completely right. Each individual can be the one to determine what personal experiences they know and understand.

Again, this conversation is heavily tied to the assumption that all trans people have always been the gender they currently are. This is just not true. People are all over the spectrum from that their gender changed completely, to that they believed they were their agab but really wasn't, to only becoming their gender upon coming out, and any other possible interpretation of transition.

Some trans men know what it's like to be a woman, others don't. Some may know what it's like to be treated as a woman, but not to BE a woman - others don't.

Same is true for trans women. Some may know what it's like to be a man, others don't. Some may know what it's like to be a woman even if they're being treated as a man. Their experiences vary and are all equally legitimate.

It's really that simple. We don't have the come up with a unifying theory of what it's like to be a man or woman. That's different to literally everyone.

Telling others that they don't know what it means to be [gender] is baseline transphobia 101.

[transfaguette]

the triple threat of misogyny + being intersex + being transgender when I would see women in movies and tv and think. i am nothing like this. no part of me is anything like this. whats wrong with me? and to be honest being a man and not a woman is only part of the equation. I hate that the way women are presented on screen is dictated by an oppressive norm and its a wound that I felt when I was young and has not left me despite transitioning to be a man!!

[genderqueerdykes]

if your primary source of information on transmascs is by anyone else but a transmasc, it's not a reliable resource. it's currently viewed as perfectly okay for everyone BUT transmascs to talk about our experience- and in fact, it's encouraged for people to listen to everyone but us, because according to other people we're unreliable narrators, we "skew the truth," we "lie", that transmascs "already have too much space and too many people talking about transmasc issues", and that testosterone turns us into "irrational monsters".

i get it: people's internalized misogyny makes them treat us like we're too stupid to relay our own lived experiences because we're just "dumb, confused women." we get it- your misogyny is palpable. it morphs into a new, heinous experience- transandrophobia- once people begin telling us testosterone makes us evil, antimasculism begins to bleed into the misogyny that built this experience and turns it into something even more insideous.

people will do everything in their power to listen to everyone else talk about our experience, but when it comes to us advocating for ourselves, that's not allowed. everyone wants to speak for us, to tell us what their perception on transmasculinity is based off of a few passing experiences with transmascs so they "know what it's all about".

please seek out transmasculine people to listen to about our lived experience. everyone who attempts to speak for us has an agenda. don't listen to anyone but the source. outside speculation has no place when it comes to discussing the transmasculine experience, especially when it comes to saving young transmascs from feeling lost and totally alone

no one can tell our stories but us. stop being okay with people who aren't transmasc spreading lies about what we live through. our experiences need to be heard. let us speak for ourselves. stop putting words in our mouths and telling US how we live our lives