On statements like ākill all menāā¦
I remember once while I was still taking college classes, the professor (a cis man who liked having open discussions, teaching a very small class that was mostly cis women with I think one cis man and me, the openly trans man) decided to ask us a question that was definitely not an original idea but the point was to see what weād say.
If we found a way to reproduce without sperm and decided to sterilize all people with penises and testicles and let them slowly die out to form an all-woman society, what would we lose?
Now, if youāre like me, youāre probably going to lose sight of the actual point of the question itself and get lost in the flaws built into it. If youāre not like me and youāre capable of disregarding the problems inherent within the question and engaging with it as intended, Iām going to ask you to not do that because that isnāt really the point of me sharing this story.
Probably much to the professorās annoyance, I could not resist my urge to call attention to what I saw as glaring issues with this premise. I also, naively I guess, felt the ethical concerns of wiping out an entire group of people was obvious. So the first thing I said was
āThis wouldnāt even actually wipe out all men, since trans men would still exist.ā
Yes, thereās more issues. I didnāt get to say them all. This was the one I managed to get out and I wasnāt willing to cause a scene over this. I, definitely naively, thought that since I was the one trans person in the group, there would be some awareness that I had experienced and perspectives that the others hadnāt heard and they would be willing to listen. A cis woman was very quick to dispel that thought:
āNo, they wouldnāt cause there would be no point [to being a trans man].ā
And if that doesnāt say a metric fuck ton about how cis people view trans men, then the way absolutely nobody but me was willing to argue with her on this and the fact that cis people since then, especially cis women, have found ways to communicate the same sentiment in various other ways over and over again certainly fucking does. And itās the blatant refusal to acknowledge how trans men are seen as āwomen trying to be men because misogyny/patriarchyā and not as actual trans people or as actual men (with us sometimes fitting into one category but not the other depending on whoās talking and whatās convenient for them in the moment) because the very people writing about trans men as non-trans-men are thinking of us in exactly the same way as well that leaves me finding every single thing talking about trans men that wasnāt written by a trans man as deeply lacking and ignorant of the realities of being trans men.
Itās been years since that day. Iām still frustrated. Not just by that moment alone but by how often itās never directly said, heavily implied exactly once, but still made clear repeatedly in every other way that Iām not viewed as actually trans by some, not viewed as actually a man by others, not viewed as actually either by most, and at no point am I allowed to argue against it without someone, especially cis women, being quick to shoot me down with their willfully ignorant idea of a correction.
Now, this post was supposed to be about statements like ākill all menā.
āKill all men - not you, though!ā Yes, because you think Iām a woman playing dress up to escape misogyny and in your female supremacist fantasy utopia Iāll just detransition. After all, thereās no longer a point to all this that you can see. Canāt be that I have an internal sense of identity that happens to be best described as manhood and that being forced to be a woman is effectively erasing my actual identity in favor of some version of me you happen to like the idea of better, thinking I could ever be that when that version of me is nothing more than an idea and not actually me.
āKill all men - including trans men cause Iām inclusive!ā I guess KAM is technically shorter than āget back in the closetā. Because thatās the impact this has. Youāre telling trans men to stay in the closet or get back in there if theyāve left. Youāve established that itās not safe to be trans around you. As if itās safe for any trans person to be anywhere. Look, we can agree that a trans man in the early stages of transitioning can, for short periods of time, pretend to be a girl for survival, and we can agree that a passing stealth trans man will likely be treated like a cis man as long as he stays stealth, but 1) this is not evidence of trans male privilege and you are a clown for thinking āhaving to closet yourself for safetyā is anything other than proof of oppression, 2) trans men do not just look like butch cis women until their first T injection and then suddenly a beard shoots out of his face and his muscles instantly double in size, there is an in between point where you cannot pass as a cis woman or a cis man. There is no safety in being a trans man. Statements like KAM are going to impact us differently because in saying this youāve made it clear that even in trans friendly spaces weāre not safe or welcome. We can either be trans and born-female but not real men and therefore okay or we can be men and gender traitors who know nothing about the magic sisterhood shared by all womyn and must be eradicated with all the cis men (ooh, maybe start with the trans men so we can give any lost egg trans sisters time to come out - we know trans men are men, but some of these ācis menā might not be!). The fact that you decided trans women are women and trans men are men (but not actually trans like trans women are) doesnāt make this better. Itās even worse if youāre not trans yourself and pulling this, cause youāre putting on a masquerade of acceptance and using it for violence, which Iām sure you wonāt hesitate to wield against any trans women or possible-trans-men who step out of line.
And no, I donāt care that in this moment youāre not literally killing us. Cis women with these beliefs can use what social power they have over trans people as a whole to their advantage and take their man trauma out on us as they please and we have to walk on eggshells and expect nothing from them in response. We may not be dead but weāre sure as hell not being treated well.
āItās just a joke, weāre just venting! Calm down!ā Thereās a time and a place for this, you know. A cis woman who just got sexually harassed by an older man and angrily telling her friend āI wish men would just dieā is not really my enemy here. A trans man venting about an experience with a cis man being creepy, rude, transphobic, or all three is not a good time to say āmen are gross and should dieā. Youāre using KAM jokes to distance yourself from your cis status (cis women are also guilty of being creepy, rude, and transphobic to trans people, including trans men) while also establishing the literal victim of a cis manās behavior as being equal to the cis man in terms of how bad they are. You can put ākill all menā on your blog and say itās a joke but if I put ādie cis scumā or āIām a cismisogynistā on my blog as a joke about the negative experiences Iāve had with cis people but especially cis women*, I know some of you will be up in arms about that.
* (keep in mind itās not just casually transphobic comments, it was a cis woman who sexually assaulted me, it was a cis woman who manipulated me into a toxic relationship, it was a cis woman who outed me as trans at work by screaming about my genitals the second I told her I wasnāt planning on ever getting pregnant cause Iām a man and Iām not comfortable with the idea of getting pregnant, and thereās been too many cis women who see nothing wrong with weighing in on trans issues just to show how much they hate trans men because weāre menā¦ or did they mean gender traitors)
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