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@whatsthisbuttondo
BYF
Hi! I post a lot about politics, sex work, queer history and culture, cute animals, and generally whatever makes the autism gremlins in my brain happy
Pronouns: Get a little freaky with it
Age: Old enough to drink in any country. That's all you need to know.
Location: The Void.
Gender counter as of last update: 723
Queer
This is how you frame your message.
Audre herself faced similar circumstance in 1979, when she was invited to speak in the “only panel at [Second Sex Conference, held at New York University] where the input of Black feminists and lesbians is represented,” despite the fact that she accepted the invitation “with the understanding that [Lorde] would be commenting upon papers dealing with the role of difference within the lives of american women,” which would not be possible “without a significant input from poor women, Black and Third World women, and lesbians.” Her talk, titled “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” which is included in Sister Outsider, is not nearly as well understood as the title is known. When Audre said “master’s tools,” what she was referring to was white, middle-class, straight feminists’ unwillingness to recognize the differences among women along the lines of race, class, sexuality, etc. By failing to seize the strength that could come from the acknowledgement of differences, not just between white and Black women, but also among Black women–why did the organizers fail to involve more Black women, as if expecting Audre to represent all Black women?–she alleges that many white feminists are complicit in maintaining the racist, homophobic patriarchy. In a different text, also part of Sister Outsider, Audre once declared that she would never talk to white women about racism again. Obviously that was not the last time she did, but I have no doubt that she frequently struggled with the urge to give up. Part of the reason I decided finally to attend the conference and to speak at the tribute was the recognition that I stand on the shoulders of Audre Lorde and her contemporaries, many of whom are still alive but many are gone. The panel was successful, and the discussion involving three panelists and the audience lasted almost three hours even though it was originally scheduled for only 75 minutes. In a sense, the tribute panel turned out to be the perfect commemoration of Audre’s legacy. It exposed the ugly reality of what Audre calls “racist feminism,” which was lurking behind the superficial public rhetoric of anti-racism. It brought up intense emotions, including anger, and we sought to channel them for constructive uses. We paid tribute to Audre the best way we could, which was not by reading some academic papers about her, but by being passionately engaged in the struggle against the oppression of all people. I hope that I did my part to make her proud.
from Racist Feminism at the National Women’s Studies Association (2008), attached to the The Transfeminist Manifesto by Emi Koyama.
"The Tom-Boy Who Was Changed Into A Real Boy," a children's poem written between 1859 and 1862 and published by McLoughlin Brothers Publishing in New York.
The poem is part of the "Aunt Oddamadood series," which appeared to primarily create entertaining yet moralistic poems for children, in which a naughty child (other examples include "Little Miss Consequence," "The Conceited Boy," "The Mischievous Fingers") is presented and shown the error of their ways, to teach children what will happen if they do not behave. With that context, the purpose of this poem appears to warning children raised as girls that, should they act like a tomboy, they will eventually be quietly sent off to sea. It is made clear both at the beginning and the end of the poem that the child's tomboyish nature is a "fault" and something the audience must be "cautioned" about.
I learned about this poem from this small collection of transgender antebellum (pre-Civil War) USAmerican children's literature, collected by historian Jen Manion. Another relevant example from that collection is "Lucy Nelson; or, the Boy-Girl," the story of a child assigned female who dislikes femininity and prefers playing with her brothers and acting like a boy. Lucy and their brothers get in trouble, but Lucy is singled out for punishment. They are forced to wear boys clothes for a month; this doesn't initially seem that bad, but it becomes clear that the real punishment is subjecting Lucy to gendered humiliation. Lucy's brother laugh at them, declare that if they dress as a boy then they will "be treated as one," leading to them being physically and verbally cruel to them. At a dinner party, the stress of the gendered humiliation they are facing for their transmasculinity reaches a breaking point. A guest's fixation and confusion on their gender leads them to shout, in tears, "I am not a boy!" to end the inquisition.
Lucy's story ends not with them simply realizing they are a girl; it is explicitly detailed that it is very difficult for them to resist their "boyish" nature and they were "in danger of lapsing," but that eventually they became an "obedient little girl," having been successfully humiliated back into appropriate (and, notably, white) daughterhood. These examples show clearly how the narrative around the "acceptance" of tomboys hides the very real disdain and cruelty directed at transmasculinized youth that has existed in Western culture for centuries. Rather than their masculinity being praised, or the masculinization of a young girl being seen as positive, these tomboys are depicted as out-of-control, insufficiently white, and further masculinization is depicted as a punishment done to tomboys, something meant to be humiliating and scary, thus coercing them back to the role of daughterwifemother.
Also wanna add that this is a good example of malgendering in history, and why that term is so important when talking about anti-transmasculinity.
For both Lucy and the tomboy-turned-sailor, further masculinization is a punishment. The story of Lucy literally uses the phrase "if she dresses like a boy, we'll treat her like a boy" as a justification for verbal and physical harassment and humiliation.
& while the poem is lighthearted and meant to be fun, it is very clear that becoming a sailor is not something the tomboy is doing for fun or of his own volition. The poem explicitly describes the transition as happening "quite quietly" and "without noise," and being orchestrated by an unclear "them" which we can assume is likely the tomboy's family. Being a sailor was a job which involved hard manual labor, dangerous circumstances, and associated with lower-class (thus sexually dangerous) men. Again, this poem is from a series of moralistic poems which very clearly lay out for children what happens when you act "bad." The message here is: if you, little girl, try to act like a boy, you will become coarse and unloveable and be sent away to sea to live amongst dirty, dangerous cis men.
This is why malgendering is such an important term and concept, for all trans people, but here particularly with anti-transmasculinity. And I also hope that y'all keep these examples in your back pocket to use the next time you hear someone run their mouth about how the patriarchy just isn't that concerned about policing masculinity in people perceived as girls, because ummmm patriarchy LIKE boy stuff duh!!!!!!!!
This is really interesting to me because its so seldom that something lines up so well with my particular experience of having grown up intersex and as a transmasculine person. An experience that has led me to believe that the reason the policing of transmasculinity in kids is seen as "invisible" or even non-existent is because it often functions not on a level of open hostility, but on a subtle level of coy, "concerned for your future" social isolation, ostracism, and humiliation that feels orchestrated like a dance throughout your childhood and impossible to explain to anyone not on the transmasc or butch spectrum. I started getting "helpful" comments, snide remarks, and even doctors office visits about "fixing" how masculine my body and presentation were literally even before I realized I was trans or started to consciously play with my gender presentation.
Little girls and kids who were AFAB are only "allowed" to be tomboys insofar as their eventual assimilation into gender conforming feminine womanhood can be assured. If that assimilation is at all in question, the gloves come off really quick and they start considering forcing you onto supplemental estrogen.
#it makes me feel a lot of things to see this written out#especially the second case - that was… a lot of my childhood#‘if you act like a boy we’ll treat you like a boy’ and crucially ‘let other children treat you like a boy’ as a withdrawal of protection#or - more accurately- a throwing the wolves#the boys knew I wasn’t ‘a real boy’ - it was just a license to do violence without repurcussions
^ this is exactly it.
this is what makes anti-transmasculinity so fucking infuriating to talk about. because people say shit like "well little girls are rewarded for acting masculine!" with no sense of irony.
but really so much anti-transmasculinity swirls around this notion that being made a boy is a punishment for people intended to be girls. on two levels:
because being a girl, and succeeding in the role of daughterwifemother, is your personhood. that is why the above poem is titled "the tomboy who was turned into a real boy," while depicting the tomboy dressed as a sailor with his head in his hands as if he is crying. it is not a whimsical adventure, it is meant to be read as obviously negative as a poem about a child who steals or is rude and gets punished for it.
the ever-present specter of cis male violence (physical and sexual) is not any less present for transmasculine people, and those who wield anti-transmasculinity (especially against children) know this. its implicit in the poem, its explicit in the story of Lucy, its the background radiation of every 19th century story of a FTM crossdresser which obsesses over whether or not they kept their virginity while living around cis men.
i never ever ever ever ever want to hear anyone claim that "masculine girls" are less hated than "feminine boys"* again. everyone get radicalized and educated on anti-transmasculinity RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
*ironically, the collection i got this from also includes a letter written by a person talking about why feminine boys are actually good (as long as they aren't too girly) because they are polite and helpful and studious, while masculine girls are problematic because they are rude and dirty. this was not a pro-transfem statement by any means, but its literally the exact opposite of what people like to claim about how this works. gosh, its almost like maybe we should stop trying to figure out which binary gender is more policed, because its an exercise in futility that only encourages us vs them binary thinking!
awwww is someone mad i posted a bunch of direct quotes from The Transfeminist Manifesto. in the transfeminism tag. how sickening. send me to the guillotine posthaste
i think this was the blog that added that weird little addition to the post commemorating Emi Koyama's life and death too. which was very chill and cool and not in extremely poor taste at all. clearly a person who cares a great deal about trans women and transfeminism!
Gay-owned. Women-owned. Fat-owned. We're small, we're scrappy, and we're here for good. We believe everyone deserves cute, comfortable, ethically-made clothing regardless of size. That's why we work with a factory that is SEDEX and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified, so you can feel good about what you're wearing and how it was made. Thanks for being here with us. 💜
In case anyone finds it helpful because mobility aids are horrifically expensive and inaccessible…
And for those people who have access to mobility devices but might benefit from a second chair they can abuse without risking expensive damage…
Erik Kondo has made a website, Open Source Innovations, that details plans for DIY wheelchairs. These wheelchairs can be made from common materials like wood, plastic, and pvc. They are lightweight and can be custom fit to the user allowing from the same degree of movement you would get from a custom chair. And they are durable and easily repairable. (he has been stress testing his latest design by dropping it down stairs, dropping it out of a car, launching it across a driveway, and throwing it off a deck). Its 12lbs and I think he said its was in the $200 ish range for parts.
He also is working on cheap, open source, accessible designs for beach chairs, off road chairs, motorized attachments (think smart drive), and so on. Plus he skateboards in his wheelchair. Cool dude, helpful info, pass it on.
It's incredibly sad people have to resort to this, but it's a damn good resource. Use it. Spread awareness. Maybe one day people with physical disabilities won't need DIYs like this. But until then, reblog and share.
This is Accessibility!
That's so amazing! It is unfortunate that so many people will need this, but very very cool that it exists
That other link seems to be broken.
In March, I was invited to speak at the “tribute panel” dedicated to Black feminist thought, especially the work and life of Audre Lorde during the National Women’s Studies Association. I felt honored, and more than slightly intimidated, to be selected to address the importance of Audre Lorde’s work in my own life as well as in the feminist movement at large. Other panelists were Kaila Adia Story (University of Louisville) and Melinda L. de Jesus (California College of the Arts). It was during my second year of college I was first introduced to the writings of Audre in a Women’s Studies course. Throughout the academic term, students read several articles each week, discussed them in the class, and wrote journal entries that reflect on the week’s readings. Week after week, most of the assigned materials were those written by white, middle-class, straight (or sometimes “political lesbian”) women, and I was having difficulty relating to much of what was being discussed. I kept writing in my journal how I didn’t relate to the reading, but I did not realize it had anything to do with the selection of the materials. I felt bad about being so “negative” about feminism and feminists. Toward the end of the term, one week was dedicated to the work of “women of color” (yes, a whole week–woo hoo!). If I remember correctly, it consisted of selections from the anthology This Bridge Called My Back (Combahee River Collective statement, and I think one of the Cherrie Moraga’s pieces) and Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider. For the first time, these articles spoke to me. They gave voice to my feelings of alienation and frustration that I could not point a finger on. And even though it was just a week out of the entire term, and it is possibly the worst form of tokenism within the discipline, they anchored me to feminism and Women’s Studies to this date. Without Sister Outsider, I may not have been a feminist today.
from Racist Feminism at the National Women’s Studies Association (2008), attached to the The Transfeminist Manifesto by Emi Koyama.
Homosexuality occurs in most animal species, from insects to mammals, and it is more common amongst males. But how could homosexual behaviou
I am begging you. Please learn about stress/discomfort tolerance. Practice raising it. You need this to survive. If someone online can ruin your day with a throwaway comment, you desperately need to understand discomfort tolerance and consciously, systematically build that shit.
Also! Stress tolerance is such an important skill that having a learning disability in that area is a major symptom of a whole lot of other disabilities/mental illnesses! Struggling with it is a huge part of life! It sucks!
Am I saying everyone with misophonia needs to listen to chewing noises all day? No. But you need to find ways to tolerate it enough that you don't treat others like shit if they make a mouth noise near you.
No, you don't have to read the fic with your trigger tags. But you do need to be able to handle scrolling past the tags without being upset.
It is hard! But not having it also makes you so so so easy to manipulate. That grandma is racist AF because her mom raised her to be uncomfortable around black people and she never fought that discomfort. Trans people make so many cis people uncomfortable and that discomfort turns into bigotry real fast.
Letting your discomfort dictate your actions and beliefs about things is a great way to become a terrible person. Learn. Discomfort. Tolerance.
seeing more people use enben makes me so happy. take me hand lets use enban to refer to a singular nonbinary person and enben to refer to multiple nonbinary people (in addition to not in replacement of person and people). lets take nonbinary-gendered language seriously and not just gender-neutral language. but also use more gender neutral language too
I like this, but I'm struggling with pronunciation.
The obvious comparisons are woman/women and man/men. In my dialect, the last vowel in man/men is clearly distinct between singular and plural (the vowels in "ant" and "bed", roughly). However, in my dialect, the last vowel in woman/women is nearly the same between singular and plural (the first vowel of "minimum" for the singular and that slightly flavored with the first vowel of "bed" for the plural). Woman/women in my dialect are distinguished almost entirely by the vowel sound in the first syllable (The singular is close to the vowel in "put". The plural is the same vowel as "bit").
I'm having trouble applying either of these patterns to enban/enben. I'm not sure if I just need practice or there's another option I haven't considered.
How are other people pronouncing them?
I pronounce the "ban" in enban closer to "EN-buhn," and I pronounce "ben" in enben closer to "EN-bin." I put the emphasis on "en" for each.
me when someone makes a good post about an issue transfems face, but then can't help but add something at the end about how transmascs have it so easy and will never understand.
you know you can make a post like this without also bringing down other groups right? like why are you bringing up transmascs on a post about transfems in the first place? I just dont get it, and I see it pretty often
This is transandrophobia.
How dare you leave this in the tags.
Working Guys is a collection of stories by transmasculine sex workers that take readers through different moments in their lives. The sto
Working Guys is a collection of stories by transmasculine sex workers that take readers through different moments in their lives. The stories intersect between a few central themes, such as perceptions, media representation, and violence inflicted on trans sex workers. These nudge us to look at support systems and systematic changes required to address vulnerability, outlining the grey area between empowerment and vulnerabilities transmasculine sex workers face.
How far can one conform to expected ideas of gender before it becomes harmful?
“He told me that he struggled to see me as a man because I sell sex … and I found it hard to see the version of myself that I hid behind for work as anything other than a woman too. What he said to me had spread the sickness and I felt unsure in my identity. I pretended to be a woman for work, so people saw me as one outside of it too.” -- "Only women sell sex" by Liam
In the anthology, several contributors recount the bittersweet irony of adopting female persons to cater to the demands of the market. This performance, often described as “cis for pay”, often binds trans sex workers to conform to different gendered expectations. When transmascs fail to meet the binary societal expectations of how a ‘man’ should look or behave, they are faced with violence of all types and degrees. Sex workers capitalising aspects of oneself that can be eroticised is a form of powerful personal reclamation. On the flip side however, it leans into or even perpetuates harmful stereotypes that eroticise certain traits, further resulting in discrimination and violence.
Why are sex workers’ choices about their own bodies often subjected to the opinions of others?
“If you’re selling your body, isn’t it prudent to keep everything intact? Surely you’d lose customers if you had this surgery.” -- "An Appointment at Charing Cross" by Mx Dagger
In stories shared, several contributors to the anthology mention experiences where they were “hammered on details, including the type of sex work that were done” during requests for medical references for gender affirming surgery. These experiences highlight a higher barrier for trans people when it comes to obtaining medical support for their gender affirming procedures, which can have harmful consequences since many may choose to omit information when dealing with medical professions to avoid stigmatisation. This is in addition to the astronomical cost of medical transition that pushes many trans people into higher-risk work environments. These narratives challenge us to acknowledge that the fight for accessible transition care is inseparable from the broader struggle against economic and social marginalisation.
The invisibility of transmasculine sex workers.
Unlike their transfeminine counterparts—who, despite facing greater physical risks, benefit from more robust community networks—transmascs often find themselves isolated, struggling to advertise and represent themselves in spaces where few have a mental concept of what it means to be transmasculine. Highlighting the lived experiences of transmasculine sex workers is crucial when addressing the concerns of the sex worker community as a whole. However, over reliance on an individual’s experience in the sex industry might undermine other experiences faced by different sex workers. Hence it is important to continually highlight the diversity of the community. Joey, our ex-intern, penned down some of her thoughts while she was reading the book as a sex worker herself: “The truth is I often feel deeply ambivalent about my work – I’m torn between the desire to defend it (because I enjoy it) and the desire to critique it (because it’s work, and I would prefer not to need to work, or at least to be able to do so in better conditions). I never lie about my work, but I find it difficult to convey my thoughts effectively, while avoiding narratives that speak in absolutes: sex work being wholly degrading and exploitative, or sex work being entirely unproblematic and enjoyable. For me it’s somewhere in the middle—often a little of both.”
Conclusion
Working Guys challenge traditional views and push for different forms of empowerment, shaping a more holistic view of what transgender people experience. While doing so, Jack Parker uses the book as a platform to voice transmasculine perspectives and resilience in the face of adversity and challenges. A recurring theme, empowerment within the transmasculine community was highlighted in various ways – as allies and sex workers. This is rooted in the belief that individuals should make decisions based on what aligns with their beliefs, rather than conforming to external factors. By reading this, hopefully it gives us the strength – like what Parker is doing – to advocate for and empower transmasculine sex workers.
You can get Working Guys as a PDF here, or as a paperback here.
You can also read a little about the history of transmasculinity and sex work here.
Everything used to be 20 dollars and now that I finally have 20 dollars everything is now 200 dollars
trans men who are uncomfortable being called pretty or "girl" in a casual way or any sort of feminine term aren't "toxically masculine" or "fragile" they are trans men who have been traumatized by forced femininity. and if you mock them and/or continue to misgender them you are a huge asshole. also you should consider this before you start calling all men "princess"
you are so right how dare I make a transmasc centered post on my blog for transmasc activism. truly trans men have simply too much visibility
