“oh It’s So Misogynistic To Headcanon Female Characters Are Transmasc”

the fact a lot of trfs are MLs is further proof Marxist-Leninists are just fascists trying to redirect socialist efforts away from destroying the bourgeoisie

trans men who talk about how much ~male privilege~ they have are fucking class traitors lmao. like congrats on your extremely fucking conditional shield from violence but a lot of us don't pass like that and even if we do we're still at risk of violence if anyone figures out we aren't actually what cis society considers "real men". stop throwing other trans men under the bus just because You Specifically have managed not to be clockable in cis society, lol.

How about Idgaf if Man is a meaningful intersection bc I'm a transman and black and that intersection is fucking hard and should be heard out when I speak on it how about that how about we don't break the word trans men into little ppueces since you guys are so focused on that all other intersection seemed to be just SWEPT out the door with you people

i think words like transandrophobia and transmisogyny are useful in theory, but in practice they drive division and end up harmful to the wider trans struggle. (explanation in simple words at the bottom)

i think it can be useful to have words to describe different flavors of discrimination we face depending on how we are percieved by society. the problem occurs when these words stop being treated as descriptors, and instead get used as labels.

i'm sure you've seen the TMA/TME discourse. TMA = transmisogyny affected, TME = transmisogyny exempt. in practice, these terms are used as "trans women and fems" (TMA) and "everyone else who is trans" (TME). there's a few problems i have with this.

first, as a transneutral person, i would be labeled TME. but the group of drunk dudes who chased me down screaming that i'll never be a real woman, they don't care about that. they see me, a trans person, they assign their own interpretation to my gender presentation, and decide to intimidate me based on their interpretation. i have faced transmisogyny many times, despite some tumblr users insisting i am exempt from it.

second, it puts people back into a rigid binary. as a nonbinary person, i'm well aware of how restrictive and oppressive binaries are, and this one is not any different. even if it's repackaged as trans-friendly, it still denies many people the entirety of their experience and only allows a little, specific part of it.

and third, i simply do not think that any of us in this community are exempt from transmisogyny. in my experience the difference between experiencing transmisogyny or transandrophobia is what the other person percieves me as. if you really wanted to call someone exempt, make it cis people - but also keep in mind that not all of them are. think GNC people, butches, drag queens, the list goes on. i find it difficult to call these people exempt, even if they aren't trans. and i acknowledge that if you're read most of the time as your binary gender (as in you pass, but i strongly dislike that word), you will face much more of one flavor of opression than the other. but taking the experience of only binary trans people who are read as their gender and calling it universal is incredibly exorsexist. most of us will have experienced both.

all these flavors of discrimination, transmisogyny, transandrophobia, even exorsexism and intersexism, it all stems from the same narrow bioessentialist understanding of sex and gender as strictly binary.

in conclusion, i think words like transmisogyny and transandrophobia can be useful to describe experiences with different flavors of anti-trans bigotry. however some people have started treating them as a strict binary of affected-exempt, and that is not rooted in reality or helpful. i'm inclined to say at this point, these terms create infighting instead of being helpful, and make us forget that the root cause of all the discrimination we face is the same.

explanation in simple words: transandrophobia (discrimination against masculine transness) and transmisogyny (discrimination against feminine transness) can be useful words to describe own experiences. but some people use these words to divide trans community into boxes. i think that is not good. it makes us forget we all want to fight transphobia. makes us fight each other instead, and that is not helpful.

So much pointless LGBT+ discourse could be avoided if people just stopped assuming they knew everything about the oppression OTHER identities face.

For example, if you’re nonbinary, you can absolutely talk about the struggles you’ve dealt with as a nonbinary person, and speak of the issues your community is dealing with. But if you’re not transfem, it’s not your place to comment on how transfem issues compare to your own.

And if you’re a trans woman, you should absolutely not be talking about how trans men “have it easier” or what transitioning is like for them, because you fundamentally don’t know! You’re not a trans man!

And it goes both ways- trans men shouldn’t speak on trans women’s issues! Binary trans people shouldn’t claim to know what it’s like to be nonbinary!

It even hearkens back to older varieties of discourse, like ace discourse. You saw non-ace people talking about what THEY thought being ace was like, because they believed that being LGBT+ themselves made them the arbiters of oppression.

Or hell, gay men claiming that lesbians had it sooo easy compared to what they went through! Like, man, how the hell would you know, you're not a lesbian!

Just. Stop! Stop talking about the assumed experiences of other people! Being one flavor of queer doesn’t mean you’re the expert on ALL queer oppression! LISTEN to other people, stop talking over them!

I think if people accepted this, 90% of stupid online identity discourse would vanish overnight.

Taught to diminish ourselves as little girls, taught to diminish ourselves as trans people, when will trans men be allowed to speak for ourselves. To tell our own stories.

^^^^

If your argument is that transmascs had no place in trans culture in its beginning stages...

you should be WAY more concerned about what was happening to your transmasc siblings during those stages, than any kind of 'gotcha'

(Credit to @zaebeecee)

The way some of you people treat trans men and transmascs is reprehensible.

Fascists won't spare you for kissing the boots that they're putting on your trans sibling's necks.

I'm just gonna say it: people using the term "transandrobros" gives me the exact same vibe as people saying "feminazis".

What I've noticed about transmasc specific slurs is that they usually go into one of two categories.

"Eww, your body is gross."

examples: zippertits, shrimpdick, pooner, mangina, tranny voice

They are all derived either from specifically trans bodily features (top and bottom surgery, HRT-induced voice changes) or presumed genitals (the assumption of a vulva, in an attempt to invoke dysphoria).

2. "You're just an attention-seeking crybaby."

examples: theyfab, hefab, birthday boy, Aiden*, fakeboi, transandrodork*, transandro*

They are all derived from something being just play-pretend. [Pronoun]fabs are pretending females that are not really trans and only play with pronouns, birthday boys want attention for their fake problems, Aidens are annoying teenagers with dramatic fake names, fakebois are... well, fake boys, transandrodorks and transandros are foolish confused/malicious boys/girls (both depend on the speaker's level of transphobia) who discourse about fake oppression.

(*I don't think these are slurs *per se.* They're too discourse-specific. I've only included them because they might be used in the same breath, both with the actual slurs as a tool of mockery. I personally cannot decide whether "Aiden" can be earnestly called a slur either, but I think that as a marginalized identity-specific mockery terms this post should be inclusive of all three of them.)

And both remind me very closely of the pattern that bullies use in school. Sexualizing you (and implying that you're both sexual and disgusting, you're characterized by your genitals or by your chest, and it's gross to the speaker), or taking something that you enjoy and identify with (in this case your pronouns, your name, your opinion in an online discourse) and turning it as a personalized insult to show you that it's ridiculous, and in some sense also appaling, that you would even choose to associate with that thing. You're no longer allowed to be seen as a complex person. You're the he/they. You're "silly name" guy. You're the guy who unironically used the word transandrophobia, you're a transandro now. (Which I have seen leveled against transfems who agree with the transandrophobia theory, which I find extremely gross, since even though I know deep inside that it's just a mocking shortening of the word "transandrophobia," you're still calling her an -andro. Which she isn't. That's a woman/transfem nonbinary.) It's quietly dehumanizing in a way that you cannot really protest, because at the same time it gives the perpetrators enough deniability to claim that you're overreacting, that they're just being playful, and that since they're not calling you any of the REAL slurs, you should be actually ashamed of feeling hurt when they mock you instead of engaging with you on an earnest level. That's all. That's the post.

Wait. I lied.

That's not all.

Important disclaimer! This post is not about transfems. Sure there are transfems that gleefully use the words I'm complaining about. A mean girl is a mean girl, trans-inclusive. However, that is a teeny tiny droplet in the actual user-base of the slurs (and baby slurlets, if you will), cis transphobes and self-loathing filled 4chan transmascs. Just like transmascs don't have a unique propensity for transmisogyny, even though they can perpetrate it and sometimes do, transfems do not have any special inclination towards transandrophobia. Quite the opposite, actually - historically and even now, some of the loudest and most staunch allies of either of the groups were and will be members of the other.