Sweetie, I don't know why I'm trans. I just don't know. But I do know that when people call me a woman, or use she/her pronouns for me, it makes me deeply uncomfortable, like if they mispronounced my name.

Some people have asked me if I think I'm "too masculine" to be a woman, and that's not it at all. There are women far more masculine than I, and their masculinity doesn't somehow cancel out their womanhood. I just don't happen to be a woman.

I'm sending you this message not as an attack or a call out or whatever, but because I can't fathom how my identity as a trans and nonbinary person affects anyone but me. If I'm somehow undermining the greater feminist cause, I want to know about it.

I do want to start by saying I have no dislike singular people identifying as trans unless they've done something to deserve my dislike, I don't hate people purely for being trans but I do strongly dislike the movement and what they've done.

A big thing here is that we have a fundamental disagreement on what a woman is, a woman is someone of the female sex, something that cannot be changed no matter what, I also don't believe in gender, gender is nothing but stereotypes (which have also historically and currently harm women) so the logical conclusion is that I don't believe in transgenderism, it's not a hatred or a dislike, I just don't believe in it.

However I do believe in gender dysphoria, I believe you when you say you're uncomfortable being referred to as a woman and whether this is a symptom of growing up in a sexist society or just gender dysphoria developing I can't say but it's important to note that gender dysphoria is a mental illness and I have to ask, what other dysphoric mental illness is dealt with this way?

People with anorexia perceive themselves as being fatter than they are, it's not true but that's how they see themselves, now imagine if everyone tripped over themselves to validate them? Imagine if we all agreed to call anorexic people fat, agreed to help them lose weight, suggested liposuction and let them talk over actual fat people. Imagine if we started going into the plus size section in stores and only saw clothes in size 0.

Or what about the people with body integrity identity disorder? Should we be encouraging them to remove healthy limbs/sever their spinal cord because they want to be an amputee/paraplegic? Should these people be allowed disability payments? Should they be allowed into disability spaces and allowed to talk over actual disabled people?

No, these people may desire to be a certain way or see themselves a certain way but we know that it's not accurate, that these people suffer from a mental illness that makes them believe this these things. Gender dysphoria is no different, you can't change your sex and no amount of wanting to be the opposite sex can change that.

Then we go into oppressed/oppressor side of things. Women are oppressed because of our biology, it is because we are female that we've been oppressed for all of history and across the globe. It's not because we've identified as women, it's because we are female. On the flip side men are the oppressor class, it has been males who have oppressed us this whole time so saying that males can now identify as women and now suffer misogyny? So you can just identify into the oppressed class? Usually by using harmful stereotypes?

Imagine if we were allowed to do that with anything? What if I listed off a bunch of harmful stereotypes about aboriginals and claimed that because I'm 1/8 aboriginal and like all these things I'm actually not white at all? If I claimed I was African American, Japanese, Indian, Sudanese all based off stereotypes? Could I, a white woman, claim to be part of these oppressed groups then talk over them, say I feel validated when I face ""racism"" and then proceed to talk over them?

Same with age, I can't say I identify as 80 and receive pensioner payments or talk over the elderly on the issues they face.

So why, as a 22 year old white woman, if I were to say I was an 80 year old black man why would only one of those identifiers hold up?

Then onto what the movement is actually doing, the misogyny and homophobia that comes from the movement is insane. Men are now allowed in women's spaces, women's prisons, women's bathrooms and changerooms, in women's positions and this actively harms actual women and we're not allowed to say anything because this man has at best a mental illness, at worst he's actively using the trans label to get in because if anyone questions it we're attacked.

TRA's have also been harassing lesbians for being same sex attracted, it's actually the reason I found Radical Feminism in the first place. I kept being called a terf for saying that I wasn't into dick so I decided to see what radical feminism was all about. Turns out they were onto something. Lesbians have been bullied, harrassed and coerced into relationships with males and even into conversion therapy because they didn't want to be with a male. I'm starting to see the same thing happen with gay men.

Trans women have talked about how cat calling is validating, women are being referred to as dehumanising names such uterus-havers and menstruators (I'm yet to see men be referred to as prostate havers or ejaculators for the record), a man raped his own mother and people were still blaming lesbians because we wouldn't accept this poor poor transwoman so obviously the only course of action was to rape his disabled mother, when JK Rowling came out and said that while trans people deserve the right to be safe that biological sex is still important they flooded her twitter, where literal children were sending pictures, with porn and then blamed her for not talking about it. Let me repeat that, trans activists sent porn where they knew children were circling then blamed the person they sent it to for not bringing anymore attention to it.

Saying to open our spaces to these people is saying to open our spaces with men who believe being a woman is being "an expectant asshole", who openly believe they're superior for not having a period (sound familiar?) Who believe that they suddenly get more stupid and clumsy and don't understand numbers when they go on estrogen (sound familiar?) Who sprout off that they actually do have real periods because they get cravings and cramps, never mind that a period is actually just the shedding on the uterus, nothing more and nothing less. Women in prison are being held with sexual predators and being told that if they complain they'll have more time added to their sentences and are being given birth control to counter the rape that these MALE inmates are perpetrating against the women inside. Sex based statistics are being skewed because males are now saying they're female, I can't go to the doctor and ask for a female without the risk of a having a whole man come in and if that happens I can't say anything because he identifies as female.

You identifying as a man in and of itself isn't a huge problem, I don't see you as a man or male but I don't hate you for it. However identifying as a man isn't a feminist action either and supporting the Trans rights group as it stands is entirely anti-feminist at this point.

Trans people deserve to be safe from discrimination, they should be allowed to keep their homes, jobs and be safe from harm but the way the movement is going is not it. They are actively stripping the rights women and the lgb community have faught so hard to gain

If you have any others questions or would like to discuss this further please don't hesitate to send another ask or even message me, I won't out you

Hi, I wanted to ask a question about identifying with voidpunk. I personally don't feel comfortable being a human n I feel like I don't rlly belong with humans, which stems from how humans treat nature n stuff and also I've been bullied n teased throughout my whole life. Those 2 reasons make me feel like I'm not human and like I don't belong, and I have this strong feeling that I wasn't actually supposed to be human. Would I be able to identify as voidpunk?

Hey! Thanks for asking your questions here. This is a very good question! I hope you don’t mind if we bring up our experiences, because I saw myself in a lot of what you mentioned.

We have had extremely similar experiences to what you’ve described here. Especially the part where you describe the combination of feeling outcast due to past experiences of isolation/bullying and the disenfranchisement with how humans currently interact with and view the concept of nonhuman living things. The entire idea that a living creature can be subjugated to the class of a thing (i.e. object) in the first place, combined with how our own experiences of oppression objectified us, put us in an incredibly isolating and painful position. One of the things that has been the most empowering for us and that has given us the most autonomy is, ironically, reclaiming our own dehumanization. If you’ve seen other questions we’ve answered, you’ll know that this is essentially what voidpunk is: a movement about reclaiming the experiences of dehumanization you face as a part of being oppressed.

I don’t think it’s helpful or right to say solidly whether anyone can or cannot identify as any given label. What I know for certain is that voidpunk is a very open and diverse label that doesn’t have rigid boundaries. Though it has certain keystones and symbols that represent it and are commonly featured within it (the use of it/its pronouns, alien and space related aesthetics, etc.) none of these things are what fundamentally makes voidpunk what it is. The only requirement for being voidpunk is facing dehumanizing oppression (which, forgive my assumption, but I doubt any cishet white neurotypical abled man would find himself here, which means you’re likely set on that front) and to choose in some way to reclaim that dehumanization. From what you’ve described, it sounds to me like that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’ve had past experiences of dehumanization which made you feel like you didn’t belong among or fit in with humans, and you’ve chosen to identify with that nonhumanity rather than reject it or further shame yourself for it. We’ve done the same thing, and it was probably one of the most helpful things we’ve ever done for ourselves. To us, that’s what being voidpunk and identifying with that label is all about.

Like I mentioned, I can’t tell you for certain what you are or aren’t. It’s always your choice whether or not to identify with a label, and you don’t need our or anyone else’s permission to do so, but if you��re wondering whether or not your experiences “count” as voidpunk then I would say that they absolutely do. Your situation seems like a very familiar one, and if you talk to others who also identify as voidpunk you’ll probably notice that a lot of them feel the same way you do.

As a quick final note: this may not be a fit at all for you, but it’s worth mentioning that you might want to explore the alterhuman umbrella as well. Our connection to nonhumanity is nuanced and complicated beyond just us being voidpunk and reclaiming experiences of dehumanization, and for us part of that is being alterhuman. Again, this may not fit you at all, and there’s obviously no shame in that, but if you find that you’d like to explore other labels that describe the psychological connection to being nonhuman then you may want to look into psychological kintypes or other alterhuman labels. Here is a resource about alterhumanity, in case you’re ever curious.

Thanks for the question! We hope this helped. Apologies in advance for the inevitable sleep deprivation typos.