#for me I have internalized the fact that trans people exist and there's a non zero chance that a woman is trans | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

katrafiy · 1 year

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I think about this image a lot. This is an image from the Aurat March (Women's March) in Karachi, Pakistan, on International Women's Day 2018. The women in the picture are Pakistani trans women, aka khwaja siras or hijras; one is a friend of a close friend of mine.

In the eyes of the Pakistani government and anthropologists, they're a "third gender." They're denied access to many resources that are available to cis women. Trans women in Pakistan didn't decide to be third-gendered; cis people force it on them whether they like it or not.

Western anthropologists are keen on seeing non-Western trans women as culturally constructed third genders, "neither male nor female," and often contrast them (a "legitimate" third gender accepted in its culture) with Western trans women (horrific parodies of female stereotypes).

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and jargon used to obscure the fact that while each culture's trans women are treated as a single culturally constructed identity separate from all other trans women, cis women are treated as a universal category that can just be called "women."

Even though Pakistani aurat and German Frauen and Guatemalan mujer will generally lead extraordinarily different lives due to the differences in culture, they are universally recognized as women.

The transmisogynist will say, "Yes, but we can't ignore the way gender is culturally constructed, and hijras aren't trans women, they're a third gender. Now let's worry less about trans people and more about the rights of women in Burkina Faso."

In other words, to the transmisogynist, all cis women are women, and all trans women are something else.

"But Kat, you're not Indian or Pakistani. You're not a hijra or khwaja sira, why is this so important to you?"

Have you ever heard of the Neapolitan third gender "femminiello"? It's the term my moniker "The Femme in Yellow" is derived from, and yes, I'm Neapolitan. Shut up.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about the femminielli, and I want you to see if any of this sounds familiar. Femminielli are a third gender in Neapolitan culture of people assigned male at birth who have a feminine gender expression.

They are lauded and respected in the local culture, considered to be good omens and bringers of good luck. At festivals you'd bring a femminiello with you to go gambling, and often they would be brought in to give blessings to newborns. Noticing anything familiar yet?

Oh and also they were largely relegated to begging and sex work and were not allowed to be educated and many were homeless and lived in the back alleys of Naples, but you know we don't really like to mention that part because it sounds a lot less romantic and mystical.

And if you're sitting there, asking yourself why a an accurate description of femminiello sounds almost note for note like the same way hijras get described and talked about, then you can start to understand why that picture at the start of this post has so much meaning for me.

And you can also start to understand why I get so frustrated when I see other queer people buy into this fool notion that for some reason the transes from different cultures must never mix.

That friend I mentioned earlier is a white American trans woman. She spent years living in India, and as I recal the story the family she was staying with saw her as a white, foreign hijra and she was asked to use her magic hijra powers to bless the house she was staying in.

So when it comes to various cultural trans identities there are two ways we can look at this. We can look at things from a standpoint of expressed identity, in which case we have to preferentially choose to translate one word for the local word, or to leave it untranslated.

If we translate it, people will say we're artificially imposing an outside category (so long as it's not cis people, that's fine). If we don't, what we're implying, is that this concept doesn't exist in the target language, which suggests that it's fundamentally a different thing

A concrete example is that Serena Nanda in her 1990 and 2000 books, bent over backwards to say that Hijras are categorically NOT trans women. Lots of them are!

And Don Kulick bent over backwards in his 1998 book to say that travesti are categorically NOT trans women, even though some of the ones he cited were then and are now trans women.

The other option, is to look at practice, and talk about a community of practice of people who are AMAB, who wear women's clothing, take women's names, fulfill women's social roles, use women's language and mannerisms, etc WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT.

This community of practice, whatever we want to call it - trans woman, hijra, transfeminine, femminiello, fairy, queen, to name just a few - can then be seen to CLEARLY be trans-national and trans-cultural in a way that is not clearly evident in the other way of looking at things.

And this is important, in my mind, because it is this axis of similarity that is serving as the basis for a growing transnational transgender rights movement, particularly in South Asia. It's why you see pictures like this one taken at the 2018 Aurat March in Karachi, Pakistan.

And it also groups rather than splits, pointing out not only points of continuity in the practices of western trans women and fa'afafines, but also between trans women in South Asia outside the hijra community, and members of the hijra community both trans women and not.

To be blunt, I'm not all that interested in the word trans woman, or the word hijra. I'm not interested in the word femminiello or the word fa'afafine.

I'm interested in the fact that when I visit India, and I meet hijras (or trans women, self-expressed) and I say I'm a trans woman, we suddenly sit together, talk about life, they ask to see American hormones and compare them to Indian hormones.

There is a shared community of practice that creates a bond between us that cis people don't have. That's not to say that we all have the exact same internal sense of self, but for the most part, we belong to the same community of practice based on life histories and behavior.

I think that's something cis people have absolutely missed - largely in an effort to artificially isolate trans women. This practice of arguing about whether a particular "third gender" label = trans women or not, also tends to artificially homogenize trans women as a group.

You see this in Kulick and Nanda, where if you read them, you could be forgiven for thinking all American trans women are white, middle class, middle-aged, and college-educated, who all follow rigid codes of behavior and surgical schedules prescribed by male physicians.

There are trans women who think of themselves as separate from cis women, as literally another kind of thing, there are trans women who think of themselves as coterminous with cis women, there are trans women who think of themselves as anything under the sun you want to imagine.

The problem is that historically, cis people have gone to tremendous lengths to destroy points of continuity in the transgender community (see everything I've cited and more), and particularly this has been an exercise in transmisogyny of grotesque levels.

The question is do you want to talk about culturally different ways of being trans, or do you want to try to create as many neatly-boxed third genders as you can to prop up transphobic theoretical frameworks? To date, people have done the latter. I'm interested in the former.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is that we're all family y'all.

#transgender #third gender #hijras #femminielli #trans women are women #trans solidarity #trans rights #transmisogyny #transunity #transunitism #this is what trans unity looks like

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exitwound · 6 months

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Maybe think about why you care so much about calling gerard way a woman to the extent that you equate it as the only correct way to engage with their work, as if art as well as support for the trans community can’t have value by itself, as if that isn’t the point, not their literal personal internal experience of gender that’s no one’s business, the same way trying to decide if anyone is trans is not your business if that person doesn’t want to tell you or talk about it with you, because it’s gender essentialist, and why it’s so baffling to you that a celebrity in general but especially gerard way might want to avoid labels or this specific type of intrusive categorization , as they have explicitly stated as well as created music that is about the same thing. And shouldnt we live in a world where someone can present gnc, and talk about experiences with gender and with femininity in honest ways, without people not just obsessing over whether that means they’re “really a woman” but outright deciding, and acting like they are. That’s a narrow fucking definition of womanhood. And shouldn't we value that authenticity from people who don’t want to choose a label as much as we do from people who identify in ways they do choose to label, (labels or the lack of btw have never been individual terms but tools for relating or not relating ourselves to the world in specific ways,) Isn’t that a better more open and beautiful mode of creating relationships to each other? Why does gerard need to be a woman to you? Why are you so obsessed with this? Why is transness and queerness and gender nonconformity itself, to you, some kind of item, an object or artifact for distribution upon others — and it is not in fact “creating cisnormativity” to accept the way a person wants to relate their identity to an audience. There are lots of trans women and transfeminine people who are doing everything gerard way is doing for transness and much more. If you want to call someone a woman go call a woman a woman. If you want to celebrate trans joy go celebrate trans joy. Please by all means do I will celebrate with you I am celebrating with you and I am doing it while listening to my chemical romance. So what’s the point in acting like this. I really don't get it. But it concerns me because this isn't the only time I've witnessed this kind of attitude and although its well-intentioned and "playful" its ultimately weird, ultimately harmful. So honestly, if this really feels "low-stakes" to you it might be because you've never dealt with the kinds of situations where the stakes exist, or considered the perspective of someone who has a different relationship to the stakes of your argument than you do.

Because not to be dramatic, but these stakes are the same stakes relevant to the literal record numbers of legislation currently being passed in the US using bioessentialism and gender essentialism to install systems of state-controlled gender-enforcing and forced gendering of trans and non-trans gnc children in schools and in healthcare. What you're doing is, if on a small scale, still contributing to the same conceptualization of gender as these laws, and as the people who passed them, even if you're well intentioned and hate the laws, even if your beliefs are reversed, the framework is the same, and that framework is going to empower the dominant culture, not yours. That's how power works. Which is why it's stupid. It's literally just stupid. And it hurts trans people who have had experiences in the real world where people are just as intrusive as you are being about trying to interpret their gender, and you’re no different for trying to clock people. If you don't know the stakes of your words, you should learn them before you use those words. Just because you're in a bubble of people who agree with you and think this is just about being either "right" or "wrong" about gerard way's gender and wanting to be "right" doesn't dismiss you from the meaning of the actual words you are saying and the ideologies informing your beliefs, whether or not you're aware of them, because the rest of us aren't trying to be right, we're not living in a this-or-that world in the first place. Personally I don't know them. I've appreciated & engaged with what they have said about their experiences with gender as well as their art while also respecting their statements about not liking labels, and treated their silence on their own identity as intentional, because I like knowing what words, and the absences of words, mean

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xxlovelynovaxx · 1 month

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Okay, this is not without a point, but (screenshot):

(A post and reblog which read: Nonbinary legit means outside established gender ideas yet you racist, transmisogynist, otherwise bioessentialist assholes keep bothering amab nb people because you think theyre too masc or whatever to be nb. Hey newsflash not all nb people are androgynous-femme white stick thin transmascs with undercuts - and - We're never making it out cisheteropatriarchy without you analyzing your beliefs on who is trans or nb enough)

If you think "transmasc" is the default nonbinary person or even considered to be the default nonbinary person, perhaps you haven't unlearned your bioessentialism either. And like, sure, maybe they don't think that way and meant "afab nonbinary person" by "transmasc nonbinary person", which is itself bioessentialist as those aren't equivalent in either direction (there's plenty of amab transmasc and afab non-transmasc nonbinary people), but the specific issue they're talking about (being perceived as too masc to be nonbinary) actually very specifically prominently affects transmascs as well.

It's almost as if your sex OR gender OR presentation being perceived as too masc can cause this, and also that trans people's AGAB (especially transitioning and intersex trans' peoples AGAB) can be misread by other trans people. Like do you think that all AMAB nonbinary people face this forever, or could this perhaps have a whole lot to do with passing as binary and AMAB people who transition and pass as cis women might in fact face this less than AFAB people who transition and pass as cis men? Never mind that this affects people who are androgenous in an additive way (tits and a beard, as an example) rather than a subtractive way (neither masc nor femme characteristics).

I'd also wonder about how they seem to be conflating "nonbinary" with "nontransitioning" in the way they describe the theoretical standard "femme androgenous transmasc" nonbinary person and think that AMAB nonbinary experiences are somehow universal.

Like, newsflash, anyone who appears masc enough gets hit with the essentialist (bio AND gender) antimasculinity that is such a problem in the queer community. Anyone who appears femme enough typically doesn't, though there are always exceptions. This includes presentation, perceived sex, and perceived gender. Butch trans people in general also face this regardless of gender.

Also this is bothering me especially so. AFAB≠transmasc. AMAB≠transfem. AFAB transfems and AMAB transmascs exist. Nonbinary people who aren't transfem OR transmasc, or who are both, exist. Transmasc/transfem as a new binary just excludes the majority of nonbinary people, because not all nonbinary people are "masc" or "femme" and in fact that's kinda the whole point of nonbinary as a gender category, not JUST that most nonbinary people aren't "men" (only*) or "women" (only*)

*because multigender people who experience binary genders are also just as nonbinary as any other nonbinary person

But (screenshot):

(A comment marked as by the original poster which reads: Transandrophobia believers don't rb this btw. heart emoji I'm late but whatever)

Ah, right, you haven't unlearned your bioessentialism. You seem to think only AMAB nonbinary people face exorsexism, or perhaps you don't even understand that exorsexism is a specific type of transphobia to nonbinary people and think AFAB nonbinary people "only" face transphobia. And I shudder to imagine your opinions on intersex trans people in general.

"Transandrophobia believers" like sorry not sorry I actually believe that transmascs face specific targeted transphobia and that transfems aren't the most oppressed, and also that all trans people can experience any type of specific transphobia and that bigots who famously don't respect trans people's internal identity and infamously can't "always tell" don't choose to be bigoted based on either your ontological identity or your physical sex. It's almost like I base my understanding of oppression on actual material experience and not just what I want to be true so I can pretend I'm punching up at vulnerable people in my community

Also wtf (screenshot):

(A comment marked as by the original poster which reads: Proshippers also don't rb i fucking hate you all)

Like not surprised this person has dogshit views lacking any critical analysis whatsoever but honey sweetie baby pie this is just sad

Anyway take your own advice and analyze your own beliefs on who is trans or nonbinary enough and also unlearn your own bioessentialism because simply saying "only AMAB trans people face more than basic transphobia and are the most oppressed" is bog standard gender essentialism and bioessentialism, and in fact treating all AMAB trans people as transfem or transfem adjacent is WILDLY exorsexist and misgendering a WHOLE lot of nonbinary people

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nothorses · 3 months

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Hey this is vaguely related to the conversations you were having and I hope you’re ok with me dropping it in your asks. But when I came out as FTM I felt like I was forced to try and fit into this patriarchal idea of cis manhood by others. Like I couldn’t just be a person with a wide array of interests and desires if I wanted to be a man. Even by like, trans allies and other trans people.

I often see even other trans men using toxic masculinity but trying to be “positive” about it like “you aren’t a man unless you are comfortable in femininity or engage in politics this way” or even “do [blank] for these other marginalized communities” boiled down to “repent for being a gender traitor” IMO.

I feel like this sort of thing is tied to this like “binary vs non-binary” in a tangible way. I’m just not sure and I could be wrong and I’m curious about your thoughts. It’s been on my mind for weeks, these kinds of patterns in trans spaces and discussions and I personally have no conjunctive answer.

I think I understand what you're getting at, and I have definitely noticed this kind of thing in my own experiences and relationship to gender. I identified as nonbinary for as long as I did because I legitimately felt pressured to; I was surrounded by people who felt, and implied, and stressed, that masculinity and manhood were bad things & it was somehow morally superior to be nonbinary instead. I was afraid of being, or being seen as, aggressive and dangerous and morally reprehensible, and identifying as nonbinary felt like the Better Thing To Do.

This isn't, like, unique; Baeddels openly believed that this was the better way to go, and/or that nonbinary people were just Secret Trans Men pretending to be "non-men" in order to "avoid accountability":

Which kind of reinforces the myth that Being Nonbinary Is Morally Superior in and of itself: "trans men are just pretending to be nonbinary because it would make them Better People, but we all know that they can't really be nonbinary" is not actually challenging this assumption that being further from manhood would be morally superior. though denying the fact that nonbinary people can exist at all is still incredibly, disgustingly exorsexist.

this line of thinking didn't just come from this one specific strain of radical transfeminism. radfem ideology as a whole is, imo, more like a pink coat of paint on regular-ass cisheteropatriarchy. I think the ways in which radtransfeminism understand trans men and nonbinary people are incredibly indicative of this; trans womanhood has been sort of half-unpacked, but there are still so many deep anxieties around trans men and (some) nonbinary folks "betraying womanhood" and "infiltrating women's spaces", "mutilating" our bodies, etc.

I mean, it's internalized transphobia. my grandma wants to call me "grey" instead of "greyson" for the same reason that my trans ally lesbian peer wants to use "they/them" pronouns for me instead of "he/him": it obfuscates my connection to manhood, and in many ways, my defiance of the gender binary they're comfortable with. it makes my gender identity sort of "uncertain", and positions me a little closer to womanhood. it's more comfortable for them.

when I did identify as nonbinary and use "they/them", I was consistently misgendered as "female". again, I was being nudged back toward womanhood and the identity that was more palatable for others (including some trans people!). I was being nudged back towards the gender binary.

there is clearly also a trend here of nudging nonbinary people back into the binary in the "other" direction: again, the above example of Baeddels insisting that nonbinary people who were AFAB are "actually" trans men. Truscum often believe the same of dysphoric nonbinary people. Baeddels tended to believe that nonbinary people who were AMAB were "actually" trans women in denial, too. Exorsexism is a hell of a drug.

But yeah, I think you're right; I think the common thread between all branches of transphobia is a desire to protect the gender binary, and I think that necessarily problematizes any idea of a socio-politically "binary" trans person.

It's important to understand how exorsexism is unique beyond that, too; there are still differences between the experiences of trans people who do identify exclusively as one "binary" gender, and trans people who don't. I just think the categories are less perfect and binary (lol) than folks tend to think of them.

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spacelazarwolf · 2 years

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“trans men have male privilege!!!!!!!!!!”

let’s take a look.

here’s some examples of male privilege from an article i found:

“you’re not said to be going against your gender’s “natural instinct” or your role in society by not having children.”

trans men are barred from gender affirming care, often on the basis that people think we should be having babies. also there are many groups of people who can get pregnant who deal with the opposite, who are encouraged not to have children or even forcibly sterilized.

“the media, popular sex advice, and normative definitions of sex focus primarily on your pleasure, especially if you’re cisgender.”

i have literally never once seen trans men mentioned in the media in regards to sex advice or positivity, and the fact the author tagged on that “especially if you’re cisgender” shows me they have never in their life spoken to a trans man.

“school sex ed, religious values, and other pervasive sources of sexual norms don’t treat your gender as more dirty, impure, and undesirable for losing your virginity.”

except they do, because most of us grew up assumed to be or forced to be girls, so we heard and internalized all this along with the cis girls, with the added element of “being trans is morally wrong and dirty and disgusting.”

“most pornography is made with your gender in mind (and it creates some pretty damaging ideas about women and other genders).”

there is very, very, very little pornography made with trans men in mind, and the stuff that is is made for chasers.

“you can be open about enjoying sex without people feeling automatically entitled to have sex with you.”

we actually can’t, because of our “lifestyle of degeneracy” and even the most woke cis people wring their hands when it comes to the question of sex with trans men. not to mention the constant harassment we receive from cis people who insist that they’re not transphobic while making it very clear that they think trans men’s bodies are disgusting and they would never in a million years sleep with us.

“you can make changes to your appearance like a haircut or dye without assumptions that you’re doing it for men.”

every change a trans man makes is put under a microscope. we are assumed to be doing it to “pass”, aka..... doing it for men, and other cis people.

“products like viagra exist with the aim of helping cisgender men maintain their sex lives as they get older, and social norms congratulate you for doing so. there is far less support for women to continue being sexual beings as they age.”

i guess you just forgot trans men exist with this one.

“you can be expressive about your sexuality in conversation, art, music, and more, without people accusing you of ‘using your body to get by’.”

nope. our art is suppressed, and when it’s not, it is under an intense amount of scrutiny, with people often saying that the only reason it’s successful is because we’re trans, not because it’s good art. and god forbid the art is about being trans.

“you can participate in kink, BDSM, and other alternative sexual practices without being judged as a “slut” or facing assumptions that you’re not in control of your own sexual choices.”

did we forget about the fact that people call trans people sexual deviants? or that there are people on this website who stalk and sexually harass trans men for their private sex lives?

“you’re less likely to be the target of street harassment. the majority of women have experienced street harassment in their lives, and most of the men who do are queer or gender non-conforming.”

so we’re just admitting that we consider white cishet men to be the owners of manhood?

“you can turn down a date without worrying about being verbally attacked, physically assaulted, or even killed.”

nope, most of us face the exact same bullshit, but with an added element of transphobia.

“you’re less likely to experience intimate partner violence.”

false again. we experience incredibly high rates of intimate partner violence, again with an added element of transphobia and exacerbated by the fact we are economically disenfranchised, leading to higher likelihoods of financial abuse.

“you’re less likely to be raped, especially if you never go to prison.”

trans men actually have higher rates of rape than any other demographic.

“you’re less likely to be homeless as a result of intimate partner violence. Half of all homeless women and children in the US are fleeing intimate partner violence.”

trans men are more likely to be homeless than cis women, and are more likely to be turned away from domestic violence shelters because of their appearance and gender.

“you can enjoy partying without people blaming your “lifestyle” if you’re sexually assaulted.”

do i really have to explain why saying trans men won’t be blamed for our “lifestyle” is incorrect?

“doctors are more likely to take you seriously when you tell them your symptoms.”

trans men face higher rates of medical neglect and healthcare avoidance because of that medical neglect than cis women because we face both medical misogyny and medical transphobia.

“while medical research often ignores women and other genders, you get the benefits like research focusing on the heart attack symptoms you’re more likely to experience.”

again, just forgetting trans men exist.

“you’re less likely to have your physical illness symptoms attributed to psychological factors. For instance, when men and women with identical symptoms mention stress, doctors are more likely to overlook a woman’s symptoms of heart disease.”

incorrect, we often face the same medical neglect as cis women, with, again, an added element of transphobia. for example, doctors will often completely disregard our actual issues and just blame it on the testosterone if we are on hrt to the point we literally have a specific name for it: trans broken arm syndrome.

“you can show your nipples in public, and are less likely to be harassed overall for showing some skin – even when women in public are using breasts for breastfeeding, they can be subject to harassment.”

do i really have to explain why trans men, whether they’ve had top surgery or not, can’t safely be shirtless in public?

“you can easily enjoy sports with athletes of your gender, as men’s sports get more airtime and promotion than women’s sports.”

there are very, very few athletes who are trans men, and it’s difficult for trans men to join men’s sports in the first place because cis men will often become violent if the trans man is better at the sport than they are.

“you can use the internet without being harassed.”

HAH.

“your gender is more represented in film, with women making up 12% of protagonists, 29% of major characters, and 30% of speaking characters in the top 100 grossing films.”

i can count on hand the number of trans men i’ve seen on the big screen.

“you don’t have politicians primarily of another gender making laws to control your gender’s bodies.”

again, HAH.

“there are more lawmakers of your gender determining the rules we all have to live by. for instance, women make up not even 20% of congress.”

according to a study done by an associate at harvard, during the year the study was done, there were 36 transgender people running for government positions. only 6 of them were trans men.

“you can have strong political opinions without people calling you a “feminazi” or judging you for being “opinionated.”

trans men get crucified on social media and in real life day in and day out for simply saying we have a right to exist.

“as a parent, you get more professional opportunities – avoiding the “motherhood penalty” that hurts women’s careers if they have children.”

don’t even know where to start with the cisnormativity. anyway trans men can be birth parents and face a shit ton of discrimination for it.

“you have a lower risk of living in poverty. 1 in 7 women and 4 in 10 single-mother families are poor, with the poverty rate for native american, black, and latina women at almost double the rate for white women.”

trans men have a higher risk of poverty than cis women, especially if they are not white or are disabled.

“you can put little time into your appearance without a negative impact on your work life, like having people believe you’re unprofessional or not put together.”

trans men have to agonize over tiny details about our appearance in order to gain a tiny amount of respect from cis people. this includes in the workplace.

“you can spend less on products to maintain your “professional” appearance. women are expected to spend more on clothing, accessories, and beauty products, even when they’re earning less.”

trans men have to spend thousands of dollars on surgeries and hrt, new clothing, makeup, other things to help us pass. if we don’t do that, or don’t want to do that, then we are subject to an immense amount of scrutiny.

“if you’re never promoted, it’s not because of your gender.”

lmao.

“you’re not expected to put in unpaid emotional labor, like maintaining office harmony, in addition to your work duties. people don’t believe that your gender is just more suited to this often unrecognized and uncompensated work.”

trans people are often expected to put in an incredible amount of emotional labor in the workplace, especially if they are out, and even then our workplaces aren’t always safe. it’s why we have higher rates of unemployment than cis people.

“you aren’t raised to believe your gender is inherently more delicate or weak with phrases like “you throw like a girl.”

more cisnormativity.

“as you’re growing up, you have more positive role models of your gender to choose from in media, history books, fiction, and more.”

cisnormativity 2.0. i didn’t even know trans men existed until i was well into adulthood.

“If you’re religious, you can find a place of worship that doesn’t treat your gender as inferior. for instance, feminist christian churches exist, but in many areas, the only options for worship are churches that follow patriarchal traditions.”

not only is this christonormative, but also ignores the fact that most if not all religious spaces are either not welcoming or actively hostile to trans people, including trans men.

also, most of these examples don’t take into account intersectionality but that’s not surprising.

in conclusion:

begging y’all to use a single fucking brain cell.

#trans #transgender #trans man #trans men #transmasc #trans masc #trans masculine #transphobia #cisnormativity #transandrophobia

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gaia-prime · 10 months

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op turned off reblogs because she didn’t like what @she-is-ovarit had to say in response:

I am not saying this with the intention of stirring controversy, but this is similar to being gender critical while having trans-identifying friends, except where you consider for yourself to be a lack of relating to or understanding gender identity, for me it is this plus a lack of belief in it.

"Gender ideology" being a term for the mainstream belief system currently within trans populations and "LGBTQ+" groups surrounding gender identity.

I do not "hate trans people". I simply do not believe in gender ideology or some concept of an ethereal, metaphysical gender identity. It reminds me of astrology or zodiac signs taken to an extra level. Sex-based stereotypes and fashion aesthetics internalized. A person doesn't even need to believe in gender identity (how the term is commonly used today anyways) at all to consider themselves trans or transition, technically. I've even met a few trans-identifying individuals who go by the pronouns associated with their sex.

no like I genuinely believe you that mcwilliamsburg kids are posers and forrester-smith-tailor students are snooty potheads, but I have no way to apply and no reason to internalize this information

If snooty potheads and posers represented gender identities, aka someone's interpretation or meaning they placed on the "vibes" of certain schools, I don't believe that McWilliamsburg kids are posers and Forrester-Smith-Tailor students are snooty potheads, because that's your own perception of your reality (royal "you", not you personally OP). That's the lens in which you see your world and the meaning you place on it. I believe in material reality that these schools themselves exist (aka, biology/sex). I believe that your emotional experiences are real (feeling discomfort or a lack of relation to sex-based norms, stereotypes, roles, aesthetics; or feeling more of a kinship with people of one sex or the other). However your truth isn't mine, and I simply do not see or define people as snooty potheads, posers ("non-binary", "transfemme", "cisgender") etc. I don't believe that a student from McWilliamsburg can call herself a "Forrester-Smith-Tailor" student and this makes her one. It's an imperfect example because transferring schools exists or whatever, but unlike transferring schools as a biologist I have learned it's not actually possible to change one's sex.

I have no way to apply and no reason to internalize this information, and this all makes me feel like I'm in some sort of church. If I were to say, "well, I perceive reality differently and I don't think god exists and I'm homosexual and I won't be having sex with men ("AMAB/OMAB") regardless as to what they believe in and how they perceive themselves", the response is generally, "She's evil ("terf/bigot"), she's a sinner ("genital fetishist"), she's going to hell".

"Gender critical" is just gender ideology atheism. And then in addition to this I just believe in women's rights and gay rights and these two things inform my perspective/lens in which I view my own world in addition to my own experiences. Just like how as an atheist I don't want to "kill all Christians" or think "Christians don't exist", I don't want to "kill trans people" or think "trans people don't exist". Sorry - the astrological gender identity belief system doesn't make sense to me, I already tried unsuccessfully to brainwash myself into believing in it, and honestly it's built off of concepts and beliefs I personally consider homophobic and misogynistic. The threat of persecution, name calling, or the fact that this belief system is considered status quo or the pathway to heaven acceptance doesn't change that I don't believe in this. I can't make myself believe in what I don't believe in.

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ahoneesan · 4 months

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Gas Geferens

my main issue with all the gock girlcock stuff is like, i think trying to make this ontological difference between Male Cock and Female Cock is at best cringey internalized homophobia and at worst like buying into the underpinnings of this farce we call gender too much. why is some girl so afraid of calling her penis a penis? is "penis" "cock" "dick" and all that, in fact, actually inherently masculine? so in order for there to be such a thing as a feminine penis, we have to break it out into its own category capital s Separate from Man Dick?youre conceding that that non-girl-dick is in fact a thing that Men have! i refuse to give them that! and of course once you start tying the word to peoples bodies you open up too many conversations about who Has a girlcock vs a "regular" cock. does a trans woman who hasnt started e yet have a girlcock? what about someone who doesnt transition? if some chicks dick doesnt atrophy enough does it ever transition with her? etc etc. why open up all these questions and pitfalls when you could just not, by continuing to call your dick what it is: a dick.

theres also the angle of the like, Set Apart-ness of transwomanhood. i think historically of the dykes who began to believe that lesbianism made them purer, nobler, better than their straight counterparts. that being a queer girl just made you more innocent and above reproach, that lesbianism exists in world of sexuality thats just capital d Different from the gay boys or whatever. dykes have just as many problems, maybe not all the same problems, but plenty of em nonetheless. maybe its all hand wringing on my part but theres an echo of that in girldick for me. i dunno. were all made of the same meat.

so those are my angles. i dunno that anyone actually cares about this outside of The Joke but i did want to write something slightly longer about it so here it is. clearly the answer to all this is that dick refers to trannies and everyone else has boydick. thanks for listening.

(AUTHORS NOTE: obviously im not talking about girls with genital trauma. im also not talking about calling your dick a clit. thats awesome. theres something very specific im getting at here. read with care!)

#im a lil sorry to hijack yr ask but i needed to dump this somewhere #execnotes

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autolenaphilia · 1 year

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I’m not the first person to notice there are some people on this site who view themselves as queer, but still have some very sexually conservative views. They are gay, trans or non-binary, but for example are very disgusted by other queers doing kink, causing the never-ending kink at pride discourse. Call them puriteens (some of them are in fact not teens), tenderqueers, whatever, they are a thing, a real genre of person

A lot of them seem to have baggage from a specifically American Christian evangelical upbringing, and it’s purity culture, or different but similar religious backgrounds. That makes a lot of sense for how these people tick. These people realize they are queer in some way, and that leads to a break with their religious upbringing, but they still have a lot of ingrained prejudice from that upbringing, especially about queer people who are different from them.

And even if you grow up in a secular or fairly relaxed religious environment, mainstream culture is filled with homophobic, misogynist and transphobic messaging that you will internalize. If you grew up in an environment that sees even kinky cis gay people as disgusting and trans women in general as predatory perverts, that is going to linger, even if you have struggled to accept your own queerness.

The problem is that a lot of (especially white) queers think because they are queer now, their views and even their immediate emotional responses are automatically progressive and liberatory. They forget that they have been raised with prejudice and bigotry, and that it might be ingrained in how they think and react to things. If you only rejected the religion and ideology of your conservative upbringing because you discovered you were queer yourself, it is easy to not challenge bigotry against people unlike yourself.

They also forget that even if queerness is a useful umbrella term to describe what we have in common, we are not a monolith. Some queer people have privilege over other queer people, and that gives them material benefits to continue certain forms of oppression. So they are incentivized by society to not challenge certain systemic oppression, which makes even sincere self-criticism of that ingrained prejudice even harder. Cis gays have cis privilege over trans people and TME trans people have privilege over transfems. Queer men are not exempt from male privilege, and misogyny is a problem in queer communities. Our communities are dominated by white people, and we need to acknowledge that systemic racism exists, and that white queer people like me have white privilege, especially over queer people of colour.

When you benefit from systemic oppression, it’s easier to not challenge bigotry and prejudice. And it’s hard to do so even if you want to. The brain functions so that you get an emotion about a thing first, and then it comes up with rationalizations for why you feel that way. A religious person finds something weird and disgusting and thinks it’s because “it’s against God’s will.” It’s similarly easy for a person who finds queer kinky people disgusting to find non-religious reasons to rationalize that disgust. Typically it’s through some tortured logic to argue it’s somehow child sexual abuse. That method is even used by religious people trying to rationalize homo- and transphobia, since CSA is something that pretty much everybody thinks is evil and disgusting (for good reasons).

So you find self-described queer people arguing that kink at pride is somehow “grooming” of children, mindlessly regurgitating the age-old “queer people recruit and sexually abuse children” trope. Or leading callout campaigns against transfem after transfem, calling them pedophiles for things that are not pedophilia, like having weird kinks or liking the wrong kid’s cartoon. It’s the old method of disposing of transfems by falsely painting them as predatory, as described in “Hot Allostatic Load”. Being transfem is often painted as being a fetish in itself (as I wrote about here), so being “kink-critical” easily turns to transmisogyny. Yet the people doing it often defend themselves by arguing that it is not transmisogyny, because “i’m trans myself”, and it’s about the crimes of “this individual transfem, not transfems as a group” (despite doing this ritual of callouts, isolation and disposal in succession against transfem after transfem on fake charges).

And all this is nothing new, young queer folks on tumblr did not pioneer any of this. It’s the age-old tactic of queer assimilationism and homonormativity. Queers who think they are more palatable to the cishet majority try to vie for acceptance by throwing more “weird” and marginalized queer people to the wolves. “I’m one of the good ones, those other queers are disgusting perverts.” Distancing yourself from the queer people who do kink and polyamory is a major tactic of this.

Even the tactic of rehabilitating your own ingrained religious sexual conservatism by giving it a feminist and progressive coat of paint is nothing new. In fact I think this is what a lot of the old terfs did. Early influential terfs had a catholic background, and it shows in their works.

For example Janice Raymond was the woman who did more than anyone else to create a coherent transmisogynist “feminist” ideologywith her 1979 book The Transsexual Empire, (elements of it existed before her, but she gave its first coherent expression). Raymond was once a catholic nun, a member of the Sisters of Mercy (the Catholic order of nuns, not the awesome goth rock band). She is now a lesbian, which is clearly why she broke with the Catholic church, yet she has retained suspiciously catholic opinions on both trans women and sex workers. She still agrees with the Catholic Church that both should be eradicated, except Raymond would claim she wants them gone for feminist reasons. She is very much the archetype of a cis middle-class queer who still retains the bigotry against trans women and sex workers from her religious upbringing, now justified in feminist terms. And she never had reason to challenge that bigotry, because as a woman with cis privilege who has a comfortable academic career, she benefits from it.

Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire originated as her dissertation under her professor, Mary Daly, who is an even clearer example of this, and an influential early TERF. Daly taught at the Jesuit-run Boston College, and started off as a “feminist theologian”, trying to reconcile feminism and catholic theology. She eventually abandoned this project for obvious reasons, but strong traces of catholic thinking remained in her work.

Her arguments in her book Gyn/Ecology about how “transsexual surgeries” are a violation of the boundaries of the natural body are very close to the transphobic arguments made by true-believing catholics today. This argument is made in the context of a wider anti-technology, anti-industrial and anti-urban argument in the book that science and technology are a “Frankenstein phenomenon”, male attempts to mimic women’s ability to create life, which can only destroy. This all echoes the arguments of older reactionary catholic writers from De Maistre to Tolkien, in its gender essentialism, the idea that modern industry and urban life is destructive to humanity’s natural way of life, creating sexual degeneracy like transsexuality. For in this extremely religious ideology, there is no real progress, because we humans can’t constructively add to what is already created. Daly only gives this reactionary argument a superficial feminist and environmentalist coat of paint.

And this specifically Catholic influence on the terf movement has continued to this day. The idea of “gender ideology” and being “anti-gender” that is so common in terf rthetoric comes from 90s Catholic theologians. Of course, terf connections to the religious right go beyond catholicism, dating back at least to Raymond’s work with the Reagan adminstration in the early 80s, and has only accelerated to direct connections to the fascist revival in the last ten years, especially as the movement has expanded beyond it’s original base of cis lesbians.

The fate of the terfs, to be co-opted into a fascist movement, shows clearly where this kind of movement among queer people is heading. We have no reason to think today’s young queers who have a proven track record of falling for transmisogynist nonsense and ingrained anti-kink and assimilationist impulses will end up anywhere different. The ironic thing is that these people often view themselves as being “anti-terf” while repeating old terf arguments against kinky queer people and their old transmisogynist tactics to dispose of trans women. In fact, the kink at pride discourse was in fact created by 4chan fascists and these people fell for it.

It’s a self-defeating politics, of course. No matter how many concessions to cisheteronormativity a queer person does, no matter how many other queer people they throw to the wolves, you can only delay your own persecution, not prevent it. All alliances with fascism will end in you being stabbed in the back. The benefits you derive from furthering homo- and transphobia, racism and misogyny against other queer people are limited. It’s motivated by self-interest, but those interests are better served by solidarity and fighting back against patriarchy and cishetnormativity.

#my writings

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toasterbunnicula · 1 year

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Mass Effect Character Sexualities because I want to project

(Partly headcanon, bi-ased, personal opinion)

Ashley: straight, formerly homophobic until she realized that most of her Normandy crew mates were gay

Garrus: bi energy, its simply unfair to our gay guys for such an amazing and hot character to not go both ways. Ive also seen too much Garrus/Thane/Shepard fanart to see him any other way

Liara: obviously bi, I hc that she was confused when she first encountered homophobia because it simply doesn’t exist in asari culture (closest thing is the asarixasari stigma)

Wrex: for some reason I see him as bi? I have no idea where I got this but I want to see a tough, old warrior casually mentioning being into both men and women and not caring at all about it (even though I think krogan culture probably wouldn’t approve)

Tali: for my sake as a helpless bi simp, I see her as under the umbrella, but doesn’t realize it. Like me before I came out, Tali would say “yeah she’s really pretty and I want to hang out with her and hug her and stare at her but I’m not gay or anything.” You are. You are gay. I think it would be in character for her to completely miss the fact that she’s into girls as well as men

Joker: straight. The kind of straight to make jokes about his friends’ sexualities, but not mean anything by it. He goes to pride every June with his wife EDI (who I will get to)

Jacob: I honestly can’t believe that he was originally intended to be bi, I just can’t see him into men unless I squint. It’s hilarious that they tried to make his male romance more like Brokeback Mountain so it’d be accepted

Miranda: I’ve seen a headcanon on Pinterest about Miranda having internalized homophobia because it doesn’t line up with her view of genetic perfection, something she’s established to be insecure about. I think it would make perfect sense for her character. I think it’s easy to see her as a lesbian practicing het-comp, especially with how awkward her initial flirting with Shepard is, but there are more scenes in her romance that feel authentic than there are that feel performative, so I’m inclined to say she is bi/pan/omni/etc.

Mordin: I’m pretty sure his asexuality is canon. I also think that he’s aromantic as well, but can objectively assess beauty/attractiveness well. For example, his film noir short story in the Citadel DLC involves a hookup with Aria. I personally believe that is him saying “yeah, she’s attractive, and if I were into women, I’d smash”

Zaeed: he gives off straight uncle who would punch a homophobe for you but otherwise doesn’t know how to interact with you after you’ve come out and tries a little too hard to acknowledge your sexuality but it’s definitely well-meaning (think the “anyone could be they!” scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

Grunt: straight and supports his bi parents (Shepard and Garrus/Thane/Tali/Liara), wears rainbows at Pride for them, and regularly headbutts homophobes

Jack: I’m forever salty about them erasing her pansexuality. Also she and Miranda should’ve kissed

Kasumi: also gives off pan energy. She definitely feels like the type to not care about gender at all- as long as they’ve got muscles, that’s all that matters to her

Thane: pan energy

Samara: as established, Samara is bisexual

Legion: ace, non-binary (goes with people using he/him based on its masculine voice, pronouns are they/it)

Kelly: she said so herself, she doesn’t care about race/species or gender, all that matters is the person 💖💛💙

EDI: something about Sentient AI Who People Initially Don’t Trust Until She Gets A Humanoid Body That People Can Better Associate With Her reads to me as a trans allegory. Obviously, she’s not trans, but the vibes are there. Many times, people are suspicious of trans women until they transition and pass more as cis, which is similar to EDI’s story. She learns more about herself after her body changes, and others start to appreciate her more and have an easier time referring to her with she/her pronouns. As for her sexuality, she doesn’t seem to lean any particular way to me. She doesn’t seem like the type who’d use labels, even though it would make sense for her to “categorize” herself. I’d say she’s unlabelled- definitely into men, with her relationship with Joker

James: as much as I wish we could get gay gym bro representation, James is great as he is, being a masculine straight guy who’s best friends are openly gay (Cortez) and bi (Shepard)

Traynor: lesbian (canon), definitely into women who can crush her head under their heel but also has a dominant side herself

Cortez: gay (canon)

Diana: that annoying and popular bi girl you secretly had a crush on but didn’t want to because she was intimidating and popular

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missmastectomy · 6 days

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hey so do you think it's possible to purposefully change your mind so you don't feel dysphoria anymore (before transitioning)? I'm a teenage female and I've socially transitioned to looking and acting male because it makes me genuinely happy and I'm dysphoric about being female (i have penis envy and everything) however recently I've started reading more gender crit stuff and really really wanting to get rid of the feeling of being trans. I just wanna be normal. It really is a mental disorder, and I wish there were resources for changing your mind rather than changing your body. I just want to be a normal girl, I want to be happy with being a girl rather than just delusionally happy when I'm pretending to be male. It's so damn hard to find gender critical resources for gender dysphoria, or it's just for parents of kids who have the disorder, not for the kids themselves cause no one actually consideres that there's people like me who genuinely want to have a normal brain without gender delusions. I'm sorry if this is TMI, or if you don't wanna answer questions, I just saw your blog in my "for you" and got excited cause it's so rare to see gender crits on this crazy website. I just wanted to ask if you have any advice (or know of resources) on changing your mind cause you're a detrans and I really wanna reach the point of being detrans without it causing me so much pain cause I'm so attached to my identity.

Not TMI at all! Yes, you can successfully treat gender dysphoria without a medical or social transition. You have already done the most difficult step - realizing that identifying as a man while being female is not conducive to your mental health in the long term. You sound very clear-headed and that is the most important aspect of managing dysphoria.

You say you are attached to your identity, and I think this is a big reason why people transition, despite the red flags that are there. The next step in accepting your body and sex is to realize that your sense of identity is fluid. Your identity as trans is not fixed, especially because you are a teenager. Take it from someone who's in her early 20's, you will change a lot as you grow up. You'll believe things and feel things that are in total opposition to the way you think now, because you are still a kid. In fact, without a social transition, most kids who experience GD will naturally just grow out of it as they enter adulthood. This is most likely what will happen with you. As you become an adult, you will feel more comfortable in yourself. I'm warning you now it will take a few years, but you just need to be patient.

However, you will still have to put in the work. I recommend going through my "mail" tag, because I've answered questions similar to this one. For you, I'd suggest digging into where your dysphoria stems from. Since you're a teen, you most likely are just experiencing growing pains and identifying out of "womanhood" is probably an outlet for that. It was for me. This can stem from many things - CSA, discomfort with feminine gender roles, hostility from others when you exist as a GNC girl, internalized homophobia... identify what the problem is first, then work on it. I'd suggest going to a non-affirming therapist OR a therapist who just doesn't care about all the trans stuff. They will give you advice that isn't grounded in ideology, but be warned that a more generic therapist might mistakenly try to validate your identity because they're not trained to actually deal with dysphoria. Transition is seen as a quick fix to dysphoria, but as you know it usually creates more issues than it solves, and doesn't deal with the feelings that caused it in the first place.

Ask yourself: am I ashamed to be a woman? Do I feel belittled as a girl? Why do I feel that way? Is it because I don't like to be pidgeonholed into stereotypes that don't fit me? Do I have some trauma related to my body? What would life look like for me as an adult woman, who may not prescribe to femininity?

I highly recommend seeking out butch lesbians who are very positive of their identities. Even if you're not butch, there perspectives are invaluable. I link it in another ask, but look up "Carol detrans" on youtube. She's an older butch who detransitioned and has great advice.

The important thing to remember is that often mental disorders and trauma are not permanent, in the sense that how they effect you right now will not be how the effect you in the future. Time truly does heal all wounds, but you need to be proactive about it by asking yourself hard questions. Don't be afraid of the answers, no matter how ugly they are. This is a pretty generic how to but if you have any other questions feel free to send another ask.

#detrans #detransition #mail #transition

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molsno · 1 year

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I can actually see why some transmascs may talk about "hatred of masculinity" in a good faith (and still be wrong).

Before realizing that they were men they were probably identifying as women heavily dissatisfied with being women and probably also heavily gender non-conforming. Neither of those are considered fully acceptable by wider society, but totally accepted by feminist movement, at least here where I live. And the most prominent feminist organisations here are radfem-adjacent.

Now, saying that those organisations at large are "anti-men" or even "against masculinity in men" is wrong, considering how they tried to portray their enemies as effeminate as some kind of own. And, though I have never witnessed it myself, how straight girls who use radfem rhetoric are willing to invent new definitions of lesbianism to call their cishet boyfriends "lesbians", men for them have higher priority than lesbians at least.

Still, running into people there who did just hate men was a daily occurrence, and many more were parroting their rhetoric ("feminine energy" as some kind of fix for civilisation and so on). If some transmascs allied more with people like this, discovering that they are what they considered to be some ontological evil might have been traumatic.

Still, posing misandry as big societal problem and not fringe worldview that they internalized is silly at best (I am using misandry here as personal attitude, not system, hence no quotes). And I always assume that people who talk about it as something important are either doing it in bad faith or repeating someone's bad faith arguments without analysing it.

(Now it's up to question how many transmascs actually joined those organisations in any way, considering how for unrealised trans girl that I was any idea about how good men or masculinity are even (in not ridiculous form) was an instant "no" on all levels, but who knows)

yeah, that's pretty much my understanding of it, too. basically all transmascs who believe in transandrophobia display at least some level of internalized gender essentialism underlying their entire ideology.

and like, I get it. the feminist wave of the 2010s was so deeply entangled with radical feminism that for a good while, anyone heavily involved in the movement was exposed to the biological essentialist worldview central to radical feminism that declares that men are ontologically evil, and I have no doubt that many young, repressed trans people at the time internalized that idea to an extent. I certainly did, and it only amplified my dysphoria as a teenager. it was traumatizing to me, and I can completely understand why it would be traumatizing to transmascs to come to terms with the fact that they were something they had always believed was inherently bad.

it's just like you said though, it's a mistake to frame misandry as a society wide issue when really it's a very small minority of people. but a lot of trans men never question or challenge the worldview they developed in their youth, so when they start getting read as men when they're adults and inevitably face transphobia, they start attributing it to a societal hatred of masculinity instead of recognizing that the actual cause of their oppression is a society that seeks to protect the concept of the immutable gender binary that enables the patriarchal hierarchy of power at all costs.

I don't really have any sympathy for them, though. like yeah, it sucks to be made to feel like you should hate yourself just for existing, but like, that isn't unique to them. the gender essentialism so many of them have internalized is a big reason a lot of transandrophobia truthers start aligning themselves with terfs, and I don't think I need to tell you how I feel about that. 😑 they have an alternative, they can just reevaluate their beliefs until they come to realize that man and woman are completely neutral categories entirely devoid of value judgment and don't say anything meaningful about any given person other than what they like to be called. I'll admit from experience that accepting that truth can be difficult but it's not impossible, and challenging your worldview is something you're going to have to do a lot in life if you actually want to meaningfully change how you interact with people and the world around you.

but why do that when they can demand trans women bend over backwards to appease them? it must feel good to get a taste of that male privilege when a few trans women are actually self-hating enough to listen to them. that is, at least until they get too much backlash from the rest of us who have enough self esteem to stand up for ourselves and they recede into the open arms of terfs for comfort from the mean trannies.

#ask #Anonymous

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revolutionarysuicide · 2 months

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2 vulnerable questions. i am afab non-binary but have taken t to the point where i pass as a man, while also identifying as femme and wearing mostly high feminine clothing. i identified as trans & “feminine” separately but i feel i betray some tgirls when we feel kinship & then they find out my sex and i get the feeling that i might be i guess, idk, a sex traitor if that makes sense? but there really is no other way for me to perform femininity but through taking my hormones, so there’s my conundrum

a second thing that happened between me & a girl, she had a crush on me and i found out later that she used to be a missionary, & went to south africa specifically to evangelize black s.africans with her fiancé, and i remember being super uncomfortable with the fact (& also the fact that she was willing to eat any rare meat, including like cheetah & zebra & shit i guess) even though it was in her past, & i ghosted/pushed her away bc of my deep discomfort with that. do you think it sounds like i have internalized transmisogyny in me in specific areas that i need to address?

thank you for your time (:’

i am not sure what you mean by "sex traitor" here. there is obviously nothing wrong with being cafab, taking t, and being feminine in combination. i'm not really understanding what you're saying the issue is here tbh, you can feel kinship with transfem people without being transfem yourself, that's fine obviously. if you mean about being assumed to be transfem, i dont think it's anyone's responsibility to clarify what their gender situation/agab/etc is upon other people assuming, you're entitled to privacy. imo the problem in that field is tme people deliberately trying to imply/suggest they're tma while making use of not explicitly stating it for plausible deniability, but just existing as a tme person who has been through androgenic puberty and is feminine does not fall into that lol, plenty of post medical transition transmasc people present femininely.

as for the second thing, i am not sure what that has to do with transmisogyny unless the girl in question happened to be trans? i mean like fuck missionaries and colonisers idk not much to say there. i think it's completely understandable to feel uncomfortable around someone with that past even if they say it's in the past lol, i've never met someone who claimed to be a reformed racist or whatever who wasnt actively racist towards me. like not saying it's impossible to rehabilitate them but they're unlikely to do it on their own naturally, we really need actual reeducation programmes for racists. but that's kinda off topic.

#asks #sorry i think you sent this a while ago but i forgor to answer it until i just checked my inbox now

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cometcon · 2 months

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There's a story I've been working on for a while now that has been morphing and changing the whole time into something better the more I work at it and challenge my brain to put more effort in and think outside the box. The result has been both a realization that I am in fact nonbinary myself, followed by a genuinely accidental trans allegory in how the already pansexual nonbinary main character has started experiencing the plot and the world around them the more I write this thing that was originally not about that at all it just lined up perfectly for it (not revealing too much right now because I want to finish it before I talk about it in detail so I don't tangle myself up in people's opinions when I'm just trying to get my perfectionist brain to get something on the page). It just happened as a side effect of the actual focus of the story and I am experiencing some catharsis from the writing of it so that's been really helpful.

I'm doing my best not to think I'm incapable of internalizing stereotypes of the trans experience in fiction so I've been doing check ins with what people have advised when writing non-binary characters and trying to avoid pitfalls and I'm doing ok so far I think (possibly due to wishing people wouldn't assume things of me/would treat me so casually instead of me having to correct them all of the time). Pretty much everyone in their current life that we see the most of is supportive or at the very least puts the effort in to support on the outside while working to match that on the inside. They're not in the middle of transitioning they've already been living as their authentic self for years by the time we meet them, they're happy with themself and them being nonbinary isn't really much of a big deal until the plot kicks in and it becomes a natural side effect of the situation (again, accident, but I'm running with it now and only bringing it up wherever this character naturally would feel the effects of the situation clashing with their own identity around gender specifically).

Part of the story involves occasional flashbacks into their past though, and while their present life involves happiness and acceptance, they come from a poorer background with a queerphobic biological father.

I was adopted by what would probably have been called a lower middle class family back in the 90s before capitalism really started kicking more and more peoples' arses, and I'm from Australia, while my character is American. I also haven't experienced really shitty queerphobic parents as a kid because I didn't know there were anything other than the binary genders as a kid and by the time I came out, my only-subtly queerphobic parents had already started on the journey of being immersed in more public societal changes around queer visibility and acceptance. They kind of sucked when I first told them, but more in the "this is a weird phase and we don't want to just immediately play along/my Dad made 'it' jokes for a year or so before eventually improving and my Mum still misgenders me during in-person social situations even when I'm literally correcting her during the conversation and she seems to be deliberately ignoring me because she can't handle doing both things or feels weird gendering me correctly in public or something" kind of way, not the "you're homeless now because we loathe your existence and control your living space, and you're also lucky we didn't beat you half to death first on your way out because we're that insecure about our own place in the world and you bringing this up shakes every rule we've ever believed in to the point of enraged intolerant lashing out in response" kind of way. I also grew up an only child.

But my main character had a shitty dad in their past who did the latter queerphobic response, as well as a supportive cis gay brother who stands up for them and gets thrown out too and then raises them for a few years before joining the army in the hope of funding a better life for both of them and putting MC through college. This background is important for later in the story where their personal experiences inform how they interact with and understand the longterm main topic I was intentionally tackling with this fic in the broad scheme of the overarching full story.

My question to American nonbinary or even any kind of trans American person in general is this:

If you have experienced the full raging violent immediately disowned and thrown into the street kind of response from shitty parents discovering who you truly are, how would you want to see that handled? I don't want to shy away from realities and I want a balance between a harder background vs a supportive older brother plus genuinely great present day found family to explore a spectrum of experiences*, but I do not want to end up writing trauma porn either. I also don't want to fall into any writing-American-poverty-as-a-still-somewhat-privileged-Australian pitfalls so if you can voice any opinions about how you feel all of these things I'm asking about tend to be handled in fiction and what kinds of things you'd prefer to see instead, I'd appreciate it.

*(It'll also help move the character away from me so I'm not accidentally writing a self-insert because I really like writing original characters as their own people and while I am using this to explore my own gender identity now, I want them to stay their own person and challenge myself to be able to drive a character around without leaving behind too much Me Residue lol. That said I have thrown myself so many curveballs with this fic becaus I keep asking questions and the answers get more complicated but then the story gets richer and more interesting to me so I keep digging and fleshing out the characters further and further trying to make them actual people)

#queer #queer community #queer people in fiction #writing #writing advice #nonbinary #pansexual #trans #transformers #maccadam

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genderisareligion · 1 year

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Have you noticed that a big part of the unconditional support transactivism receives from women despite this movement being built on misogyny is because many MANY so called feminists don't want to actually acknowledge male supremacy? They eventually will criticize/oppose to one or another sexist event (like the abortion ban in USA) but as time goes on, they just forget it and even manage to despolitize them. Now, reproductive rights isn't an integral part of women’s rights anymore, it's “queer/lgbtqia+ rights”, “bipoc with vaginas rights”, etc.

But nothing makes it more obvious than the fact that women(even black/indigenous women) easily accepted they're “cis” - implying they have privileges for their womanhood not being denied - which is laughable because how being “acknowledged” as women is a privilege when to be a woman - specially a woc - in a misogynistic world is oppressive? The acceptance of the infamous “cis” also implies that both men and women are equally oppressive towards trans people, thus the analysis of male violence lost space to the more malleable “gendered violence”. By place both “cis” men and women, any observations of male patterns of violence is discouraged because it's “transphobia” (but why it would be transphobia if trans women are women like “cis women” and are targeted by men most of the time? Hmmmm) and a vile MRA rhetoric start to take place in feminism disguised as a true compromise with “gender equality”: women can be as bad if not worse than men. Women aren't victimized by male supremacy, in reality it's men who are the biggest victims. In the name of “not infantilizing women” for JUST acknowledge that misogyny exists, people are infantilizing men and giving them a free pass on their mistreatment of women.

Many so called feminists also lack sex class consciousness and they internalized all the sexist shit we have been taught by our society. So they really act that trans women are the ones who bring humanity to women's status, this is why claims like “If you don't think trans women are women, it means you think women are inferior” what is the connection between a man thinking he is a woman because he identity as one (whatever that means) with women supposedly inferiority? Women literally carry the whole humanity! Our bodies are complexes and prepared to survival and they pull out this weak guilt tripping rhetoric and women eat this up, think the only way they can achieve humanity is through males? Pffff

Honestly, after reading The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner(a must read to any feminist), this actual state of feminism became even more clear: men have stolen women's humanity, women's knowledge of our bodies, even the position of the creators of life, despite the fact that they can't get pregnant. The next step is stealing the womanhood itself and it isn't a random event, it's part of their colonization of females. Understanding how they operate helps us to fight back.

🙏🏽

“Cis” is the biggest pile of horse shit and my #1 source on this has always been and will always be my girl Audre Lorde. Who in the entirety of the book Sister Outsider goes to great lengths to emphasize: women can simultaneously have different lives/womanhoods (ex.black versus white womanhood, ie intersectionality) while working together against patriarchy. I think it’s funny/sad that today the white man’s “intersectionality” hates black women like me who reject gender roles and claims there is a sweeping “cis” womanhood privilege that’s so universal it automatically places all non trans “afabs” (nearly 50% of the goddamn globe) above trans “afabs” and “amabs” in status and life quality. Audre also goes to great lengths to support the statement “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” which I’ve always pretty plainly taken to mean that gender will never dismantle sexism.

You’re 💯 on these feminists who can’t deal with the reality of male supremacy. Gender framework is a sugar coat that makes things easier to cope with. I get it, sexism is pervasive and normalized as fuck and it’s scary to think about how angry a lot of men would probably get if things actually changed and they didn’t have access to female abuse as often as they do. But I’m personally also fed up with being scared and highly prefer just being pissed off back lol and trying to actively do something about changing it. They can be mad all they want, I’m not stopping until we get our humanity back fully even if it’s not within my lifetime and step #1 is naming the problem

#shadow.txt #ask.txt

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genderkoolaid · 2 years

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i'm really frustrated because like. idk i keep seeing people argue that people not taking trans men seriously and basically saying we don't have any real problems is similar to the exclusionary cycle that nb people, asexual people, pan people, etc. have faced on here but like. i was here for all of those things, and during all of them there was like, at LEAST a sense of solidarity with certain people who weren't those identities who were considerate enough to stand against the abuse that was being slung at them and provide safety in some regard. this doesn't feel similar at all. nobody who isn't transmasculine seems to think that it's not some kind of huge joke, and even a lot of people who ARE transmasculine are making posts on the daily about how we "wanna be oppressed so bad". the very most i've seen from anyone else is just ignoring it with the implication every now and then that they think trans men are Cringe and just leaving it at that. if anything, this feels more like how "mogai" identities are treated, with absolutely nobody who doesn't have a "weird" gender or orientation willing to defend them existing, and even the most otherwise open-minded seeming people in the community parroting some article about how "microidentities are indicative of internalized homophobia/transphobia/are tearing the community apart by existing" now and then. i hate that for them and i hate that it seems like that's how it seems like trans men talking about experiencing transphobia are going to be seen from now on. it's so exhausting that nobody that isn't one of us seems to care and/or seems affronted by the very idea that we might face oppression because it means we're "talking over people that face REAL oppression". i don't know if i can handle it anymore

I really relate to this, anon. It's really hard to see the flippancy and callousness with which we are being treated, and I think it's taken a large toll on a LOT of transmascs' mental health recently, including mine.

I do want to say, though, that we are very much not alone in this. In fact, one of the major reasons I started "believing in" transandrophobia was because of @stopcannibalizingourown, who was the first non-transmasc I saw talking about this. Seeing a transfem talking about transandrophobia and treating it seriously made me realize it wasn't "scary transmisogyny word I shouldn't use if I want to be an ally" and that directly led to me creating this blog (endless thanks to you, Tera <3)

There's other non-transmascs who have spoken out against the hate we get for talking about transandrophobia, and it's my opinion that honestly, a lot of people stand with us. I think part of the problem is that transandrophobia being so new, and such a "controversial subject" (the idea that men can experience oppression directly tied to their manhood), is a large reason why there is so much pushback. But I believe that eventually more and more people will hear about it and listen to us, and this wave of anti-transmasc activism will pass. One of my favorite quotes is this one, by Angela Davis: “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” It's something I've repeated to myself a number of times while running this blog, and in general when I feel exhausted by the weight of hatred and oppression in the world. We have to have hope that things will get better, and use that hope (along with our love for one another and our anger at injustice) to keep moving forward.

#m.#ask box #ok to rb

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