#virilmisia | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thebutchtheory · 2 years

Text

thoughts on transandrophobia discourse - opening discussion

i have some thoughts on the transandrophobia discourse, because i think this discourse is a bit more complex and nuanced than some people online make it out to be, and i wanted to open a discussion on that.

content warnings for mentions of transphobia and transphobic hate-crimes and general transphobia, including verbal abuse, physical assault, abuse, rape/sexual assault, and murder.

i’m going to start by saying i don’t really like the term “transandrophobia”, and i dislike the term “virilmisia’ even more, but i understand where the terms are coming from, and i also understand why people dislike the term.

transmisogyny is the intersection of being trans, and being a woman. the specific trans-oriented misogyny that trans women experience, where they are demonized for being what cis society perceives as “sexual deviants”--men in dress jokes, the “trap” thing, jokes about going to sleep with a “seemingly normal” woman, only to find out she is a “man”, and more, while also being fetishized highly, (see: “the “trap” thing”), which only contributes to cis society seeing them as inherently sexual in nature, leading to cis people to believe them to be “sexual deviants”, “perverts”, as well as even trying to “trick” cis men or lesbians into sleeping with a “man”--just see chris rock’s jokes about trans women, and that’s one of the comedians falling into these tired tropes.

one of the biggest reasons that trans women are so hyper-visual is because of how people see them as sexual in nature, as “predators”, because they “start out” as boys, because they are perceived as “men”, and this transphobia and gender essentialism, (all (perceived) men are evil), coupled with patriarchal toxic masculinity leads to the rape/sexual assault, physical assault/abuse and other forms of hate-criming of trans women.

in contrast, trans men are seen as “victims” of the “trans cult”, or even of trans women. we are seen as “victims” who cannot make decisions for themselves, people who can be “fixed” with rape and being forced to be feminine, lest we face the consequences, (such as verbal, physical, sexual abuse). we “start out” as girls, we are perceived as “women”, and because of this transphobia, with gender essentialism, (infantilization and victimization of (perceived) women), coupled with misogyny, people generally tend to view us less as predators and more as people who cannot choose for themselves; see JKR’s statements about trans men, who she refers to as “autistic girls” who cannot make their own choices and therefore must have their autonomy taken away to “help” them.

trans men are overshadowed by the hypervisibility of trans women due to their perceived sexual nature, and when we are discussed at large by cis society, it’s in the light of “these poor, confused girls” and “these poor, confused lesbians”, where we receive mock pity, infantilization, misogyny for our perceived womanhood and the removal of our autonomy at best, with physical assault, murder, abuse, and rape/sexual assault with the intent to “fix” us at worst.

here’s where my thoughts on the discussion of the concept of “transandrophobia” come in.

i don’t really care to pick a side here, because while i dislike the term “transandrophobia” for a few reasons, i acknowledge that the oppressions of trans men and trans women are pretty different.

however.

erasure and lack of visibility is not the absence of oppression. when trans men are murdered, or commit suicide, we are labeled as women. we are beaten, we are raped, our autonomy is removed in the face of what cisgender society perceives as “natural”, just as trans women.

many trans men experience full, active misogyny, based on our perceived womanhood. many people call this “misdirected misogyny”, but what does that actually mean, here? is it fair to call this misogyny “misdirected” when the oppressor doesn’t care that we identify as male/masculine?

do you think the transphobic cis person cares if we identify as male, when they call us slurs and hurl transphobic and misogynistic comments at us?

does that change the effects it has on us? does calling it “misdirected” somehow validate us as trans people?

in my experience, no, it doesn’t do anything but confuse our perceptions of trans men.

people tout that trans men experience male privilege, that trans men are oppressors for being men, but what power do we actually have, over almost anyone else in the trans community? i’m not arguing that we’re the “most oppressed”, i am asking what power we have over the others, when we are not perceived as men by cis society?

trans people are not on equal footing with cisgender society. even if we go to great lengths to pass and be stealth to get some form of privilege, our privilege is conditional and hinges on cisgender society seeing us as being like them, and even then, a massive amount of trans people do not get to even *try*. many trans people cannot transition, many trans people will never pass, many trans people don’t want to transition, and all of these things apply to trans men.

trans men largely do not have “male privilege”, and if we do, it is based on cisgender society seeing us as also cisgender, and not because they actually view us, as trans people, as men.

so what power do we actually have here?

when we are outed, or out ourselves, to cisgender society as trans men, we don’t get praised, we don’t even get neutral comments. we get misogynistic arguments and comments and justifications thrown at us, along with transphobia, people telling us that we ruined our bodies, people telling us that they find is hideous, that we’ll never find love, we lose our jobs, our friends, our livelihoods. if we pass and go stealth, when we come out or are outed as trans men, we do not get to keep that male privilege because it is conditional.

this is not as black and white as “trans men are men, so they experience male privilege and oppress women”, because cis women, by nature of being cisgender, hold power over us to infantilize us, call us victims, to remove our autonomy.

no trans person holds any form of male privilege that is not conditional. we do not get access to any form of male privilege that is not conditional, and that’s if we get to access it, because not many trans people can do that, not without lying about themselves and hiding themselves, at the detriment of their mental health and livelihood, especially if they were found out.

i have seen people questioning if trans men even experience oppression because we identify as male, when that’s not how it works. when we identify as male, we don’t just suddenly somehow gain access to male privilege like magic, we get transphobia hurled at us, often violently, sexually. male privilege isn’t some kind of magic.

[keep in mind during this part that this is not me saying that trans men also experience transmisogyny.] from what i’m seeing, people are having the wrong ideas about the intersections of transphobia and misogyny in the oppression of trans women. trans women being women and experiencing a specific intersection between transphobia and misogyny does not mean that trans men, as a group, oppress them, because like i have already established, we are not on equal footing with cisgender people, and we experience our own intersections of transphobia and misogyny based on being perceived as “women”, while trans women get their intersections of transphobia and misogyny based on being perceived as "not women”/”men”. [keep in mind during this part that this is not me saying that trans men also experience transmisogyny.]

once again, this is not me saying that trans men also experience transmisogyny. i’ve said this 3 times now, but this is something i want to make very clear, because transmisogyny itself is a word with its own definition that i do not want to confuse or muddle, nor do i support people who try to confuse or muddle the term, and i do not want people to take what i’m saying out of context to twist the discussion i’m trying to open on the subjects of transphobia, transmisogyny and the concept of transandrophobia.

but the transphobia that trans men experience for being both trans and perceived as women is specific to us, and it is a violent form of oppression that kills us.

i also think that people have the wrong ideas about transphobia in general.

just because someone is perpetuating transphobia, does not mean that the person perpetuating it holds power over the person they are being transphobic to.

similar to how gay men can be lesbophobic, and how lesbians can be homophobic, or an even closer example with the arguments surrounding dysphoric trans people vs. nondysphoric trans people, and the transphobia towards nonbinary and non-passing people, we have already established that one can be trans and be transphobic to another trans person without holding power over the person that they are being transphobic to.

this has been a well established viewpoint since the discussion surrounding dysphoric vs. nondysphoric trans people has died down. so why has it suddenly changed?

this doesn’t mean that transphobia from other trans people doesn’t hurt, or doesn’t affect you, that it doesn’t alienate and ostracize you, that it doesn’t negatively affect your mental health or your desire to participate in the trans community, it just means that they do not oppress you.

in the queer community, and especially the trans community, with the advent of the discussions surrounding transmisogyny and transandrophobia, we have become so focused on who oppresses who, who is the most oppressed, who is the most vulnerable, who is the most special, who is the most hated, when that is not something we should be focusing on, because it is not constructive to anyone’s mental health, nor does it help us to fight for our rights.

the only true oppressors of trans people are cis people. end of. no ifs, ands, or buts.

other trans people can hurt you, but other trans people cannot oppress you. we are in the same boat, and none of us have equal footing with cis people. none of us are more liked or accepted by cis people. cis people have their feet on ALL of our necks. not on one group’s necks more, not on one group’s necks less, ALL of our necks. whether or not they’re willing to let us breathe depends on how much we try to conform to their ways of thinking, and even then, they’re still often not willing to let us take a breath.

the hypervisibility of trans women is not privilege.

similarly, the erasure of trans men and how TERFs and misogynistic transphobes try to appeal to us or “sympathize” with us is not privilege.

trans women have unique experiences with the intersections of transphobia and being women who are perceived as deviant and predatory “men”.

similarly, trans men have unique experiences with the intersections of transphobia and being perceived as weak, vulnerable “women” who were “tricked” and cannot think for themselves.

TERFs generally target their more violent attacks towards trans women, while generally targeting their more mockingly “sympathetic” ones to trans men, all of this being based on not just gender, but sex essentialism, and the victimization of perceived women. this does not mean that TERFs are not transphobic to as transmasculine people, and this does not mean TERFs don’t want to hurt us if we refuse to comply with their narrow views of womanhood.

trans women are a large target of TERFs transphobia, but they are not the sole target. they do not support trans men, they see us as victims that they can “fix”.

that is not support.

so in a lot of ways, trans women and trans men have similar experiences with transphobia and oppression and the experiences of being trans, but we also experience different forms of transphobia, and how those interact with our AGAB are very different, with sex essentialism labeling anyone assigned male at birth as inherently predatory by cisgender society, while anyone assigned female at birth is labeled as a victim who can’t do wrong but also can’t make their own choices about their lives, by the same cisgender society.

our experiences with transphobia may be different but this does not mean that one of us oppresses the other. if you, as a trans person, believe you are oppressed by other trans people just because other trans people can be transphobic to you, ask yourself what kind of privilege does that other trans person have over you in the grand scheme of things?

if you, as a transmasculine person, believe that you are being oppressed by a trans woman, because she said that you were doing something that was transmisogynistic, ask yourself what power, in real-life, cisgender society, does she have over you?

if you, as a transfeminine person, believe that you are being oppressed by a trans man, because he said that you were doing something that was transphobic towards trans men, ask yourself what power, in real-life, cisgender society, does he have over you?

there is no black and white, there is no hierarchy of what kind of trans person is more accepted by cisgender society, because in the end, none of us are accepted.

gay men can be homophobic to feminine gay men, and make spaces unsafe and uncomfortable to other gay men. lesbians can be butch-phobic and make spaces unsafe and uncomfortable to other lesbians. dysphoric trans people can be transphobic and make spaces unsafe and uncomfortable for non-dysphoric trans people. binary trans people can be transphobic and make spaces unsafe and uncomfortable for non-binary trans people.

the list goes on, but none of us have power over one another.

this isn’t a denial of transmisogyny as an axis of oppression, nor is it me saying that other trans people cannot perpetuate it or cause harm by perpetuating it, even subconsciously.

this also is not a confirmation or denial of whether or not the concept of “transandrophobia” exists, because in the end i don’t care that much when i personally feel comfortable using the term “transphobia” to describe my experiences.

what i really care about in the end is how this discussion of transandrophobia has torn apart the trans community, and how it has done nothing but create a divide between trans people, one that could become even bigger than when the discussions of dysphoric vs. nondysphoric trans people were active.

when these kinds of discussions come up, you have to ask yourself how these discussions are constructive to helping trans people as a whole fight for our right to live as we choose, with our own full bodily autonomy.

i have a lot of questions about how these discussions are constructive.

how does fighting about who in the trans community oppresses who help us fight for our rights to live? especially when the answer is “no one”?

how does fighting about who is the most oppressed within the trans comunity help us fight for our rights to live as trans people?

how does fighting about who is suffering the most within the trans community help us right for our rights to live?

how does fighting about these things make trans spaces safer to people of color?

how does fighting about these things make trans spaces safer to disabled people?

how does fighting about these things give each other support?

how does fighting about these things bring the community together?

how does fighting about these things give resources to people who are struggling? to poor trans people, to trans people who have lost their jobs, families, friends and livelihoods to being trans? to people who have been hate crimed for being trans?

how does fighting about these things make our spaces safer to anyone?

how does fighting about these things make our spaces any kind of a community?

the answer is it fucking doesn’t.

every single time, these discussions tear the community apart and distract us from fighting for our rights, and almost every time these discussions were started by TERFs and other transphobes intentionally trying to cause infighting, because we can’t rip their throats out if we’re too busy ripping out each others.

that, or it comes from trans people trying to conform to cisgender society in the attempts to be accepted, even marginally, by cis people at large, when that will not happen at the rate things are going now.

so with that, a few closing statements to ruminate on:

online activism is not the epitome of activism.

trans people do not oppress each other, period.

both transmascs and transfemmes have differing experiences with transphobia and how cis people go about perpetuating it.

“transmisogyny” is just the term for how transphobia interacts with misogyny for trans women,

hypervisibility is not privilege.

erasure is not privilege.

for the love of god, actually check the blogs of the people on blocklists to make sure that they’re not being targeted for benign reasons, like just being transmasc or transfemme.

with that, i am opening my inbox to discussion on the subject of transandrophobia and various peoples experiences with transphobia in the trans community, the effects of the transandrophobia discourse and other forms of infighting in the trans community, whether or not you think transandrophobia is a term that should exist or not, and why, and similar subjects.

my inbox is open to everyone on all sides, so long as the discussion remains constructive. hate comments and hate anons will be deleted and ignored without a second thought. we have had enough of that in these discussions and i won’t be having it.

with that, please come to discuss your thoughts and experiences.

#post.#transandrophobia #transmisogyny #transphobia #discourse

5 notes · View notes