ihartgoblins

Edit: as hoshi9zoe pointed out, the original version of this post needlessly berated other transfems like Jennifer Coates, for which I do apologize, and I have toned it down in this edited version. The original version survives in reblogs.

Some months ago, I was searching through this transandrobro blog to see if they posted a callout of me, and i found this reblog, which I couldn't really write about for months, because what do I even write. I recently wayback machined it for posterity, and I guess this is my attempt to write a post about it.

It's saint-dyke himself, the coiner of transandrophobia, saying that the infamous (at least for me) article "I am a transwoman. I'm in the closet. I'm not coming out" is what made him coin the fucking word. It's literally bolded and underlined: "Reading this article is what made me coin “transandrophobia”.

The reason I put off writing this post is that reading that article makes me feel like i'm drinking poison. And it is poison, make no mistake, it's internalized transmisogyny brainworms dripping out of the writer's brain and onto the page.

It's a justification for why the author, known by pseudonym Jennifer Coates, doesn't want to transition, despite knowing she is a trans woman. And it's the exact kind of internalized transmisogyny that keeps trans women in repression and not transitioning. "I'm not going to pass, i'm forever going to be an ugly freak who will at best be humored by other women, the closet is uncomfortable but at least it's safe"

It's the same exact bullshit a lot of represssed trans women tell themselves because it's what society tells us about trans women, that we are freakish parodies of women, that we will never pass, and if we don't pass we have failed and are ugly freaks. It's all to scare us into staying in the closet and make others hate and fear us. Transmisogyny permeates our society, and the majority, maybe all transfems will absorb and internalize some of it.

Coates says that it all is just applicable to her, but again so many transfems believe this shit before transitioning and realizing it's a pack of lies. If this bullshit was in any way valid, a lot of trans women shouldn't transition, because before we actually transition many of us believe it word for word. And "it's only true for me" is how we justify it to ourselves. We tend to be way harsher on ourselves than others. This kind of self-hating transfem tends to think: "Other trans women are beautiful graceful goddesses, earthly manifestations of the divine feminine, always destined to be women, while I'm an ugly forever male ogre who just has a fetish."

It's all bullshit, it's poison, it's internalized transmisogyny.

And the rest of the article is bullshit too. It is not some insightful mediation on gender as some people say, it's the author confusing and mixing up actual transmisogyny with an imagined problem of misandry. She does this because she has gone full repression mode, and decided she has no other choice to live as a man, so her dysphoria and experiences of transmisogyny are actually men's problems.

It's a bad article, excusable because as Coatas points out, it's "essentially a diary entry." that was meant to be a way to "vent frustration" and she "did not intend for anyone else to actually read it." It is clearly not the product of a healthy mind.

I hope the author sometime in the past seven years eventually did transition, and that for whatever reason she didn't want to publicly repudiate her own article. Maybe she lost access to the medium account so she can't delete it.

Far worse than the article itself is the response to it. I've seen it passed around as some insightful commentary on gender by the "feminists are too mean to men, misandry is real" crowd. I have argued against this before. And other people have made insightful comments about it.

And learning that saint-dyke claiming that he was inspired to coin the word "transandrophobia" because of this article is the cherry on top of this shitcake of transmisogyny. For my thoughts on "transandrophobia" theory and how transmisogynistic it is, see here.

Of course, Saint-dyke absolutely could be bullshitting here. Claiming that Coates's article is what inspired him to coin the word might be a lie to claim that transandrophobia theory is not transmisogynistic because it came from listening to trans women.

This is why "listen to trans women" doesn't work. Because TME people will always choose a trans woman who confirms their prejudices. Blair White has made an entire career out of this. And Coates article is popular because it says that misandry is real and trans women's issues are partly caused by it, misgendering herself and other trans women.

And it's popular for another reason. Coates has thoroughly internalized transmisogyny, and thus her article presents a trans woman that is exactly as transmisogynistic patriarchal society wants her to be. She is suffering, but ultimately accepts her assigned role. She truly believes that her biological sex dooms her to forever be male. She literally "manages her dysphoria by means other than transition" as conversion therapy advocates want us to do. She never makes an social claim on womanhood by actually transitioning, so she doesn't invade the sacred women's spaces. Yet she performs the role of woman perfectly by serving men, by defending them from supposed feminist misandry. And she fulfils the ritualistic role that the rhetorical figure of "trans women" sometimes serves in progressive spaces, of giving a blessing to TME people's pre-existing views and actions, all while actual flesh-and-blood trans women are destroyed by those same deeply transmisogynistic spaces. This time it's a blessing for the same "misandry is real" soft-MRA bullshit that has infested the online left and created the transandrophobia crowd.

So, if you don't mind, I would like to hear every bit of biology you know, that validates our existence.

Especially if it's instances beyond human life. Like animals. I don't know how much information on that exists, but if you have info on it, I would personally LOVE to hear it- (because transphobes forget humans are a part of nature by default so uhh use nature against them too-)

I think we need more people who actually know how to debate in the conversation so when I form an argument, I want to be able to rely on facts I know to form a logical argument. [(Just kidding I'm going to shout over the other person with random tidbits /hj (no but i just might if they have a megaphone. Thatd be fuckin hilarious-)]

Sincerely, a frustrated trans kid.

I dealt with exactly this, but for now, all I have is a non-answer.

I got burned out writing stuff like this a few months ago, because every time I said some small detail, it always generated questions and misunderstandings about what I wasn't saying in that moment. If I start talking about transition, HRT, and sex/gender science in general again, I want it to be a very complete version of my thoughts on the matter. So this is something that I want to talk about in extreme, verbose detail, and it's become a too-big megaproject of sources and scripts that I keep on subdividing to make some kind of essay or podcast. I did some work on it while in the backcountry, though, and I hope to have SOMETHING produced of it all in the next few months.

In the meantime, however, you might be interested in one of the books I read this summer: Evolution's Rainbow. It was written by a transgender ecologist, Joan Roughgarden, who was grappling with exactly what you are.

My word of warning, however, which is also stated by Roughgarden- don't fall into the naturalistic fallacy. Your existence does not need to be "validated" by what's "natural", partially because nature is so wild and varied that you will never find one constant state of nature.

My preferred approach is therefore from the genetics and molecular biology aspects which show our existence as dynamic systems that aren't defined by what's "natural" or put in place at birth. I mean, I'm studying molecular biology, so I guess it makes sense I would tackle it from that angle.

Mexican blue flat-backed millipede, Strongylodesmus conspicuus, Polydesmida

They're literally girls.

Closest match: Thymelicus acteon genome assembly, chromosome: 12 Common name: Lulworth Skipper

"For over a decade, the Yosemite toad has been recognized as a federally threatened species, after experiencing a 50% population decline during the Rim Fire of 2013.

The wildfire, which encompassed a mass of land near Yosemite National Park, made the amphibian species especially vulnerable in its home habitat. 

Native to the Sierra Nevada, the toads play a key role in the area’s ecosystem — and conservationists stepped in to secure their future.

In 2017, the San Francisco Zoo’s conservation team began working with the National Park Service, Yosemite Conservancy, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish & Wildlife, and the U.S. Geological Survey. 

The goal of all of these stakeholders? To raise their own Yosemite toads, re-establishing a self-sustaining population in the wild. 

“Over the past several years, SF Zoo’s conservation team has been busily raising hundreds of these small but significant amphibians from tadpole stage, a species found only in the Sierra Nevada, for the purpose of reintroducing them to an area of Yosemite National Park where it was last seen 11 years ago,” the zoo shared on social media. 

By 2022, a group of toads were deemed ready for release — and at the end of June of this year [2024], 118 toads were flown via helicopter back to their habitat.

“It’s the first time anyone has ever raised this species in captivity and released them to the wild,” Rochelle Stiles, field conservation manager at the San Francisco Zoo, told SFGATE. “It’s just incredible. It makes what we do at the zoo every day worthwhile.”

Over the past two years, these toads were fed a diet of crickets and vitamin supplements and were examined individually to ensure they were ready for wildlife release.

Zoo team members inserted a microchip into each toad to identify and monitor its health. In addition, 30 of the toads were equipped with radio transmitters, allowing their movements to be tracked using a radio receiver and antenna.

The project doesn’t end with this single wildlife release; it’s slated to take place over the next five years, as conservationists continue to collect data about the toads’ breeding conditions and survivability in an ever-changing climate. They will also continue to raise future toad groups at the zoo’s wellness and conservation center...

While the future of the Yosemite toad is still up in the air — and the uncertainty of climate change makes this a particularly audacious leap of faith — the reintroduction of these amphibians could have positive ripple effects for all of Yosemite.

Their re-entry could restore the population balance of invertebrates and small vertebrates that the toads consume, as well as balance the food web, serving as prey for snakes, birds, and other local predators.

“Zoo-reared toads can restore historic populations,” Nancy Chan, director of communications at the San Francisco Zoo, told SFGATE. 

Stiles continued: “This is our backyard, our home, and we want to bring native species back to where they belong.”

IT WAS JUST A STUPID JOKE ABOUT BOOBS