Two-Handed Cabbage

And no matter how gently this is pointed out, the newbie will often initially feel instinctively defensive towards what they perceive as scolding. Which means that when another community member comes along and says "Don't worry about the language police 🙄, many of us think AGAB language is fine, it's a useful way to refer to the kind of formative experiences you had as a child," the newbie will latch on to them like a life raft.

And yes, we live in a transphobic society, a lot of people coming into the trans community will have uninterrogated transphobic views, but that just makes them more vulnerable when there is always someone in the community willing to tell them "no, your transphobic views are fine actually, and in fact here are some more you might not have thought of!"

It means a sizeable chunk of newly-out NBs are swiftly radicalised into increasingly extreme transphobia and transmisogyny simply as a defense mechanism against having their own comments criticised. One day they're just happy to join a community where people supposedly don't judge you on your birth sex, and the next they're talking about the importance of "AGAB socialisation".

[ID two: Another article screenshot that has been removed by tumblr, citing "community guidelines violations". End ID.]

[ID three: The same screenshot as the first image, except it hasn't been removed yet. It reads: Chenda Ngak, head of communications at Tumblr parent company Automattic, confirmed the bans in a statement to The Verge, but said that many were in error and had been reversed. "We continuously work to maintain platform health and adapt our systems to prevent bad actors from spreading harm. In that process, out automated system has incorrectly flagged several users, including, but not limited to, members of the trans community. We've disabled that system and restored those users while we improve it. We sincerely apologize to everyone who was affected by this error." End ID.]

Last week I was at a meetup where I was the only transfem. I checked the groupchat when I arrived and there was a message from the organiser: "We have a newcomer called X, can you look out for him if you get there first?" I located X, introduced myself, sent a message to the chat say, "I have located X," and continued to talk to him until the organiser arrived. When the organiser arrived, she was not happy with me. It turned out my phone had autocorrected, "I have located X," to, "I had located X," which the organiser interpreted as me passive aggressively telling her that I had already done the thing she was asking about. Her conclusion: I was unreasonable and aggressive in responding to her reasonable request. My explaining what had happened didn't convince her otherwise.

A different occasion last week: in a local trans groupchat, a trans man sent a link to a drag event happening in our town. A few people said they were already going, some said they might go. Then a trans woman replied saying, "Thanks, but I don't really like drag." Her tone was immediately called into question. Her words were assumed to communicate: "I think you are a terrible person if you like drag," even though she never said that. Several non-transfems who had never even heard that drag might not be universally-beloved by everyone were upset to discover that fact. A trans woman simply saying she didn't like this thing became A Big Deal.

Meanwhile, at a different event again, a trans man told a group that he was straight and attracted to women, but he wouldn't feel comfortable bringing home an "AMAB woman" (yes he actually said that). It was quickly brushed over, and after he had left even trans women tried to defend him by saying "he probably didnt realise people would be offended" etc etc. In contrast to the examples above, he is not even aware that anyone was upset by what he said, never mind worrying about what consequences he might face.

Someone reblogged my week-old critique of Devon Price. They said I was wrong to describe Price's transition as [something I never even said]. They said I was ignoring Price's non-binary identity, all while they used the wrong pronouns for Price throughout. They implied I thought non-binary people were not trans, and then they came up with a nonsensincal analogy which positioned me as a biphobic lesbian and then they reprimanded me for being biphobic (a crime committed only by their own fictional version of me that they made up).

But their username was green, so I thought (stupidly) I should give them the benefit of the doubt and not instantly block like I usually would someone like that. I went to their blog to see what kind of person this was.

I found a vaguepost about me where they called me "binary trans". OK, great, the person who misgendered Devon Price while defending it is also misgendering me based on something they made up in their own head. I've been non-binary for over a decade, I've talked about being non-binary on here before, I have "they" in my bio. It's not surprising that people refuse to allow transfems to be genuinely non-binary while vigorously defending a non-transfem's right to be so (in fact, that is exactly what my post about Price was talking about), but it is annoying that someone with a green username is doing it.

Then, in a later post, they describe my committment to not misgendering Price as "passive-aggressive". They say it's worse for me to be scrupulous about recognising non-binary identity if i "misrepresent nonbinary existence to this degree".

So, to summarise, they:

Pretended a trans woman said things she didn't.

Misgendered both her and the person they were defending.

Made up a story about a trans woman and got mad at her.

Called a trans woman "aggressive" for the crime of...using someone's correct pronouns.