I think all these things can be true:
-All trans people are whichever gender their attacker can use to hate and denigrate them most effectively, and face similar and overlapping (never opposite) forms of discrimination
-Transmisogyny and transandrophobia are both unique ASPECTS of this discrimination that CAN be experienced by any trans person (bc bigotry is stored in the bigot), but are most OFTEN used against people perceived as transfemine and transmasculine respectively
-There are unique experiences and ways these forms of oppression intertwine with general forms of misogyny and the oppression of men seen as not performing the Correct Masculinity (non-white cis straight and able bodied masc people). These unique forms of oppression need language and description and to be talked about in order to articulate and fight against them, HOWEVER, they are not and never will be the OPPOSITE or "better version" of what the trans person perceived as the Other End of that spectrum of oppression is battling. They have LARGE overlaps of who is touched by them and in what circumstances, of how they hold people away from jobs or places in society, and of how they are used to punish us for being the Wrong Genders in the Wrong Way.
-Intersex, nonbinary, agender, two-spirit, and many people presenting as a butch woman or a femme man are especially often affected by any and ALL forms of transphobia. When you start separating people into identity groups by the TYPES of discrimination they can face, rather than their CLAIMED identities, you are inevitably cutting out everyone on the borders and overlap of that type of discrimination while also presenting a false "us v them," "TMA vs those Others," dichotomy that is NOT useful. This method sorts other people by the assumptions of the speaker and their experiences rather than the identity they claim, erases everyone & their experiences in the grey in-between and overlaps, and fails to articulate anything about the oppression faced that the original conversations don't already cover. It also leans into the idea that anyone can be EXEMPT from a type of bigotry, which again fails to take into account that the assumptions of who you are and should be are stored IN THE BIGOT - for an example, look at the transmisogyny facing cis women (especially black women) who look "too masculine" in sports.
-Trans people all face both unique and overlapping forms of discrimination, all of which are manifestations of a mixture of racism sexism classism and transphobia, and all of which have more in common with other forms of trans and gender discrimination than they have discrete, separate, or "opposite" experiences of oppression. There is no core of trans people experiencing something incomprehensibly, radically different than another by gender presentation in the USA. We are all in this together, we are all suffering attacks from many of the same places people and institutions, and it does us FAR more good as a community to recognize what we have in common (IE trans women being banned from sports in similar ways to the trans men being banned from many for the last several decades) than arguing over who has it worse, who has it better in an active genocide, and who is "exempt" from oppression.
-Anyone trying to convince you other trans people are your enemy and are living in privilege in a time of mass attack against every level of our healthcare and right to be in public/participate in life is someone who is harming their own community and choosing lateral violence, NOT a role model to be listened to and uplifted. Remember: one of the things we're fighting for is the right for 1 person to be an asshole without it defining everyone in that marginalized group as an asshole. Don't, in turn, let one asshat be the voice in your head speaking for or against the entire breadth of the trans community. If your transfeminism doesn't include trans people all across and off the spectrum as equally valid and crucial to lift and protect, it's not transfeminism it's just repackaged Radfeminism that got us here in the first place. We can do so, so much better than that - together
dailybridgerton
titsay
kaledo-art
2087
