first on the dancefloor for the gay gordons

I'm going to hold your hand as I say this to you. Those same expectations are placed on trans men. Trans men are also expected to be mothers and wives. Trans men also face misogyny and are harmed by it, in the same ways cisgender women are.

It reads like a lot of people think of trans men as Cis Dudes With Pussies when the vast majority of trans men are living (or have lived) many of the same experiences as cis women, and should be included in these conversations.

but this is why i need everyone to be more aware of anti-transmasculinity. because this is the foundational presumption cis feminists have been making about trans men & transmascs since they heard of the concept. trans men&mascs, as trans people, have been excluded from feminism since feminism began, and unfortunately that includes the majority of transfeminism as well. it shouldn't be shocking that on a site with a large population of trans people, a lot of trans people relate to posts about misogyny, and a lot of trans people who grew up being classed as girls and women and having those expectations forced onto them are trans men&mascs. and i'm sure a lot of them also do not think that to be a woman is to want to fulfill patriarchal stereotypes, but rather they are desperate to actually have their lived experiences as trans men affected profoundly by the patriarchal role of daughterwifemother to be recognized and verbalized.

Sex is not essential. You can live without it. Full stop.

Not having sex isn't shameful or a sign of failure. It also doesn't make anyone boring.

You are not entitled to having sex with anybody and nobody is entitled to having sex with you.

Sex is not what makes someone an adult.

Nobody's worth is defined by how much sex they have or don't have.

Sex is not equally important to everyone.

You can have fulfilling and happy relationships without sex.

You should only have sex on your own terms, not because you feel like you owe it to someone, or because you feel like you'd be incomplete without it.

Know your boundaries around sex and be firm about them. Know how to respect other people's boundaries.

The previous point also applies when it comes to discussing sex. If someone doesn't wanna talk about it or hear about it you have to back down.

Survivorship bias is such a huge factor when it comes to which queer narratives and stories survive the march of time. For transmasculine people, the challenge has always been not only overcoming anti-queer sentiments of the day, but also contending with a lack of legal and societal personhood that put them in a position where telling their story- or even discovering themselves- was literally impossible. The level of risk involved in even just exploring your identity in secret, let alone finding community and recording your experience, was astronomically high when you were considered another person’s property, largely uneducated and expected to not communicate with anyone other than your husband, relatives and children. I’ve seen mentioned how many societies outlawed and punished gay (mlm) relationships but not lesbian ones, but the rather obvious conclusion to that is because it was seen as such a non issue that it was beneath notice, due to the lack of cis women’s ability to exist outside of the constant control and supervision of her male relatives. To say they were “privileged” for not being legally barred from sapphic relationships would be silly, because legally speaking they would’ve been at the total mercy of their owners (male relatives) if discovered, which served as punishment in itself.

THE NEEDS AND DESIRES OF WHICH MEN, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE???? CISGENDER MEN!!!!!

So let’s rephrase it.

“Do trans men belong in women’s spaces clinics that offer services meant for those with vaginas, uteruses, etc?” If they have the relevant anatomy that needs care, then obviously yes. I’m sorry, do you want trans men to get cancer and die because it went undetected too long? Because that’s how you get trans men to get cancer and die because it went undetected too long. Also, why is that space considered a women’s space to begin with and why should we let it stay that way?

“Do trans men belong in women’s spaces feminist advocacy groups fighting for abortion rights?” Yes because leaving trans men out means the people writing the law can simply forget trans men exist and write it in such a way where some asshole familiar with the law can use the exact wording to justify denying necessary care to a trans man because he is a trans man. If the law says “no woman should be denied access to abortion care…” and the trans man is legally a man, he will find himself in the same situation as the trans man who gets that phone call from his insurance saying “hey, sorry, but since you’re a man, we’re not covering that pap smear and you will be charged the full amount.” Not just in terms of paying either. “If you were a real man, you wouldn’t need an abortion. Come back after you fix your documents so they indicate you’re a female, but like, maybe motherhood would fix you so. Idk not my problem anymore. Goodbye!”

“Do trans men belong in women’s spaces lesbian book clubs or whatever?” They’re probably already there anyway and they’re not causing any problems just by being men in what is traditionally a women’s only thing. Plus, chances are they’ve been there since before coming out as trans so you’d just be kicking him out for coming out. I don’t have to explain to anyone why that’s kind of messed up, right?

[image description: a reddit comment by user evergreengoth. quote below]

People who have been hurt by cis men are sometimes angry. They want a target. They want to hurt the men who hurt them.

But they can't. Cis men are protected by privilege and systemic power that makes it so that woman, sometimes especially trans women, really don't have a lot of recourse.

It also feels good, if you're the right type of person and you hate yourself a little, to have someone below you that you can hurt so you can reassure yourself that at least someone else is lower than you. This is especially true if you're insecure in your own identity. It's why poor white people eat up racist ideologies; it feels good to punch down at someone when you yourself are feeling both inadequate and powerless. Anyone, including trans men who are insecure in their position, is vulnerable to giving into the temptation to pick a vulnerable target to go for. It's a way to feel big and build yourself up and when you're marginalized or hurting, that kind of thing becomes appealing, whether you realize it or not. Not everyone has this impulse, but enough do that it's a problem.

You can't hurt a cis man as easily because of all the privilege. They're just not very vulnerable.

But a trans man? A trans man is a man without any of that protection.

A trans man is a man you can *hurt.*

If that trans man gets to talk, though, and if he starts pointing out that he's as oppressed as you are, if he demonstrates that he's vulnerable and, in fact, a victim, just like you, then you don't get to feel good about it, especially if you've framed the justification for hurting him as though you're a victim who is punching up and entitled to act on your righteous anger. Men, whether directly or in more abstract ways through the pressures of patriarchy, have hurt you, and you're allowed to be angry and fight back. He's a man, so he's automatically an acceptable stand-in for who or what it is that you're angry at and want to hurt.

If he has a voice, it means you're punching laterally or punching down and you're as evil as the men who hurt you. You want to keep feeling big. You want to keep feeling like the harm you're doing is righteous justice. You want to feel like you're punching up. You don't want to be the bad guy. You just want a guilt-free outlet for the pain you're in.

If the fact that he's also a victim and more than innocent, and has had nothing to do with causing your pain, you don't get that guilt-free outlet because then you're as bad as whoever hurt you. You want to be the underdog hero, not the villain.

And like... As a pole, seeing people from that group, some using "truthers" and some calling US "hitlerites" I'm just like... I'm raising a brow.

I may not be a Jew, but I am a Pole.

we lost millions of Polish Jews during the Holocaust. Who lived with their fellow Poles as far back as the 1600. I guarantee you many of them took up arms and secretly taught their children polish when the language was being erased by our occupiers.

if you genuinely spend most of your time educating others in a full on fight mode because you've taken offense to this that and the other, you need to step back and let other people educate, bc you are behaving in a way that is absolutely contradictory to your goals.

trans people will do this thing where they want to educate everyone about trans issues, but one cis person makes a faux pas, and suddenly the volcano is erupting and they are berating them for fucking up this that and the other. it's fine to protect yourself against cis people. but if you genuinely cannot handle the Offense of Ignorance, then you have got to step back from the front lines of education, because you aren't helping literally anyone.

So many of us are forced into “educating” our family - often hostile family who don't actually want to be educated, and just demand endless repetitions of the same basic explanations while refusing to actually listen or change their minds. “If only you'd just explain it to me!” is the refrain of many a transphobic parent, who has no actual intention of becoming any less transphobic but who wants to hide behind the “I just don't understand” line rather than the “I never actually listen to or believe my kid” line.

When cis people fuck up - including in pretty major irreversible ways, like “outing you to people you never had any intention of being out to” - the responsibility is again thrust on us to “educate” them. “I just want to learn! You can't blame me for not knowing things! You people are always so angry and you're never willing to just educate us!” Ignorance is also the constant excuse given for people who are simply openly trans-hostile. “They just don't know any better.” “I'm sure that if you explained it to them, they'd understand!”

This constant expectation that we “educate” everyone around us - the expectation that we always have to go to them rather than anyone else ever making the slightest effort to come to us - is exhausting. Trans people are burned out from being fucking “educators”. “Just call me by my name, use my actual pronouns and treat me as the gender I am” should not take any great level of “education”, and yet cis people continue to feel exceptional levels of entitlement to our time, energy, attention and intellect.

I mean sometimes they do yeah. I know a white guy with monolid eyes and zero known Asian ancestors and he absolutely experiences anti-Asian racism on a fairly regular basis because people think he’s mixed Asian/white. I know a woman who was told throughout her life that she was Native as an adoptee with no known history or background who experienced incredibly violent amounts of anti-Native racism until she discovered as an adult through DNA test that she is 100% white. I know white people who tan incredibly dark in the summer comparatively that are constantly accused of being mixed race and experiencing racism due to that, usually anti-Mexican racism perpetrated against white people with Greek or Italian ancestors.

If you think cis butches don’t experience both transphobia and misogyny and homophobia for daring to be women who break gender roles while still holding onto their womanhood you’ve sorely misunderstood just how bad butches have it in this world sorry. If you don’t think cis queens experience transphobia and homophobia and misogyny for daring to be men who break gender roles while being loud and proud about it and still holding onto their manhood then you’ve sorely mistaken just how bad they have it in this world as well.

Not to mention all of the cis men who wear dresses and skirts and makeup and nail polish and heels simply because they like them who experience all of these things. All of the cis straight women who simply just exist but something about them doesn’t pass society’s “woman enough” test, leading to them being caught in bathroom bills and sporting rules and being attacked by people who mistake them for being transgender or gay.

Just like how straight people experience homophobia to such a degree that they literally beat their children out of any potential deviance from rigidly upheld gender roles and let politicians make jokes on national TV about how they’d drown their pre-teen kids if they came out as LGBT. Do you really think a straight kid still figuring themselves out hears that and doesn’t internalize that homophobia? Doesn’t rigidly hold themselves to some impossible standard so that no one could ever possibly think they’re gay? You don’t think straight teenage boys who maybe don’t pass some bully’s straightness test are getting the shit kicked out of them for “being gay” when, surprise, they aren’t? You don’t think all those kids being attacked by their priests and coaches and teachers are being told “this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t gay” when they’re literally not gay? Do you know how many straight kids had close calls at my school that famously expels all gay kids, because someone made up a believable enough rumor? Do you know how many of them still got their shit kicked in even though administration ultimately decided to let them stay?

All bigotry is violent and all bigotry catches people it doesn’t “intend” to and hurts them as well. It doesn’t matter what someone’s label is, or if they even have one. It matters if the person enacting the violence is doing it because their victim didn’t pass whatever “acceptable enough” test they didn’t know they were being subjected to.

This is a statement that transness throws a wrench into the theories put forward by cisfeminism, and simply including trans women in the group of people treated “as women” (which typically means “with oppression” in these arguments) and excluding trans men (and so excluding from the group of “treated with oppression”) doesn’t make it work.

It’s not as simple as the reverse of “trans men are seen as women, therefore trans women must be seen as men,” either. Far from it.

Trans people of all genders are oppressed because we are treated as aberration to what we “should be” and is “the natural order of things”. We are treated as “other”. Trans men are not instantly welcomed as patriarchal men by the patriarchy. Trans women are also degraded by the patriarchy, as well as trans men. Not as opposed to.

The problem is the view that degradation by the patriarchy is only a thing that is done to people viewed as women, and then the argument devolves into whether trans women are seen as women for their genders, or whether it’s trans men who are seen as women for their birth sexes. Degrading treatment by the patriarchy is not reserved only for women. The patriarchy does not accept any transness. The oppositional sexism, and use of suffering to define womanhood, in the framing are the problem.

We shouldn’t be asking who is being treated “as a man” (ie. well by the patriarchy) and who is treated “as a woman” (ie. poorly by the patriarchy) because transness does not slot into that framework of the view of misogynistic oppression. A trans man is a man. A trans woman is a woman. The oppression we face is not what makes our genders real.

If anything, if we need categories, they’re “treated well by the patriarchy”, “treated well by the patriarchy, though less well than the first category because patriarchy inherently considers them lesser”, and “treated poorly by the patriarchy”, and are more of a sliding scale than concrete categories. And even then I don’t think it’s truly representative of the intricacies of how women can be agents of the patriarchy even while being disadvantaged, and doesn’t consider intersectionality hardly at all.