#this is very true and important.#B U T also my mom personally understands and supports trans men but 'doesn't really get' trans women for the above logic lol#I do think the uhhh#The violence to maintain the borders of masculinity#Is an absolutely crucial component to understanding gender dynamics#& part of why men are Like That about denouncing anything girly. because their acceptance into the Boys Club is indeed at stake#To be clear that's not an excuse or absolution. Fuck your Boys Club membership#& statistically most men are cis so I am mostly speaking to cis men. But trans men are indeed men#& trans men who pass as men typically experience similar social forces as cis men. so like. I do understand you have more at stake though#Idk lately I've been thinking abt privilege as a class interest sort of thing#Men are acting in a rational self-interest when they refuse to bring a bag because 'purses are for girls'#Whether explicitly realized or not. acting or dressing feminine will indeed jeopardize a man's spot in a misogynistic hierarchy#however. like when we're talking about misogyny here. even misogyny aimed at keeping men in line#Like we must acknowledge that the ppl facing the worst of misogyny are women#We must recognize 'oh men can't do girly things lest they lose status and be like a woman......'#like 'being like a woman' only works as a threat if Being A Woman Is A Bad Thing To Be#Or put a different way. 'I cant do this or I'll lose privilege' only works if 1) you HAVE privilege and 2) there are people who don't.#you might not want to move from group 1 to group 2#this is real and understandable and actually in your best interest!#B U T this problem fundamentally sucks worse for the ppl in group 2#Anyway yeah this is such an important post.#I feel a lot of nuance gets lost when one's kind of scared like is this a sort of OP who thinks that trans men can't be misogynistic.......#& that's sad!!!! it's so important to recognize and discuss transmasc & butch issues#Ideally while still. you know. acknowledging that trans men are men & thus in many cases benefit from being men#Not in all cases!!!!!!!!#But it isn't an all or nothing sort of thing that's the POINT
hi! op here. this is a very unnecessary set of tags! i am very annoyed tbh but i am going to try to be nice here because i do not think you meant to be as frustrating as you very much were.
this post is about how the rape and assault of trans men & masculine people assigned female is constantly erased, including by feminists & queer activists, in ways i find horrific and egregious. this was very explicit in the post you read and reblogged. while not explicit, this post was directly inspired by, amongst other things, this report by the HRW on violence against lesbians, bisexual women, and queer people assigned female. i want you to read this section in specific, entitled "Masculine Women Make Men Angry":
LBQ+ leaders in several countries, and at least one report from an LBQ+ organization, stated that reporting on violence against LBQ+ people often “exclusively focuses” on sexuality as the alleged motive of the perpetrator, at the expense of showing how gender expression played a role in the attack.
Nadia, an LBQ+ activist in Lebanon recounted how, in 2019, a man in Beirut threatened to shoot her after she defended a female friend he was sexually harassing:
If you are butch-presenting, there’s an attitude from men of “you think you’re a man, we’re going to treat you like one, but we know you can’t handle it.” If your girlfriend is being harassed in a bar and you try to protect her; if you’re femme, you’ll be sexually harassed along with her. But butches get punched. The violence is immediate. This is why we don’t go out much.
I had a gun pulled on me once because I stood up to a guy aggressively hitting on a friend of mine. He threatened to use it and said multiple times:
“I’ll show you” and “you’re trying to become a man.” It’s not just about inflicting violence on your body; it’s about proving you’re not as strong as you’re pretending your body is.
This stuff is way more nuanced than men trying to “show you what you’re missing” by raping you. It’s not just about “here is the dick you need sexually because you’re a lesbian.” It’s about “here is the dick you aspire to physically have; I’m going to show you that you cannot have it.” It’s about putting queer women in their place. A stark reminder about violence against those who struggle to take up space.
As Nadia explained, some [cis] male perpetrators of violence are enraged by masculine-presenting LBQ+ people. They start physical altercations and, in Nadia’s case, threaten LBQ+ people, including at gun point. Sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression are interwoven aspects of people’s identities, but according to LBQ+ activists interviewed, the prominent discursive focus on sexual orientation as the singular cause of anti-LBQ+ violence has precluded research, analysis, policy formation, discussion, and public education that addresses gender expression as a risk factor in and of itself. This in turn thwarts the promotion and protection of LBQ+ people’s right to present themselves as visibly masculine, however that is variably understood in their context, without fear of retribution and violence.
in an earlier section, it also says this:
LBQ+ advocates in Argentina, El Salvador, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and the US reported that from a young age, styles of dress read as masculine, gender-nonconforming, or androgynous resulted in threats from parents to remove such girls from school, compounding the already precarious access to education that girls face globally. According to Rosa, a sex worker rights defender and lesbian woman in El Salvador, police are “far more brutal” to masculine-presenting queer women during arrests and street harassment, which, Rosa said, is particularly dangerous because employment discrimination based on their masculine-presentation is a large part of what originally forced many LBQ+ people into sex work.
this is what my post is about. the fact that people very very frequently talk about how the patriarchy just doesn't "mind" trans men, that trans men "make sense" to misogynists, despite the fact that, as Nadia points out, that is not how violent misogynists actually act towards butches & trans men. and your tags begin by saying "well, my mom agrees with that first thing!" and then completely diverged from any discussion about the erasure of violence against trans men.
your tags go on a rant about things that are, in terms of what this post is about, entirely unrelated. you say you are talking to mostly cis men (not even getting into the EXTREME amount of heavy lifting that "trans men who pass as cis" is doing there); okay! make your own post about this! because coming onto a post that is, again, explicitly about the erasure of the fact that trans men and butches and similar groups are regularly raped and beaten explicitly because of their masculinity, and talking at GREAT length about how "the people who face the worst misogyny are women," is extremely fucking rude. its gross. its a gross thing you did! and entirely unnecessary! trust me, i have already heard quite literally everything you have stated here about boy's clubs and toxic masculinity and the policing of manhood, about ten million times. i do not need you to explain it to me again, especially on this particular post.
i don't know you. but based exclusively on these tags, and my general experience with this topic and interacting with people on it, it seems like you have this very strong urge to make sure you and everyone else around you knows you understand transmisogyny and center women and trans women at all times. which isn't a bad thing to want. but this behavior is not helpful. the notion that womanhood- as something intrinsic to your being, with womanhood being an essential, immutable trait of a person that trumps all material circumstances and experiences--is the ultimate factor in who is most affected by misogyny is short-sighted. and the fact that you felt the need to (again, at great length) remind to me and your followers (again, on a post about the rape and assault of trans men being ignored and explained away constantly by other queer people and feminists, because it doesn't fit their mental model of How Misogyny Works), that trans men are men and benefit from being men! is anti-transmasculine.
you could have simply said none of this! your tags were not relevant to the conversation. that is not nuance--at least, it is not nuance being used properly. you seem deeply uncomfortable with there being a discussion of how trans men are profoundly, brutally affected by misogyny that doesn't remind everyone, constantly, that Trans Men Have Male Privilege. you seem uncomfortable with such a discussion that doesn't remind everyone that Women Have It Worse Than Trans Men. it is very reminiscent of how many people who are against the naming and discussion of transandrophobia seem to be under the impression that they can disprove transandrophobia by simply pointing very hard at transmisogyny, because they are falsely believe that transandrophobia is about saying trans women oppress trans men. when it has never been about that, or the notion that trans men can't be misogynstic.
and that strikes me as some internalized anti-transmasculinity and cissexism that you could work on internally, so that you do not make random tumblr users open their activity and see an extensive set of irrelevant tags on a post they made explicitly about how awful it feels to have other queer people and feminists constantly erasing the targeted, misogynistically anti-transmasculine rape and assault of trans men and butches.
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