One of the biggest problems I have with Radfems is when they call women who identify as trans âmisogynisticâ, or dismiss them as though theyâre just being stupid.
Do you really think youâre helping anyone?
When I was a teenager and first discovered radfem communities - this was before I transitioned - I felt just as alienated by them as I did by conservative women.
Because they didnât understand me, they didnât have any experience with how I felt, and they didnât have any helpful advice for me.
At best, their advice was âlearn to love yourselfâ. At worst, they were actively hateful towards women like me and called us names. Traitor, misogynist, etc.
No one gave me the empathy I needed. No one gave me any actionable steps I could take towards that vague goal of âloving myselfâ, which felt like an impossible thing to do at the time.
The feelings I was experiencing, and which I had been experiencing for my whole life, needed much more help than that. It needed people who cared and who wanted to understand me.
A big part of why I transitioned was because trans men were the first people who actually understood how I felt and had an answer for me as to how to cope with that.
The answer ended up being wrong of course, but I didnât know that at the time. When youâre a kid and youâre just looking for someone who understands how you feel? And suddenly you meet all these women who live as men who understand you perfectly, because theyâve felt the same thingsâŚ
Of course thatâs the path youâre going to follow.
Radfems need to be doing better if they want to actually help women who are transitioning. My feeling is that many actually donât want to help and donât genuinely care about us.
But for those that do⌠in order to do better they have to listen to the experiences of women who have been through all of that.
We have to talk about the unique experiences of women who choose to transition in order to actually help the young women who are transitioning now.
If talking to trans identifying women makes you feel like youâre yelling at a wall, consider that maybe itâs not that the person on the other end is dumb - Maybe youâre speaking the wrong language. Maybe you should lower your voice. Maybe you should try to understand her.
Of course itâs not anyoneâs job to be our therapists. But when young women are looking for community and empathy, we donât deserve to be turned away at the door.
Sometimes it feels like masculine women, women who transition, are the only ones who donât get included in female solidarity.
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
