Fierce, Gitaxian Librarian

Thank you for sending me this ask. It is an opportunity presented to me to get into the underlying assumptions which are used around transphobia and in general recruitment into authoritarian groups committed to maintaining oppressive hierarchy!

1) "If t4t is a thing why are [transgender people] obsessed with being considered men/women?"

A few things are going on with this opening question. In a broad sense, it's drawing a line over t4t relationships have a kind of inverse correlation to general trans rights, which isn't correct. The kind of relationship someone is in doesn't reflect some kind of de-prioritizing of them being deserving of equal rights and fair treatment.

The phrase "obsessed with being considered" is interesting to work with. What's being talked about here is the long running struggle for trans people to be recognized as people in general. It includes being treated with the same legal rights and protections as other people, it also includes not being socially ostracized, not being subject to disproportionate violence, not being used as clowns or jokes, having access to medical care. It also includes expanding both the legal and social idea of sex and gender in ways that accommodate both modern science and social changes, and which are meant to reduce gender inequality across the board.

For example, if we can recognize that gender has greater variance than male/female, it has the double effect of both reducing social and legal barriers to equality between men and women generally, and expanding these kinds of recognitions to include intersex and nonbinary people. If we understand that gender is complex enough that a reductive "M/F" marking on a paperwork isn't adequate, it means fewer people can be singled out for specific biases in circumstances such as medical treatment or employment. Your doctor needs to know what your insides do, but they don't need to have an M/F on a form for that. No employer should need to know your gender to make a hiring decision, and so on.

Anyway, all of these complex legal and social and medical and etc issues affect us, trans people, and others, every day. However, the underlying narrative in the ask here is simplifying this as merely obsessed over what other people think. This kind of reductive shorthand is a pretty common route that radical right recruiters like to use. For example, the detailed and complex nature of sex and gender, and the myriad ways they are neither binary, nor strictly fit into a clear male/female division is commonly reduced to "trans people think sex isn't real."

Last, but not least, is the assumption that trans people think about gender in the binary of man/woman. Perhaps some do, but not myself, and there's quite a lot of trans people that don't fit any binary at all who are also affected by the various systems that maintain gender as binary and hierarchical.

Which means that the answer to this question is "we aren't" but also the question itself is so steeped in specific underlying assumptions that a direct answer legitimizes them. It's not just that the answer to the question is "we aren't" it's that the context of the question is wrong. It's meant to draw the topic into the grounds of "what trans people want other people to do" rather than "we would like greater equality with regard to sex and gender overall, and better medical care for everyone."

2) "Why cant there be men/women and transmen and transwomen. Clearly yall recognize theres a difference. Why not just embrace it"

This one is fun, because it's taking something that is already part of a more complex idea of gender, and inverting it. Again, it's still trying to fix this as strictly men and women, which is really fascinating with how much I try to beat the drum about sex and gender not being limited male or female. But, okay, we know they're trying to keep this as a binary argument and that's a fallacy from the jump.

The idea here is that there should be separate but equal categories of "woman and trans woman" and "man and trans man." But a system that both addresses this and is inclusive rather than exclusionary already exists. We have a broad gender category of woman or man, and this can include cis, trans, intersex, and others. Rather than trying to separate out woman or man as categories which can only include an idea of gender which, when you get down into the construction of gender, doesn't exist, a more useful tool is to understand that woman or man are both broader categories which can include multiple versions of those genders. Not only that, but it allows us to more usefully understand how gender isn't always reduced to male or female. Intersex can exist as its own category to include trans as a subset. Nonbinary can exist as a category to include trans masculine / feminine as a subset, and so on.

The underlying assumption here is that "recognizing genders are different" means "recognizing that if you are trans you should be excluded from any cis gender" and so again the answer here is "we already do that" but the assumption is wrong enough that there's no way to answer it yes or no with out legitimizing the idea of gender as exclusionary and reductive.

3) "instead of demonizing the rest of society"

In this case "demonizing" really just means "people who are openly bigoted experience relatively minor public disapproval while continuing to promote bigotry."

And "the rest of society" is akin to the previous assumption in that it has a framework where there are "trans people" and "society" and the two are separate. It additionally contextualizes "all of society" as equivalent with "opposed to trans rights" while in reality it's typically people with transphobic views who are in the minority.

Lastly, it includes the idea that trans people, as a relatively small percentage of the global population, have the ability to "demonize" the entirety of all global societies which, once you think about the idea that trans people are some fully united group around the world oppressing a generic and homogeneous non-trans society, it's clear this entire statement is patently absurd.

4) "for also recognizing theres a difference between trans people and cispeople."

This is basically a rehash of earlier items, but the false assumption here is that just because we understand sex and gender can have significant variation from binary male or female does not mean it is equivalent to the exclusionist reduction of "biological man/woman" and binary genders only. It's possible to recognize differences in people in ways that are oppressive or in ways that promote equity. The "recognized" difference this anon is talking about is the oppressive version, but by equating all differences as functionally the same, they are trying to create a narrative where these differences maintain systemic oppression, rather than reduce it.

Anyway, thank you for the added stimulation anon, it's been awhile since I dissected a bad-faith ask to demonstrate how hiding underlying assumptions in seemingly simple statements can be used to direct people towards authoritarian positions, without appearing to do so. As we can see, most of these questions, if addressed on their own terms, require engaging with gender view a lens of systemic oppression. If we don't unpack these innate details, it can be very easy to be drawn into debate on the grounds of the oppressor's assumptions, and follow what seems like a logical pathway to authoritarian ideals.

Note also how short and simple each statement is. By reducing complex ideas to very simple statements, it makes it a little more difficult to peel back the layers and see the intent. It also is designed to direct your attention away from looking for those underlying assumptions. By making it more difficult to consider complex ideas and easier to draw you in to conversing in a way which accepts those ideas, the question itself becomes a kind of rhetorical weapon.

“Who has more male privilege? Trans women, who aren’t men and don’t live as men, but who bigots want to be men so their categories don’t go splat? Or trans men, who are and live as men, but who bigots have to insist are women so their categories don’t go splat?” is just plain not the kind of question the term was coined to help us think about.

There is no presumption that trans women OR trans men are more competent or intelligent or capable because of their proximity to maleness. There is no thing about the material (I’ve begun to loathe that word, but it’s the best one I can think of) situation of trans people, no clear disparity between how trans and cis people are treated, that boils down to assumed maleness.