Never forget about Max Raabe

It is not fair to ask us to explain your experiences for you: use feminism correctly (meaning actually understand how intersectionality works, so not transandrophobia) to do your own knowledge production, and listen to ours.

The greater vehicle kind of feminism associated with bell hooks is also an analytic technology designed to fit a specific purpose: to defend the place of feminisms in society and show how the abolition of patriarchy is widely beneficial. It does not mean that feminism should center people who benefit from and thus uphold patriarchy. Feminism as a political project can benefit everyone, but it is not meant to help uplift everyone's knowledge production equally. Men already have dominant knowledge production.

Once again we have men barging into women's theoretical traditions and going "why aren't you making this about meeeeeee". Transfeminism is not about you. Men are prioritized, favored and rewarded, and among trans people this means trans men. Thus, acknowledging, being generally aware of and taking seriously trans men's experiences and problems is what we've been doing; it is the background radiation of trans issues in a way that trans women's issues are not.

Did I get that right?

It was Audre Lorde who said "For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change."

In the discussion on trans oppression and liberation, the master's tools are the insistence that trans people slot neatly into cis-based gender dynamics. Insisting that TRANSGENDER men, just by virtue of existing as men, benefit from and uphold patriarchy is you trying to temporarily beat the master at his [ or in this case "her", since we're talking about building off a foundationally cis woman built framework of oppression ] own game.

It absolutely benefits you as a trans woman to use oppositional sexism to insist that your oppression is parallel to that of cis women and that subsequently trans men's positions in society must parallel cis men's. It gives you the spot at the feminist table that you do deserve to have..... in an underhanded way that throws other trans people under the bus and bars us from conversations on gendered oppression despite the fact that ALL transphobia experienced by ALL trans people boils down to being gender identity based oppression.

Is the feminist movement NOT founded on gender identity based liberation at its core? Is that, at the very least, not ALLIED with the rest of the trans community in a meaningful way where both might mutually benefit from a deeper understanding and analysis of gender that does include talking about masculinity and manhood and the social construction of gender as a whole?

It's not about centering men, you sound like the truscum and transmeds that used to fearmonger about how acknowledging nonbinary people will be the death of binary trans liberation in the 2010's.

It's about bare minimum just acknowledging that manhood is an important construct in the conversation on gender liberation and that marginalized manhood is an important vehicle for discussing and dismantling gendered systems of oppression too. It's about imagining gendered oppression more complexly than woman hurt/man harm. It's about finally fucking throwing the master's tools out the gd window. And that's NOT what has been done. At all.

Talking about the gendered oppression of trans men IN ADDITION TO - not above, not before, not centred, but just alongside all other trans experiences is vital to our broader understandings of gendered oppression within transfeminist and broader feminist discussions precisely because it throws a wrench in cis-centered understandings of gendered oppression.

If you can't see that you're dogshit at material analysis.

"Make your own theory, don't expect us to do it for you"

"Okay, we made our own theory and we call it transandropho-"

"NO, you have to do it the way I tell you"

Like. If that doesn't sum up the revolving door that is the main problem I don't know what does. It's always "make your own post" and "make your own theory" until we do and it gains traction and then it becomes "shut up about this because you didn't do it the way I wanted you to" and "this is inherently lesser importance than anything I go through so why waste time talking about your problems when you should be talking about mine".

Like I get "listen to trans women" and "trust us to make theory that will support you" and I say yes, the trans woman who taught me transgender political theory grouped it all under transmisogyny because every transgender person experiences an intersection of transphobia and misogyny regardless of their actual gender and I don't disagree with her so that's my understanding, and then it becomes "you're stealing our theory and words to talk about yourself, you rely too much on women to help you, go make your own" so then I do make my own posts going back to black feminism and black transfeminism that specifically mentions us and then I get "this theory makes you functionally identical to MRAs and other politically violent men" and "by centering [trans] men you are antifeminist and actively hate women and especially trans women" and "follow our lead and listen to us and talk about our problems and stop focusing so much on yourself" and in the mean time the theory is "trans men get raped and kill themselves a lot, let's examine why this happens and see if we can prevent these tragedies".

And what exactly are these other models in feminism actually account for trans men's experiences as trans men? Oh wait, you think trans men's only struggles are identical to cis women's, the model you're thinking of is cisfeminism, which doesn't account for us. Way to miss the entire point of the post and speak over people you should have solidarity with.

Anyway, it is the job of ANYONE dedicated to gender liberation to have solidarity with and account for and listen to the other marginalized genders in their community. Not prioritize, just listen and amplify suppressed voices.

Go Ahead and Cancel Me

Having F on her birth certificate has not saved her. Systems can still demand further proof of "eligibility." People still refuse to believe her, insisting she is lying, that she is a trans woman, or that she is a man in disguise.

Legal designation does not protect assignment typical cis intersex women from misogyny, intersexism, or transphobic policing of their bodies. It does not prevent them from being publicly scrutinized, accused, and dehumanized when their bodies do not fit expectations.

So when people try to claim that cis intersex women are overwhelmingly supported in their womanhood, understand that this is false. They are asking you to ignore the reality of how quickly society turns on them the moment their bodies do not fit expectations.

Pretending otherwise is propaganda. People use the lives of people like Imane Khelif to push the idea that there is a clean class of people safely exempt from this kind of oppression, that cis intersex women are automatically protected from systemic transmisogyny because they are "really" female on paper.

Being accused of being a man, having your body publicly dissected, and being treated as fraudulent does not stop being that kind of violence just because someone decides you aren't the "right" kind of victim

The moment someone’s body is seen as suspicious, that supposed exemption disappears. They are still subjected to the same suspicion, humiliation, and violence. This reframing uses the same bioessentialist logic TERFS use to selectively define who is even allowed to "count" as a target of misogynistic violence in the first place

that being said. can we not erase the fact the entire conversation began with disabled people talking about being medically abused pretty please. & also, iirc the post that first really blew up about "mean girl nurses" never said "ALL nurses are evil bitches who hate everyone and they deserve to be mistreated" it was saying "women who sought power over other people in high school go into careers where they can wield power over other people, same as men, and there are women who go into nursing and present themselves as kind and caring and maternal, who are motivated by a desire to have unquestioned authority over other people's bodies to make themselves feel powerful, again, same as men who do the same things in masculinized careers." & i just find it "interesting" how all that has been reduced down to "all nurses are mean girls")

i think nuance is always important & doctors and nurses do need better treatment and society frequently praises them while also supporting their abuse. and yet they are also universally recognized as vital important members of society & empowered to have immense control over the lives of people who are systemically vulnerable and seen as leeches who add nothing to society. and yet who has to deal with the impacts of their stress and their trauma and their anger and their burnout? the disabled people under their care.

again. Nuance! but i just cannot help but Side Eye In Cripple some things people say on this topic. it can both be true that nurses (& doctors) experience horrible working conditions and that, in my opinion, that any conversation about burnout and abuse of medical professionals needs to also criticize the authoritarianism of the medical field and how widespread medical neglect and abuse is, lest we simply fall back into "the poor beleagured doctor who is Jesus Christ On The Cross Himself, all-wise and all-knowing and forced to tolerate all these entitled know-it-all ungrateful patients!" which changes nothing for anyone.

like. look at this article. the actual context for the "mean girl to nurse pipeline" (that some women seek out power over people to control them and make themselves feel bigger, and women are likely to do this through caretaking in the role of nurse, teacher, mother, etc.) is not brought up at all. the fixation is entirely on "its mean to call nurses mean girls! they experience a lot of bullying! you don't REALLY know any mean nurses, just poor tired bullied ones!"

First, the phrase itself is unfair to women. Although nursing is a female-dominated field, this phrase focuses on women as being the “mean” ones to worry about.

like. do youuuu fucking see the erasure of medical abuse. the actual bullshit nurses do to real living human beings, which goes massively under-reported. & not just disabled people but people of color as well. god fucking forbid medical professionals are treated as anything but literal saints descended from heaven. god forbid white cisgender women are recognized to have the ability to be cruel and power-hungry and to hurt other people through traditionally feminine roles based on caretaking. like I genuinely do understand that nurses are subject to immense stress, bullying, and violence, and that providing better working conditions for nurses is vital to improving medical treatment for all patients.

but when the actual neglect and abuse nurses can do to their patients is ignored and drops out of the conversation entirely, in the name of complaining about nurses being called "mean"? sorry but it pisses me the fuck off.

(links to some sources on patient abuse under the cut since this is long enough as is)