Hana Arnoldii

I have no problem with people sharing their experiences on tumblr. I have no problem with those experiences being used to point to an issue and call for change. I have a problem with those issues and experiences being used to justify the continued erasure of and violence against transmascs and trans men.

Often I see transandrophobic rhetoric backed up by a story of an experience regarding a transmasc, trans man or “tme” person shared by someone who then goes on to advocate against our struggles and issues, often within the same post.

I’m going to, in the best faith possible, assume these stories and the experiences behind them are completely real and accurate, with nothing misrepresented or misinterpreted. However, the basic literary devices and persuasive features used to convey these stories are not used in good faith. I do not often see these experiences shared in good faith.

for a quick refresher for those a little out of practice with persuasive writing at an Australian middle school English level:

Ethos is a feature that lets the argument be backed up by credentials and the legitimacy of a trusted source, like citing statistics from a government website or quoting a famous theoretical author.

Pathos is a usage of emotive language meant to spark empathy, like describing in detail the turbulent feelings behind a moment of discrimination or oppression.

Logos is the employment of logic and critical thinking to persuade a reader, and in isolation from the other two, can sound incredibly cold and harsh.

a call to action builds upon the persuasive rhetoric previously espoused to convince the readers to take a course of action, support a cause, or be more aware of an issue. It’s literally what it says on the tin, a call to action.

these experiences can be expressed and acknowledged without needing a call to action against transmascs and trans men. We are not the issue here. If a transfem or trans woman is being excluded, harassed or bullied out of a space, it’s an easy bet that other marginalised and often demonised identities are as well, but I don’t see this sort of post talking about them or calling for unity against their common struggle.

yes, things need to change. Transfems and trans women need to stop being pushed out of queer spaces and ostracised by their own community. However, this is a community-wide issue that deserves attention, not the fault of a seperate identity that gets pushed out of different spaces in different ways.

and look, I’ll be the first to admit most of the experience-sharing sort of posts I see in the community against transandrophobia fall into the same sort of thing. There’ll be a story told of a transandrophobic experience with plenty of emotive language appealing to pathos, there’ll be a quote of a statistic or a feminist book that backs up the eventual call to action, there’ll be an appeal to cold hard logic and facts. And at the end there’s a call to action against transandrophobia.