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Part 1: actually defining the problem

The thing about "terf ideology and rhetoric" is that it is actually an extremely widespread problem among queer people. Like the transandrobros say that constantly, and taken literally, they are completely correct. The problem is that they don't know what terf ideology and rhetoric actually is (or pretend not to), and are actually extremely guilty of it themselves.

The transandrobros use "terf ideology/rhetoric" to refer to transfems doing basic feminism and talking about patriarchy and misogyny. They occasionally use "baeddel" or "tirf" when they acknowledge that transfems are doing it, saying we're doing "terfism but for transfems" as if that is a thing that could exist. That's because functionally, terfism is cis women using their cis privilege to give a feminist ideological justification to the genocide of transfems, transfems have no transfem privilege to do the same to other marginalized groups.

Of course, that's because the transandrophobia people because of their own transmisogyny deny the transmisogyny of terf ideology, and have no definition of terf beyond "feminist that i dislike", or terf ideology beyond "man-hating feminism."

And of course, things are bit more complicated than that.

To put it simply, terfism is not talking about misogyny, that's basic feminism, but talking about misogyny as "sex-based oppression." It is a feminism that accepts patriarchal society's reification of the two sexes as an unchangeable natural biological fact, and views it as the origin of patriarchy. This type of feminist ideology is called cultural feminism, and from that naturally comes transmisogyny. Trans women are because of this bio-essentialism by definition "biologically male", and not real female women, thus can't experience real misogyny that comes from having a womb, but merely gender-based oppression from being gender non-conforming males.

(Historian Alice Echols who popularized the term cultural feminism made a distinction between it and the US-american radical feminism of the late 60s and early 70s which rejected the sex binary, but even in Echols history of US second-wave feminism, more or less everyone who has called themselves radical feminists since 1973 are cultural feminists, a movement which grew out of and replaced the original radical feminism)

And while open terfs or "gender critical radical feminists" have the most obvious, most virulent, most openly genocidal form of this ideology, this kind of thinking is ubiquitous in a softer form even among ostensibly trans-accepting feminists and tme queer people. Cultural feminism took over western feminism in the early 70s, and hasn't let go since.

Outside the openly GC spaces, it has of course been softened to accept that "trans women are women", but it's an empty slogan. The underlying bio-essentialism is preserved by a distinction between sex and gender, where sex is natural, real, unchangeable and biological, whereas gender is socially constructed and thus fake and non-material. So they accept that trans women can be "gendered" women, but we are forever "biologically male", and thus less real women than "biologically female" cis women.

(in reality,biological sex is just society's ideas about gender made into a bio-truth, and the "gender-critical feminists" are actually hard-core "genderists" themselves, they just reify their ideas of gender as biological and natural)

And this translates into practice. For this kind of ally, trans women's social acceptance as women is always dependent on good feminine behavior, while cis women's womanhood is natural and in-contestable. The tme self-described "transfem ally" is always prepared to accept the womanhood of the ideal trans woman in their head, but actual flesh-and-blood transfems who have human flaws and that most unfeminine quality of having a backbone is a different story. These transfems are systematically rejected from tme-dominated social settings as rude, male socialized, perverted and sexually predatory, one after another. These tme allies will reject the terf caricatures about transfems as a false generalization, but continue to apply them to every transfem that displeases them.

That's because transmisogyny is ubiquitous in society, and what cultural feminism/terfism does is present society's conventional view of sex/gender, and the transmisogyny that comes with it, in feminist terms. It's the same things fascists and religious conservatives believe but put in a way that appeals to liberal/leftist tme people. Most tme people have to work to unlearn their transmisogyny and bio-essentialism, and it's just easier to keep believing what you were taught as a child, but believing yourself to be a trans-accepting progressive or radical.

Part 2: the transandrobros on tumblr

The transandrophobia crowd here are no different. Their beliefs about transandrophobia are revealed to be the old terfy beliefs about "sex-based oppression", about how "afab people" because of their biological sex have a deeper experience of oppression and especially misogyny than transfems have. Like the leading transandrophobia bloggers here have openly repeated their belief in sex-based oppression as, i have chronicled on this blog before.

This kind of unexamined transmisogynist bio-essentialism is the real root of their opposition to transmisogyny theory, and to transfems talking about the misogyny we experience. Fundamentally they don't believe we are the victims of misogyny.

Their push to make transfems talking about basic feminism "dangerous terf rhetoric" is" effectively is a form of projection. Defining terfism as simply "man-hating" acts as cover for their own terf ideology and rhetoric. It enables MRA-style rhetoric about man-hating feminists to function in conjunction with an insidious transmisogynistic bio-essentialist feminism.

It's of course somewhat contradictory, but reactionary ideologies seldom are 100% coherent. And it's rooted not in logical thought, but in the desire of the transandrobros to always be the innocent victim. So transfems are mean to them by being man-hating radfems, but also they are being mean by using their male privilege to talk over real wombyn talking about their experiences of misogynistic oppression, often at the same time.

This is them rhetorically fusing " the worst associations of men and women in TMA people and the best associations of both men and women in TME trans people." to quote this excellent essay. The transandrobro gets to be the rational male standing against the screaming man-hating feminist harpy, and also the innocent woman screamed at by an aggressive male, all at the same time. Talking about the patriarchy is evil misandry oppressing them, but also a denial of the misogyny they experience. None of it makes sense, but it doesn't have to.

Part 3: a transandrophobia truther gives us the perfect example

As an example, i'm gonna give you some screenshots, all from the same blog.

(Image id: screenshot of a tumblr post reading

"OMFG no way you are saying trans men are less affected by misoginy than trans women, no fucking way.

I guess now trans men are not treated as disordered, mentally ill women. I guess now trans men are not affected by abortion bans, rape, reproductive healthcare issues, infantilization, etc.

Do you hear yourself?!?!?!

Are you trying to ignore the material reality of our bodies and the effects agab has on a person's life???? What is this soulgender crap?

Just because trans women are women and trans men are men doesn't mean trans women are treated as women and trans men are men have you ever been in this world??? I don't give a fuck about people's gender affirmation if they are pushing to ignore the material reality that affects us and from where our issues come from.")

Notice the use of actual terf terminology, like "soulgender", or the laughable misuse of "material reality" that probably made Marx spin even more in his grave. This is the standard terf narrative that transfems very existence are erasing the oppression of real wombyn, our fake claims of womanhood and experiencing misogyny are erasing biological reality.

The post even outright claims trans women are treated as men and have male privilege. And when called out on this, the blogger became even more blatant:

(Image ID: screenshot of a tumblr post reading "Me saying that trans women do not experience the same kind or ammount of misoginy as women is not me saying that they are not women, it's me acknowledging that they are a specific subset of woman with a unique experience.")

Notice the not-so subtle misgendering in separating trans women from women in this screenshot. Yet when replying to a post that correctly said that "... going to trans women's posts to harass them and crying about misandry and eyeing every feminist statement with suspicion truly is just misogyny 101 and has to stop", the same fucking blogger criticized them in the following terms:

(image id: screenshot a tumblr post reading: "It's the literal terf and radfem rethoric or men bad and dangerous women good and pure that leads to the hatred against trans women in the first place. It's what causes so many trans men and transmascs to have trouble with their transition because they are constantly being told how all masculine traits are undesireable and worse than feminine traits.")

she's desperate to stay in this world that she sees as false, where she's a funny cartoon character and she can still brush off the pain she causes as silly cartoon antics

the despair it leaves us with, the satisfaction it denies us, leaves us to yearn for things to have turned out differently. it leaves us thinking about what could have been done, what decisions could have been made, what different circumstances could have prevented the tragedy? dissatisfaction drives us to act

Can you blame me for not engaging with that? I wasnt *supposed* to engage with that. She admitted that she just wanted to make me mad and provoke me. She called it hatemail. So then she turns around and goes on about her opinions, when to begin with, she never expressed those opinions to me. She rage baited me. That is the behavior of an internet troll, not a serious marxist.

She's not even completely wrong necessarily. I understand her perspective, there is merit to it. I wish she told me what that perspective was from the beggining, instead of acting like an edgelord.

So, she feels that It is wrong for me to call them "latina edits" because she feels i am assigning latinas to a certain skin color. I get that, but the truth is that the point of the edits is to look like me. I called them "latina edits" as an immediately understandable shorthand. If she had talked about this with me like the supposedly serious communist she is, I would have considered changing my vocabulary rather than, yknow, doing this. So, maybe I can start referring to them as "melanin edits" or "dark skin" edits or something. Thats not so hard is it?

Now, the second point is on whether or not I can call myself a mexican. And I don't know the answer to this truly. But to me I feel this is a matter of opinion. My father always called me a mexican, I always called myself a mexican, my friends, family, teachers, strangers, to everyone I have always been a Mexican. So its confusing for me to suddenly be not a real mexican apparently. Once again, I understand the logic, seeing as I dont currently live there. Was it so hard to just express your feelings to me? From my perspective, all I had done was call myself what I always have, and now an internet stranger mocked my ethnicity, my family, and even the way I spoke Spanish.

By the way, mocking my Spanish was increadibly rude. Anyway, to me, this is not a call that a stranger can make. I'm sorry, but I just can't accept that an internet stranger has more right to decide who I am than my own parents. That is simply unreasonable to me. I disagree, and I will continue to call myself a Mexican. Its ok if you disagree with that, but don't belittle my family and act like you know anything about me or my life.

In retrospect, I have been emotional and defensive today. At times I leaned too much into insults and anger. But honestly, I can't blame myself too much when, by her own admission, she wanted to get me mad from the start. So she is partially responsible for my distress as she intentionally wanted to cause it.

The performances by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are so. so good! I think they played characters who feel this kind of existential dread that draws them to the unknown very well. My gripe comes in with the optics from a racialized lens of Chiwetel's character and nuance not being as present in the writing.

Coming off of Is God Is has gotten me aglow with joy over mentally ill black people being the film protagonists!!! And in a way Backrooms does that as well. But the character ultimately "Clark" is ultimately written to be a misogynist in a dead end job with little interiority beyond that. It wouldn't be so apparent if he wasn't the only black man in the film, and if he didn't become an antagonist in the second act, antagonising Renate Reinsve's character, his white woman therapist, "Mary."

The narrative external to the backrooms becomes a story about a black man who's unable to change from being fundamentally angry and violent who's just unable to be helped by the caring white therapist (who is not on some melfi timing fr she was dogs hit but also a therapist who sold VHS tapes so character accurate perhaps?). Over the course of the film, we see these two roleplay out scenes of domesticity, with Mary pretending to be Clark's Ex-Wife who's also a white woman!

@ghomanimation first of all, thank you for telling me this! Second, WHAT THE FUCK?

Okay I wanna talk about these kinds of responses I've been seeing to this post. I may edit this later when I'm feeling more collected and less aggravated but.

I fear in attempts to be so adamantly anti racist, people are just looping back around to being racist again (I'm talking that first tag reply specifically).

And, (in reference largely to the second tag reply) thee solution encountering that a film that has racist elements (problematic I should say generally speaking) is not to Disavow your relationship to the art completely. Honestly, it reads a lot like wiping your hands of the situation in absolution that you'd NEVER consume something with racist undertones or messaging!

Now. Am I endorsing the film and telling to go pay and see it? No, not really. But I also am not saying people block out everything the film and put their heads in the sand. As I said in my initial post, I love Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance in the film! He honestly saved that theater experience for me, but I can't pretend that there aren't broader issues with the film to pick apart. Personally? I'd say pirate it, it's very well acted and visually appealing, and is worth study as an adaptation of internet horror that inherits prejudiced storytelling conventions of the medium.