sad pathetic weird hydra

(PT: Transmedicalism is a eurocentric concept! /end pt)

Transmedicalism (the idea that you cannot be trans unless you feel dysphoria, and desire a physical transition) is SUCH a eurocentric and violent concept and I *need* people to let go of it.

It is intrinsically rooted within denying trans people of color their gender - especially those with cultural genders!!

Quote from "Reclaiming Beauty: Non-Heteronormative and Racialised Conversations on Fatness and Transness" (link)!

(Important context! This article took place in Mexico & Brazil, and centered around Travesti folks! Travesti is a cultural gender, and not all Travesti identify as women, but many do, and even those who don't identify as women often hold some degree of cultural connection to womanhood.)

Medical discourses and practices have historically been used to justify interventions on the bodies of trans people whose gender identities differ from the sexes assigned to them at birth. Narratives about trans people, particularly those identifying as ‘transsexual’, have been shaped by a medical model that frames them as ‘suffering’ from being born in the ‘wrong body.’ In strict terms, this model implies that medical technologies —such as hormones and surgeries— are necessary to ‘adjust’ their bodies, enabling them to ‘transition’ to their ‘true’ gender. Moreover, this medicalised understanding of trans identities has had broader cultural implications, reinforcing binary understandings of gender and promoting the idea that one’s ‘real’ gender can only be realised through medical transformation. This model leaves little space for non-binary, gender-fluid or travesti identities, which may not follow the narrative of medical intervention for gender affirmation. It often prioritises medical access over other forms of affirmation, marginalising those who cannot or do not want these procedures. Currently, many trans scholars have rethought how care is experienced among trans people, acknowledging the importance of gender-affirming care while recognizing its limitations in a binary, medicalised context. Malatino (2020), for instance, stresses that care should not be exclusively tied to medical interventions. While such interventions are significant for some, not all gender-nonconforming people follow a medical transition narrative. This broader, more inclusive approach respects diverse forms of gender affirmation. Furthermore, the focus on the ‘wrong body’ narrative overshadows the social and political dimensions of trans existence, framing gender identity as an individual medical problem rather than a reflection of societal structures that enforce rigid gender norms.

I *need* you people to look into cultural genders, and truly educate yourselves on their history! Physical transitioning wasn't a strict thing for so many of them, and for a lot of cultural genders, the idea of physical transitioning was a foreign idea and deemed unnecessary for their identities!!

but they CHOSE to make the kens explicitly oppressed, and CHOSE to make that a central factor in the plot, and then tried to make the kens an allegory for cis men under patriarchy & toxic masculinity which makes no sense in the story THEY wrote. Ken's major problem was never patriarchy! it was the barbiarchy! its fucking absurd to try to use ken as a lesson on how men are hurt by patriarchy when the movie itself set up that Ken's problems started with Barbieland's social structure. Barbie is never expected to take any responsibility for anything that happened! they wanted both to have the ken/barbie dynamic be used for an explicitly feminist allegory about patriarchy but ALSO to have their silly wish fulfillment barbiarchy that is never challenged, which makes that entire part of the plot messy as hell. we are essentially expected to forget everything about how Barbieland functions and all the differences between Barbieland and the real world, in order for the Barbies and Kens to just be exactly the same as real life cis women and men. which made me as a viewer feel annoyed because they just completely threw out the worldbuilding for this universe in order to play out a VERY basic explanation of feminism.

the thing is, the Kens are actually quite similar to the cis women the movie was marketed towards (seeking wish fulfillment and catharsis by reversing the dynamics they are oppressed under, rather than taking a stance against oppression itself). the real life patriarchy is to the Kens what Barbieland is to the cis women in the audience; both are power fantasies, heavy on the fantasy. the Kens think patriarchy is mostly about horses and Barbieland is mostly about pink and dancing and girls nights. once you start to press deeper on either fantasy, it becomes clear how unsustainable these fantasies are for actually challenging oppression; they do not encourage the people fantasizing to develop a political consciousness, to think in terms of systems, to take a stance against oppression itself. but the movie decided to try to make this fantasy deep and feminist, which made it messy because actually trying to engage with the world they've built makes it clear how little they actually thought about what they were saying.

the only real feminist value present is "women shouldn't be treated badly" but not because people shouldn't be treated badly, and not because oppressed groups need to be protected, but just because there is something innate about women that makes it bad when they are treated badly. its shallow feminism not just in the sense that its not going deep into theory, but in that the movie's feminism (at least in these parts) feels primarily about emotionally appealing to white cis women and getting them to spend money and write thinkpieces on how good the movie (and by association, Mattel) is.

i know some people were genuinely affected by the big speech given at the end about how women are expected to be so many things at once. and like. if you needed the Barbie movie to verbalize that to you, i'm glad you had that. but 1) if we are in a place in society where people are getting their baby's first feminism from a movie whose feminism is pretty shallow and messy and corporate, that shouldn't lead us to celebrate the movie, it should be a kick in the pants, and 2) this movie does very little to actually encourage the viewer to develop a deeper understanding of feminism, to see the expectations put on women in the context of patriarchy as a system of power, anything. because this part of the film's feminism is so messy and mostly about selling the movie to white cis women, it doesn't really have a coherent message about patriarchy other than that its bad and women have it rough and that's not good. okay! that's not even really a feminist point, its almost pre-feminist; that women have it rough is the very starting point of developing a feminist political consciousness, it shouldn't be the big takeaway. and this came out in 2024, not 1946, so i get kind of annoyed when people act like a film making a more coherent and slightly deeper feminist point couldn't have possibly been made.

& again its a fucking shame because there IS genuinely moving story in the Barbie movie about how being human is very much defined by suffering but also by beauty, and the choice to embrace humanity and the suffering and inevitable death, because being human and being alive is worth it, and to send that message (which is broadly applicable to all people) through the lens of choosing to be a woman under patriarchy, because there is still beauty in that life. and again. no one fucking talks about it. the part of this movie that actually has some feminist meat on its bones gets ignored, while everyone (whether pro- or anti-feminist) fixated on the very thin, shallow parts of the movie's attempts at feminism. i just feel like its an example of how cultural / pop feminism gets propped up and promoted and discussed and centered What Feminism Is, when that form of feminism doesn't actually encourage critical political thinking about patriarchy and only encourages gender essentialism female nationalism and endless discourse that allows media companies to profit.

She called it.

Wow, the radfems found my post specifically tagged “transandrophobia” and “intersexism” and “transmisogyny” and “exorsexism”, almost as if they’re specifically following those tags… surely not, right?

"males and females" "AFABs and AMABs" "TMEs and TMAs" "You're TME, you'll never understand how scary it is to be a girl with a penis in the women's bathroom" (said to me, person who was literally beat up in middle school for being a girl with a penis in the girl's bathroom) "AMABs can never get cervical cancer, that's an AFAB only thing" "they won't let trans kids have hormones, but they'll give them to cis kids for free" "you can't be cis and trans at the same time" you can't be transfem and transmasc" "You can't be transfem if you were AFAB" "You can't be transmasc if you were AMAB" "RMAB and RFAB? Now you're just making things up" "All intersex people are biologically nonbinary" "I want to transition into intersex" "I'm such a b*eddel/f*ta/h*rm" "You're intersex? I'm so jealous, that means you get an easier transition right?" "I wish I was intersex, then I could get myself pregnant" "Trans people are brain intersex" "So what does it look like?"

1. We introduced the term “endogenic” into the community August 2014, along with some other terms! It was in response to exclusionists (wrongly) complaining about “systems without DID” using “their words”. It was an attempt at creating nonmedicalized terms that any plural system could use. 

2. It was also a way to do away with terms that had fallen into disfavor— specifically “natural systems”, a term that had been in use possibly as early as 1994. It was disliked because people felt it implied that trauma-caused systems were unnatural. “Endogenic” fixed that. 

3. The word “endogenic” was lovingly created to help systems put their experience into words. All it means is “a system not formed by trauma”; it doesn’t imply any other cause, set of beliefs, or experiences. It doesn’t imply the system is nondisordered or doesn’t have trauma. It doesn’t mean any other system’s origins in trauma or dx status is “invalid” or whatever.

4. Though the terms were eventually posted to tumblr, the idea didn’t start there. Tumblr was created in 2007; the concept of systems not caused by trauma has, again, been online since the 90s. Nor was the term created by singlets! We’re a trauma-caused system with DID. 

5. “Endogenic” wasn’t created as an insult or to exclude anyone. We have loved ones who are endogenic. Many of the terms in use now were created by endogenics. They have helped preserve plural history, and defended the community. They are good people, and real systems. The hate they get is completely senseless.

Thanks for coming to our talk. Please stop insulting endogenic systems, and educate yourselves instead, thanks. (Unless it’s just pure malice at this point in which case, fuck off I guess.)