(inactive)

Cool change and a chance of a thunderstorm - Richard Lewer, 2025.

New Zealand - Australian , b. 1970 -

Emi Satō (born 1973) "Happiness" 2006

now I'm in my 30s and watching the exact dialogue play out over and over on tumblr in trans spaces. tMRAs will sometimes acknowledge that others using "transandrophobia" or "transmisandry" terminology are transmisogynistic, and say they don't approve of it, but then go on to say that "trans men need spaces to talk about the impact of gender on their lives." those who respond in good faith say, "transfeminism the framework you're looking for. you should learn about transfeminism, and it will give you tools to understand the impact of gender on your life." and then these men say, "but we need a space that centers men's experiences."

men's "need" to be centered, and the antagonistic, resentful attitude towards even the suggestion of not being prioritized over women, is misogyny. understand this. it's misogyny even if he's not the one sending rape threats and harassing lesbians and vividly fantasizing about wanting to kill women. the desire to only participate in conversations that center men is the root issue. the more violent and recognizable forms of misogyny are nourished in spaces like this. you reap what you sow, and a space that centers men will grow misogyny (no matter how much you disavow the fruit).

"the most frustrating part of this post is the equation of MRAs, a fully reactionary misogynistic hate group, to trans men trying to speak about their material needs and safety."

see this is the disingenuous thing that men keep doing. you are the only one on this post who is equating trans men speaking about their material needs and safety with MRAs.

there are trans men who engage fully in feminist and explicitly transfeminist spaces (some of them in the tags of this very post!). they discuss, interrogate, learn, and theorize about their issues with transphobia within patriarchal sexgender hierarchies. they are able to do this work without centering manhood and men in their analysis and praxis. they are able to do this work in genuine community with trans women and transfeminized nonbinary people.

men do not need to be centered. men are capable of understanding that their experiences with transphobia are shared with other trans people. this understanding enables them to form actually effective coalition rather than constantly sabotaging collective liberation efforts with transmisogyny.

in the original post when I say:

"men's "need" to be centered, and the antagonistic, resentful attitude towards even the suggestion of not being prioritized over women, is misogyny"

your reaction is exactly what I'm talking about. you came onto this post with so much misogyny.

saying men need space "away from" women

implying feminists don't want men to participate in feminism when this post is literally saying the opposite

calling feminists "childish" and "hostile"; addressing women as "girlies" and infantilizing them and simultaneously framing women as aggressors

saying "men are oppressed in their own ways either unique to themselves or similar to how women are oppressed" (i.e. denying that misogyny actually exists as a structural force) & quoting a guy literally doing the disco elysium "are women bourgeoisie?"

TERF dogwhistles (e.g. "sex discrimination" "transmen")

you offered up a perfect example of the theoretical misunderstanding of how gender operates in trans men's lives that I was critiquing.

"our masculinity is the exact thing that puts us in danger. its the masculinity".

here's a question: if manhood is the reason that trans men face oppression, then why the fuck am I also oppressed as someone who rejected assignment without being a man or pursuing/embracing masculinity? could it be that the oppression we're facing is transphobia? could it be that when we talk about structural oppression of trans people, the structures we are discussing are those of sexgender assignment and enforcement?

could it be that trans women and other transfeminized people experience sexgender assignment and enforcement just like we do, while also experiencing oppressive structures to which we are not inescapably subjected? could it be there are some structures of sexgender enforcement that we have the privilege to not even encounter, to the point we rarely even notice them until transfeminized people point them out? could it be that there is an actual structural reason behind trans women facing the highest rates of gender-based violence?

what is the point of gender theory that doesn't account for or theorize about the causes of these stats? just to flatter men?

when your theory doesn't account for anyone outside of men, it doesn't hold up! it's not bad theory because it's "mean," it's bad theory because it's inaccurate and actively moves people further from liberatory consciousness.

which is why y'all keep ending up aligning yourselves with TERFs and detrans grifters. do you not get why you always have these people in your tags? did you even notice the screenshots you included to support your position included TERF dogwhistles?

it's not the words you're using that I find unserious. it's the entire theory and praxis communicated by those words.

when I said

"no one, of any gender or relationship to their birth assignment, will find understanding around how sexgender functions in their own life if they cannot de-center men in that learning. they might learn ways to describe it (much of which will be misogynistic by virtue of learning this language in spaces that center men) but they won't meaningfully understand it any better than they did when they started."

this is exactly the shit I'm talking about.

you are not doing trans men any favors by telling them not to organize with or listen to the rest of us.