Genderfuckery Forever

He was a 98 year old retired opera singer who I met in a Spanish class last year.

I’m a coloratura soprano, and I mentioned to him my fears around HRT changing my singing voice.

He was basically like ‘yeah, that makes sense as a fear to have’ but then he continued.

“but who knows,” he said,

“you could be an incredible tenor.”

but then because reproductive injustice and the centrality of controlling pregnancy to misogyny and patriarchy, perhaps the one (or at least most obvious) area where you cannot pretend that trans men have male privilege, is when it comes to the uterus. and so people are now having this reactionary backlash to the discussion of abortion rights or pregnancy or menstruation - NOT ON CIS WOMEN'S POST, mind you, only when trans men talk about it, while at the same time trans men are told they are "derailing" posts about misogyny by bringing up their experiences, trans and intersex people in general are told they are being selfish males by insisting that gender-inclusive reproductive language is vital. if you cannot see how anti-feminist this growing sentiment is, you need to work on that.

and i will not deny that some trans men absolutely do get bioessentialist about it. i have myself made posts calling out some anti-science, anti-transfeminine, intersexist posts made recently that act as though the uterus & disorders relating to it are solely and exclusively the purview of people assigned female. i am not saying there is never ever ever any bioessentialism in how trans men or nonbinary people assigned female talk about their experiences with sexual misogyny. there is and its important we are vigilant about it (although this is true for all trans people, none of us are immune to appealing to cissexist feminism at the expense of other trans people to get our suffering heard, not that these people ever wanna talk about that)

but it is VERY obvious that because of the anti-transmasculinity on this site, people have become genuinely anti-feminist in their hostility to anything that ever discusses abortion or pregnancy or anything relating to the uterus and how it ties into people's oppression. the fact that there are people on this site who call themselves transfeminists, and then insist that trans men who talk about how they are affected by attacks on abortion rights, or birth control, or forced pregnancy, are being bioessentialist and should shut up... i am sorry but THIS is anti-feminism. these are not good faith criticisms, they are soaked to the goddamn teeth in anti-transmasculinity just as much as some people's posts about how trans women who say they have endometriosis are valor-stealing liars are soaked in anti-transfemininity.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Supporters of India's youth-led Cockroach movement said Tuesday they will continue their protest in New Delhi, refusing to leave their sit-in site a day after police used tear gas and batons to disperse thousands of them as they tried to march toward Parliament. Hundreds of protesters camped at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, under heavy police presence, saying they would stay until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns over alleged failures in India's examination system. "We are going to continue our protest," said Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, which emerged just two months ago. The movement, drawing students, professionals and families, marks a rare public challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's government in its third term, reviving criticism over its handling of dissent and its use of force to respond to protests. [...] Sona Bisht, a 20-year-old student who was part of the protest, said the confrontation strengthened her resolve. "If the government thinks that doing this with Gen Z, they can stop us, then that won't happen. We are here talking about education, talking about securing our future. And till the time our demands are not met, we will not move from here," she said.

"Definitions developed thus far about youth, like the Gen Z narrative, have largely been linked to roles attributed by the dominant system. The rulers have invented a whole range of terms — rebellious, irresponsible, apolitical, extremist, consumerist — not to understand youth, but to neutralize it. They know as well as we do that whoever wins over the youth wins over society. [...] Thus the question is not whether youth is powerful, but in whose interest this power is directed. Today’s uprisings — such as those in Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, and beyond — demonstrate that youth continues to emerge as a decisive actor. Young women like Deniz Ciya have proven this with their lives. These uprisings are not expressions of generational temperament. These „Gen Z uprisings“ are expressions of a social force confronting structural crisis inherent in the current system. [...] Recent youth uprisings — whether in the form of environmental justice protests, labor movements, or uprisings against authoritarian governments — are proof that youth worldwide are not only responding to a set of circumstances; they are consciously and collectively rejecting the narratives that seek to define them. Thus, it is crucial to analyze what transpired, and draw lessons from these uprisings, particularly in the context of building a global youth democratic confederalism. For the power of youth movements is interconnected, despite being geographically distant." — "Beyond "Gen Z": Defending Revolutionary Youth Spirit" by Lêgerîn

"Masculinity is always rewarded" Incorrect, women are encouraged to be feminine, not masculine, female masculinity is a marginalized version of masculinity.

The whole truism that TRFs keep repeating that “masculinity is always rewarded.”

If that were true, would it not be the case that the least passingist trans woman would be the safest and most beloved? And yet those women are the most ostracized by their own communities and are not made any safer by it.

And like. These same people do talk about how anything at all clockable as masculine on them while presenting as a woman is dangerous. You do get how that doesn’t fit with “masculinity is always rewarded” right?

this is someone who is not transmasculine and is not a trans man, using us and associating with us to further her own agenda. she is using us as a shield, with absolutely no thought to the consequences this is going to have for us in particular.

the choice to exclude trans women and fem sexual violence victims and survivors only, while making room for cis people, cis men, is potentially the most upsetting thing about this. deeply reprehensible. this is really one of those moments you remember really anyone out there can make a blog and pass themselves off as a voice that has any idea of what they are talking about.

I am so sick of when one trans men is shitty in some way, like being racist or transmisogynistic, people are like "omg this is proof every single trans men ever is an evil horrible person"

but then a trans woman can be like incredibly bigoted and racist and if you call that single person out for it, just that person, then you're a transmisogynist and how dare you accuse them of anything, because women are the Good Gender and are pure and can't be abusive or bigoted or rapists and men are the Evil Gender and every single man ever is a rapist

and it's like...idk how to express this because like trans women are pedojacketed and generalized by cis people constantly, but trans men are also treated horribly by cis people (fucking look at ANYTHING to do with Elliot Page), but transandrophobes will act like every trans man is evil and deserves anythhing that happens to them. and that trans women can do no wrong

Transmasculinity and trans manhood is as diverse as transfemininity and trans womanhood.

You simply choose to reduce it to because it fits your already existing mentality that casts masculinity and manhood as the inherent oppressor.

Also if you think that way I'm pretty sure I can expect you to ALSO be reductive and exclusionist to any transfem person who doesn't fit your normative ideas... soooo.