Tired

No transphobes allowed, only transborbs.

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please, please, please remember that this "hating transmascs" and "kill all TMEs" bullshit is just a few edgy weirdos on the internet who enjoy saying inflammatory things for shock value.

transfems are not your enemy, and YES, you do actually need to unlearn transmisogyny. Not because you're transmasc, but because we live in a transmisogynistic society.

transfems are not a hivemind, there's no broader transfem consensus that transmascs are Evil Privileged Abusers, but the small group of people who think that way WANT you to believe that they are representative of trans women everywhere. they're super not. they really are just a handful of angsty people online looking for someone to pick on.

all trans people have more commonalities than differences. there aren't two distinct species of trans people from two different planets, there are just trans people with a wide diversity of experiences and walks of life. we are all affected by the same systems of oppression.

“scratch a transphobe and a misogynist bleeds”

siobhan o'leary gives us a brilliant deconstruction of transphobia, and transmisogyny specifically

It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.

If you are a trans man who hates trans women, get out.

If you are a trans woman and hate nonbinary people, get out.

If you are nonbinary and you hate binary trans people, get out.

Transmascs are loving and supporting their transfem partners or friends or family and vice versa, they’re swapping clothes with each other or helping each other with their HRT injections or buying each other plushies and cute little trinkets, they’re playing video games with each other, asking each other out, dating and marrying each other, they’re saying such beautiful words about each other hoping that the other will read them and smile, they’re protecting each other from transphobes or helping them to escape their families or offering them a place to stay and a couch to crash on, they’re sharing music recs and teaching each other new skills and creating new things together. They’re meeting and talking and laughing and sharing and building new lives together.

Never let anyone tell you that the community is divided. There is so much solidarity out there, happening every second, and it will continue happening until the end of time.

I want to boost everything this person has said and add on.

The reason I call myself a tomboy now, despite it being seen as a childish word and having had someone swear at me over it because ‘tHeRe’S nO suCh thInG as BoY thInGs anD giRL thIngS sHut uP’ is because I couldn’t call myself that or be like that when I was a kid. It was seen as a negative thing and I was already bullied enough. “Looking like a boy” was the worst thing that could happen to a girl.

And I’m not even 26 yet. We aren’t talking 30+ years ago, we are talking 2000s and even 2010s. It’s only since trans people have become more accepted in the past few years that gender nonconformity has too.

And the people who helped me accept my gender nonconformity more than anyone else? Were trans people. They taught me, “there’s nothing wrong with how you feel. You’re still a valid woman no matter what you wear, how you have your hair or what you’re into ❤️”

And don’t even get me started on how people treat gender nonconforming men. JK Rowling has a lot of nerve to be like “uwu boys can wear dresses and only us gendercrits accept that!” when she has, even in recent works, made femininity in men a negative trait, as well as making masculinity in women a negative trait also.

A lot of people still don’t accept gnc people even now. Just last year I had someone tell me they’d never let their daughter “dress like a boy”, and I’m always terrified to walk into a bathroom in case the next JK Rowling is in there, sees my gender expression and pepper sprays me or worse.

HAH. I'm a straight up cis woman and even then terfs gleefully write their explicit fantasies of how I'm gonna be sexually assaulted and murdered by my closest friends, as some sorta punishment for not agreeing with them. If you argue with one of em it's GUARANTEED they'll randomly bring up your genitals in gross, violent and or explicit ways.

They'll fantasize about me having a penis and how everything i say and do is secretly fuelled by my "male sexual aggression" or whatever and then proceed to make fun of the genitals and body they imagine i have.

They'll assume I'm a trans man and then move on to say the most misogynistic shit you've ever heard about my body and my assumed ability to give birth or my supposed sexual subordination to "males", in graphic detail.

— Physical, Sexual, and Intimate Partner Violence Among Transgender and Gender-Diverse Individuals

I would highly recommend you read the writing of the man who coined the term, if you haven't. This post provides a lot of crucial context. He is also a grown man, as are many people who use and discuss ATM using this term, and being condescendingly ageist helps no one.

LBQ+ people interviewed for this report repeatedly named gendered discrimination against masculine gender expressions in particular as the catalyst for a lifetime of economic marginalization, discrimination and harassment at work, psychological abuse, and physical and sexual violence. Their accounts point to the need for deeper research and analysis of how masculine gender expression by LBQ+ people increases their risk of exposure to various human rights violations and abuses. Some reports on violence against LBQ+ people (explored below) have treated gender expression as a signifier of sexual orientation or gender identity, limiting knowledge production on how presentations of masculinity are themselves policed and violated.

They even call for specifically including "gender expression" into anti-discrimination laws specifically so that violence done against to people for presenting as masculine can be more recognized and dealt with. & if "you can't use a word that implies that masculinity in any way is a part of your oppression!" isn't "limiting knowledge production on how presentations of masculinity are themselves policed and violated," what is?

That's the Human Rights Watch saying that, to remind you, not just "fucking kids" online.

Additionally, no one is saying we shouldn't use transphobia, and people who talk about transandrophobia frequently discuss oppositional sexism by name! I would even go as far as to say that we really love that concept, and it's extremely valuable in talking about how patriarchy (and transandrophobia) functions. In fact, I first heard of the term from people who talk about transandrophobia discussing Serano's work.

While this particular study was rather small, it is only adding to existing data. The U.S Transgender Survey—the largest survey of trans people in the United States—while not collecting data about IPV in general, did find that trans men had the second highest rates of sexual assault at 51%, behind nonbinary people with female on their birth certificate at 58%, with transgender women at 37%.

The USTS 2015 also found that:

Trans men experienced the highest lifetime suicide rate (45%)

Trans men experienced the highest rate of having a negative experience while seeking medical care (42%)

Trans men experienced the highest rate of avoiding seeing a doctor when needed due to fear of mistreatment (31%)

Trans men had the second highest rate (behind nonbinary people AFAB) of being denied coverage for hormones (32% and 36%)

Trans men experienced the highest rate of avoiding public bathrooms due to fear of problems or confrontations (75%)

Were the second most likely (behind nonbinary people, regardless of AGAB) to never or only sometimes be treated with respect when interacting with an officer who knew or thought they were transgender

And the 2022 report they published on Health & Well-being found that:

Trans men were the most likely to avoid care due to mistreatment concerns (32%)

Trans men had the second greatest proportions (behind nonbinary people AFAB) of negative experiences with healthcare providers (53% and 55%)

None of this is meant to imply that trans women are not profoundly oppressed, or that the forms of oppression are shared. The goal is not competition. This data illustrates that clearly, there are ways in which trans men are especially affected by things even amongst other trans people. And it makes sense to talk about what that means and how that looks in practice. And necessarily that conversation will involve manhood because it really makes no sense to try to separate transness from the particular expression it has in individual people. Trans men are trans because they are men, and men because they are trans.

I only ever emphasize trans men being more affected by an issue than trans women as a response to others constantly insisting that this never happens and that trans women are categorically more oppressed than trans men every meaningful way. Transandrophobia has always been intended as a response to oppression olympics, and I have consistently seen people who use the term actively try to avoid recreating that perspective. Not always successfully, but overwhelming there is a strongly held belief by people who discuss transandrophobia that all trans people are equally oppressed and that transphobia can only be combated through all of us having an equal voice. And people lie about this constantly, the arguments against the term look much weaker when they aren't fighting strawmen.

It's crucial to understand that there is a severe misunderstanding widespread on Tumblr about what exactly "transandrophobia truthers" believe, and it actually stems directly from oppositional sexism.

People believe that trans men are less oppressed than trans women, are a less acceptable target of transphobic & misogynistic violence than them, they believe that if trans women frequently experience a form of violence that means trans men can't, and even that trans men oppress trans women. And so they also think that, since transandrophobia is the "opposite" of transmisogyny, that people who discuss transandrophobia must think all those things about trans women. And while some people, generally out of pain and frustration (which trans women also experience, no one has to be the villain here), can lean into that, overwhelmingly that is a terribly inaccurate understanding of what is actually being discussed.

I'd also recommend to talk to some trans women involved in this discussion. Particularly shout out to @velvetvexations and @transfemme-shelterdog, both of whom have faced a lot of vile transmisogynistic harassment because they talk about transandrophobia. There is a lot to be said about how understanding queerphobic anti-masculinity helps broaden and deepen one's understanding of anti-transfeminine violence, but I will leave that conversation up to transfems assigned male for right now, as I think it is more persuasive to hear from them.

Funny enough, I quite literally just finished writing a paper on this topic (specifically anti-transmasculine violence as a global phenomenon) a few days ago. So you caught me at a great moment! And I didn't even get to cite the individual examples of anti-transmasculine violence I've collected in this archive, which you may also find compelling (it also includes further links to research & writing on the topic). I'll also tag this with my tags for collecting instances transandrophobia so you can scroll through those.

some of you are fucking mean. and not like, in a "i disagree with you so you're morally bad" way, i just mean like. straight up schoolyard bully type stuff when that's completely and utterly uncalled for as an adult. and that really fucking sucks. I'm completely guilty of it too, in the past and in the present, and it's something I'm trying to work on and be better about.

but a month ago I made a post expressing my sadness that the group that i'm a part of, one that deserves love and joy and respect and companionship, is pushed to a point where they see only each other as safe. where they have been constantly beaten down to the point where they are convinced that everyone that isn't like them is out to get them. and that made me really sad, and it still does. some of my best friends in the world are people unlike me that still view me as someone worthy of love and respect and compassion and all the wonderful things friends are for.

i made that post and people added some wonderful advice on how they escaped that type of fear, one that isn't unfounded but ultimately one that you will benefit from leaving behind, and i wanted to share that around so that the people who were going through that and didn't want to have that mindset anymore had some direction. i know trans women are lonely, i am a trans woman. i used to be sad and lonely and isolated. i am not now, and i wanted to help other transgender women find their way to what i have because i feel like I'm very lucky and i want them to experience that joy too. i want my sisters to thrive and im glad a lot of the response to that post was people who wanted to seek out a better life for themselves. i wish i had some of the advice that the wonderful additions to the post gave when i was a younger, less experienced tgirl. it was never about saying that trans women are in the wrong for being fearful about their safety, it was never about telling them they just needed to "reach across the aisle" or some shit. it was sadness at a fucking tragic occurrence in a community I'm a part of and advice on how to get out there and make yourself feel better if you were looking for it.

i made that post venting, because this is ultimately just my blog i dump thoughts on to more than anything, and i don't have a PR team or something. I'm a transgender woman with two roommates who barely scrapes by on her own art. i'm not rich, i don't have like, a cabal of people who go over all my posts and help me individually select each word. I'm a woman with a lot of eyes on me and i try to not let that get to me. but a lot of people really went for the throat and assumed a lot of things about me and what i said even though i clarified dozens of times.

people called me a pickme and said horrible, terrible things about me to their friends and to my face. people assumed i wasn't a trans woman because of what i said. i had popular transgender bloggers directly message me in an attempt to dissuade me from an "antifeminist" rabbit hole. i got told that i was uneducated even though i have taken college courses and worked jobs and read several books of theory on the subject. i got told to kill myself a couple times. i had someone write something horrible about my trans man friend sexually assaulting me (which infuriated me on multiple levels, since my friend is a fucking sweetheart and one of the people who's supported me in my transition the most.) i had people harassing friends and mutuals of mine into unfollowing me because i was social poison for that week.

and, like, what the fuck?

I'm not ever going to say that I didn't word things poorly or explain myself badly or blow up at some folks for what i did. I'm always going to fuck up eventually, and for that I'm sorry. but i'm also one person and people on this site constantly post about how you should treat transgender women better and how they're subjected to endless scrutiny that other groups don't have to, and that you should offer them grace. and i was not offered grace by a lot of the people who reblog those kinds of posts. i'm not saying i was never wrong, but i don't think im wrong in saying I did not fucking deserve all that.

this happens to me way too often. i say something that maybe did not have the most thought put into it but was coming from a place of compassion, and it gets twisted into the most vile, evil version of what i could have possibly said. this happens nearly every month at this rate. and people label me as this horrible shit because they believe that i'm some unquestionably evil piece of shit that's going to ruin everything.

what i am is annoying. i am annoying to a lot of people because of a multitude of reasons, but i'm gonna put my foot down and say that i'm really not anything more than that. i can say some annoying, uninformed shit, but i try to do my best and i want good things for everyone, including the people who sling shit at me because i dont think anyone deserves to live in misery, and my ultimate goal is to leave the world a better place in at least some small way. and it's gonna lead to me annoying some people, and thats fine.

i acknowledge that i can be brash and idiotic and rude, but i never ever want to ruin anyone's life and i think people just need to learn to block me and know that expressing a deep hatred towards a transgender woman you've never even talked to who is just trying to post her thoughts and make life a little easier for people is fucking weird, and you would do better to just be annoyed by me and leave me alone rather than telling me to kill myself, or spread rumors about me, or try to get me deplatformed, especially when my career is literally centered around having an audience for my work. i am self employed; if i get chased out of the public eye, that is my entire income.