foad

trans women can never speak because we're already apparently soaking up all the attention... nevermind that the "attention" is fearmongering government propaganda

What you are doing here, right now, IS what I'm talking about. You aren't giving me new knowledge, you're not talking about the ways you suffer and how we can repair those societal ills, you are JUST venting angst at me over a perceived slight. What have you MATERIALLY accomplished here, besides kinda pissing me off and putting me on the defensive? Anything at all?

No, it's a pure expression of misanthropy and it's destructive and pointless. And I have to be clear, I don't blame you for this reply, because social media consistently rewards people who respond to every slight like this. Outrage sells, and so outrage becomes the default emotional expression. But that's fucking nasty and we shouldn't be falling for the psyop by behaving that way to people we can work with and educate.

the original post identifies a way in which trans women are silenced and devalued in trans spaces. the voices of trans men are frequently favored over those of trans women. we live in a patriarchal society that values maleness and masculinity, which rewards those who seek to attain it and often disregards or outright condemns those who shun it. these attitudes don't disappear in trans spaces or "The LGBT Community". and so we see in these spaces that just like other spaces, the voices must upheld are the voices of transmasculine folks -- those who align themselves with masculinity, take on traditionally male names, and are understood as men by their peers.

any time somebody points to this issue, people will jump to its defense -- often with rhetoric just like what's highlighted in the original post, and often just like the rhetoric you're deploying in response. in effect if not explicitly: "don't you know it's actually that transmascs are invisibilized? it's good to center their voices." "don't you think there's enough said about transfem issues? i mean, transfems are hypervisible, we're already always talking about transfem issues." "ugh, aren't you just trying to divide the community by talking about the ways transfemininity and transmasculinity are treated differently, including in The Trans Community. you need to work on having patience for the ways you're mistreated instead."

note how in this rhetoric as you deploy it, the critique is immediately reflected so that there's blame all around, and We All Need to Do Better. no longer is this about a cogent way in which transfems are silenced and mistreated by those we often find ourselves in community with, it's about "having patience for each other when we're being braindead assholes" -- the idea that there might be an aggrieved party (or even a party who is, e.g., multiply marginalized and consistently aggrieved by transmisogyny) is immediately discarded.

whether you recognize it or not, when you see a complaint from a transfem about being transmisogynized including in the communities they share with transmascs and leap to identify it as a community-dividing psyop, you are in effect saying "this issue you experience and are trying to voice? you can't express this because it will divide the community for people to hear that they might be complicit in the marginalization of transfems. why do you feel the need to say this? it's bad to say this. in fact, it's so bad to say it that i think you probably don't really feel that way -- in fact, you're probably not a real trans woman, you're just a psyop trying to break us apart!" and you have to recognize that doing that is going to be read as silencing and shutting down trans women, because that is what the fuck you are doing when you insist upon these "calls for unity" in response to a trans woman's identification of how she's mistreated in the community you're calling for her to be unified with.

trans women should not be expected to stand behind feminist movements that are transmisogynistic just because they're women and stand to gain from the advancement of women as a social class. likewise, trans women should not be expected to stand behind a trans movement and "LGBT Community" that's transmisogynistic just because she stands to gain from the advancement of "trans people" as a social class.

That completely misses the point.

Even in a world where people let people into shelters according to their gender identities-- as a trans man, I would not feel safe in a men's shelter. Cis men are responsible for a disproportionate amount of physical, emotional, and sexual violence against trans people, including trans men. Being correctly gendered does not magically make that environment safe.

If I absolutely had to seek emergency shelter, I at least have a place I could realistically go without being surrounded by the demographic most likely to target me: a women's shelter, even if that would require being misgendered.

Trans women don't have that option. A men's shelter is not simply "the equivalent in reverse." It's an environment where they're both women and trans in an environment surrounded by their worst oppressors, making them especially vulnerable to harassment and violence. And in many cases, they may not even be admitted.

male/man is a sociopolitical class within a patriarchal economic system. what would being a "man" even mean if it was distinct from its relational position in this sexgender hierarchy? what do these guys think manhood is? like they do not even offer a definition of what constitutes this ideal of "gender" that supposedly exists outside of social, political, and economic context.

this endless ''nothing means anything'' idealism as a tool for obscuring any analysis around sexgender in order to perpetuate transmisogyny without being held to account for it.. it's such a "I'd die before I hold solidarity with anyone" move.

are people just seeing the initial 15~ words on this post and immediately assuming they understand the point and the point is exactly the same rhetoric they've been equipped with previously

life isn't so bad sometimes

It was perfectly on topic.

@oojamaflip-whatchamacallit

And someone in a screenshot claimed “only trans women are denied housing” which this person corrected. Trans men are in fact also denied housing.

Did you just miss the screenshot reblog?

And sorry but a trans man trying to go to a men-centric shelter is TERRIFYING.

So even if it were the case that trans men could get in, and the claim that trans women have it ‘so much worse’ were true, that just completely ignores the still-awful plight of trans men. Who are at risk of rape and pregnancy. What happened to solidarity?

(Whereas the fear is the other way around for womens’ shelters- because patriarchy and trauma)

This isn’t because of any sort of misogyny unfortunately. It’s the penises.

it’s funny that the poltical climate is like ‘Hmmm genital checks for underage kids playing sports, hmmm yes’ but genital checks for literal adults who can consent and simply get a doctor’s note for such isn’t suggested for the most vulnerable vagina-havers to feel safe. Like if bottom modification was required that wouldn’t fix the problem- but it would at least extend housing to those trans women. And maybe in some places it could be pushed to even those who have had orchi even if they hadn’t had full surgery.

okay shithead, you really don't need to go onto a post that's about an issue trans women face in spades, that makes trans women as the concerned party, and go "all lives matter". if you really believe this should be applied to All Trans People you can go make that post yourself, reacting to somebody speaking up for women by decentering women is straightforwardly reactionary.

My stance is that being trans will always bring a level of discrimination, I have seen trans men get discrimination for being trans and for being specifically trans men, and I have seen trans women (including myself) get hate for being trans and also for being trans women. You shouldn’t be trying to compare their suffering for the same reason I’m not going to say I’m more oppressed than black people, that’s silly and stupid when we should fight together against the people who oppress us all.

Speaking of the people who oppress us all, hate to break it to you but it ain’t cis men. I am friends with plenty that may not understand me being trans super well but they respect me and use my pronouns and such. The real oppressors are conservatives and billionaires and capitalism. You are just pushing cis men to join their side because you want to be hateful because your ego cannot stand being oppressed without turning around and oppressing someone else.

i get that you have cis gut friends that treat you well, and i'm happy for you that you have that connection. but those cis men are still part of the structure of manhood and, when pushed, the vast majority of them will leverage their manhood to their benefit. the majority of them will sit in silence while they see the women around them disadvantaged and oppressed for nothing more than not being a man. and many of those men will sit in silence because they're not even aware of how they be benefiting from being men -- they are ignorant to or directly in denial of the advantages afforded to them.

and i'm not saying that your friends are wicked, sinister people! i know how easy it is to hear somebody talking this way about the people close to you who listen to you and offer you companionship and kindness, and think it's absurd that those people who are friends to you are actually taking advantage of their manhood. but it doesn't take a mustache-twirling villain to reap these benefits. but it's an incredibly mundane thing to reap the benefits of another's oppression and not even know -- or to pay lip service without meaningfully sticking your neck out for others

when you say that it isn't men as a class who oppress us as women, that it's the responsibility of the billionaires in power, you obfuscate the dynamics of patriarchy and the ways men are favored in the world -- you're covering your eyes and blaming the issue on an enemy so big it would take dismantling existing power structures to topple. this is obfuscating those power structures, you make it harder to identify them, and without being able to clearly identify the power structures, they become impossible to fight. "men don't oppress us" is like saying "i just don't see race!" -- obfuscating the power structures at play while doing nothing to actively dismantle them.

Like, the satanic temple. They don't believe the devil's real, they're just using satanic imagery to trigger some christian snowflakes into a meltdown because christians are annoying.

And this is that except instead of a bunch of whiny religious folks trying to explain how me wearing a dress is oppressing them somehow, its making fun of a marginalized community who have committed the entirely reasonable sin of bad philosophy.

I meet a TMA rights activist I'ma gonna politely explain that what they're describing effects all women and rather than focus on how it might be targeting you specifically, you should focus how its the behavior itself that's toxic and we should be teaming up with the cis women and trans men and burning the patriarchy to the ground together.

quite the uncomfortable dilemma — by affirming his gender and simultaneously rejecting his romantic advances, she has unintentionally aroused his anger. perhaps he will get over it. perhaps, after many more encounters with other women of the same persuasion, his bitterness will only grow. perhaps she will encounter many more men just like him.

a disturbing reality, is it not? well, dear viewer, that reality is our own, and a doll like her meets a man like him every day. perhaps one day each of them will meet a girl who understands and cares for her. perhaps you are able to make sure this is the case with those women in your life. but for now, we leave you with yet another tale from the twilight zone. thank you, and goodnight.

and to your final point, do you recognize how fucking callous you're being in saying that? did you consider there might be some reason trans women are on tumblr even though we're given so much shit? that we have to try to find community in whatever places we can manage because so many places are outright hostile to us? that finding community is often just a choice of which places are less hostile to us than others, that there's no such thing as community that isn't hostile to you on some level?