(Want to say here that I hope the original poster talking about survival sex work is able to get the support and resources to not have to do that anymore; while I take issue with some of the language used, I also am not comfortable with taking a person venting about a very traumatizing situation and using that to start a critical conversation.)
I think transmascfeminism has had some interesting things to say regarding epistemology, so it is really disappointing to see this:
Which is just intersexist. I personally think that it is entirely fair to say that even perisex trans women are oppressed in relation to their sex characteristics (one of the most visceral examples being the widespread sterilization required to transition in many places). But even just including intersex people, describing them as a "vanishingly rare" amount of people assigned male is textbook intersexism. The choice to downplay the sex oppression of intersex people assigned male in order to emphasize the unified sex oppression of people assigned female (no consideration, also, for how intersex people assigned female face intersexism from perisex cis and trans people assigned female; its all just "sex based oppression" and so undifferentiated) is fundamentally antithetical to trans and intersex liberation.
This is wretchedly decontextualized. "Assigned gender" was originally coined by John Money, the doctor who championed surgery on infants unable to consent for the sake of "correcting" intersex bodies. "AGAB was woke just a moment ago" clearly anon has not been paying attention, then, because intersex and nonbinary people have been criticizing the use of AGAB in trans spaces for years at this point. TMF framing AGAB language as something that stems from feminists describing sexist oppression is completely inaccurate.
And then, in the notes of that post:
"Watching "female" become a dirty word" should be immediately a dogwhistle for a TERF. The constructs of "female" and "male" have also been criticized by trans and intersex feminists immensely, and yet:
Again, just disappointing to see. It's clear he does not have much care for intersex criticisms of these terms. As an intersex person I'm very tired of people thinking that throwing in "perisex" into their sentence magically makes their intersexism nonexistent because they treat us as a footnote to section off from the REAL topic of conversation. It's very clear based on that first post that this is how he sees us, because why else talk about intersex people as "vanishingly rare"? Once again, exorsexism and intersexism are always at the scene of the crime when it comes to shitty behavior in the trans community.
This also, in my opinion, overlooks that "maleness" and "femaleness" are weaponized against trans people regardless of AGAB, pre and post transition; it is not so easy to separate gender and sex, and the same way that a pre-transition trans man can be treated harshly because of his masculinity, his masculinity can also change how his sex is perceived, even if nothing technically separates him from a perisex cis woman (and the same goes for trans women). I think it is a massive mistake for transfeminists to ever use "male" and "female" in a way which reifies them like this.
& to be clear, I think we should give grace to trans people talking about having been "born female" or male, or describing themselves as female or male; the problem is with not integrating intersex criticisms of these sex constructs and simply taking them at face value for the sake of viewing patriarchy as a case of "males vs females" which is, again, antithetical to trans and intersex liberation.
And TMF seems to have opinions on kink not vastly different from the general radical feminist view on kink, while also seeming to not understand... what a misogyny or detrans kink logically entails? I'm not against a discussion of how detrans kinks or others can be used as self-harm, or how the community (which I am not a part of and do not know well) can have an unhealthy culture that lacks the proper understanding of anti-transmasculinity or patriarchy in order to ensure these kinks are done safely, or a broader criticism of how kink is done in online spaces where a lot of the safety structures fall to the wayside.
But like, kinks are often based in taboo subjects and power dynamics for a reason, and that reason is that taboo subjects and power dynamics excite the mind and body. I really do not get being shocked that when you go into a tag for a kink based on the fantasy of being dominated on a gender level, they are in fact using misogynistic and transphobic ideas as part of the fantasy. What else would the kink be? I don't know how you can effectively criticize the kink spaces while acting shocked that a misogyny kink involves people saying misogynistic things for kink purposes. I am suspicious of framing it as a "criticism of these kinks" rather than a criticism of the spaces or even people doing the kinks. Given the comparison to literary criticism, I'd argue its similar to criticizing trends in the horror genre, or criticizing how a LARP game is done, vs. criticizing horror or LARP itself. And given that kinks are not merely literary genres, but elements of people's sexual orientation, I also feel that there's a comparison between radical feminist criticisms of kink itself and radical feminist criticisms of transness itself. Trans people can have sexist ideas about gender and use those to explain their trans desires, but radical feminists have historically taken the fact that trans people internalize sexism and used that to conclude that transness itself is sexist. Similarly, people regularly take the fact that people with certain kinks internalize sexism and other systems of oppression and those impact how they understand and go about engaging in their kinks, and conclude that kink itself makes people sexist.
Anyways. I'm not a transmasc feminist, I am a transunitist transfeminist. In general I do not care so much for the specific labels people use, but I am becoming increasingly firm in my preference for transfeminism and centering transunity. My nonbinary intersex ass will not stand for anything other than anti-binary feminism and the focus on compassionate, collective liberation.
