swageline

Ao3 as the quiet, unassuming book nerd that's secretly freaky as fuck

Happy 15th birthday to Nyan Cat! The post above is the original and first post of the 8bit kitty back on April 2nd, 2011.

On the one hand, I think the rhetorical device of the 'bad transfeminist' is a dangerous tool and in fact these discussions should almost always be had in private. And if you can't speak to someone in private, public whispers in their direction doesn't feel like good propaganda for our movement. It looks bad for everyone involved, and I think raises the stakes and is destructive towards our ability to communicate. We're all just people, please remember this, and do not treat each other as mere ideological foils.

On the other hand, I do have to agree that you can't reduce 'drag' and 'femboys' to one thing like this. The history of drag is inextricably tied to ballroom culture and is pretty important history, even as today the image of drag is not infrequently weaponized against trans women. In fact, I think drag queens and femboys are pretty inarguably subject to transmisogyny (not even getting into the fact that many of them are trans women), and the "well they aren't because they can see they're not women" claim is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of transfeminist theory. Frankly, I think any analysis of 'femboy' identity must first look at why trans women frequently label themselves femboys. Why do trans women participate in drag culture? What does it give them? You cannot merely say "it's bad" without first understanding this.

On the other other hand, there's a reason femboys and drag queens are generally more popular among the non-transfeminized than trans women are. I believe pretty strongly that transmisogynists prefer us disstanced from womanhood, and thus those of us who make less of a claim to womanhood are preferred. This is why "transwoman" over "trans woman", why "tgirl", why "tranny", and why we're so often simply considered to be a different kind of thing from a woman. Not infrequently I'll run into trans women surrounded by non trans women who will tell me about their traumatic "male socialization", who will tell me about their "biological masculinity", who will bemoan their "male bodies". I think femboy and drag queen identities must be understood in this context, too.

On the other other other hand, the purpose of this process is not so simple as "trans women more women good, trans women less women bad". The transmisogynist's ultimate target is our legibility, not our womanhood. Womanhood is simply an effective path to legibility that many of us favor, and the denial of it is an extremely effective way to render us illegible. Transfeminism is about building ties between the transmisogynized. Such claims about 'femboys' and 'drag queens' frequently feel structured to deny them any legibility and take the path of transmisogyny to do so. Despite what some tumblr transfeminists may say, a trans woman absolutely can do a transmisogyny. We need to work together, not push each other apart.

On the other other other other hand, a movement that cannot survive disagreements among its members will not survive for long. It must be through disagreement, through internal conflict, through recognizing contradiction and engaging with it that we will become stronger and grow. To ignore disagreement for the sake of "our movement must be unified" is a form of liberalism, and weakens us in the long term as these contradictions that are suppressed will only grow. When we come across such contradictions, we must accept them and discuss them and together chart a course through them. Ideological struggle is deeply important to our movement, and we must create a place where we may struggle together and still walk away as friends and comrades. It must be a productive struggle, yes, but it must still be a struggle.

And then it repeats and I'm counting my hands all over again. Spock eats the lizard, rock smashes the scissors.

All this to say, this feels like a very confused mix of discourse, that I'm not really sure if tumblr is the place for, but if there's no place for it outside tumblr then I suppose tumblr will have to do. (Though, that's not very exceptional.) Please recognize all necessary realities of the situation, and try your best to not allow yourself or your arguments (on either side) to become co-opted by reactionary forces.

This will happen again, and again, and again, and again, forever. As long as we exist, we will engage in conflict. That is life. Frankly, this should be a good thing.

The substrate will be different but the reaction will continue as long as the reactants (non-identical humans) are exposed to each other.

But, the goal cannot be to suppress conflicts but to through this struggle to strengthen our movement, ok? I'd feel a lot more confident with that happening if both sides (or, like, either side) would make clear that they understand such ideas.

The worst part of tumblr, and of all such public facing popularity led social media, is that it encourages you to make your argument in its strongest form.

To suppress your own complexities, to hide your doubts, to tell the little white lie of absolute confidence. If you listen more, you'll find yourself telling bigger lies like misdirection and emotive language and threats. To not allow any complexity into your post, to reduce it to only a single idea in its purest form.

And you'll justify this as the natural result of your context. You're taught to do this. The material structures all encourage it. It makes your posts more popular, your engagement less frustrating, your truth more truthier.