(before i start, i want to mention that i’m opposed to the afab/amab dichotomy outside of an intersex context, but i’ll be using it here for the sake of brevity. i’ll be putting it in quotes because i think it’s an oversimplification of gendered upbringing and experiences, but that’s something i’ll be talking about later)
i wish people would stop saying that “afab transfem” implies that trans women aren’t women, because that’s not it at all. for example, i’m a perisex “afab” person, but i was raised androgynous. i never felt like a girl growing up, i was barely treated like a girl (only in medical contexts really), i missed out on all the conventional female coming-of-age milestones, and now i want to fully identify as a woman, but it feels unfamiliar and like it’s something i have to explore. i’m not “cis+,” because i was never cis to begin with. i was afab but i didn’t have a gender. now i do. and i’m not a “domesticated tomboy” either (barf), because my androgyny as a kid wasn’t a rebellion, it was just how it was raised. my femininity now is a rebellion the same way it is for “amab” trans women.
i don’t think trans women aren’t real women. i don’t think i’m not a real woman. i know i’m a woman, and i know that i’m transitioning towards womanhood. that by definition makes me a trans woman, even if i don’t have the conventional body or experiences most people expect. i don’t go through the exact same things “amab” trans women do, and i recognize i have privilege in being perisex “afab” and perceived as a woman. i also agree that intersex people are excluded from these arguments all too often, and i wish people who were raised genderless, “uaab,” or otherwise had gnc upbringings would be included too, especially when that overlaps with being intersex. all i’m asking for is for people to not think i’m a horrible bigot for things out of my control like my upbringing and my gender, and for some kind of community with other people transitioning to womanhood.
This is transgynephobia affecting varsex, culturally gendered, plural, and non-binary fems.
It is so weird how AFAB/AMAB language has changed the way people treat transfem & transmasc as identities.
Transfem and transmasc were not coined under an AGAB context. The AGAB context was applied later. It is sad that "AGABless" and "assignment variant" versions of transfem & transmasc had to be made, because once upon a time nobody would have associated them with AFAB & AMAB.
AFAB/AMAB describes only one thing - what letter/word is on someones birth certificate. It does not describe how they were raised, it does not describe every experience they have had with socially imposed gender.
Not only does it harm people like you with inconsistent or vague socially imposed genders, but it also harms people who were raised as a cultural gender, people who have detransitioned and are retransitioning, people who are plural, and non-binary people are transitioning to a different form of femininity/masculinity or manhood/womanhood (ie; transitioning from binary woman to multigender woman.)
