#hypervisibility

All trans people face specific forms of oppression. trans women have historically been hypervisible because western media loves to tarnish them as perverted men, which then spurs copious amounts of anti-trans legislation to be written, but that doesn't mean trans men + mascs and intersex folks don't also have issues or aren't affected by transphobia just because the media isn't making a spectacle out of them.

Trans men and mascs are often underreported in instances of IPV, hospital admissions and murder because their trans identity is not known or disclosed, or they pass enough to where certain services are denied to them because they are catered to cis women. Additionally, trans men + mascs are still impacted by restrictive reproductive laws around abortion and birth control.

Intersex people often have non-consensual genital surgeries done to them early in life, and are often reassigned into either male or female, never knowing that they're intersex. This often is the cause of specific health issues, which they may not be able to receive adequate treatment for due to doctor's being under equipped to treat non-perisex or ambiguous anatomy. But if you don't know you're intersex or if all medical literature treats you like a one in a million instance, you will not be acknowledged by either the bigots or the LGBT community.

TMA/TME has created a false notion that TME people who often experience hyperinvisibility are more privileged than those who are TMA, who are often hypervisible. But the truth is, no group of trans people experiences more privilege just because they are not being talked about or targeted explicitly in legislation.

dissolve

1. Hypervisibility is not a privilege of the exploited. It's a harrowing experience to be observed perpetually by a global audience as you resist your own murder. Black people globally are very familiar with this experience. The Palestinian people are both hypervisible and dehumanized to such an extent that their national cause has been used rhetorically by many who are willing to watch and cry and throw pennies but not provide actual support for their safety, which feels very familiar to Black people.

2. Nonblack people globally on average do not recognize Black suffering as human suffering because Black life isn't recognized as human life by the averqge nonblack person. If that feels accusatory, it is. Think before responding to that, ask yourself some questions before you ask me a half baked one because by ethnicity, nationality, status in the eyes of civil society and so on, all nonblack people benefit from the dehumanizing of Black people.

3. Palestinians have used their hypervisibility for the benefit of the struggles of others even at their own expense, even at the risk of their lives, Palestinians have been insistent, for years, that their struggle is connected to the suffering of the whole world and they've been extremely correct.

Invisibility is also not a privilege.

Not only does it erase trans men and nonbinary people, but in pushing trans women specifically, or issues primarily affecting trans women, to the forefront of every conversation about trans people in general, it also exacerbates the hypervisibility of trans women that make them the central target of the most violent anti-trans propaganda.

The lowest stake issue about it is that it just kinda feels bad when someone is talking about trans people and I have to do that extra processing in my head — like, "Oh they said 'trans people' but they're definitely talking about binary trans women here." "Ok they said this is about trans women but it also applies to most nonbinary identities." "That statement implies trans men don't exist, but I know they don't mean that so I won't hold it against them. Would it be rude to say something about it?"

Obviously the same applies when talking about trans men, but I haven't seen it happening that way around.

One could also go into talking about transfems and transmascs or trans manhood and womanhood with language that assumes a person can't be both or change from one to another — but you can't really just say that's a problem and have most trans and trans friendly people go "oh yeah I didn't think of that" bc being multigender is. even less understood and accepted than being otherwise nonbinary. But give it some thought, please.