Call me radical, but I think marginalized men (trans men, men of color, disabled men, etc) should have language to describe how their identity as men and as marginalized people intersect.Â
I say this because identification of oppression is the first step in combating it, and becoming educated about it. Having language better equips everyone to fight oppression.
A common argument Iâve heard against this is that its just validating the idea of misandry, but I have to disagree. Misandry is usually a term used to describe the oppression of cis, straight, white, able bodied, etc. men. However, this doesnât exist. This hypothetical person is not oppressed, that we can agree on. But if we replace a word, say cis with trans, we suddenly get a person that is oppressed for being trans, that we can agree on, right? The oppression of one man does not mean that the other man is the same. Just like the language. We arenât trying to argue that here.
Another argument I hear is that by men speaking on their own experiences, they are talking over women in the same group? but thatâs not how speaking over people works. Speaking over someone is someone who is not marginalized, trying to explain the oppression of a specific marginalized group. For example, a cis person speaking on the experiences of trans people is speaking over them. If we take transandrophobia, its trans men speaking on the experiences of trans men. They are not outside their bounds, they are not trying to speak on experiences they donât know (i.e. trans femmes). They are speaking on their own experiences, and thatâs it. The existence and cries of one oppressed group is not silencing another oppressed group. Thatâs not how it works. If that was how it worked, then the world would only be able to have one human rights movement at a time. The only silencing that is going on here, is the silencing of marginalized menâs voices.Â
We are not expendable. We are not privileged in the same way that white/cis/abled/straight/etc men are, and we should be able to speak on that without backlash. The idea that all men have the same power as privileged men has become pervasive in activist spaces. Thatâs not to say we donât hold some privilege, or that misogyny within our communities is not an issue. We arenât trying to say that, and we still do need to work to dismantle misogyny within our communities, within ourselves, and within the wider world. We are just trying to say that our liberation is unique to our experiences, and that we have a right to demand the justice that has not been given to us yet.Â
