If trans mascs and trans men can be lesbians trans women and trans fems can be gay men. Also multigender people exist.
So unfortunately thatβs not really the case. Just because trans men can do something, that doesnβt mean that trans women can do the opposite of that. My experience as someone who transitioned from a gay man to a bi trans woman is that as soon as you transition to a certain point, the door of the gay male world slams shut in your face. That doesnβt necessarily mean that the door to the lesbian world opens wide.
When I go to gay male bars, Iβm either welcome only as a guest or Iβm not welcome at all. Because Iβm a WOMAN. They donβt even want CIS women there, why would they want a tranny like me unless iβm on stage?
Trans men are often still welcome in lesbian bars in the US because of the specific history here. Trans men have often been welcome in βfemale onlyβ spaces to the exclusion of trans women, as long as they misgender themselves. The Michigan Womynβs Festival is a prime example. Trans girls, though, we donβt usually have this option in gay male places if we look too femme.
The funny thing is, now that gay trans men are gaining more acceptance (happy for yβall btw) i can go to a gay bar and see trans dudes there having a blast or i can go to a lesbian bar and see trans dudes there having a blast, but in either space, the trans girls are usually shuttled off to some dark corner or are absent all together. I could only be the βmain audienceβ of those places if i detransition or pass completely for a cis woman.
Thatβs why i said that a trans woman canβt be a gay man. Because we simply arenβt allowed to be! And this can be painful, but itβs not necessarily a bad thing. For many years, trans women were just seen as extremely effeminate gay men. Our lives were NOT better then. We fought to have the misogyny we experienced recognized as such and we fought to be recognized as the women we ARE. I donβt need other people trying to be progressive to come in and undo that work.
Maybe if we fought really hard, we could be let back into the gay male world, but I donβt know a single transfem who actually thinks this should happen. Myself and the other transfeminists in my circle are instead fighting more important battles. Is there misogyny in the gay world to be addressed? Sure, where isnβt there!
But rather that going on a holy conquest to break into the darkrooms of the gay leather bars, itβs much more important to fight for trans women to have equity in labor, access to medical transition, and equal rights with not only cis women, but cis men as well.
SOME people are allowed to be a gay boy one day, a genderless angel the next, and a butch4butch lesbian the day after. Transsexual women, for the most part, are not. Past a certain point of transition, there is no escape we can find from the transmisogyny we face outside of detransitioning or complete passing. Without a better way to describe it, I think this freedom or the lack thereof is the epitome of how transmisogyny is selectively applied to trans women.
That lower social class we occupy, shuttered out and ridiculed, that IS trans womanhood. We can be whoever we want inside, identify however, present however, but if we transition, transmisogyny is going to be our lot. It exists outside of us and is applied TO us no matter how we identify. We donβt receive the leisures, endowments, and privileges that gay men do. We donβt experience the leisures, endowments, or privileges that cis women do. We share in the struggles of both. There is no opt-out we can take. Transmisogyny reigns.
At least, until my sisters and i are victorious against it. And one day, we will be.
