Don't Be Weird

so predictably this isn't true

i actually watched the lecture and while i don't agree with all of amin's core positions (he's a gender abolitionist and i'm not, so i would expect that) when he talks about crossdressers he clearly does so in a context of a case study of historical self-identified "heterosexual transvestites." to roughly oversimplify, the talk as a whole is about the theory of identity construction as a function of class and racialization and how economic opportunity = leisure time = space to create Identity as separate from Action. basically, that white trans women, especially those attracted to women, historically delayed transition because they had more to lose than black and latina women, and the barrier between the lived experience and internal sense of self created certain identity-forward ways of thinking about gender

Amin re-iterates some very valid points about how class and the effects of racialised class limit or expand the options that trans women have for transition, work, economic independence with a focus on US circa 60s+ - He is not saying a single new thing that Black working class women of trans history; Black transexual women; and Black transfemme women have not said as activists and academics.

He proposes the theory he's worked on for a bit that the options you have, rather than an internal specific personal orientation to your gender, direct how transexual women transex themselves and when in their lifecourse and the narratives they use to express this (again nothing new but an interesting minor new way to express this)

THEN he proposes that Black trans women are heterosexual and come out early to life an authentic transexual life through their orientation to desiring men

AND white trans women are not really trans for most of their lives because they are able to delay being transexual so they can keep economic advantage as white heterosexual cross dressers and have only very recently started to claim the idea that trans women are ever lesbians.

Amin refers to women he knows perfectly well are 'late' transitioning white women - transexual women. Actual women. And refers to them as heterosexual crossdressers as their primary selves - he uses intra trans women's oral histories, especially Black transexual women elders, selectively, to mobilise ideas about realness, passing, beauty etc.

It's a very weird take, very selective, like yknow Marsha P Johnson and Silvia Riviera would not count as authentic under this definition - neither had the ability to pass as cis, neither had Amin's lifecourse that he seems to assert is authentically Black , authentically feminine - to come out early and access (how?) the economic resource to live stealth, to have a interiority as 'simply a woman' - like this was not a unifying sense of self or material reality in this era or now.

How does it account for white women like April Lawton or Marilyn "Mardi" Pieronek - (one a rock gutarist, one a sex worker and drag performer) both who do fit Amin's lifecourse of run away, transition young, live stealth or primarily passing, as heterosexual women.

How does it account for white middle class - but - transexual same sex attracted, lesbian, transexual women like Charlotte Charlaque and Toni Ebel who were transexual and lovers in 1920s Berlin?

the article contains more information on the mother and daughter's confusion of the decision to drop the case against Mark, along with wider discussion of efforts to define behaviour like that in the article ("advocate, counsel or glorify child sexual abuse in text") as a criminal offense, but I wanted highlight these excerpts on the relationships between the parties involved here:

“They told me he had been caught on a chat forum describing how he had been raping and sexually abusing Emily for years. It was written as a confession. He’d even used her name and talked about where we lived.”

...

The police told Fiona they had a photo that Mark had shared in these chats. “I was terrified,” she says. “I thought it might be something explicit. But it was a photo I knew. Emily was young and wearing a new dress, I remembered taking it, her smiling at the camera. That was the absolute worst moment, realising that he had used that photo in these chats.”

...

Emily was certain her dad had not sexually abused her. But from that moment her entire view of him – of her childhood – began to unravel. Like her mum, she was in a space of complete horror and confusion. [...] “They made me doubt everything I knew about my dad and his view of me. I began to think back on every second we had spoken, every outfit I had worn, every hug he had given me.”

...

When she told the police that her dad had never abused her, she was telling the truth. His sex fantasy chats were just that – a fantasy. There is increasing concern about the policing of pornography and online sexual fantasies. A growing body of evidence suggests legal but extreme pornography mimicking illegal acts is a major driver of the online child abuse crisis. Convicted offenders are warning that porn algorithms are sending them down “escalating pathways” to ever more extreme material.

...

While Fiona was preparing to move, Emily was going down a rabbit hole into the darkest recesses of the internet. She began to read all she could about sex chat sites and was horrified to learn how easy it is to step straight into sexual chats about children. “I couldn’t believe people were on there openly talking about child abuse. My dad had a user name that was an obvious reference to child abuse,” she says. “It isn’t hidden.” She wanted the police to know Mark hadn’t touched her, but she wanted him to be prosecuted for sharing his child abuse fantasies online. And she wanted to be recognised as a victim, something the police didn’t seem to understand.

...

Mark walked away with no criminal record or any form of monitoring. He was not placed on the sex offender register and there is nothing he has to disclose to an employer or a partner. Fiona has seen Mark only once since the case was dropped: when she met him to get his signature on divorce papers. She saw then how happy he was to have escaped prosecution. “He made it clear that he considered it a prudish response, the public disapproval of a private fetish. We were prudes, the police were as well. It might have been embarrassing to have the messages revealed, but it wasn’t anything that should involve the law.”

...

His fantasies may have started out private, but through the continued encouragement of other people in these forums, he escalated to posting actual photos and personal information of his daughter online. Claiming to have actually sexually abused her, through false confessions tailored to the sexual gratification of other pedophiles.

This is not harmless. This does not exist in a vacuum. Had he actually kept his fetish private, there would be no issue here. But it wasnt private - it wad online where anyone could see. And it wasnt consensual once he started involving real photos of his daughter.

This sort of thing happens precisely because kink and fetish is being treated as uniquely above criticism, as if fantasies can never be exploitative. And yes, he never physically abused her but he did exploit his daughter's image for gratification.

You'll notice I'm not mean or cruel to the trans community, I'm just not "affirming".

The first callout of a transfemme I didn’t see until years later and it was directed at monetizeyourcat for financially abusing and pressuring young trans women into sex.

if they kept doing it, #2 and #3 are automatically answered with "no," btw.

You'll notice I'm not mean or cruel to the trans community, I'm just not "affirming".

-cis woman who appears to be bisexual

Cis lesbian arguing with a queer man- unclear from his page if he is trans- plus biphobia and exorsexism.

Another cis lesbian calling trans guys "she he" as a result of this conversation.

When I say it's largely been cis people- and cis queer women are not exempt from this- who have acted like this and who I'm speaking about when talking about how trans men are treated poorly by society, this is what I mean.

This is transphobia, and it is directly targeting trans men. Additionally you have biphobia and exorsexism involved- I rarely see one without the other, which is why I say that it's all tangled together into one huge mess.

If you dig around in these three women's comments and profiles, it appears their problem is with the tendency of studs to transition, leading to what was a "masculine lesbian" to now be 😱 a man 😱 - and how transition can sometimes affect your sexuality and now their precious studs have "gone straight". Yup, they're still considering trans men to be women, and assigning the role of woman to anyone who is willingly having sexual relations with a man (which is also forcibly assigned to anyone with a penis- sound familiar?)

The ways I see other trans women rationalise a material disconnect between us and cis men in our brains, mentalities, formative experiences, largely fall into two categories: literal magical thinking, that such a thing exists as a male and a female soul and that trans women are female souls born in AMAB bodies, or a discussion of upbringing and socialisation.

Now, 'Socialised male' is an ugly talking point I associate with TERFs trying to downplay the existence of transmisogyny. Of course most trans women do not experience male privilege simply because of certain aspects of their childhood and upbringing. However, I cannot help but acknowledge certain qualities I had as a teen and young adult I have had to contend with. I was absolutely a misogynist as a teen, and engaged in behaviour that today would be called incel-ish.

In spite of this I would say that most of my childhood was otherisation in a way I look back on in retrospect as degendering. My life was a contradiction, since my biology had me forcibly grouped in with boys, but my external characteristics had me continually bullied as effeminate. I was outcast by either group. I did not know what I was, as no one could tell me.

Now this is certainly a classic story that I'm sure most trans women relate to, but I don't believe it is one unique to us. One that we have a monopoly on. I knew disabled or autistic boys who went through everything I did but worse. Other boys who would grow up to find they were some form of queer. Non-white boys. Poor boys (Not that any of us were rich, but some were certainly poorer than others.) Simply any boy who broke the norm in some way. I will never hate men because men are not a monolith. There is no trait universally shared by men besides the arbitrarily applied social label of "Man", which I myself share in many aspects. I would certainly say there is a particular type of man I dislike, but it is one difficult to define beyond saying "Misogynistic and otherwise privileged."

Obligatory