Transfeminism: the interregnum
I'm turning my tags on a different post into their own separate, longer post, because I know for a fact that the experience I've had is not uncommon among people who engaged in "transfeminism" in real life, and I think someone sharing this experience openly may be helpful to others who are doubting themselves or staying quiet.
I've spent years in transfeminist movements and spaces, biting my tongue and never mentioning my own gendered experiences because when I did so at first I was treated with coldness and suspicion. I believed the people who said that we have a bigger fight and we must focus on helping those "most in danger". I believed them when they told me that that group did not include me.
I let myself be turned into a tool for the "movement", a movement that was not just fighting exclusively for the rights and liberation of people who were not me, but was actively working towards rendering the experiences of people like me invisible and unspeakable, and conveniently rhetorically cast anyone who brought them up into the role of the existential enemy.
I sincerely dislike the attitude around these parts ("transanderophobia Tumblr") of viewing anyone that veers too closely to speaking about sex oppression with suspicion, and asking us to clarify ourselves in a way the seems to imply we should back track. This strongly resembles the beginning of the process that boilfrogged me into a person I could not recognize: a mouthpiece and living resource for a movement that sought to elevate a group of people I categorically did not belong to as the only possible sources of wisdom, intelligence, art, creativity, and insight, while categorizing people like me as having to choose between letting ourselves be fully used in body, mind and soul, or watch ourselves be cast away to the outgroup of the enemies.
I dramatically restructured my real life support system and I ran to a relatively remote corner of Tumblr, on a blog with about a thousand users blocked, so that I would be able to speak frankly about my opinions and experiences, and use my knowledge of theory and the academic rigor I was fortunate enough to develop through my education to educate others like me about the patriarchy, how it works and affect us, and about feminism, the only tool so far that we know to be effective against it. I don't appreciate being chidingly told that the reason people (meaning, transfems) are "scared" of creating community with transmasculine people and non binary people AFAB (and, I'd add, cis women) is because of people like me bringing up the fact that sex based oppression is real and affects 100% of people AFAB, and only a vanishingly small percentage of people AMAB. I believe that our standards must be much, much higher if we are to get anywhere. Any person, of any sex assignment or gender identity, that would point to my discussion of sex based oppression as the reason why they do not form community with or "trust" transmascs, is transparently not a feminist, and in my opinion is someone who knows very well what they're doing and relies on the credulity or insecurity of other trans/non binary people AFAB to have them do the dirty work of silencing feminist discussion. I refuse to live in a panopticon: I would rather be shunned than be forced to be a mouthpiece once again for people who don't care about my humiliation and subjugation under patriarchy or even rejoice in it.
I would love to be part of any coalition that were willing to address my needs, listen to my voice and fight against my oppression. I have tried the road of "ignoring the details and focusing on what unites us rather than what divides us, so we can build solidarity and fight together." It did not work. It did not work because no compromise was achieved, as my role in this covenant was to be the mute tool, the servant, the one that did not get a seat at the table. I was tolerated, barely and begrudgingly, as long as I shut up, I dressed however they wanted me to dress, I said the lines they taught me to say, I stood and acted and spoke the way they told me I was already supposed to want to stand and act and speak. I praised mediocre art and mediocre analysis. I laughed at unfunny jokes. I let myself get cut off in conversation, and smiled when it happened. I focused only on what interests I had that overlapped with the ones approved by the movement, and ignored or openly derided the ones that did not. I adopted new interests, the ones that were chosen for me. I let myself get insulted, get treated as a hysterical bitch, be told I was a toxically masculine predator as if I was supposed to take pride in this, I was passed over, I was dismissed, I saw myself get ignored in places I worked hard to insert myself in in favor of transfems that arrived last week, or even in favor of cis people who had more palatable aesthetics or more influential friends. I was sexually objectified, I was sexually harassed, I was called ungrateful for complaining about said objectification and harassment. I was told point blank to my face about rapes the woman speaking to me had committed with the implied instruction to sympathize with the rapist and condemn the (transmasculine) victim for speaking out. I was told about a rape that had taken place by the victim, who in the same breath assured me they would not speak out because they did not want to cause the rapist difficulties, cause her to lose support or be removed from community.
I'm not making any more excuses for this. Transfeminism, the academic tradition, is interesting and rich with insights, and I do believe that its study, alongside a sturdy and well-rounded knowledge of feminist scholarship, can help us make our way out of patriarchy. Transfeminism, the movement, is a failed project that should be razed to the ground and rebuilt from scratch, with an entirely different ethos, and probably by very different people. The transfeminist movement - its hubs, its activism groups, its book clubs, its concerts, its performances, its house parties - is one giant staircase made of missing stairs. There is no point in lying to ourselves and saying that "well the transfeminism inside my brain is good in theory, so as long as I believe in it, then the transfeminist movement is good." The purpose of a system is what it does, and what this system does is pile up bodies and tell you to look the other way. Well I'm done looking the other way.
This is only a Tumblr blog, not a physical community space, and I am only a single individual, not a well organized movement. But this small corner I have chosen to carve for myself is the square of land I plant my flag in. Within this circle I've traced in the sand, no one may manipulate or coerce me into staying quiet or distorting my message for the sake or palatability, mass appeal, or respectability.
I welcome people sharing experiences, knowledge, and sources. I am not the font of all wisdom. But all opinions expressed here are the result of a life lived under the boot of sexist oppression, and a mind sharpened by the testimony of those who have lived so before me, who studied that pain so it would teach them the ways of the enemy to pass that insight onto their successors. We are those successors. Anyone, cis or trans, man, woman or other, who lives under the boot of patriarchy, is welcome to this blog, and whatever movement it represents or inspires. I hope against all hope that it can be one of the many little sparks that will light the fire that destroys the "transfeminist movement" as it currently exists, and one of the specks of earth that will build something different and more just - something that may even come to be called "transfeminism." In the meantime, I'm not going to corrupt my beliefs and ignore what I know for the sake of joining any hypothetical movement that would require me to do that. If someone finds me, my intellect and my energy worth having into any movement, they can join me on my own terms.
