I actually donât really think theyâre joking. I think that a lot of people in the queer community donât realize how much the political lesbian/radfem simplistic view of âmen badâ has infected the community as a whole.
You see it in the âmy sexuality is every girl and precisely one manâ which is hugely widespread in the way m-spec women discuss their sexualities. (Which is not to say that a lot of women donât feel that way, just that when Iâve pointed this out to my friends, and how shitty it made me and other transmascs/men feel, a bunch of them went âoh shit, youâre right.â) You see it in how m-spec women are made to feel like they should apologize for being attracted to or involved with men/mascs, and how lesbian/sapphic/queer spaces eject â sometimes violently â m-spec women in âstraight-passingâ relationships. (This also happens to m-spec mascs/men, but not so loudly, and in a different way.)
You see it in the long and storied way that transmascs and trans men have been treated in our community. This isnât the first time that trans men have been told they are âgiving up womanhoodâ and how dare they. Thereâs a scene in The L Word, a show that ended 12 years ago, which has a character literally saying that to a trans man, that heâs âgiving up the most beautiful thingâ by transitioning, and that thing is âbeing a woman.â
This isnât a new message, that men are the enemy, and that anyone who voluntarily chooses masculinity or manhood (whatever form of masculinity or manhood they choose) is a gender traitor, âjoining the enemy,â deluded, attempting to âopt outâ of misogyny, or any number of other loathsome ideas. This spills over into the idea that transmascs/men have âaligned interestsâ with TERFs, that we donât actually face societal transphobia, that we arenât targeted by institutional transphobia in any way, that weâre âcollateral damageâ of the ârealâ transphobia that transfems face, that we magically just gain male privilege the moment we start transitioning, that weâre never targeted by misogyny, that we donât face physical violence, that weâve âjoined the oppressorsâ and are somehow capable as a class of being the oppressors of transfems rather than simply another oppressed class (which is its own topic that deserves like, a whole-ass essay, but whatever) that transmisandry isnât a ârealâ thing and transmascs donât face any sort of specific-to-us discrimination or issues⌠and all of those ideas damage our ability as a community to discuss and ameliorate these sometimes-fatal and always-damaging ideas.
Hell, to listen to people within the community talk, you wouldnât think that JK Rowlingâs horrible essay didnât spend a huge chunk of time misgendering and gaslighting transmascs, or that one of the big âbiblesâ of TERFery (Ab*gail Shrierâs âIrreversible Damageâ) wasnât targeted very specifically, fucking laser-focused, on transmascs, including non-binary transmascs. And this all spills out from the idea that we donât face any ârealâ oppression because weâve âjoined the majority/oppressors,â and âmen are bad,â which is such base-level 1970s retro radfem nonsense.
And honestly, at the end of the day? It doesnât matter if itâs a joke, and Iâm pretty displeased with âoh they donât understand that itâs serious and they think itâs just a joke.â These sorts of âjokesâ, levied at transmasc people, arenât okay. Maybe if itâs just you and your buds who have given each other permission to shit-talk each other, and you know each other and have personal context with one another, sure. But in this sort of open, parasocial context where you have people who donât know these two transhets, it is always damaging, and saying âgosh I think they just think itâs a jokeâ does the opposite of excusing it.
This lateral aggression shit is terrible and damaging to lots of people â I honestly think thereâs no segment of the queer community that this doesnât directly damage, and we should challenge it whenever we see it, not make excuses or permission for it in the slightest way.
jbbartram-illu
dededos
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
areudirty
jacobvanloon
2087
