An Informational Comic I Drew Last Year For My Comics 2 Class, Reposting It To My New Account (had To

Like clock work

June 12 2024

A fundamental part of transandrophobia is the fact that its extremely difficult to fit trans men into the categories we have.

We have the categories of "man" and "woman", with men being dominant, in control, and powerful, and women not. These categories have historically been exclusive to cis people, but now we have transfeminism. Trans women are very clearly not a dominant, in control, powerful group in society, and they are women, so its very easy to fit them in to the existing framework. Men are still in power and women still aren't, its just that "women" now includes both women and the cooler women.

But trans men are harder to fit in. In trans-accepting feminism, trans men are accepted as men. But trans men are not a group that is dominant, in control, and powerful in society. We don't have trans men making laws, or being popular newscaster who can sway public opinion. Stories are not written with the "trans male gaze", as trans men are not expected to be the viewer. Trans men are not seen by society at large as especially trustworthy, likable, people that should be listened to.

So, to keep that framework intact, you either have to say that trans men are women and ignore their identity, or you have to say that trans men are men and therefore in power. Neither of these answers are good for trans men, and neither accurately describe trans men's place in society. Because while trans men are affected by misogyny, trans men have experiences of gender and sexual oppression that cis women don't. And nonbinary people, too, are shafted here; nonbinary people aren't a dominant group, but many are not women and many were not assigned female at birth. What do you do with that? (Well, just start lumping them with women, it seems).

This is why I feel the thing we need is a proper restructuring of how we view gendered oppression. We are trying to operate trans existence through cis technology. Right now, in trans-affirming feminism, it seems that if you experience some sort of gendered oppression, you are seen as a de facto woman until you can't be. Cissexism and binarism is still dominating our perspectives, even when we are "trans-affirming", because we are still unwilling to change our framework to adjust for trans experiences.

trans people will literally go “i have a complicated relationship with my history with gender and sometimes see it as a gender i ‘used to be’ and i don’t really look like a cis person of either gender and i don’t think i can fit it into simple categories” and everyone will spontaneously combust

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

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Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

Comic by Mariam Naiem

I like to spend time with friends one-on-one. But lately there are three of us. [The silhouettes of the speaker and friend in each scene, except for the first, are always accompanied by a large humanoid shadow looming over them and listening in.] --- "In case something happens, finish my book, okay?" [my friend asked of me as we sat together] "Ok," [I said while the shadowy specter sat next to my friend.] --- "I don't have any plans for afterwards," [my friend in the military said as the specter stood behind them and we looked to the horizon.] --- "How are you?" [I asked as we knelt on either side of the flowers.] "Good! I went to the cemetery and laid an equal amount of flowers to all three of them." [The specter knelt behind my friend.] --- "I don't see my life after the war," [my friend in the military told me from across the table. The specter loomed over them and reached to touch them.] --- "I am sick of this! WHO ARE YOU? We didn't invite you," [I said, confronting the specter. It towered over me.] --- "Yes, you did not," [it acknowledged, revealing a scythe in its grasp and presenting a slip of paper to me.] --- 24.02.2022 INVITATION from Russia.

Text in brackets were added by me for accessibility purposes to help transcribe and describe the comic.

I'm going to *remembers suicide is often not a desire for death itself but rather an attempt to radically change one's life because the current state of being has become unbearable but the person can't think of any way to change it other than death* kill myself

When I was a kid I was “darn I just love when female characters pretend to be dudes for whatever reason” and the reason will not shock you in the slightest

More queer people need to know that discrimination against intersex people isn't just bigots being bigots. It's rooted in the fact we live in a world that rejects our existence at a fundamental level.

There's only M or F on every job application.

There's only a M or F on every government form.

There's only M or F on everyone's birth certificate.

There's only M or F in everyone's mind.

Even in queer spaces, people ask if you are AMAB or AFAB. Terms borrowed from our community, then simply reduced back to M or F.

When you go to a doctor, they ask if you are M or F, regardless of how your body actually works. Any anatomy or traits you have that does not fit your M or F designation is met with pity or disgust.

You're seen as M* or F*, an aberration of what is "normal", a faulty M or faulty F, a body with a problem.

The intersex experience is being constantly reminded people believe I don't exist.