It Kills Me How Much People Love To Speculate On The Trans Male Experience. Transphobes And Even Other

Look, I just don't think anyone who has beef with people talking about their problems and coining a word to describe it (as words do) is worth the time of day.

Trans Men, the afterthought of the LGBT.

Think of the world "LGBT" in your mind. What flashes through? I see a quick rifling through four people like a slideshow... a chubby cis gay guy, a tall cis lesbian with killer eyeliner, a short cis girl with a kooky hairstyle, and a trans woman. What she looks like varies every time, but 90% of cases I think of a girl. Even as a trans man myself whose trans friends are like two-thirds trans men, the first thing I think of when I hear the word "trans" is usually a trans woman. When hear HRT? Estrogen. When hear SRS? Vaginoplasty.

And that's not a coincidence... because trans guys don't dominate any trans spaces unless it's specifically labelled an ftm-only space. I've seen trans women themselves point out that trans boy spaces are labelled as "ftm" while trans girl spaces are labelled "trans". No "fem" or "girl" or "woman" anywhere in the name - just "trans".

Think of trans rep on TV. Trans people are already incredibly underrepresented - but on the rare occasion we do get shown onscreen, it's always someone MTF. I could give a million examples - but there are already many people who've said the exact same thing and doing so at this point would be redundant.

Think of spaces that say "This is for females ONLY" (sometimes they say "women" but really mean "cis women"). Nobody ever thinks of the trans men who might find themselves in a position to need that resource (such as homeless shelters) who will invariably be denied because TERFs hate trans men too and despite whatever they claim, they do not actually see us as girls. The response to "female-only spaces" is "but what about trans women". Which is GOOD! It should keep being a response! It should keep raising questions! It should, however, not be the only question we're asking here!

Think of "women's health" issues. Even then, the conversation around inclusive language always revolves around "but some girls don't do that because they're trans" (which is a good thing on its own but it's not good as an exclusive variant) and not "but some people do that and aren't girls because they're trans". Even in conversations about uteruses and everything they revolve, it's always centred around "but not all women" instead of "not all are women".

Lastly, think of radical feminism. Think of so-called internet "misandrists". Think of how many times you've seen one, whether cis or trans, ever include the word "cis" in their classic "all men" posts. Never? Exactly. And when you call them out on it, their response is almost always some kind of variant of "well you know that's not what I meant". And it's true most times, they didn't mean it; they forgot it. Forgot about us. Like every single time, they forget we see these things and feel hurt. They forget we're there. To them, we might as well be a flower on the wall.

Anyway. Just wanted to type this out because it's been bouncing around my head for a while. Happy late trans visibility day. Not only this week but for the rest of your life I want you to listen to and amplify trans men's voices; they need it.

"the best way to screw jkr over is by making her characters queer!" actually. The best way to screw jkr over is to stop engaging with the property she still profits off of and read a different fucking book

i cannot believe that in 2025

there are people on bluesky who proudly put on their profiles being "baeddel" like, that shit didn't work here in the 2010s tumblr (where it originated), so why the fuck are you trying to make it come back, lmao

actually i wouldn't be surprised if this-certain-group of trans ppl on bluesky are actually all baeddels but just not saying it out loud.

seeing them all still talking about "cissexual" privilege when refering to other TRANS ppl, the classic "you are trans but NOT REALLY trans like me", im just gonna say, be careful with this kind of thinking.

for context:

Medium

Let’s Talk About Bæddels

A comperehensive retrospective on Tumblr’s movement to make gender essentialism “trans-friendly”.

no, being "baeddel" is not good AT ALL. please, don't let anyone tell you otherwise bc, holy fuck, just read the whole thing and be wary. it's pretty much TERF rethoric, only trans version (also known as TIRF), lmao

i found out about this whole "baeddel" around the end of last year, and it was like "woah what the fuck??????" i had no idea this kind of shit happened. please, read it in full 😩😩

(edit: an updated version of this article is also here on tumblr!!)

nothorses.tumblr.com

Let's Talk About Baeddels.

An (updated) retrospective on Tumblr's movement to make gender essentialism trans-friendly. This post contains excepts from a longer article

This isn't hate mail this is love mail but most times when I see stuff about this trans infighting the transfems are usually posed against transmascs. It's understandable as theres bad apples on both sides and im not surprised people run to protect their own, but I'm incredibly glad to see a trans feminine person advocating against this infighting and for ALL trans unity. I hate to see transmascs bully transfems even though it could be self defense, and vice versa. It feels like all huge trans bloggers both men and women have this idea that we must all hate each other so it's good to see a blog promote positivity on BOTH ends. thank you for fighting for us transmascs, and as a transmasc I need to work harder on ignoring the divisive posts and focusing on fighting for my sisters too. The world is a scary place and we need to be together more than ever before.

I love all my trans siblings and will do my best to defend every single one.

since theres been an uptick in transandrophobia and aphobia lately:

you need to care about and support trans men and transmasc people that are asexual or acespec

you need to care about and support trans men and transmasc people that are aromantic or arospec

you need to care about and support trans men and transmasc people that are aplatonic or aplspec

you need to care about and support trans men and transmasc people that are afamilial or afamspec

you need to care about and support trans men and transmasc people that are aspec

trans unity

the thing that pisses me off the most about this whole "haha trans men in womens bathrooms will make them reconsider" spin going around is that it basically pretends trans men and mascs of color dont exist and arent in very real danger

like, think about for even one second how, historically, white women have weaponized the perception of moc as inherently masculinely savage to get them killed for being threats to fragile helpless white girls

do you think the lady who calls 911 on black men birdwatching in the park is going to see a trans man of color in the womans bathroom and go "gosh! i never thought about it that way. you've really exposed the flaw in my arguement"? no. shes going to call security and that man will be brutalized or killed

(and dont even for a second think that woc will be safe either. i was getting side eyes and pointed questions long before i ever came out because my skin was brown and i had short hair. tmoc and our sisters arent fucking safe and we deserve better than being used as some white posters pithy "gotchya")

“transandrophobia is the belief that trans women oppress trans men—” NO IT’S THE BELIEF THAT CIS PEOPLE OPPRESS US. WE ARE OPPRESSED BY CISGENDERED PEOPLE. WE ARE TARGETED BY CIS MEN AND CIS WOMEN. LITERALLY WHAT ARE YOU NOT GETTING. WHAT’S NOT CLICKING. YOU ARE A TERF TRYING TO DIVIDE US AND YOU WILL NEVER WIN.