Genuinely Have Had Numerous People Tell Me That As A Trans Man I'm "a Men's Rights Activist Invading

Does anyone wish we could talk about the real impacts of transandrophobia and anti-transmasculinity without having to constantly get into dumbass discourse?

Like whenever I make a post about the things we face I get vulnerable anecdotes from people sharing their pain at the hands of these forms of bigotry in my notes but these discussions always get overshadowed by the discourse

I can't help but think it's intentional, that people don't want us sharing our pain, speaking up for ourselves, shedding light on what we experience, finding community with each other and knowing the people we speak to are safe, people who won't deny our experiences and treat us with compassion, people who won't ostracize us the moment our bodies or demeanor become "too masculine" for their comfort, who won't try to force us to diminish our happiness with our identity.

They don't want us to be, period

in the wake of genderqueerdykes transmisognistic post shall you not use it as an excuse to be anti good faith identities, or spreading the “transandrophobia truther” theory. Just because someone is a shit person doesn’t mean you get to be horrible back. and if you try arguing with me on this fuck off because i will block u.

it's kind of a you problem if you read "this is a problem that also affects me" and assume it to mean "i only care about this problem because it affects me. i would not care if it only affected you"

i've seen this a lot more often in reference to anti-trans legislature recently. people acting as though only trans women will be affected by it and then getting mad at trans men and nonbinary people for daring to mention we're also negatively impacted by it

can we just have a community please. i want a community. can we not fight over who has it worse all the time and just give eachother support

i hope every trans man egg finds the community and support he needs to comfortably be himself

your masculinity does not make you scary

your masculine identity is not a threat or betrayal to women

it's okay to want hormones and/or surgery to feel more comfortable in your body

it's okay to want to dress and act as masculine as you'd like, whatever that means for you

there are people out there who will accept you for you

not everyone is going to project their fears and traumas onto you. many people are actively working on this, in fact

it's okay to love other men as a man

it's okay to be a man

trans man egg, i hope you get everything you need to live a happy and comfortable life as yourself

I'm so sick of this.

I see a post, and think "Oh hey this person has really good takes on transmisogyny!"

And then I go to follow their blog and it’s full of rancid shit about trans men and nonbinary people they all assume to be AFAB.

I hate that this is happening more often lately. It’s not hard to advocate for trans women without tearing other minorities down.

The thing with like aphobia and transandrophobia and stuff is like

sometimes. you are going to see people complaining about oppression. and it's going to make you feel bad and uncomfortable. because you yourself are oppressed and in these circles you are used to being The Oppressed One and seeing these other complains about People Including You reminds you of actual bigotry in broader spaces, or makes you doubt your own oppression, or just makes it feel like you're being told you 'have it easy'.

but. that's not what's happening. what's happening is just that other people also have systematic problems and deserve to talk about it.

that is not an attack on you.

oppression is not a zero-sum game. Aspecs, or trans men, being better acknowledge as suffering from oppression, does not mean that you have it any less bad than you have known yourself to do.

it doesn't even mean that they have it 'worse'. It means exactly what I said: that they also have issues that they need help with and are worth discussing.

If that upsets the basis of your own understand of your oppression... yeah. maybe that means your understanding was wrong. sorry.

but it's only the THEORETICAL UNDERSTANDING that has been upset. your oppression is still not in any kind of question.

is that easy to understand or carry forth? no.

but it's necessary.

and it has happened, over and over again. When gay people and trans people were at head to head, both presenting the other as predatory sexual deviants and themselves as 'normal'. When gay men diminished lesbians' suffering because they were less likely to get on the news for being murdered than gay men. when bisexuals (within Tumblr's own history!!!!!!) were widely panned as possessing 'straight-passing privilege' and therefore never in the same 'category' of oppression as gay men and lesbians.

it happens over and over and over again. and it's always hard. but it always needs to happen, morally.

even if the people expressing their oppression are 'too aggressive'. even if their arguments make you feel uncomfortable and scared. even if the place you belonged no longer feels like home anymore.

it'd be nice if every time something happened that made you feel bad, it was because of somebody Bad who needs to be Stopped and/or Punished. but that just isn't the case.

an oppressed group (and we can judge this by statistics; it's really not that difficult) talking about their oppression is not causing actual harm to you. and even if they were, they still deserve to be able to do it.

I could write 20 pages against exclusionist arguments but nothing I could say would be as efficient as this

the worst part about the tma/tme binary is that even julia serano, the person who LITERALLY COINED THE WORD TRANSMISOGYNY, isnt entirely sure about using them. quote from her essay “What Is Transmisogyny?”:

“Part of why I’m writing this now is that I’ve seen the term increasingly debated online lately. These debates are often centered on the more recent terms TMA (transmisogyny affected) and TME (transmisogyny exempt), which I did not coin. I have no objections to TMA and TME per se — they seem like potentially useful non-binary- and non-identity-based ways of discussing the phenomenon. But I’m admittedly not familiar with everything that others are saying or claiming under this newer rubric, so there may potentially be some points of disagreement.”

and again, quote from her essay “On “Male Socialization” and the “Trans Masc Versus Trans Fem” Discourse™”:

“When I first saw the terms “transmisogyny affected” (TMA) and “transmisogyny exempt” (TME), I thought they were potentially useful nonbinary and non-identity-based ways of discussing the phenomenon. But sometimes, they seem to be used in response to the trans male/masculine reactions to transmisogyny that I described in the previous paragraph. And if you mistakenly presume that “transmisogyny” = “only trans female/feminine people experience misogyny,” then “transmisogyny exempt” will likely strike you as a doubling down on argument #2.”

(argument #2 was referring to an earlier point she made, arguing against cultural feminism (the idea that woman=good and man=bad) and how it implies (another quote, same article): 

Trans male/masculine people are the victims of male oppression…Which, if true, implies that trans female/feminine people are “male oppressors.”

Trans female/feminine people are the victims of male oppression…Which, if true, implies that trans male/masculine people are “male oppressors.”

All trans people have been corrupted/poisoned by maleness/masculinity in one way or another, which, if true, means that we should all be lumped into the “male oppressor” category.)

.

If you respond to a trans person discussing their experiences and go “that’s not true” you’re just an asshole.

Since it was also said about a trans person’s experiences it’s also a transphobic statement, yeah. But sometimes I feel like we miss how much it’s just… a shitty thing to say to a person, regardless.

If someone says that something is their experience, telling them that isn’t true is asshole behaviour. It’s not how you should treat another human being.

Say it with me:

If you go out of your way to harass and argue with trans women, you deny them their right to discuss their oppression, and you only ever see the worst in them, you being

Transphobic!

Now, if you go out of your way to harass and argue with trans men, you deny them their right to discuss their oppression, and you only ever see the worst in them, you are still being

Transphobic!

And of course, if you go out of your way to harass and argue with nonbinary people, you deny them their right to discuss their oppression, and you only ever see the worst in them, you are (yet again) being

Transphobic!

No, it doesn't matter if you're a trans woman, a trans man, or nonbinary yourself! You're still being a bigot. Unlearn your internalized transphobia and play nice with the other queers. The fascists hate all of us, stop doing their work for them.