Hey There, So Something That's Been On My Mind A While But Have Had Trouble Articulating Is How In Terms

Hey there, so something that's been on my mind a while but have had trouble articulating is how in terms of trans discourse, and understanding of our issues, it often feels like people only focusing on the people who have it worst in their minds, trans women, makes the true picture of how transphobia and other oppresions intersect incomplete. Without the consideration of transmasc oppression, it's a picture that is incomplete, but people try and get stuff done with this incomplete picture anyway, and its interesting, because once you add in more voices, it should theoretically help our understanding of everything,? Right? I hope that you see what I'm getting at here, but if you red this, thank you, ^^ -transmascnotes85

Absolutely! And I think it goes beyond just a focus on trans women- because a lot of transfemme issues get ignored, too. Like, their experiences while closeted, their interactions with feminism before they realize they’re trans, the way being seen as a man impacts them- or being seen as a feminine man. This article, written by a closeted trans woman about her experiences, really covers that. I think the reason folks tend to pick up trans women specifically is because there’s easy-to-digest overlap between misogyny, and transmisogyny. It’s easy to constrain understandings of their experiences to “woman plus trans”, say they’re your queens, your sisters, and then pat yourself on the back for being a good trans ally & call it a day. It allows cis women to focus on the overlap of experiences between them and trans women; misogyny. And then they focus on misogyny. “The patriarchy only hates trans women because “choosing” to be a woman is the worst thing you can do”, they say, and it lets them ignore the fact that cis women oppress trans women, too. Anyway, all of this to say that it’s not even just about the focus on trans women’s issues- because it falls short of that, too. It’s a way of ignoring the fact that transphobia as a system even exists, that it’s something they, too, benefit from as a system. The reason they don’t like to think about transmascs as a whole, or even AMAB nonbinary people, is because we complicate things so they aren’t able to do that. If a woman is the worst thing someone can be, why then are trans men oppressed? Why are nonbinary people oppressed? And their answer tends to be: well, they aren’t. If the patriarchy hates trans women ONLY because they “choose” to be women, then it must reward transmascs for “choosing” to be men- and nonbinary transfemmes, and AMAB nonbinary people in general, don’t really fit this narrative, so they’re ignored. Obviously, that doesn’t make any sense. Provably. Quantifiabley. We know transphobia is real; we know it doesn’t reward trans men. We know nonbinary people suffer under it, too. But cis people don’t like that, and they don’t want to talk about it, so they’ve found another convenient way to ignore it while seeming just as “woke” as if they didn’t.

ik other anarchists talk about it a lot but the lack of autonomy kids have is a fucking problem.

Minors are most likely to be abused by their relatives, but cant even leave on their own accord legally. Adults they trust can't even house them unless the kid(s) talk to child services, and go through the whole ordeal of reliving their abuse so adults they don't know can make a case. If the proof just isn't there, they'll have to go back home with their abusers, and most definitely recieve backlash.

If the court manages to find the relative(s) guilty, that child is either placed into a shitty system that furthers mistreatment, requiring them to uproot their whole lives for instability. Or maybe they go off on their own (some places 16 year olds can apply for emancipation), but they usually end up homeless because of age discrimination in the workplace and with rental properties, or they might get involved with people who inflict more harm to them.

All while recovering mentally and/ or physically from abuse. All while going to school, because it's illegal to drop out before a certain age.

Kids need and deserve adequate support systems and autonomy.

Why do those posts only ever mention trans women and (almost) never trans men?

Hm.... i notice it too. Its difficult to say, but dmab trans feminine people are, in my experience as a trans man, the most visible (and most poorly treated by outside society) trans subgroup.

Society at large seems to pretend trans men don’t exist (to the point where i wonder how many average people seem to even know that trans men do), and often it parades around trans women like circus freaks for the entertainment of cis folk, het or LGB.

Trans men and women are treated somewhat differently from one another. My theory is the treatment of trans women is notably more violent and aggressive, so socially progressive spaces focus on trans women. It could also be in part due to trans women being vocal about not being heard at all, and the community severely overcorrecting.

Another perception that i’ve seen (even from other trans men) is that trans men aren’t deserving of the same attention as trans women, because we as a group have contributed little if anything to the fight for our rights. I can’t confirm... or dispute this. In all of my time on this website, approaching 10 years now dear god, i have no recollection of people championing trans men. I have no memory of our history being spoken of.

Even the history we do have is stolen from us by cis women who refuse to believe that not every “woman” who dressed up as a man for his whole life is actually a woman. Or often if they do, they deny its importance. You can hear yourself if you listen to the podcast Sawbones (which is good but... unkind, to trans men and nb folk) in the episode on Dr James Barry, a man who lived his entire adult life as a man, and was only revealed to be dfab after his death when his wishes were directly violated and his body undressed, Dr Sydnee McElroy, a cis woman, say that it doesn’t matter if he was trans or actually a cis woman.

It does matter. It does. The word transgender was born to describe an experience that we have lived for millennia.

Another contributing factor could be an unfortunate side effect of most people’s perception of how to treat trans people, then mixed with feminism’s perspective on the opinions of the catch all term “men.” Note, i AM a feminist.

You know the dance. Do not refer to trans people in the past as “when they were a man/woman”. Do not say “when he was a she” or “when she was a he”. Do not do this. You know the phrase: they were always their gender.

The reason i bring this up? Is that cis people (especially cis women) and trans women, which i have experienced first hand from both, rationalize it like this: if trans people have always been their gender, and trans men are men, then trans men have always been men, so trans men have exactly the same societal perspectives and behavioral issues that cis men have, and should be treated exactly like cis men.

And if trans men are basically cis men, and cis men can’t talk about the experiences of women, trans men can’t either. If cis men don’t know about the consequences of living as a woman, trans men don’t either. If cis men talking about what they think and they feel takes away from the voices of women in feminist discourse, then so does trans men talking about their feelings. So trans men, and cis men, are men. And men are unwelcome. We’re tired of the voices of Men, and all that that entails.

So the consequence is trans men cannot speak. We cannot share our experiences about being treated as women. We cannot, essentially, share our experiences BEING women and girls. Trans men share in the traumatic experience of being born a woman, to society. We share the childhood violence that is performed against girls. We know it. But it is denied. If we acknowledge it, we weaken the idea that trans people were always their true gender. So we stay quiet. Our unique trauma and perspectives are lost.

The consequence is the voices of trans men fade from the record, and we cannot engage with our community without being treated as a Diet Cis Man. We cannot engage, so many of us withdraw. The experiences of trans men are not shared, because theyre not respected.

The consequence is we are forced to stay quiet by every community we’re in, and people quickly forget that we’re even there, let alone that being a trans man is still massively traumatic in this society.

The consequence is they don’t think we’re worth mentioning.

Can you share any particular works/thinkers you've read that discussed or conceptualise gender in a way that really resonated with you?

I’m not 100% sure what you mean by “conceptualize gender”- if you mean like, the internal experience of gender, or if you mean gender in terms of social structures and society, or something else? So I’m just gonna throw some of my favorite gender-related readings at you.

Leslie Feinburg is absolutely my favorite author/activist/”thinker” when it comes to gender. I really recommend reading Stone Butch Blues (a story that touches on gender experiences everywhere from butch, to trans man, to nonbinary) and Transgender Warriors (the history of trans people & transphobia itself).

Gender Dysphoria Isn’t What You Think is really powerful in helping to identify dysphoria & non-traditional experiences with gender. I have sent it to a lot of questioning folks.

On Hating Men (And Becoming One Anyway) talks about the specifically weird relationship between a lot of anti-patriarchy transmascs and masculinity/manhood.

What Is It Like to Be a Man? is actually by a cis man. It talks about masculinity and manhood in a way I’ve never seen before, though, and was honestly really helpful to me in identifying the weird relationship between all men and manhood.

I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out. is an extremely good, extremely powerful piece discussing all kinds of gender feelings; I really love it for how it talks about manhood and relationships to feminism.

Seeing trans people reclaim their sexualities is so powerful. Taking something that's been weaponized against you and embracing it and loving it is amazing and I hope the trans people reading this embrace their sexualities. You deserve to live who you are