Antitransmasculinity - Tumblr Posts

We need to stop saying stuff like “trans men/mascs go through everything cis women go through” as a counter to transandrophobes saying we don’t experience gendered oppression. Cis women are actually not the metric of gendered oppression, and by all measures, all trans people face greater gender related violence than cis women. Trans men/mascs are distinct from cis women and that heightens our oppression, it does not invalidate it. There are overlaps of experiences but in many ways it is important to talk about trans men/masc specific experiences (and all trans peoples experiences) so as to not treat a cis woman’s body/experience as the norm for what reproductive discrimination looks like. Trans men struggle to access safe reproductive care even in places that cis women don’t, and that’s only one example! Socially, economically, legally, cis women hold power over trans men/mascs and act as gatekeepers and police of gender for the cis patriarchy - trans men do not have that power to wield.

Personally, we're really not bothered by the occasional quip of "men are trash" or "I hate men" or whatever. We recognize that they come from a place of trauma and genuine expression of frustration. We fully believe people are allowed to express their pain in imperfect ways.

What we take issue with is repeated patterns of behavior in which men are treated as inherently more dangerous or untrustworthy than any other gender. Keep in mind, that this is different than pointing out common behaviors of misogyny from men, that stems from being raised in a patriarchal society.

I'm talking specifically about the rhetoric that posits that men are innately and irrevocably more violent or bigoted. This is gender esssntialism. This is what we are talking about when we bring up people who treat men badly on the basis of their gender. Treating real human beings as if their gender is just some curse that poisons their entire being.

This phenomenon overlaps very strongly with other forms of bigotry. Black men being treated as dangerous thugs - yes, because they're Black, but also specifically because they're Black men. Their masculinity is seen as violent and unsafe, and gender essentialism is weaponized against them more violently because of how it overlaps with racism.

When trans men come out, and are told that taking testosterone will make us angry, aggressive, and most importantly - ugly and infertile. When we experience corrective rape, have our life saving medications taken away from us. This is gender essentialism, overlapping with transphobia and misogyny. It's not just that we're transitioning, it's specifically that our masculinity is treated as more unsafe, more untrustworthy, more vile, because we're trans men.

And this does absolutely start with the way we treat cis men. Dehumanizing cis men on the basis of their gender, will inevitably lead to you dehumanizing marginalized men. You will contribute to the marginalization of men of color and trans men. You will actively contribute to racism and transphobia, because the oppression that we experience is intertwined with that same gender essentialism.

This is what intersectionality is. You cannot perpetuate gender essentialism and expect it not to have broader impacts on other marginalized groups. Because these forms of oppression intersect! They can't be separated from each other. You can't seperate the harm that Black men experience from the idea that men are inherently dangerous. You can't seperate the harm that trans men experience from the idea that testosterone makes you violent. Your ideas about men do not exist in a vacuum.

You won’t find much old literature about “girls who wanted to be boys” bc the ppl who would have written them were more often than not institutionalized & the books that have been written have often been recontexualized as feminist lit about “women divesting from gender norms”.

Dreaming of a world where people see transmasc erasure not as transmascs + men complaining about not being popular online and more about the deliberate and intentional burying of our history and existence as a whole.

I FUCKING CALLED IT

THAT BITCH WITH THE PIGTAILS IS A FTM SELF-INSERT

Transmasculinity Throughout Time: Lou Alcott

Yes, you heard me. There is substantial evidence that the author of Little Women was in fact a transgender man! He actually didn’t go by the name that Little Women was published under, with family and friends he would go by Lou, Louy, or LM. His children called him “papa” and “father” and his father, Bronson Alcott, called him his son. He said in 1882, “I am more than half persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body.” As a child, he said in a journal, “I don’t care much for girls things. People think I’m wild and queer.” He would pass as a man at masked parties for fun, and delighted in people’s reactions. For his entire life, he expressed this identification as a man, and the character of Jo in Little Women was in part a self insert character based on this. So why don’t we hear about him as a trans man? Well, it’s just not convenient for most people to believe that a beloved book about girls becoming women was written by a man.

Had someone look me straight in the eye and call me a “real life omega boy” because I’m a man who can get pregnant, when I was talking with people about abortions and mentioning that trans men are so often blatantly excluded from this convo as a man who wants to carry his own child one day. I felt so gross and fetishised. She was acting like it was so funny and was super weird about it . imagine having that much brain rot.

This makes me sad.

You guys never deserved this, and you still fucking don't. The fact that you still deal with this is just so goddamn upsetting.

And I know I am feminine to the core (and also a woman), but even I fucking know that this shit shouldn't be considered "the norm."

The fact that parents (as well as doctors in certain circumstances) still force their kids into "being" their AGAB regardless on who they are as people is fucking awful. And I strongly hate how this is how it is, currently.

I know it can get better, but it sure doesn't fucking look like it, at the moment. Change is probably just be taking its sweet-ass time, which is goddamn infuriating (what can I say? I'm impatient as fuck).

Why is it so fucking hard for us as a society to just fucking accept each other for our differences like we've seen in every other goddamn species on the fucking planet? It shouldn't be that hard.

If the person isn't fucking hurting anyone (or doesn't have a history of doing so), we should just fucking accept them and move on. No prejudice or anything to get in the way.

Trans men and transmascs aren't gonna be a goddamn danger to anyone for just being trans or men. The fact that other women don't accept that pisses me off.

And the fact that I share a gender identity with morons that, frankly, might be the ones putting you guys in danger and not vice versa pisses me off sometimes, ngl.

Like, I love being a woman, don't get me wrong. It's just some of these fucking idiots who I SHARE MY GENDER IDENTITY WITH are putting you guys in danger, and I hate that so goddamn much.

This fact always makes me so fucking upset. People always talk about the struggles of trans women/fems—which does happen and needs to fucking change because it fucking sucks—yet always want to ignore the struggles of trans men/mascs or pretend it doesn't happen, and that any trans men/masc who speaks out about their experiences is a liar and misogynist which isn't fucking true at all.

Like you should be able to speak out about the bullshit you face and not get backlash 'cause it is bullshit that you've dealt with it, and you have a voice that deserves to be fucking heard.

The moment we as a society can finally get on that page I hope I am alive so I can fucking see it. This shit is taking too goddamn long.

Being forcefully raised as a woman is not any less traumatic and emotionally repressive as being forcefully raised as a man. Femininity is not inherently pure and safe. Coercing someone to perform femininity is not any less toxic than coerced masculinity. Being dysphoric around femininity or having trauma from women doesn’t make you a misogynist.