Transfeminism - Tumblr Posts

I'd like to apologise to this site. on other sites I said that arguing about transfeminism was "like arguing about modern leftist theory with a medieval peasant". I'd like not to take back my statement but to acknowledge this applies to twitter and presumably like most places too.

What accounts for transmisogyny?

"A disdain for feminine stereotyping. It is evident that many feminist transphobes have been traumatized by women's gender roles and stereotypes, which they did not fit physically, psychologically, or in life ambition. They had a hard time being accepted and valued as women and seem to resent the ease with which some trans women are accepted as women. Many of these women were traumatized by sexual assault, which may explain why the penis so often seems to be the real issue. But puzzlingly, they fail to identify with trans women who have also been sexually assaulted by the same instrument."

~ An exercept from "Exploring Transgender Law and Politics" by Catherine A. MacKinnon et. al

I don't think there is a significant or notable number of people who believe transmascs are not oppressed.

I feel slightly insane just having to type this out, but this is rhetoric you inevitably come across if you discuss transfeminism on Tumblr.

The mainstream, cissexist understanding of transmasculine people is the Irreversible Damage narrative (one that's old enough to show up in Transsexual Empire as well) of transmascs as "misguided little girls", "tricked" into "mutilating themselves". It is a deliberately emasculating and transphobic narrative that very explicitly centers on oppression, even if the fevered imaginings misattribute the cause. As anyone who's dealt with the gatekeeping medical establishment knows, they are far from giving away HRT or even consults with both hands, and most transfems I know have a hard enough time convincing people to take DIY T advice, leave alone "tricking" anyone into top surgery.

Arguably, the misogyny that transmasculine folks experience is the defining narrative surrounding their existence, as transmasculinity is frequently and erroneously attributed to "tomboyish women" who resent their position in the patriarchy so much they seek to transition out of it. This rhetoric is an invisiblization of transmasculinity, constructed deliberately to preserve gendered verticality, for if it were possible to "gain status" under the sexed regime, its entire basis, its ideological naturalization, would fall apart.

Honestly, the actual discussions I see are centered around whether "transmisogyny" is a term that should apply to transmascs and transfems alike. While I understand the impetus for that discussion, I feel like the assertion that transmisogyny is a specific oppression that transfems experience for our perceived abandonment of the "male sex" is often conflated with the incorrect idea that we believe transmasculine people are not oppressed at all. This is not true, and we understand, rather acutely, that our society is entirely organized around reproductive exploitation. That is, in fact, the source of transfeminine disposability!

I know I'm someone who "just got here" and there is a history here that I'm not a part of, but so much of that history is speckled with hearsay and fabrication that I can't even attempt to make sense of it. All I know is that I, in 2024, have been called a revived medieval slur for effeminate men by people who attribute certain beliefs to me based on my being a trans woman who is also a feminist, and I simply do not hold those views, nor do I know anyone who sincerely does.

If you're going to attempt to discredit a transfeminist, or transfeminism in general, then please at least do us the courtesy of responding to things we actually say and have actually argued instead of ascribing to us phantom ideologies in a frankly conspiratorial fashion. I also implore people to pay attention to how transphobic rhetoric operates out in the wider world, how actual reactionaries talk about and think of trans people, instead of fixating so hard on internecine social media clique drama that one enters an alternate reality--a phantasm, as Judith Butler would put it.

Speaking of which--do y'all have any idea how overrepresented transmascs are in trans studies and queer theory? Can we like, stop and reckon with reality-as-it-is, instead of hallucinating a transfeminine hegemony where it doesn't exist? I'm aware a lot of their output isn't particularly explicative on the material realities of transmasculine oppression despite their prominence in the academy, but that is ... not the fault of trans women, who face extremely harsh epistemic injustice even in trans studies.

The actual issue is how invisiblized transmasculine oppression is and how the epistemicide that transmasculine people face manifests as a refusal to differentiate between the misogyny all women face, reproductive exploitation in particular, and the contours of violence, erasure, and oppression directed at specifically transmasculine people.

You will notice that is a society-wide problem, motivated by a desire to erase the possibilities of transmasculinity, to the point of not even being willing to name it. You will notice that I am quite familiar with how this works, and how it's completely compatible with a materialist transfeminist framework that analyzes how our oppression is--while distinct--interlinked and stems from the same root.

I sincerely hope that whoever needs to see this post sees it, and that something productive--more productive dialogue, at least--can arise from it.

can't help but think about the trans palestinians who are excluded by the constant use of phrases like "men and women" and "boys and girls." so here's to remembering them. to every palestinian with neglected gynecological issues who isn't a woman or girl. to every nonbinary person who's fallen. to everyone who's lost access to their hormones, who wasn't able to get their gender affirming surgeries - intersex palestinians, too. to every unidentified trans person and every trans person who never got to be their true selves. to all of them, the martyred, and those still struggling just to survive. free palestine - trans and intersex palestinians included.

I don't know why this has to be spelled out, but if you are arguing that there are biases against women in society (true) because of the patriarchy, and how these biases are unconscious and therefore present even in the most progressive spaces...

You cannot simultaneously argue that unconscious transphobic biases are not present, and people don't unconsciously treat trans men closer to women then they do men.

what you don’t seem to understand is that statistics and surveys are JUST as subjective as things like theory. you seem to put things like surveys in a “practical, unbiased truth” category and things like memoirs or theory discussions about people’s actual real-life lived experience in a “impractical, biased falsehoods” category. but that’s YOUR personal judgement, not a universal opinion, and you can’t treat it like it is. statistics and surveys can be just as hypothetical and flawed as “personal experience”. in fact, most of the surveys you pull statistics from were questions answered by individuals about their personal experiences. so like, stop trying to push this arbitrary divide between “theory” and “evidence”.

'what you don’t seem to understand is that statistics and surveys are JUST as subjective as things like theory.'

Dude, Fite-Club I know this is you. You're the only person who will ever make a claim that statistics are AS SUBJECTIVE as something that is PURELY subjective.

I'm not saying statistics are perfect. But trying to argue that RECORDED TRENDS OF LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE are not less subjective than SINGULAR PEOPLE's experiences is only a claim you could make.

'most of the surveys you pull statistics from were questions answered by individuals about their personal experiences.'- Its almost like theres a difference between 'trends' and 'singular individuals'.

'stop trying to push this arbitrary divide between “theory” and “evidence”.' ...Ah yes. The notoriously 'arbitrary' divide between 2 factually different things.

Theory- An educated guess presented as an explanation for observable patterns

Evidence- Observable patterns.

If your theory does not align with observable patterns, it is WRONG.

i diagree with the first point. i believe:

'*cis*-men have privilege under the patriarchy and may act towards them oppressively whether they mean to or not'

This is because evidence suggests trans men doo not receive patriarchal privileges.

This is a prime example of 'circular reasoning', your evidence for trans men having privilege, is that all men are privileged in a patriarchal structure (your evidence for trans men having privilege is literally just 'trans men have privilege')