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Retrospective on the first wave of self-identified baeddel bloggers

I'm gonna post about this because I was there during the initial wave of self-identified baeddels on this site and was directly affected by them. I know soke younger transmascs here weren't but it might be useful for me to share my experience of that time.

For context, I was around 16-18 during the initial wave and was active under my old account. This was circa 2016-2019, roughly. Though the peak was around 2016 and 2017.

Content warning for suicide baiting, rape threats, and harassment for being transmasc:

I first came into the transandrophobia discussion as a teenager - like many of you, I was a young, freshly out-to-myself transmasc looking for community and to discuss my experiences with transandrophobia. It hadn't long been coined back then and the various alternatives to transandrophobia had not yet been coined. When looking for posts describing what we now call transandrophobia, it was usual to search tags like "#transmasc hate" "#trans man hate" "misdirected misogyny" (the latter of which is very inaccurate as bigotry isn't misdirected - but it's all we had in the days before the term transandrophobia) for examples of specific hatred and bigotry against trans men and mascs.

Around this same time, (self-identified) baeddelism was kicking off in its own corner of tumblr. What is really important to note is that the people which I will call baeddels here self identified as such and were very proud of this. They usually had urls which either included - or were some pun on - the term baeddel. What seems to have happened in recent years is people mistaking those of us referring to self-identifed baeddels as slurring them with the term. This is a misunderstanding, as they self-identified with the term and that is what they called their group. It's therefore an endonym. However - what isn't acceptable is to label any trans woman or fem who doesn't self identify as a baeddel with the term. When I refer to baeddels, I mean exclusively anyone who identified under that term - not anyone else who held similar beliefs but was not part of this group. I feel it's important to clarify this - as I feel that context has been lost - and it is used to paint transmascs who were there during the first wave in a bad light. The backlash to people describing self-described baeddels as such is very similar to how TERFs self identified with the term TERF and then claimed it was a slur when people started to use it for them. This idea has now been accepted into the mainstream - despite the fact that the term TERF too, was an endonym.

The baeddels (assume from this point I'm talking exclusively about those who self identified as such) in their first wave were a loose group of mainly binary trans women (nonbinary transfems were often excluded - or very conditionally included). There was often exorsexism within the group which prioritised binary trans women over nonbinary transfems). Their stated goal was to expand on transfeminist theory and they were especially fond of Julia Serrano and her book, Whipping Girl.

They held Whipping Girl as a kind of gospel - and no amount of disagreement or criticism of the book was tolerated. It was normal back then that popular bloggers in niche corners of tumblr would send their followers after critics to spam their inboxes and harass people. This is very true of the popular baeddel blogs around at that time. Or, if they didn't personally call for their followers to harass someone, they certainly endorsed the action when it happened. Many transmascs around at that time (such as myself) were regularly on the receiving end of such harassment.

This post got long so there's a lot more under the cut

What might happen is - a trans man or masc would make a post in a transmasc tag. Baeddels often stalked these tags and screenshot them - then retreated to their own blogs to post said screenshot and mock the trans man or masc who posted it. Most memorably - this happened to a blogger who was horrifically bullied and harassed by baeddel blogs, culminating in one of the most prominent ringleaders of the baeddel group at that time to call for said transmasc to be raped and then said that the transmasc in question's ability to become pregnant was "AFAB privilege", because many trans women and fems wanted to become pregnant but couldn't - and that trans men and mascs who had hysterectomies were "throwing away" this ability. They claimed trans men and mascs who got hysterectomies were transmisogynisitic.

It's important to note what baeddels thought and believed at the time. They expressly endorsed radical feminism, but decried how it had been warped by TERFs. Instead, they sought to create a transfem-inclusive radical feminism (which still excluded trans men, mascs and non-binary people). They also regularly talked over and excluded intersex people - who were angry about the group using the term baeddel. The term baeddel was originally (as in, in the Medieval era) a slur against intersex people. However, the baeddel narrative was that it was a term exclusively against trans women. This is ahistorical and intersexist. The baeddels held transmisogyny to be the undercurrent of every bigotry in the world (similar to how cis radical feminists to hold misogyny as the undercurrent of every bigotry in the world). They were also self-identified transfem separatists - who believed they had nothing in common with the rest of the trans community (e.g. trans men, mascs and nonbinary people). They believed in "(C)AFAB privilege" - the idea that trans people who were assigned female at birth had inherent privilege over the rest of the trans community somehow and that trans men and mascs in particular didn't actually face any real transphobia. To the baeddels - only binary trans women were called slurs. Or killed in hate crimes or faced any kind of transphobia. Notably, most baeddels preferred to use cafab/camab instead of afab/amab. The version with the 'c' - standing for 'coercively' - was created by the intersex community (as all agab terminology originally was). However, baeddels routinely erased intersex people and claimed they created the terminology. This is demonstrably false - but it was a key part of baeddel ideology at the time to use cafab/camab over afab/amab. To be brief - baeddels were a transfem (mainly binary trans women) separatist group who held an ideology which posited transmisogyny was the most important kind of oppression there is. As a result, they were incredibly hostile to other trans people - particularly trans men and mascs.

I can't include everything that ever went down on this post - as it would be very, very long. But my own personal experience with the first wave of baeddels dates to when I was around 17.

There was a baeddel blogger who often changed their url - but most often it included a noun and then "-princess". I ended up on the wrong side of this blogger after I made a post in transmasc tags about transmasc oppression specifically. The blogger screenshot my post and let out a screed against what I'd said (which had nothing to do with trans women - it was a post about transmascs in a transmasc tag). They involved their followers and encouraged them to go to my inbox and harass me - which was alarmingly common back then. After the first few hate asks I turned off my inbox and tried to message the blogger to ask them to tell their followers to stop. I was 17 and if memory serves, they were 15. The ages may seem trivial - like it was just 'teen drama' but I assure you it wasn't. This particular blogger was one of the youngest self-professed baeddels out there - but looking back as an adult - it's clear they had been groomed by older adults in the baeddel side of tumblr to be as vitriolic as they were. Evidently - they'd also faced some horrific transmisogyny in their life and were also lashing out in a very unhealthy way. It's quite sad - but the popularity of baeddel ideology affected many vulnerable trans women who wanted validation for their suffering - but got suckered into a group which coped with those experiences in a self-destructive and harmful manner.

But I was 17 and they were 15 when this happened. The blogger didn't listen to me. So I went back to my own blog and the transmasc tags to vent about what had just happened - explaining the harassment (I had published some of the hate asks) and venting about how I'd been treated and brushed off by this blogger. I said that the way this blogger had been behaving was aggressive and intimidating. Said blogger saw my new posts and there was a long reblog chain between me, their followers, themself and a few concerned transmascs sticking up for me.

This reblog chain mainly centred around calling me a transmisogynist for saying the blogger's behaviour was aggressive. The argument was that aggressive was a term often used to describe trans women by cis people in a transmisogynistic way. Which certainly does happen. But this doesn't mean it is automatically transmisogynistic to describe a trans woman as aggressive - all human beings have the capacity to be aggressive. This blogger was behaving aggressively towards me. If anyone of any gender behaved the same way, I'd also describe them as aggressive. In those times it was common to make very flimsy accusations of transmisogyny to shut up trans men and mascs who had been hurt by what baeddels had said to them. Once the accusation had been made, it was free rein to harass the accusee until they were chased off the site. Even talking about it now I'm afraid that a false, bad-faith accusation of transmisogyny from almost 10 years ago would be taken more seriously than my lived experience on the receiving end of so much harassment and stress stemming from it.

Eventually, this reblog chain culimated in a reply which has stuck with me, all these years later. They posted an infographic about the rates of suicide in men. They said to me that I should prove I'm a real man and kill myself because the cis male suicide rate is so high. This was framed as a gender-affirming activity. I was not suicidal at the time, but was recovering from a suicide attempt I'd attempted 2 years prior, when I was still in high school. Words can't describe how reading that made me feel - or how it still makes me feel now. But it is absolutely despicable to tell someone to kill themselves because of their gender identity. For a very long time afterwards, I recieve messages and asks with the percentage of men who have committed suicide. It was awful.

This, unfortunately, was not an isolated event. Scores of trans men, mascs and nonbinary people had the same experience I did. Whether it was nonstop harassment, rape baiting, suicide baiting. It didn't matter - there was just a slew of hate against trans men and mascs. Such was the trans women and fem separatism - that it led baeddel bloggers to harass and burn the bridges between themselves and other trans people.

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There's so much more I could add or talk about, but this post is getting very long. But a lot of what I see when people talk about baeddels is a disconnect with what it was like to live through that era. Many young transmascs now weren't on tumblr yet when a lot of this went down.

But astute readers may have noticed something glaring. Well, two things really.

1) It is no longer popular to self-identity as baeddels. (This is because of a lot of internal events within the baeddel group which other bloggers have written about).

2. The ideology which came out of the first wave of baeddelism is now widespread and no longer exclusive to baeddels.

The last point is really important and alarming - the prominence of baeddel bloggers may have gone away, but their ideology hasn't. Much like cis radical feminism - trans radical feminism has retained a foothold and has become more widespread. For example, the belief that trans men don't face transphobia, or don't face as much transphobia (or simply face "misdirected" oppression rather than actually being targeted) has now been proliferated throughout the trans community. So-called "AFAB privilege" remains a talking point despite its obvious falseness as a concept.

These days, the much more accurate descriptor of trans radfems (TRF) seems to be in use. Which better describes these beliefs - and helps to describe people who espouse these ideas who did never and have never identified as a baeddel in any capacity. I do not condone describing people who hold similar beliefs to the first wave of baeddels as baeddels if they did not identify with the term. So TRF is a much more suitable way of doing this.

I made this post, primarily, to remember the first wave of baeddelism (the second wave happened briefly in 2020-2023, roughly) as someone who lived through it. It was a harrowing time to be a transmasc and the things I saw and had said to me will stick with me forever. The movement had a terrible impact on many young transmascs at the time and it shouldn't be forgotten.

But having said this - I have sympathy as well for the young and vulnerable transfems suckered into this ideology. All round - everyone suffered. It was a train wreck. And it should not be repeated.

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This post by catgirlforeskin has nearly 1500 notes as of the moment, so as a trans woman and transfeminist myself, I'm going to provide some context on where this is coming from.

Firstly, it's obviously a deliberate lie because T4T just plain never meant transbians exclusively. That's just objectively not true and no one has ever once produced any evidence to the contrary.

We can tell it's disingenuous because the constant whining about completely inane shit and banging out such comically over the top maudlin trash over how "personally upsetting" it is inevitably always comes from people like the OP, which is to say, absolutely holy fuck massive transphobes.

As an aside, TRFs seem incapable of realizing that gay disabled trans men of color exist. I'm sure that doesn't play a part in their conceptualizing all trans men as being essentially cishet White men.

Then, of course, to further sell this, they'll continue to make excuses for why it's okay when they're transphobic, such as when OP answered this question about the term th**fab:

Again, there's the immediate issue that this is a lie, other trans people are generally not any crueler to us than we are to them, I cannot emphasize enough that the idea behind the justification for th**fab is just completely fucking made up, but the bigger picture here is how these two things are framed.

Other trans people are cruel to trans women. Trans women are partaking in a "half-hearted way of hitting back."

The self-infantilization in the name of denying one is capable of harm is gross, but what else is new. Trans women are innocent fragile babies with paper skin and glass bones who can't do anything because they're just too pitifully weak. Poor dolls. Boohoo, the poor dolls.

TRFs might, occasionally, say they don't necessarily approve of trans women using it in this way, but understand the frustration that leads to it. Which is not really the gentle, nuanced take you'd expect of someone who randomly called all non-binary people in general that word in the process of asserting that they're too unfuckable to have problems like trans women do.

Which, as a side-note, is also the cause of the false claim about the term femboy. Supposedly everyone else is just acting out their fantasies of trans women but just don't want to say they're trans women. It can't be that some people simply like boys who crossdress.

Can someone tell me what OP, self-admittedly not a "woman who's completely in the grip of the sorta bitterness and despair that leads to that way of acting sometimes," was calling out as transmisogynistic in that screencap? Anyone? Can someone work that puzzle out? It's funny these folks seem determined to rewrite history on that one but are just totally a-okay with saying c***tboys should commit suicide.

The point of the post is this: Do not listen to these people. Never let them tell you trans men weren't there from the beginning playing just as much a part in shaping trans culture as anyone. Do not let yourself be guilted. Do not let their constant unbearable affected angst affect you or your choices. And especially do not let it affect how you see yourself, or your position in the community. Anyone saying otherwise will always be coming from a place of bigotry.

There are no sincere concerns, real wounds, or genuinely upset feelings about catboys supposedly being a rip off of catgirls, which, by the way, would not be transfem-originated anyway just like forcefem isn't. Resist the urge to allow people to tell you to give up pieces of yourself or things that make you happy on baseless accusations of appropriation.

Any trans women who cares about you, which is by far the vast majority of us, will tell you this in a heartbeat.

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Hello, wanted to check if you still check in on this blog. This one came up in convo recently and figured I’d go ahead in case anyone is interested in sharing 🤔

Yeah?

I pretty much never post anymore, and I'm bad at remembering submissions, but I'm still here. I check in maybe once a day or so.

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Zander was only 15, by the way.

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(my other post about this)

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it's very concerning to me when i see people denounce baeddelism but not analyze any of the reasons why it's such a harmful ideology and instead pivot it back to how the original baeddels were cultlike.

like, yes, that's an extremely important thing to acknowledge. but we also need to take a step back and analyze how it's a flawed ideology that does nothing but hurt people.

trans people, as a whole, are almost never in a place of gender-based privilege in our modern society. never. it doesn't matter what sex you were assigned at birth or what gender you transitioned to. ultimately, none of us fit within the bounds of cisnormative society. it is impossible to transition into privilege because the act of transitioning itself ensures that, once again, you will never fit into what is deemed acceptable within these societal standards. it doesn't matter if you're fifty years down the line from the start of your transition- if the wrong person finds out your assigned sex at birth you still run the risk of violence. there are hundreds and hundreds of cases of trans people freely living their lives in stealth only to be outed and erased posthumously.

the entire baeddel movement hinges on the idea that, as opposed to the currently existing systems that perpetuate violence against trans people, the ultimate enemy of transgender women is AFAB trans people. this is absolutely untrue. the only world in which transgender men would hold any kind of gender-based privilege is in a hypothetical in which trans people are always treated as their preferred gender post-transition- and in this world, it's doubtful that transphobia would even exist in the first place. bigots do not look at a transgender person and determine what direction they are transitioning in before enacting prejudice. and while yes, some of this can definitely stem from misplaced transmisogyny, we also need to acknowledge that transgender men face their own unique form of oppression that serves as an intersection of transphobia and misogyny. the infantilization, erasure, and corrective violence that transgender men and similarly-aligned trans people face are, in fact, a form of prejudiced oppression!

this isn’t to say that afab trans people can't perpetuate transmisogyny. anyone can, because our society is inherently transmisogynistic and it falls on the individual to recognize and analyze their own unconscious prejudices. (this goes for all forms of bigotry.) what i'm saying is that this is absolutely not something unique to afab trans people. and once again the systems in place to perpetuate violence against trans people are a much bigger threat.

i think the reason i haven't seen much deconstruction of this is how this sort of rhetoric still echoes around online trans spaces to this day, with the most prevalent example being the established TME/TMA binary and scaremongering about any discussions of transandrophobia as inherently transmisogynistic. i never thought that i would have to explain in the year of our lord 2024 that transgender men do, in fact, face misogyny, but here we are.

other trans people are not your enemy. stop drinking the radfem kool-aid and fight alongside your brothers, sisters and siblings for a better future for us all. amen.

(apologies for any bad wording, this was written very late at night. i hope this was a good analysis of this topic.)

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Some examples of what I was talking about a while ago.

Four different comments from four different people from three different blog posts. The first three using ze/hir to refer to a non-specific person, the last one in reference to a specific person whose pronouns are unknown.

There are more examples in the comments, too.

[source 1] [source 2] [source 3] [source 4]

From a Stack Exchange comment.

[source]

From a 2011 blog post about Mass Effect.

[source]

[source]

Some random guy's personal blog post.

[source]

Here's someone using ze/hir pronouns as a way to obscure two people's genders.

[source]

From a glossary from the University at Albany.

Of course, this glossary also uses singular "they" in a few entries, but it also uses "him/her" in a couple of them, so.

[source]

I don't know when the glossary was made, but on the Wayback Machine, the earliest archive is from 2015. Google also suggests 2010.

But sure. I'm participating in "historical revisionism" when I said that many progressive people used ze/hir pronouns as the gender neutral pronouns.

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A non-binary person transitioning in a non-binary way is not saying saying anything about binary transition.

Non-binary people are not saying that trans men are "fake men" or "lesser men" by transitioning.

Non-binary people are not saying that trans women are "fake women" or "lesser women" by transitioning.

Non-binary people are not saying that transitioning is "non-binary exclusive" by transitioning.

Non-binary people are not appropriating from binary trans people by transitioning.

Non-binary people are not fetishising binary trans people by transitioning.

Non-binary people are not making a mockery of binary trans people by transitioning.

Non-binary people are not being transphobic by transitioning.

Non-binary transition making you dysphoric or uncomfortable is a you problem. It is not a problem with non-binary transition.

And because it bears repeating: non-binary transition is not exclusive to midbinary people. Abinary people can also transition, and doing so does not inherently make them transmasc or transfem.

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Is it possible to send you screenshots somewhere?

Submissions are always open.

I also just turned on media for asks, so you can do the too now.

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Corporate needs you to find the differences between this picture and this picture.

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Hey, just ran across one of your posts. At the beginning I was startled. Couldn't understand how a transandrophobic post got on my Tumblr. Then I looked in to more of your posts, and the description of your blog.

I wanted to make sure I understand your blog. You find transandrophobic posts, and post images of them? I assume so others don't need to interact with them?

These are genuine questions. Thanks!

More or less.

Specifically, it's to archive all kinds of bigotry from the original incarnation of what was known as the "Baeddel Crew", or just simply the "baeddels". This blog is primarily for people who just weren't around when the Baeddel Crew was still active, and thus were unaware of just how awful their ideology was.

Basically, the Baeddel Crew were a group of radical feminist trans women formed in late 2013. They took all trappings of TERF ideology (all men are rapists, trans women are just men pretending to be women so they can assault cis women, etc.) and flipped it to be about trans people instead (eg: all trans men are rapists, afab non-binary people are just trans men pretending to be trans women to assault trans women, etc.). The group fractured in 2015 after who was essentially their leader raped her girlfriend.

In 2021 there was a baeddel resurgence. A new extraneous group of radical feminist poisoned trans women were taking on "baeddel" URLs, venerating the original Baeddel Crew, and posting radscummy takes. Of course, people talked about this and talked about how horrible the original crop of baeddels were.

One of the people talking about this was [redacted]. Someone had sent him an anon ask complaining how everyone always ignore the harm the baeddels did to non-binary people. [redacted] asked for anon to clarify, but anon never did, so I took it upon myself to answer his question. I started to draft an ask detailing how the baeddels treated non-binary people, and while doing so I searched old baeddel blogs to corroborate my memories, and also to grab screenshots in case he asked for some. [redacted] never did ask for them, but I didn't just want to delete all the screenshots I took, so I created this blog to post them to. Things just kind of exploded from there.

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hey op, sorry for the tagged comment i made, i didn't have the context behind the purpose of the account.

keep up the good work

Apology accepted? I didn't even see it lol. I'm used to people assuming the worst, anyway. It happens.

Also, since it's vaguely related, for anyone wondering why I don't use that underwater filter: it's somewhat difficult for me to read screenshots with that filter & causes me eyestrain.

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