#also sidenote to my fellow white transmascs: stop assuming everyone has it the same as you

[diedinflorida]

internalized transandrophobia warning

i wasn't able to unpack or even begin to understand why i couldn't seem to respect or understand other trans men/mascs until i started reading and learning about transdrophobia/transmisandry.

we have it better, i'd say, because that was what i was supposed to say, it was "correct". and i'd wonder why i didn't take other trans men or myself seriously. trans women were always easier to relate to, i rarely if ever had issues with misgendering my transfem friends wrong, i'd be able to hear the pain they went through and empathize and understand. i had way more issues with other trans men. maybe i didn't say it out loud, but when i or other transmascs faced bigotry or hardship, i'd think "it's not as bad as what a trans woman would face". i internalized that so badly i didn't think that trans men as a group had problems. among many other things, the medical barriers and sexual harrassment "weren't bad" because i and others like me were (trans) men. what was my problem, i wondered, why did i keep accidentally misgendering other trans guys? why couldn't i reach the same level of respect and understanding i had for trans women? why did i not take my or their issues seriously?

then i found out about transandrophobia. i saw a post mocking gender koolaid's bio and wondered what transandrophobia was. i wondered why all the reblogs and replies to that post were so hostile about trans men. i looked up "transandrophobia". the first post i saw was from a transmasc of color talking about how they'd never had a word for their oppression before, how they'd never felt a they had community like this before. i thought "that makes sense, why were people being so combative about transandrophobia?"

so i read more. i went to gender koolaid's blog and read their what is transandrophobia page and thought, "i've been through this. i can see how i was wrong about that. that sounds right. i haven't thought about it this way before, etc." and i wondered again, why were people being so awful about the word?

so i dug further. and the further i got, the more i saw of myself in the people raging against the term. the more i saw the stereotypes, the hatred, the things i'd been made to believe about myself and other trans men that had held me back from truly respecting myself or those like me, the more i realized that we truly HATE ourselves. i worked out of a knot of self hatred through accepting the word transandrophobia for what it is to me and others: unapologetically accepting that our identities and issues are not lesser, that we face unique issues, that we do not have it "better" by virtue of our suffering being silent.

i'm still working on my problems but i have way less issues with mine and others' transmasc identities. unlike the way folks act online, respecting myself and other trans men did not come at the cost of respecting trans women. if you want to fully unpack your transphobia, you have to work on all of its facets. including transandrophobia/transmisandry/whatever you want to call it.