#and we can already see it turning into transandrophobia

[confier-boyfriend]

People are just really gross about their exes. Actually no I don’t think you getting vindication for an ended relationship is a good idea, you’re being an asshole. Just because you’re hurt, doesn’t give you the clear to hurt others.

[fite-club]

we already talked about this. the trans guys who are the most vocal and upset about "transandrophobia" are the guys who are still subjected to misogyny on a daily basis and they turn that insecurity around into a misplaced anger of the "if feminism is about equality then why do feminists hate men" flavor. the guys most upset about not passing, the most dysphoric and self-loathing guys, they try to heal that by shifting the blame outwardly (very typically masculine behavior, btw). you're validating your own gender and pain by making your man-ness the issue, since it's the thing being questioned, but it's not the world's issue the way that misogyny is the world's issue. one day you will pass and you'll know what it's like to be seen as a man in public: to see women at night cross the street to avoid you, to hear men whisper sexist jokes to you, to notice when men are actually listening to what you're saying when you're talking instead of pretending to listen and waiting to talk next. the small internet communities that you're in that hyperfocus on this stuff, they're warping these things out of proportion and presenting them in a distorted way. the vents and criticisms coming from trans women about trans men are not going to have a tangibly harmful affect at all. when they tell us to shut up and stop centering ourselves and our experiences, we do, because that's what men are supposed to do when women are talking about misogyny. yes, we can and should talk about our experiences with misogyny--the only people stopping us are terfs on social media and they aren't even stopping us as much as hating on us--but our experiences with misogyny are not unique to us. our experiences with transphobia are not unique to us. everyone's individual trans journey and struggles with discrimination are personal and valid, of course, but on the whole trans women and trans femmes "have it worse" or "have it harder" because women and femmes have it harder in society, period. it's not invalidating or silencing trans men to say that, the same way it's not invalidating or silencing latino men to say that black men have a harder time in society. that's just how layers of discrimination works, that's how "transmisogyny" works. if you find yourself surrounded by terfs, constantly hearing that trans men are being told they can't experience oppression or can't talk about it, regularly making blanket assumptions about trans women/fems as a whole hating trans men or masculinity... that is a problem that will solve itself when you detach from these people

[eulangelo]

Aight, I’ve got a few points I wanna make and give to you (and other people who hate transandrophobia bs):

1. People have forgotten the very useful term ‘conditional privilege’, which would clear up so much of the black and white thinking when it comes to talking about different forms of systemic oppression. Damn near ALL of us have some sort of conditional privilege, whether we want to admit it or not. This is specifically helpful when talking about social issues between different minority groups because it acknowledges both, the oppression and the privileges we have, while giving room for there to be nuance.

2. Men who are also minorities in other ways (being trans or non-white or not straight for example), will still have access to certain privileges that the women who they share these communities with will not have access to because of misogyny. The ‘conditional’ part only comes into play when it comes to those men challenging white cisheteronormative ways of thinking which will make them targets of bigotry. Since so many transmascs like to bring race into this conversation, here’s an example: while black men are definitely targets of rampant anti-black racism, they still hold privilege over black women and often are the first ones to spread misogyny within their own community, which in turn causes even more harm to black women (especially black trans women) since they already didn’t have access to same privileges given to white people and men.

3. That kid who responded to you claiming that you need to ‘listen to trans men of color’ while linking literally only 5 other transandrophobia truthers of color while I’ve seen hundreds of trans men/transmascs of color talk about how much they HATE the term gives me the same vibes when white kids try to tokenize their friends of color to prove a silly ass point 😂 And yes, they’re black but going back to my previous point: just because someone is a part of a certain community does not make them the spokesperson of that community. Being black and transmasc simply means you’re a person who has the lived experiences of being in both of those communities, not that you get to call the shots on what’s acceptable or not in either of them. Especially, if you’re only trying to use your identity to ‘prove someone wrong’ and not actually have legitimate sources or reasons behind the existence of this term.

4. My last point (I promise 😉): transandrophobia truthers want the privileges of being men while still being able to claim the victimhood of being women and it very much has it’s roots in the white victimhood mentality that they often can’t shed, even after they’ve come out and/or started to transition. This may sound mean or harsh but honestly, a lot of the white/white passing trans men and transmascs who push this term so hard still have white womanhood to fall back on. They’re still used to their voice being the one that’s taken seriously, even by cis men. That is a specific kind of privilege afforded only to white women (or those perceived as such 👀). They want the treatment that they see cis men get for being men, yet still want access into women’s spaces (particularly those where trans women are uplifted) so they can speak over women without being called out on their blatant misogyny.

Like, this is something I can attest to personally: whenever I hung out with white trans men irl, I could not feel safe around them because of the egregious amount of racism and misogyny they carried with them. They would always find a way to blame women either for not accepting their aggressive performances of cishet masculinity or for the way feminine men are treated by cishet society when they still got called out on their misogyny while they did the ‘uwu soft boy’ aesthetic.

I genuinely think the only reason so many transandrophobia truthers exist is because they want to gain a ‘monopoly’ on oppression while never taking any accountability for their own bigotry, specifically towards trans women/transfems. And to be even more honest: I don’t think trans men/transmascs have such hyper specific issues that really call for a term all their own. This is just my opinion but every single issue they have tried to bring up as ‘unique’ to trans men/transmascs…is literally something we share with other trans people or TME people. Reproductive rights and proper prenatal care (literally sharing it with cis women and nonbinary folks who aren’t transmasc). Assault based on our genitalia (literally can happen to anyone, even trans women). 😐😐😐 like…c’mon now…

yeah i p much agree with everything, and ive seen the op of that post saying that transandrophobia is the intersection of the transphobia+misogyny that trans men face (quoting word for word). to me that whole movement is literally just rebranded radical feminism with trans men being the focus instead of cis women. they will gladly play the victim whenever called out and absolutely refuse to own up to their wrongoings in a way that's typical of white cis feminism, where they believe they can do no wrong and that whoever calls them out is a predator/aggressor that wants their death or physical harm. similarly to them they revolve their activism on genitals and biological sex, saying "transandrophobia is the oppression against trans people who menstruate" or bringing up the reproductive health issue to back up why we need a term to talk about these transmasc-only issues (despite completely ignoring afab nonbinaries who arent men or masc-aligned). they will also pretend to be progressive and supportive of any and all identities yet they have no issues when misgendering a trans person they disagree with (not only has this happened to me, there's witches-of-color and visibility-of-color who were the victims of an actual harassment campaign perpetrated by transandrophobia truthers and they were repeatedly misgendered and had their gender identity invalidated multiple times by them) because deep down i think they know they don't really give a shit about making activism for transmascs, they just want to center any and all discussion of trans issue over them to discredit transfems and to not be held accountable for their tme privilege at all. it is a highly dangerous mindset and it should only be publicly condemned.

[colorisbyshe]

What are your opinions on transandrophobia/transandromisia as a concept?

There are people who have and will say it much better than me but:

these specific terms were created by a transmisogynist (among other things but i'm not a cash register, i don't have the receipts rn, google it on your own dime and time)

so, when you strip away these specific terms, you have to resort back to the OG term for this: transmisandry

when you ... look at it that way... yeah it looks a bit fucking silly, doesn't it? bringing back the term misandry from the clutches of MRAs looks fucking ridiculous

transmisogyny exists as a term to denote how transphobia and misogyny meet, intersect, and then amplify each other. misandry and transphobia are not amplifying each other, as misandry does not exist EVEN WHEN marginalized men have unique experiences, pressures, and struggles

i think we can talk about the experiences of trans men without trying to make a transmisogyny-equivalent for it. this phenomenon happens a lot, women will make a term for their unique experiences (which inherently acknowledges that men, ALSO have unique experiences) and men go "we want a term too," completely missing... why the women need a specific term (ie MISOGYNY). and in doing so often embrace really problematic terms from sketchy origins just to have an equal (see what happened with trying to find an "equivalent" to sapphic)

to get to the crux of it:

trans men experience transphobia and they experience misogyny (people of ALL genders experience harmful ramifications stemming from the hatred of women, even cishet men; the fact that toxic masculinity exists is because men police other men to punish them for any associations with womanhood, of course it's more complicated (and racialized and ableist and classist) than that but i'm sticking to the relevant bits here). they don't need specific language because... we already have that language. a trans man getting shit care or struggling with insurance coverage for a pap smear is stemming from misogyny... and transphobia, not a unique moment where they amplify each other, for one example.

and imo a lot of these "let's focus on the trans MEN" dialogues often stem from... a very transmisogynistic (and sometimes just... misogynistic) place. it's very clearly a reactionary movement that seems less focused on actually uplifting up men but more on... decentering, punishing, or excluding women. a lot of the rhetoric around it seems to be about trans women have gotten too much focus or even frame them as oppressors/aggressors towards trans men when that's literally not possible (unless it is on another axis of oppression ie white trans women towards trans men of color).

there's a general obsession with framing trans men and trans women as societal equivalents when it's not true. and it's embarrassing to claim such. and no this isn't some "oppression olympics" thing, it's just... a basic acknowledgment of how how existing together on one axis of oppression (transphobia) does not mean you hold the same standing in society on all other axes. this is... basic theory. men still have a different place in society than women, even when the legitimacy of their manhood/womanhood is in "question" by a transphobic society.

I've written more than I wanted to on this and I'm still missing a lot of context I think is essential to this dialogue but like... as a TME person I'm aware of how people talking shit about transmisandry (I'm sorry, not using those terms) is then turned around as fuel to attack trans women. I know how any refutations of these terms is perceived as an attack because people can't be fucking normal.

No more discourse asks. I'm an aesthetics/bitch about my life blog now. This shit should be common sense.

And I know it's common sense because I don't see any of y'all trying to come up with gay man equivalent of lesbophobia because y'all know that's fucking stupid and unnecessary *slams hands on wood three times loudly enough it can be heard across the globe* Apply the same logic here. Think for two minutes

[amatopunkish]

so there are like 4 big trans/queer conversations that my mum and i have had ever. and i was reading through some posts talking about transmasculinism + transandrophobia, and i couldn't help but think about the conversation we had when i told her i was thinking about maybe changing my name one day.

i don't totally remember all the specifics, but we were talking about something and name changes came up. so i said i had been thinking about maybe changing my name tk franklin at some point in the future. very maybe, very vague, just a possibility. and she goes onto ask why franklin (in an "oh. why'd you choose that /neg" way). at this point i had already been going by franklin/frankie to my friends for 3 months. i explained that i choose franklin bc frankie is short for franklin, and when she had mentioned originally wanting to name her oldest (which is me) frankie blue before she had kids, the name had just clicked. she continued to be judgemental and "i like just frankie better"

and THEN she was doing thing she does where she questions me about why i think im transness and why do i need to be trans and "explain your gender". and like i never know how or want to answer any of that bc it's on the spot + im anxious as hell bc it's a piece of my identity we're talking about. then she started pulling the "you're just traumatized" card and saying shit like i only want to be trans bc i want to feel strong so i can't get hurt again + bc i think men are strong. and i was like "hmmm no. it's really not that" but she kept pushing that same like genderessentialist radfem bullshit? like she said something about me TURNING MY BACK ON HER AND WOMEN. she's denied it but i remember what i remember!!! and that was really like WTF, that's where things really went wrong.

i got up and walked out on her at one point and came back to hover in the doorway to tell her that i didn't need her to question me, i needed her to be unconditionally accepting and supportive of me. and she just was not hearing that.

honestly it felt like talking to my dad (+ the worst 40-minute car conversation of my life w/ him). she wouldn't hear what i had to say and spent the conversation acting like i was too young to have these sorts of opinions about my body + my gender identity and what i want to do w/ them. and she was painting herself as the victim bc i wanted to be a man and """men are bad""".

major loss of respect for her!

plus i even tried to yk "sanitize" my identity and make it mire palatable for HER by saying that i didn't totally want to be a man, that my gender was more neutral/man-adjacent than that. so it woukd seem less like i was """abandoning""" her to join """the enemy""".

and that wasn't even the worst conversation we had about my gender! in the 4th/final convo i brought up in all the wrong words how she invalidated me + basically acted like my dad and that basically ruined + shut down the rest of the conversation. and it was "my fault" for bringing it up! like she didn't refuse to listen to me in the convo before that!

and we still haven't talked about it since bc i don't fucking want to. since then my mum has been oscillating b/n "look at what a good ally i am for sometimes very occasionally referring to you w/ they/them pronouns!" (which aren't my preferred pronouns) & "you are my daughter and if we don't talk about transness we'll be fine" it's all so "see i do love you unconditionally" when i've already the fine print, i've already experienced the conditions of her love.

fucking bullshit.

+ obligatory flashback to the time she told me she "draws the line at he/him pronouns". like "you can have any gender you want! just DON'T BE A MAN!" + she freaked out at my sibling for using he/him to refer to me when talking to her.

i understand that she has had a LOT of bad experiences w/ men, but sorry men aren't the problem! the patriarchal society we live in is! get a grip!

that whole experience was "okay so im NEVER going to fully trust you again!" like "i've learned: i can't trust you to be supportive of me!"

[rotationalsymmetry]

One thing to keep in mind about social justice and activism, is that what makes for good social groups and what makes for good activism are completely different.

For socialization, people generally want people like them, with similar backgrounds and cultures and lived experiences and senses of humor. Also, larger groups don’t foster close connections the way smaller groups do, so for socialization purposes (especially online where geography isn’t a limiting factor) there’s incentives to find really niche bases for connection.

For activism though, more people = more power.

For socialization, I might prioritize spending time with people who like the same books and media as I do, people with the same hobbies, people with similar chronic illness related issues, the relatively tiny minority of people who actually enjoy math, people with the same sexual orientation and gender identity as me, etc.

For activism, I want to work with people of a wide variety of ages, class backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, disabilities, preferred leisure activities and personal interests, and sexual orientations and genders. If I try to only work with the people I have enough in common with to want to be personal friends, we’re limited to what a very small group of people can do.

Social media platforms are businesses whose business model is based on 1. getting people to be on the platform as much as possible and 2. successfully selling ads to the userbase. Both of these aspects work best when people sort themselves into incredibly specific categories: by age, by gender, by geographic location, by hobbies, by fandoms, etc. So any time you interact with their algorithms (including when tumblr recommends you blogs based on the blogs you already follow, the one thing they don’t let you turn off) you’re going to be pushed into specific, ideally marketable categories. If those categories are defined in opposition to each other, such as pro Oxford comma and anti Oxford comma, or fascists and anti-fascists, or aces and ace exclusionists, or people who think transandrophobia is an important concept and people who think it’s some sort of transmisogynistic dog-whistle, well, conflict is engagement.

Social media in general has a current, a direction you are pushed, and that current is not pushing you in a direction that’s good for you. It’s on you — or really us, collectively — to swim against it or decide it’s time to leave.

In particular, this is why we block terf rather than arguing with them. Discoursing with them is engagement, and it gives them a wider platform and an easier time finding people to harass.

This is also why you see more criticisms of what people are against than statements of what they’re for. Communal expressions of disgust directed at the other, including political opponents, is very compelling to most people and is effective social glue (it makes people feel connected) and all that keeps butts in chairs and eyes on phones. It’s far, far more effective at keeping the social media engine running than posts that make you go “hang on, I never thought about that before, I’m going to go for a walk/do some knitting/take a bath and let that sink in.” Or, eg, posts that make you go “yeah I do want to read that, I’ll go see if my library has that as an ebook and if so I’m going to start reading it right now.”