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#bc none of these bitter ass TME posts EVER complain abt behaviours or spaces associated with cis men
ramenheim · 9 months
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About prev reblogs: I have never seen TME used to complain about & demarcate cis men's behaviours.
Despite the term ostensibly lumping together *almost any gender configuration that isn't binarily trans woman*, the only times it's used recently is to complain about (trans) ppl that get lumped in with cis women (as intersex ppl trans or otherwise are *never* factored into this dichotomy anyways), including cis women themselves.
I have never once seen it used to delineate trans women from cis men, even as it gets used to delineate cis women's experiences from trans women's experiences. I have only seen /haphazard/ acknowledgement of non-binary experiences included in TMA, but only really as an afterthought or when it's framed as the precursor to 'fully realizing trans womanhood'. I've only seen intersex folks brought up if they elect to use the terms TME/TMA for themselves, with bizarro interrogations into 'how' they were raised/had their genitals 'corrected' only once they individually disagreed with the terminology or had a confounding opinion in a public discussion.
It is regularly used to delineate trans men from trans women; but its users almost uniformly deride any attempt by trans men to coin a term to describe their own unique combinatory transphobia that isn't TME; again despite TME literally just supposing to mean 'transmisogyny-exempt'.... so why would it be used to discuss trans men's *unique* experiences with hatred directed at the fact that they either "are/aren't (real) men" by anyone who wants them to suffer?
It's been *changed* into hastily recycled AGAB terminology bc of wider recognition of the flaws with /that/ but without the driving flaws of that **tool for analysis** ever being fully addressed; and therefore has gotten subsumed into the 'new euphemism' for the Innie vs Outie false dichotomy as its usage became more widespread.
I think it still is a useful discussion tool ONLY when it's viewed *as a tool* and not some inherent marker of identity. It is DEFINITELY just bigotry when used as a NOUN that has negative behaviours ascribed to it, esp in the context of complaining about trans men** as a whole homogenized group, instead of highlighting individual behaviours/belief systems for the harm they contribute to against TMA trans/nb ppl.
Young queers really need to stop swallowing the tradcath radfem juice of "Women Pure + Good & Men Bad + Evil" [**that tumblr feminism has always had a problem with] and acting like you aren't being a transphobic shitheel by adding the word Trans in front of it-- & This is ESPECIALLY a problem when non-trans "Allies" do this, as it sets up trans women for failure whenever they make a mistake/can be reframed as 'being a cause-traitor' since women are punished more harshly for any percieved failure of Righteousness, AND allows them further to enact their unbridled transphobia onto trans men (& enbys/genderqweirdos) and pass it off as 'being an ally to trans women'..... despite them just being extremely transphobic (+ misogynistic + homphobic + intersexist) & then hiding behind """"TMAs"""" as a negative PR meatshield.
TL;DR if you are using TME to mean (nc)AFAB in vent posts, just have the guts to fucking use that as the word & see how it reads then.
(**since transmasc & transfem do not imply either a 'starting' or 'finalized' gender state; they are personal adjectives in and of themselves. Please do not warp them into new innie vs outie binary divides).
[**see related: the raw ass treatment of 'AMAB enbys' on here and in similar online/irl "feminist" environments. (Which was one of the driving factors behind the original TMA/TME coinage & is where I still find useful inter-trans discussions utilizing it as a term; importantly I don't think the term should stop being used altogether!!)]
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