#but telling trans men to shut up and listen to trans women because they have it worse

[whitehairedanimeboyfriend]

Conversations on here will basically be like

"Hey these new reproductive rights issues are affecting trans men too so let's make sure we include them in the conversation, instead of calling it women's health issues."

"Would you stop complaining? Trans women have it worse than trans men. TERFs want to kill us but only detransition you."

"If living as the gender you are not is so easy why would you transition in the first place? Obviously trans people transition because they can't live with existing as a gender they are not. Obviously "just going back" isn't an option because we often fail to behave the way we're expected to anyway. Forcing any trans person to detransition is a death sentence in and of itself."

"Why are you always speaking over transfems when we talk about transmisogynistic violence???"

[decolonize-the-everything]

Transmisandry isn’t real. They’re getting hate for being Trans not for being men.

Misandry isn‘t real. It hatred for their race, not for being men.

Whatever men of color get, women of color get it twice as much.

Listen to women of color. Don’t silence us.

I do loudly listen and platform and follow and support Black women. I tell people all the time the Combahee River Collective was right when they wrote that if Black women free then everyone would be because their freedom would "necessitate" the destruction of all systems of oppression.

In a way that why I made that post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Women of color get it worse than everyone.

Kimberlé Crenshaw created the term intersectionality after looking at a case where a factory worker had fired all the black women that he had employed. He had white women working for him and he still had black men working for him.

So the judge threw out the case Black women has started because courts did not have the infrastructure to recognize this overlap and said it would be a "Pandora's box" of other people trying to get rights if they did.

Isn't that wild??

And be honest, do you really think feminism listens to women of color? Mikki Kendall said this in her book Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women a Movement Left Behind.

"Feminism that could ignore police brutality killing women of color, that could ignore the study abuse and disenfranchisement and abuse in national and local politics of some women based on race and religion, wasn't about equality or equity for all; it was about benefitting white women at the expense of all others."

"We cannot and will not abandon our sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, or friends, because for us they don't represent an enemy. We have our issues with the patriarchy, but then so do they, as the most powerful faces of it aren't men of color. My husband may not always understand how misogyny impacts me, but he can absolutely grasp what it means when a boss's or a coworker's racism is an impediment. We sit together at that table, even if we don't face the exact same battles in every aspect of life. Women in communities of color must balance fighting external problematic voices with educating those inside our communities who are bad actors, and we expect feminism to do the same work on itself."

Here's something else that helped inform me

Black women have it worse than everyone and while the rest of us absolutely should shut the fuck up and listen, nobody does so I don't see where white women have gotten in their head that they don't have power over Black men or why they can't say anything?

When cis women absolutely hold power over trans men? (Esp trans men of color) since since you threw transmisandry in there.

You see where I'm going with this?

I think it very much an extension of white supremacy, anti-blackness, and anti-intersectionality to say that because you have it worse than someone else that someone else should shut up and not even have the Language to describe their experiences.

Either it applies to everyone and we all shut up for Black women or it doesn't :)

You have to judge people by their character, not their gender, weirdo.

Solidarity is for everyone and all their intersecting identities or it's just a white supremacist patriarchy for women.

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk 💗

[velvetvexations]

Can confirm I've been on here for years now and before Gamer Gate and then the rebirth of Terfism happened the widely accepted feminist talking point was that men suffer under the patriarchy and how we need to talk about that because one of the fastest ways to get cis men on our side was to show them we were already on their side!

I remeber posts with hundreds of thousands of notes talking about how men are assumed to be worse caregivers than women to the point that in custody battles even if the mother is beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst abusive mess ever and the dad is the embodiment of a perfect parent the kids will end up with the mom. It doesn't even matter if the dad says he wants the kids and the mom says she doesn't, the women still gets assumed to be the better caretaker!! This is misogyny effecting men!!

And I know MRAs are terrible but I remember a video going around talking about their recruitment points, like how more men die doing dangerous jobs and the draft or men getting no help when they've been abused by women and being assumed to be violent predators even when they haven't done anything and like yeah, they 100% came to the wrong conclusions about what causes the problems and what the solutions are bcs it's easier to act like women are the problem, but those problems as they were introduced in the early 2010s were actual problems feminism is trying to address, and if these men could see that we are fighting the same fights and join US we'd be stronger. There was a prominent internet feminist who got full on red pilled just by listening to men tell her about their real actual problems, and the time they pulled the rug out on blaming women it was too late, she was convinced, because yeah women aren't the real problem at the root of men's issues they do HAVE ISSUES. The trick is that they just need to tackle the patriarchy, not women. I also saw stuff that legit talked about how to recruit men by pointing out how badly the patriarchy "serves" them!! (GamerGate quickly ruined any and all salient points that existed in the MRA movement bcs the internet is a feedback loop and anger is easy/fun sadly but yeah I feel like it's weird to act like they were always wrong no matter what when they at least did point out real problems.)

And like RBG partially made her name in the courts defending a CIS MAN on the basis that he was being discriminated in a way a CIS WOMAN would not have been, and the ruling allowed for insane amounts of progress for women. A man not being allowed a tax credit to hire a nurse for his bedridden mother is one of the first things that challenged discrimination on the basis of sex in America. But sure men ONLY gain benefits from the patriarchy. It NEVER hurts them too!! And helping them won't benefit us!!! Making them our allies is silly they should all shut up 🙄

Hell back in the 2010s I still remember seeing trans men talk about how horrible and alienating it was for all of their female friends and family to suddenly start acting like they were a threat, and not just pointing out the inherent transphobia, the guy went on to talk about that they finally get why cis men are the way they are, they suffer from systemic emotional neglect. And yeah that obviously does not mean women owe them emotional avaliablity and sex, but maybe the patriarchy telling men to be big tuff guys who never hug or cry or like anything even a little girly HURTS THEM and is a direct cause of a LOT of the problems we're dealing with rn!!! There was a whole study about how widows tend to live a lot longer after their husbands because they have friends and family to lean on and weren't taught to suppress their emotions, meanwhile widowers tend to die VERY quickly after their wives because they no longer have someone who it's okay for them to be open and emotional around, and not having someone you can do that with KILLS PEOPLE. People were saying again, this does not mean women HAVE to take on all their problems, but maybe that we need to stop assuming men don't need emotional support and teach our sons to not be afraid of being ulnerable, honest people because systemic emotional neglect IS BAD FOR YOU ACTUALLY.

These were ACTUAL conversations that swept this damn site. This was the direction feminism was going in. We were on the cusp of a beautiful age of 4th wave feminism with the knowledge that the patriarchy seves no one well and free the nipple and no gender segregated bathrooms and sports, and now just pointing out that we need to maybe understand the ways men struggle under the patriarchy if we've ever going to have them join and help us build a better world gets my inbox flooded with both terfs and so called progressive feminists calling me a gender traitor for being willing to admit men arent the source of all the world's ills and WE NEED THEM ON OUR FUCKING SIDE. I used to proudly call myself a 4th wave feminist back when people still claimed to be of the 3rd, and now idk what I even am. A bell hooks and leslie finberg feminist I guess, since they actually seemed to get it.

Yeesh. Anyway sorry that got heated. This has just ruined my brain. I do not understand where tf we went wrong, bcs hell back in the day we also pointed out how TERFs were wrong to want men and people they perceive as men and those "tainted" by men put to death for existing so they could build their stupid white supremacist wombyn utopia. We KNEW hating men just for being men was wrong and regressive and hurt maringalized men and did NOTHONG to push feminism forward. We talked about the issues that men face and how to raise our sons to be better. But idk I guess Gamer Gate and the Incel movement took off right as TREFs figured out the whole ace and truscum discourse thing wasn't working and they just needed to doctor their arguments against men better and radical feminism took off and this entire site regressed 1000 years and thinks trans men of all people are just as bad as cis men and trans women have a monopoly on an entire axis of oppression like?????

And I'm not putting the blame squarely on anyone aside from the radfems who started this shit but it does NOT surprise me that we are seeing a massive resurgence of biphobic, transmedicalism, and aphobia since half the queer discourse I see these days is anti-transandrophpbia assholes just word for word repeating the kind of blatant aphobia and truscumery that would have gotten you suplexed off the face of the earth in the 2010s with the identities swapped. Just word for word monosexist aphobic shit. Legit is giving me flashbacks, it's insane.

I have never in my life been more disappointed in my community of queer feminists. This is masks all over again. Like is this how kids who grew up evangelical feel when they realized actually the adults didn't mean literally love all your neighbors silly just the Correct ones?? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. What the hell happened to us.

Thank you for writing all this anon, you put enough work in it I'm gonna toss it in the tags, I think it deserves to be seen. <3

The problem with MRAs was never that they believed men had problems too, but that they used certain things - like their disadvantage in custody hearings, for instance - as a cudgel in a malicious crusade against a target they hated anyway for not fucking them. Now with as quick as people are to say things like "what, are you saying androphobia exists too?????" it feels as though we've completely forgotten the actual reason we ever hated MRAs to begin with.

It's the same with the dating article where the most basic possible interactions between two adults mutually seeking a hook-up were taken to be pick-up artistry.

[transmascissues]

a lot of people aren't going to want to hear this, but if you actually want trans men to stop "playing up" our assigned sex/"female socialization" or "walking back" on our manhood in conversations, here's what you need to do:

accept that it is possible for men (yes, 100%-men-and-nothing-but-men) to experience gendered oppression, including misogyny. accept that it is entirely possible for captial-m Men to have a lifetime worth of experiences with misogyny. accept that it is possible for men to be not just hurt by but systemically oppressed under the patriarchy. accept that being oppressed for one's gender does not require any proximity to womanhood. accept that it is possible for men to experience the things you call "women's issues". stop calling the misogyny specifically directed at us "misdirected". stop acting like our manhood somehow cancels out the oppression we've experienced. stop considering yourself more of an authority on our oppression than we are just because we're men and you're not. stop supporting activist spaces that expect men to "shut up and listen and be good allies" while everyone else task about their oppression. stop simplifying the complexities of gendered oppression to "man = privileged, woman = oppressed". you would distance yourself from your identity too if people used it to gaslight and silence you about your lived experiences.

stop acting like being a man makes someone somehow "less trans" or "less queer". learn how to view all trans people as equally trans and equally part of the community. unlearn your tendency to view manhood and masculinity as inherently less queer than other gender expressions. stop talking about how trans men are "the weakest link" or making "jokes" about how much worse we are than other people in the community or blaming us for all of its problems. stop acting like being men means we have less of a right than other trans people to speak on what it's like to be trans. you would distance yourself from your identity too if you knew that doing so would mean being more accepted by the community you rely on.

deconstruct your belief that cis manhood is the gold standard of manhood. stop telling trans men that it's transphobic for them to assert that their experience of manhood might be different from that of a cis man. stop trying to pressure trans men into never acknowledging how their transness makes their experience of manhood unique by accusing them of "misgendering themselves" or "saying trans men aren't real men". accept that trans men are not cis men and never will be cis men and are still 100% very real men anyway because cis manhood is only one type of manhood. understand that if you hear "trans men are different from cis men" and think that means "trans men aren't men", you're the one who's actually saying cis men are the only real men. you would distance yourself from your identity too if people said that claiming that identity required being exactly the same as a group you're not a part of.

get yourself a personality that isn't just talking about how much you hate men. stop telling all the men in your life how much you hate men and acting like their willingness to just take it is a measure of their moral goodness. stop making "jokes" about how trans men are "joining the enemy". stop talking about how much you wish you weren't attracted to men, or how much of a shame it is that someone else is. stop acting like womanhood and femininity are inherently pure and good and harmless while manhood and masculinity are inherently gross and evil and dangerous. stop acting like there's something inherently corruptive about existing as a man that fundamentally changes someone the second they come out as one. stop acting like it's funny to say you want to kill all of us as if there aren't countless people actively working to eliminate us. you would distance yourself from your identity too if everyone you knew spent their free time talking about how much they hate it.

help put spaces and resources into place that take trans men into consideration. stop getting mad at trans men who "call themselves men but still want access to women's spaces" and start looking at the world around you and asking why we want access to those spaces. open your eyes and realize that there is nothing out here for us, that all of the spaces and resources catered toward our experiences are marketed for everyone except us. ask yourself where the hell we're supposed to go when every clinic specializing in care for our bodies is a "women's clinic", when the only men's shelters are really just for cis men and the people advocating for "inclusive" shelters see all men as a threat to be warded off, when no one is willing to make an actual place for us and we have no choice but to just find the place that looks the least risky and hope they let us stay. put some effort into making this world more hospitable for us. you would distance yourself from your identity too if the resources you need to survive were offered for every identity but yours.

actually show trans men some fucking love for once in your life. find it in your heart to actually give a shit about trans men, to see us as real whole people who are deserving of love and community, to see our needs and feelings as worth your time and energy. care about us, care about our lives, care about our health and happiness and well-being instead of abandoning us the second we come out as men. start valuing our presence in the community and realize that we actually have a lot to offer if you could just listen to us. ask yourself why you're so comfortable leaving us to fend for ourselves in a world that wants us dead and is currently being very loud about that fact. you would distance yourself from your identity too if the community that supported you for years suddenly stopped caring about you the second you embraced it.

y'all will spend all day talking about how horrible it is that some trans men emphasize that they were assigned/raised female but nobody actually cares why so many of us do that. no one actually bothers to ask why we would put so much effort into being recognized as men but be afraid to fully claim that identity. no one wants to consider that they might be part of the problem, that they might be partially responsible for the thing they're complaining about.

if you want trans men to be able to stand firmly in our manhood and not undermine it with a million disclaimers, you have to actually put in the work to create an environment that's less hostile to trans men who do stand firmly in it.

because right now, regardless of my own personal opinions on the ways some trans men talk about their experiences as "afabs" or their "female socialization" or being "men but not like that", regardless of what issues i personally have with those kinds of statements, i can't blame them. not one fucking bit. and if you actually looked at how the world treats us - how our own community treats us - when we do fully own our manhood, you would feel the same way.

and if you aren't willing to do these things - which are literally just basic respect and care for other human beings, by the way - you don't get to complain about the ways trans men deal with how people like you treat our manhood. you can't expect a problem to disappear when you won't even acknowledge the part you might play in causing it.

[dykeulous]

alright so trans men don’t experience misogyny & aren’t uniquely marginalized for being trans men but it’s also a-okay to be vigorously misogynistic to us & then claim we aren’t affected by misogyny in the very same breath. it’s acceptable to claim we have “female privilege” & tell us we just need to shut up and listen to the people whose voices actually matter. it’s completely alright & totally not discriminatory to infantilize us & treat us like we’re incapable of having intellectual conservations, incapable of talking about our own oppression because we just need to let the smart people speak. but it’s also okay to then claim we are as powerful and as privileged as cis men, because we’re men. it’s understandable that people are wary around us & we should work on making everyone around us feel more comfortable, we are capable of oppressing both cis women & trans women & we are just as snide, just as violent, just as abusive and predatory as cis men are. we simultaneously hold this imaginary “female privilege”, while also having male privilege, whatever can be used against us at the given moment. we are both evil men who are capable of upholding the patriarchy on a systemic level, as well as stupid female theyfabs who cannot think for themselves. trans women are allowed to talk about the ways they’ve been victimized for being gender non-conforming during their childhoods, they are allowed to talk about the ways homophobia specifically affected them & they are allowed to share their solidarity with gnc men & gay men, they are allowed to express the ways that transmisogyny can also affect gnc & gay men– but we are never allowed to talk about the ways we have been victimized by gncphobia, homophobia & lesbophobia; we are never allowed to share our solidarity with gnc women & lesbians, nor are we allowed to express the ways that antitransmasculinity can affect gnc women & lesbians– otherwise we aren’t really trans & are just fakers. we are monstrous misogynists & transmisogynists, we take advantage of being female because it’s somehow a blessing & a privilege for us that we’re female– but female privilege only exists when it comes to trans men. otherwise, everyone else and their dog is affected by misogyny, but we never are, under any circumstances; which is very hilarious, because the people who claim all this are some of the most misogynistic scum i’ve encountered in my entire life. the more you learn, i guess.

[transgymbro]

this might be a weird ask but idrk.. im 15 and for years(since ive came out) ive seen people say over and over again that transmen have it easier and that they should shut up and listen to transwomen and I just sat through it because I felt I had to. I will admit im very lucky(my family is accepting, I live in a very safe area) but that doesnt mean ive never faced transphobia, but I felt like my experiences didnt matter. im really glad youve talked abt this

also I think too many ppl forget that not all queer people are white, ive seen so many post about how transmen dont face any oppression.. when even non white cis men do(and non straight cis men)

Thank you for the message!

Don't listen to people telling you that you have it easier just because you're a trans guy. It is not easy to exist anywhere if you are trans, regardless of what gender you are. Listen to trans women when it pertains to transmisogyny and their experiences, but do not let them tell you what your own are, and do not listen to the self flagellating trans men who tell you to let someone else tell you what your experiences are.

I say this as a trans man who also lives in a safe area and has an accepting family. You and I are very fortunate in that sense, but that does not mean we don't face discrimination and it does not mean we don't encounter microaggressions or antimasculinity every now and then. Your experiences do matter.

Be safe and I hope your transition goes well!

[unhinged-transmasc-man]

I really do think that some trans people see the word “man” in trans man and their brain shuts off. Their brains go “Oh, man. Man privileged and bad. Men evil and oppressive. Therefore you, Man, equal evil and oppressive. I do not consider you a person now.” The usual acknowledgement of identities and nuance and lived experience they willingly apply to every other group flies out the fucking window. They are so blinded by gender essentialism they completely dehumanize trans men. They don’t know what to do with us in their simplistic bullshit radfem gender politics. Saying trans women are women doesn’t make you not a radfem, deconstructing bio/gender essentialism, and the belief that all masculinity and men/men-aligned/masculine people are inherently morally evil/oppressive/corruptive, and that all femininity and women/women-aligned-feminine people are inherently morally good/innocent/oppressed, THAT is what you have to do to not be a radfem, at the very least.

I am sick to death of non-trans men acting as if trans men never interrogate what it means to be a man. It is in the DEFINITION of being a trans man. We have thought about what it means to be a man more than anyone else (interestingly, trans women also have to grapple with manhood and masculinity in being raised with patriarchal expectations and realizing they don’t fit them and don’t identify with manhood). We build ourselves up from nothing (in terms of making the world acknowledge us as men instead of forcibly trapping as us “women”), we have to make our bodies match who we are, we have to figure out and be determined to be boys and men before anyone else knows we are. We are trans BECAUSE we are men. We have to figure out what being trans and what being a man means to us. Our sense of manhood and masculinity will always be rebellious (not by our own choice, but in the way any oppressed group is rebellious in existing). Trans men are inherently an anti-patriarchal concept. Obviously trans men can be misogynistic like anyone else, but the claim that transforming into a man is automatically misogynistic is radfem trash. The idea that identifying as a man suddenly erases experiences of misogyny is so inherently alien to the actual lived experience of all trans men that it can only come from people who do not interact with, care about, or view trans men as worthy of listening to, or even acknowledgment at all, or even just outright hate us for existing. Non trans men seem to legitimately think that putting on a binder will make cis people see us as men. That is not how it works, and the fact that I have to SAY THAT just shows the absolute miserable state of how rampant anti-trans man attitudes are (anti-transmasculinity more generally but specifically with trans men).

Trans men think about manhood a LOT. We think about it a lot, because manhood and masculinity are central to our identity in a way that is different from any other group of people. We are taking previous experiences and concepts, and re-framing and re-creating those concepts with what fits us. We have to completely construct both womanhood and manhood. It is also a different kind of thinking of being a man because we actually are the men in that situation, “the man” goes from being Other to Us. The complete disregard for our personal experiences, and the reliance on non-trans men and their endless parade of disgusting and bigoted options rather than US is very telling. Trans men have a unique perspective: manhood and masculinity, and the patriarchy (they are not the same thing) were likely traumatic for us, but our own masculinity and manhood are freeing and liberatory for us because we are trans, and because we are trans men. Obviously we don’t want to be what oppressed us, so our usual conclusion is to do masculinity and manhood in a different way. And yet is it so common for that to be turned against us, to assume that because we are trans men we must be willingly aligning ourselves with patriarchy without a second thought. But some trans people do not want to let us do a different form of masculinity, because they see all masculinity as inherently the same, equally oppressive, and evil.

We have a deeper understanding of misogyny and constructs of manhood than most people. We have a deeply profound awareness of how gender works, we live with it every day. Our perspective is critical for advancing any sort of gendered liberation of trans people, and to act like it isn’t, and to act as if only people who do not identify with manhood or masculinity have an inherently more valid perspective is gender essentialist nonsense. Gender is fluid and can be interpreted in many ways, the harmful ways of the patriarchy are not inherent in masculinity or femininity. Masculinity is not inherently oppressive, the patriarchy is. Of course people not allowed to be men who insist on our right to be men anyway think about our identities all the time. Far more than the people who make these nonsensical claims in the first place. Quite honestly, the only way to make this better (what we can do, because 1. It’s not our responsibility to make non-trans men not hate us and 2. Non trans men need to do their work in fixing their attitudes about us) is for trans men to use our voices and share our point of view. Anti-trans man and masc bigotry relies on silence and deliberate violent erasure, and it’s harder to do that if we never be quiet. Our identities are not morally wrong. We deserve to take up space.

[pallpokipoki]

Before starting, I'm not the original author of the following top 9, however i wanted to repost this text because it names and describes the issues within the transgender movement regarding the way trans men/transmasculine people are (mis)treated, issues that are still present and widespread today. You can find another archive/repost of the text here:

1) shutting down trans men talking about their anatomy and their dysphoria

like shutting down trans men complaining about periods by trans women who complain that it makes them dysphoric or that trans men don’t appreciate what they have; it only works this one way - I never saw a trans man scream over a trans woman who was complaining about say random erections that she should appreciate what she has and stop talking about it this way.

2) speaking over trans men on issues related to their biology and socialisation and in extreme forms even completely denying them a voice on those issues

telling trans men that they do not know what’s it like to be socialised as a girl or treated as a girl and should shut up about it, often simultaneously telling them they also don’t know what’s it like to live as men/be a gnc man, removing trans men from talks about feminism, misogyny, abortion or rape.

3) devictimising trans men

being misogynistic towards them (portraying them as hysterical bitches or mocking their anatomy, for one), or transphobic towards them (calling them shrimpdicks, cuntboys, manlets), and justifying it with them being men and either not being able to be victimised or deserving the harassment; it’s also present as “venting about men” but singling out trans men and never cis men.

4) erasing trans men’s oppression

one element of it is claiming trans men shouldn’t reclaim tranny despite it very well targetting them, or replacing “transphobia” with “transmisogyny” in general discourse, in such ways as to erase trans men as targets of transphobia in order to frame them as oppressors of trans women more.

5) limiting trans men’s freedom and means of describing their oppression

to serve trans women’s interests are always prioritised; it’s “trans men shouldn’t say they were female socialised because it implies trans women were male socialised”, never “trans women shouldn’t say they were female socialised because it erases trans men’s trauma with misogyny".

6) constant guilting of trans men who dare speak up against those things, and guilting of trans men into taking a subserviant role in activism

trans men are constantly reminded that they are potentially predatory, potential rapists, just like cis men etc, and that is applied twice as heavily to trans men who disagree or talk back to trans women; the rhetoric is always that they are oppressors of trans women and are victimising them further by “not listening to trans women”.

7) bias in judgement of trans men’s actual societal power and position and spreading misinformation about it

in such a way trans-men will constantly be told trans women get sexually harassed and raped more often, earn less, etc, etc.. despite statistics proving otherwise. bringing up those statistics results in: see point 6. in places with equal numbers of trans men and trans women in power (rare), the trans women will typically still claim there’s more trans men in power and their power is greater.

8) piting up trans men against eachother

urging trans men to “defend trans women” from wrongthinking trans men. demanding that trans men who speak up are ostracised, including from their own circles.

9) undermining the soldiarity trans men may find with lesbians, gnc women or any other AFAB group

that can take form of literally explaining to butches with whom they should and with whom they shouldn’t have solidarity, or speaking aganst “AFAB solidarity”, or arguing that “AFAB people” don’t have any common experiences.

“Those are my experiences from 8 years of being around other trans people. I met cool trans women, but I must admit those things are, unfortunately, a tendency. for clarity, I don’t believe in some crazy mtf conspiracy and hidden agenda. I believe in male born people often sticking with each other against female born people due to misogyny, and in them acting on their socialisation a lot of the time, leading to perserving patriarchal dynamics with opposite pronouns”

[transmascrage]

it really makes me sad to see many trans men (previously myself) to let themselves be walked all over by cis people, and even by other trans people. during the roe v wade overturning, I remember people trying to speak up and say that this would hurt us too. many other trans people, including those who could get pregnant, would tell us to shut up because this was about women, not about us, even though this IS about us. it's about all of us. it's just classic ignoring trans men (+ others) because those who can get pregnant who aren't women are gross. I see this with many other things too, because I've seen trans women/femmes and nonbinary ppl (openly amab) sharing their experiences, and then trans men/nonbinary ppl (openly afab) start to talk and everyone will say this conversation is, again, not about us, even though what would spark it in the first place is attacks on the trans community. either they tell us to stfu or they ignore us and I'm sick of it.

Yup! I just saw a TikTok about this, actually.

It was a reply to a comment saying "Trans women are always trying to stir the pot and trans men never do" and other generalising things.

And the person responding, a trans woman, rightfully told them that trans men and transmascs do in fact speak up, cis people just don't fucking listen!

Literally the only time we're asked to speak is when it comes to male privilege, and as I and others have said before, it's always a very small sample of trans men or transmascs.

Overral very pathetic attempt at divide and conquer, 0/10, transunity forever ❤

[hjellacott]

To those agreeing with what I say but saying I'm mean and "Let's just be nice" when we're discussing TRA things or feminism or J. K. Rowling... I am DONE being nice.

I was nice the first 100.000 times. Now I've been bombarded with private messages and Tumblr "post" (the envelope thingy) and general comments, plus seeing dozens of posts that I just can't be nice and patient about. Because these MORONS and some of them, actual TERRORISTS, are literary burning books, twisting the Harry Potter stories to justify their unjustifiable extremism, harassing children for being Potterheads, mocking adults for finding solace in Harry Potter, attacking and sending death threats and death wishes to everyone that disagrees with them, manipulating children, autistic, and also all kinds of mentally disabled people to absorb their agenda and mutilate their bodies, targeting the lives of people who disagree with them and attacking them and their loved ones, cyberbullying left and right hiding beneath anonymous names and pink and blue flags, burning and thrashing businesses where feminists go, turning Pride into an event where rapists are being allowed to take the mic and say to kill women (literally) and being applauded, saying homosexuality is transphobic and raping lesbians and gays, applauding men changing in locker rooms in front of little girls, applauding men taking over women's sports and spaces, applauding sending rapists to women's prisons, applauding children being brainwashed into life changing treatments, terrorising the world, imposing their own agenda with violence and threats, silencing and attacking the detrans community, manipulating the media, fucking it all up for all the normal trans people who are now thanks to the TRAS being seen as terrorists, and justifying their hatred and their violence on them having basically no reading comprehension, twisting people's words to have a pity party, and creating a self-imposed narrative to try and convince us that everyone wants them to die so it's all right for them to attack everyone else and be given free reign and justification to do so. Police can't even report that a criminal is trans any more and people are losing their jobs for reporting crimes by trans people, for fuck's sakes.

Do you know how often I've dealt with the same lazy justification to "explain" to me, a mixed race Jewish descent woman, why JK Rowling is anti semitic or racist? Or why she's transphobic? And every time one tries to nicely point out that they're twisting things and decontextualising them and inserting their own racist views, they just tell you to kill yourself. They've taken over press, media, social media, pride, women's spaces, they're going after children, attacking local pubs and restaurants... I'm not going to allow it. I'm done being nice.

I see them bullying the detrans community and shutting them up. I see how they harass and threaten the trans community that doesn't want to occupy women's spaces or that doesn't condone violence and threats and wants children to be left alone. I see how they attack women, lesbians and gays. I have a collection of articles of their rapes and other attacks, mainly to women. And they won't brainwash me.

I'm not afraid. These are a violent, terrorist mob that is taking over the left and making themselves the victims when we haven't faced a more aggressive and dangerous mob since the Nazis. Have you seen the videos of the teens and young adults crying in the US Congress, talking about how afraid they are when they see men changing in their lockers, or talking about how their breasts were chopped off and begging us, adults, to stop this nonsense? I have and I'm listening.

Like Joanne Rowling, like all the women who won't wheesht, I'm going to fight for those kids, for the normal people in the trans community, for detransitioners, gays, lesbians, mentally disabled... I'm not afraid and I'm not nice. Not any more. You want a fight? I'm full of weapons.

[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

[just-antithings]

Hello. I'm a gay trans man, and I wanted to provide a few of my thoughts on the disc horse surrounding MLM fetishization in fandoms. Of course, my fandom experience is very limited, so if anyone else disagrees with me or has had different experiences, that is okay and I respect that. Now, with that out of the way, let me get to my main point:

The discourse surrounding MLM fetishization makes me, a literal gay man, feel unsafe and unwelcome. This is because as a trans man I exist in a world that believes I am predatory for existing, and as a gay man I too exist in a world that believes I am predatory for existing. These two parts of my identity that I'm regularly ostracized for intersect in this disc horse, where people claim that they are protecting trans people AND protecting gay men, but by doing so they are punching down on gay trans men and throwing us under the bus.

Let me elaborate. Before I even knew I was trans, I regularly read MLM fanfic and consumed media that featured those types of relationships. Obviously now, I was drawn to that media because I'm trans. Before I realized I was trans, was I fetishizing gay men?

Of course not, because even if I didn't know it at the time, I was one.

Now, let's consider this scenario. Let's say, hypothetically, that I knew I was trans, but for whatever reason I did not want to come out online. So would I, a closeted trans man going by she/her, be fetishizing gay men?

Of course not, because I am one.

Here's the even bigger issue. The majority of non-transmascs online have biases that lead them to view transmascs as both men and women, applying the worst stereotypes of both binary genders to us whenever convenient. People in very progressive spaces that talk about fetishization and things like that are unfortunately no different. They've internalized TEHM rhetoric. This means that they'll view transmascs enjoying fanfic about gay men as the same as women enjoying fanfic about gay men, and I've literally been told to my face by progressives that that's how they see me.

However, it's even worse than that. Since cis women don't experience transphobia on a systemic level like trans people do, trans men are treated worse than cis women in this fetishization disc horse because we have both misogyny and transphobia used against us to shut us up and gatekeep us out of existence. The people acting like women invading gay men's spaces are a serious issue and fearmongering about them are using a dogwhistle against trans men. Just because you say that you include gay trans men in your definition of gay men doesn't mean you've taken the time to unlearn your transphobia or learn about how you can avoid spreading dogwhistles.

And when I call out any of these issues in fandom disc horse about MLM fetishization? Either people pretend they do not see me talk about it, or they respond by acting like I'm downplaying their trauma from "horrible women invading the poor men's spaces :("

Like, I'm literally gay. I've experienced my fair share of homophobia from straight women and I speak out about it often. There are ways to critique women for the ways in which they benefit from homophobia, but trying to gatekeep them from enjoying a certain genre of fanfic Ain't It. None of these people I've seen who hate trans men and AFAB nonbinary people have actually called out a straight woman for doing something genuinely homophobic. The cis people doing this are using the fetishization disc horse as a cover for their transphobia, and if it's a woman who is allied with these TEHM-lites, they're usually doing this to pretend to themselves and others that they care about gay men while not giving a shit about us.

I've had to argue about this with cis women. It's really telling that some cis women won't listen to a trans gay man talk about his own experiences and thoughts on homophobia. It's almost like they don't see us as real gay men and feel justified in speaking over us.

And there are definitely trans men that fearmonger about fetishization, but as far as I've seen, they generally seem to be under 18 and usually change their views quickly. The ones that don't change their views upon me talking to them usually hold truscum beliefs. One that I've spoken to thinks that anyone who's a real gay trans man was against "fujoshits" from before he came out and no real gay trans man would ever touch MLM content. Great job pretending like there's one behavior or trait that marks transness! That's literally truscum koolaid.

I know that there are other reasons that the fetishization disc horse is bad, especially anti-Asian racism, and the blatant misogyny, but I think I've said enough.

.

[dynamicentropy]

I shouldn't have to explain my experience as an intersex person or as a system to be accepted/tolerated by other queer people. Poc shouldn't have to babytalk you about how racism affects how people view gender.

Why are folks remaking the binaries and kicking out nonbinary folks for being not trans enough, or for living in a GNC way?

Why are folks harassing cis poc about their experiences with transmisogny?

The current conversation is just as reductive, but with a "progressive" coat of paint.

When you tell a trans man to shut up because he "has a vagina" (real thing I've seen happen more often lately, dear lord i WISH it was a strawman bc it sounds ridiculous) or a trans woman to shut up bc she doesn't pass I think you guys are not being helpful actually, I think you're beating eachother down for kicks.

When you guys ignore anyone who isn't white, and ignore how weight is not only intertwined with intersex conditions but medical abuse itself, I don't think you guys are protecting queer people.

When you guys use intersex conditions or the forcible hormone therapy of black athletes as a gotcha I think that's not only unhelpful, but also leads to future harm.

TMA/TME as labels being used as a binary regardless of intent and are, SURPRISE, being used to attack people the same way.

In case I have to spell it out: Transmisogny does not just affect trans women and transfems.

It affects the girl system alter that dresses according to her gender in a masculine presenting body.

It affects poc with features the white patriarchy considers masculine, such as high testosterone, long noses, body hair, or deep set eyes.

It affects fat and disabled people who have to dress hyper femme or masc in order to be recognized as their gender.

It affects the genderfluid, the agender, the bigender, the genderqueer, the gnc folks.

Whatever term you want to use for the specific oppression of trans men/mascs (not gonna fight about it, not the point of the post)

Jewish and Asian men are often seen as too feminine to the point of harassment/assault,

The degendering of fat and disabled folks affects that as well, all the way down to medical treatment, and intersex/system folks can have issues in that way as well.

This discussion cuts out so many people, and then you claim to push us all out in the name of safety.

Be aware of reactionary tactics. They're in our spaces. Listen to your friends and folks who say you may need to break down your biases to be a better ally.

[honeylemony]

// vent post

I hate being a lesbian sometimes.

Ever since I heard about bi lesbians and it gaining traction for some godforsaken reason, I keep having to combat my intrusive thoughts. It’s like comphet but WORSE. Instead of them trying to convince me that I like men, they’re telling me I’m a horrible transphobic biphobic terf every hour of every day.

I think about any form of boundaries? “You’re being too strict, just like how strict you are to poor bisexuals. Do better.”

I think about sapphic love? “You clearly are too conservative and exclusionary to deserve to think about sapphic characters. Do better.”

And it sucks, because I’ve also been getting intrusive thoughts about sapphics and trans people who did nothing wrong to me personally. I keep assuming every queer person around me is pro-lesbophobia and I’M in the wrong. It’s terrible.

I hope one day I can grasp that I have the right to think poorly of people who look down on my identity. I really do.

I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Non-lesbians don't understand what its like being a lesbian. Shut out of access to safety/privilege by not being men and not being with men.

It's genuinely really fucked up that our label is such a battleground right now. It is so fucked up that they're making us defend our safe space. It's fucked up that they disbelieve that we are not men and do not like men. It's like they're throwing back in our faces the ways we're shut out of society. Mocking us because of things we can't help. And they don't listen or care when we tell them it hurts us.

I'm sorry that it's causing you such mental harm. Our community should not be doing this to us. We deserve love and safety.

Please reach out to me if you need anything. Lesbians need to stick together.

(this post is inclusive of trans women. Trans women are women. Trans men are men.)

[cvntboyneedsfixed]

this is actually a rant bc tumblr is now reccomending me stuff from the landfill of the internet & i read it bc im a dumb bitch but like

terf rhetoric is literally so funny esp when they collab w/ cis gay edgelords on the internet making shit up about the scary trans mascs (including binary trans men) trying to rape gay men by deviously tricking them into having sex with a ✨ straight woman ✨

but reality (when you like, actually interact with people in real life & are part of yk, irl communities) looks more like:

straight trans mascs existing

t4t trans mascs fucking other trans mascs being the vast majority (counting myself among their number)

not to mention the absolute adoration every trans masc i know irl has for trans women & trans femmes

trans mascs being extremely cautious with cis gay men for obvious reasons

trans mascs on grindr very clearly declaring this on their account & still getting bombarded by chasers, bi men, & yes gay men too lol

tons of bi and pansexual trans people?? these ppl wanna call me a straight woman but then explain how i'm buried in both cock and pussy of all genders?? explain!!

my cis gay friends reading the nasty smut i write to help me nail all the dick on dick details i need (fun fact if you gotta improvise lube shampoo will make all your dick skin peel off <3 my bud apparently learned this the hard way lmao)

meeting my singular gay coworker for the first time and hitting up one of the local gay kink bars & comparing grindr profiles lol he is lovely

listen phallo is amazing and sexy but like not very common for obvious reasons (major surgery and healthcare is a fucking farce and etc etc)... how exactly are these mythical cis gays getting raped by deception?? did they come in eyes squeezed shut and fuck some trans mascs ass then afterwards get jumpscared by pussy?? or did they have to talk to someone they weren't attracted to for a minute or something lol...

Yes, all the men messaging me on grindr are definitely straight or pretending to be bi that's why they keep sending me videos of them sucking cock lol that tracks (like yeah I get chasers but I'm not fucking stupid it's easy to tell them apart)

"trans men are delusional thinking gay men will be attracted to them" actually we've all seen countless examples of the disgusting ways cis gay men treat women's bodies so we are very aware that that reaction is both probably & that the possibility of cis male violence is present like bruh

Also personal pet peeve is when they go on defending how gay men act disgusted by pussy & other afab body parts like yeah. You don't have to be attracted to it oooobviously, but having VISCERAL DISGUST AND HATRED towards the bodies of half the planet's population is actually not part of your sexual orientation it's still mysogyny <3

& it's ridiculous to lean into that ANYWAY because the huge majority of cis gay men i've met have been wonderful & many have been my closest friends in different periods of my life like pleaaaaase stop making them look bad it's slander at this point

anyway trans men i love you trans women i love you & we all deserve to find supportive community & love bc most people out there aren't fringe edgelords who can only generate dopamine by being cruel on the internet

[incarnateirony]

It shouldn't have to be like this guys. I genuinely should not have to go on 3+ day long trans issues benders to get even mildly heard about this.

Society is fundamentally broken if allies refuse to listen because they're too self absorbed in their own shit of them being the victims versus any kind of men at all times regardless of what that man is functionally doing or how he's acting.

I am like. Begging the women of this fandom to listen. Shut up and listen. Not shut up because you're a woman, but shut up because you're fucking bulldozing trans men nonstop and selling yourself that you're being the bestest ally ever while doing it and plugging your ears when I tell you that you're leagues out of pocket.

And the big secret is, you guys are always out of pocket. This isn't just Suddenly Happening Every Two Hours Now. This is shit I've dealt with ever since I came out. Nobody pearl clutched and pretended to be Afraid of Uncomfortable when it was a loud lesbian warrior that wouldn't shut up for any man.

Now that I'm a trans man? The majority of my day is spent by women patrolling every little piece of what I fucking say and holding onto it like a goddamn grudge and refusing apologies over literally tiny ridiculously SHOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE problems, because you guys don't want to unpack your daddy issues and you send it at the nearest poor bastard in your radius, which tends to be an LGBTQ man, because we're the ones trying to support you, but you guys can't get your head out of your own bullshit.

I spent my life being told by men I spoke too loud, who tried to shut me up. I'm not gonna spend the second half of my life being told by women I speak too loud trying to shut me up. It ain't fuckin happening fam, and it ain't okay just because you're a woman, and you are literally all doing it.

Even very good, very intelligent friends, just keep fucking doing it. I literally had a convo where I SENSED the bullshit. "Can I ask you a favor?" "Is it going to be to mute my human experience for someone else's comfort because they can't process human interaction like adults?" "Huh? What no I have no idea what you're talking about." "Oh good. Because I thought you were about to hand me another transphobic cactus." "SO ANYWAY IT'S EXACTLY THAT."

What? My Friend Am Are Uncomfortable

fam I am so tired of white women being convinced my life experience and goal needs to be to specifically Make Them Comfortable with no fucking human regard for my own comfort in the social balance. It is not my job to pay for all of the sins of the patriarchy. I can do my best to be a good man in any moment and conscious of issues but I can't fix the patriarchy all by myself, I'm sorry.

It's like women are literally objectively refusing to onboard this information. I sit down serious as shit in front of a friend and go, "You are not the social minority in this situation. You are the social majority constantly enforcing your parameters on a much smaller minority. You literally can not or should not be Concerned or Uncomfortable when there are literally hundreds of you and like one of me, and if you are, there's a deeper problem here, and it yet again is not me. This is a microaggression."

Then yall go off into fuckin some other topic to avoid looking at it and I grab you by the noses and sit you down again and go no, this is a microaggression, susan, you're going to stop doing it, just like the 10 other friends I've had the come to jesus moment with in the last 72 hours about doing this shit.

[plonk] bounces right off your fuckin heads. No can be microaggression because I Woman Am Uncomfortable Man Bad? fucking stop it LEAVE US BE. YOU DONT GET TO TREAT US LIKE YOUR HEADHUNT OF RANDOM REDDIT BOYS ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. LEAVE US BE. PROCESS YOUR SHIT LIKE ADULTS.

But no every time Woman Mad Man Spoke Big so then Complain To Other Friend who then Complain To Other Friend who then All Complain to Me so somehow even after I've apologized for any minor infraction at length I get the Grownassed Women Cant Get Over Tiny Shit Must Harass Man For Next 3 Hours bus rolling up, but posed under innocent doe eyes. HUH WHAT? NO IDK WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT BUT ALSO YES EXACTLY THAT.

We're not angry and telling you to fuck off with that shit because we're misogynists. We're angry and telling you to fuck off because we lived as women, and you know what, we're fucking angry and embarrassed at what we're seeing out of you from that corner of lived experience too, because goddamn this is some entitled bullshit.

Yall don't realize you're doing it and you all think it's okay for you to individually act like this so then hundreds of women will pull the same Dont Speak Too Loud shit on One Lone Trans Man and completely miss that they're the majority kicking around the minority because it's fun.

Just because cis men spent their whole lives trying to make you shut up doesn't mean you need to retaliate your bullshit on us and do the same to us. Stop it.

Henceforth submit all Vague Concerns And Discomfort to my mailbox