#but they're both ultimately a form of violence and transphobia

[minecraft-steve]

cannot escape trans community infighting and discourse and i am screaming and clawing at the walls begging y'all to realize our problems coexist

[molsno]

hii so im kind of confused about the general inner workings of transmisogyny as an extension of transphobia and was hoping you could clarify. basically, transphobes & terfs in particular say that trans women are men, however they treat trans women differently than men, dehumanizing them on the basis of their gender. i always interpreted this as a form of gender discrimination that aims to define trans women as a lower or subhuman class, a third gender of “not quite men but undeserving of the title of woman”. does this conflict with the concept of bioessentialism, i.e. that trans women are fundamentally men? i see people say that “transphobes see trans women as men” but from experience that’s not quite true. men receive privilege and rewards for being men that trans women don’t. sorry if this is incoherent im just trying to get a better understanding of it

your understanding is pretty good to be honest. trans women are a separate gender class - an underclass to be specific - and transmisogynists are aware of this, even if they claim to see us as men. does this conflict with bioessentialism? not necessarily, but in some ways it does.

the thing is, though, logical consistency doesn't particularly matter to bigots. that's why basically all of the laws designed to oppress trans women, despite all of the fearmongering about how some technicality in how they're worded will result in them targeting cis women and other tme people, are ultimately only going to be enforced to the fullest extent against trans women. for example, tme people would rightfully be furious if a teenage cis girl was subjected to a genital examination due to the suspicion that she's trans and playing in a high school girls' sport. this would unambiguously be sexual assault, after all. but ultimately, she would be allowed to continue playing (not that she'd likely want to after something so traumatizing, but I digress), and she would probably (not certainly though) have some kind of recourse available to her due to the backlash this incident would cause. if this happened to a teenage trans girl, though, would anyone care? would there be outrage about this? she would have gone through the exact same kind of sexual assault, but the law in that scenario would be functioning exactly as intended. no form of recourse would be available to her. sure, you could make the case that a cis girl might not be able to sue the school district due to financial or other barriers, but a trans girl would have no ground to stand on, legally speaking; she would have broken the law, no matter how unjust and discriminatory the law is.

so violence against trans women broadly isn't recognized as violence against women because we aren't viewed as women. but we're not viewed as men, either. for another example, let's work through the lens of sexual assault again. if a tme person of any gender accuses a trans woman of sexual assault, there is little to no doubt that she will be viewed as guilty automatically, both by other tme people and by the law (the trans panic defense is still legally admissible in many places). in the best case, this will lead to her ostracization and isolation, putting her at higher risk for instability and suicide. in the worst case, this will lead to her imprisonment or death - REGARDLESS of if the accusation is actually true or not. the justification for this is that trans women are secretly perverted men who are trying to prey on innocent cishet people, but the basic idea underlying that premise isn't even something tme people truly believe! if they actually viewed trans women as men, then her guilt wouldn't be quite so certain. men can commit sexual assault every day and face no consequences for it, even when brought to trial with clear and damning evidence, because patriarchy ensures that men won't be held accountable for their actions. of course, this isn't always the case, marginalized men often do face intense scrutiny, many times involving violence. but even adjusting this analysis to account for additional factors such as racism, trans women still receive absolutely none of the same solidarity, leniency, or respect that men of the same demographics as them do.

fundamentally, trans women aren't treated like women or men in society. we're treated as a disposable and undesirable underclass of women that everyone else is free to abuse without consequence. any claims by transmisogynists about what gender they see us as is posturing. we are treated in unique ways as a result of our status as transfeminine. that's exactly what we mean when we talk about how transmisogyny is a unique form of oppression. bioessentialism certainly plays a part, but its contradictions are so obvious that it can only be understood as one piece of a much larger puzzle.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

I legitimately saw two systems (one trans, one idk if cis or trans) say that systems aren't oppressed, that sysmedicalism is transphobic because transmedicalism is worse than sysmedicalism will ever be (even if that were TRUE, that would just mean that we'd have to determine the worst form of oppression to exist and all others can then no longer be named or talked about -_-. Sorry, anything with an -ism is idk racist because racism is the worst form of oppression and words can't ever sound like each other or have similar meanings without somehow being harmful /s)

First of all: BOOTLICKERS

Second of all: the singlets aren't gonna fuck you OR stop oppressing you because you play nice for them. They're only feeding you table scraps for hunting the rest of us down because you're useful and will happily do to you what you did to us once we're gone. You're fucking trans, you should know this.

Third: You're ableist, sanist people and hugely fucking unsafe for both disabled people of all kinds and non-disabled neurodivergent people to be around. One of you admitted systems face ableism and then basically said it's nothing compared to transphobia. Quite honestly, you are not the most oppressed person in the room, and pretending you need to be for your oppression to be valid is turning you into a massive ableist.

Fourth: Everything you described of transmedicalism while trying to argue that "it's just ableism" when other systems talk about their experiences with sysmedicalism is just transphobia. No, this isn't hypocritical of me, because you're literally describing things that affect dysphoric gender conforming binary trans people as much as every other trans person.

Do you know what transmedicalism is? That transmedicalism views transness as a disorder that is treated by transitioning but only if you are a "true trans person" and not a "transtrender"? That while it also hurts binary gender conforming dysphoric trans people, it's to a lesser extent because they're "actually trans" and therefore "deserve to transition" to "treat their dysphoria"?

Fifth: Do you even understand what oppression is? Idk about you but having next to zero legal protections (only minimal ones if you are officially diagnosed, and that comes with its own set of dangers) to the point you can be fired, lose your housing, have your children taken away by CPS, be denied adoption, be forcibly institutionalized, and are at a higher risk of being denied medical care and other forms of systemic ableism, as well as at a higher risk of police violence, hate crimes, and literal murder... if you don't consider that oppression, you're a lost cause.

Finally: I don't care if you are a trans system, your experiences are not universal. Sysmedicalism has hurt me more than transmedicalism ever will, and I live somewhere that my government is trying to make all transition care completely illegal. Get this, the reason I can't afford to escape is actually due to ableism, because I can't work and already don't make enough to survive. If I were trans but not disabled, given what my career track was before I became significantly disabled, we'd be somewhere safe already most likely.

You do not get to make assertions like "transmedicalism is more harmful than sysmedicalism" as fact when that's just not the actual reality for plenty of trans systems. You are not the ultimate arbiter of what we've suffered. You CERTAINLY don't get to claim systems aren't fucking oppressed, especially when you admit systems face ableism and are therefore saying "ableism isn't oppression". You don't get to pretend ableism isn't deadly or that systems only face ableism lite.

You probably won't do any of the things I've said you need to or stop any of the stuff you have no right to do that is actively bigoted and harmful, because you're basically the system version of a trans-inclusive r/f and an assimilationist and also just the first three letters of that last word, you ass.

So in case you ever see this, go do a "fucking myself with a 1000 degree hot steel knife" challenge and maybe solder your mouth shut with the remaining metal for good measure.