#least transmisogynistic tme person

[bunnymedley]

yeah its pretty weird when people do that-

oh there it is

[mr-ribbit]

gonna rant again bc im seeing a lot of trans women on my dash having to carry the heavy lifting to argue for their basic respect and a lot of other queer people who want to ??? get mad about that apparently. for the record as usual: im tme, im not speaking for anyone besides myself and my perspectives, but I am trying to reach out to fellow tme people to level with y'all from inside the house.

i thought we all got past the 'calling people gendered terms when theyve asked you to stop' thing in like. 2012. i swear we were allllll on board with not calling women dude anymore, nerfing sir and ma'am, neutralizing collective terms for groups, and all of that was like, during the onceler era. that's how we got off-putting shit like folx into the mix - remember???? why are we here again.

to those who I've seen claiming that they REALLY genuinely don't want to offend anyone, and that theyre trying to understand the dude thing, and they don't want to be seen as transmisogynistic when they aren't: ok. let's talk about it. step one, stop sending that really loaded anon to a trans woman you don't know, and close that in-group hatepost with 100 replies from people name-dropping trans bloggers they don't like. try to open your mind and assume for the duration of this post that I am not cynically trying manipulate thousands of tumblr users into making Bro the next big swear word, but a fellow queer human being who thinks you're all being pretty intentionally obtuse about an upsetting trend in our community

to be clear: this post is about the issue of trans women being called bro, dude, man, etc., particularly in recent tumblr discourse about transmisogyny, and the backlash they face if they get upset about it. this is also maybe moreso about the shitty ass excuses I see tme people make for why they supposedly can't stop doing this.

so let's go through some of the things I've been seeing people say they don't understand, supposedly in earnest, about this issue

"I DIDNT USE DUDE AS A MASCULINE TERM. I CALL EVERYONE BRO. MAN IS A GENDER NEUTRAL TERM"

I'm not actually going to exhaust my list of reasons why dude/bro/man are not strictly neutral, but you should be pretty aware that all words have context. Dude might be seen as neutral in many contexts, sure, but 'woman who is frequently called a man by others' is a situation where the context adds extra meaning to your words, just like calling someone "sweetie" might be neutral in some cases, but if you've got the context of knowing that's your coworker who's half your age, it's a bit less neutral. If you're not capable of reading that context and being tasteful about when you say dude, then you need to at least be ready to respond gracefully when someone asks you to stop. This is the part I'd rather focus on.

"BUT I DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY. IM NOT TRANSPHOBIC"

I think you should consider broadening your perspective *beyond* your intention behind the word. people may already understand that you meant the word neutrally and therefore didn't have transmisogynistic intent, but that's not really the entire scope of what people are saying. if that's your only concern, you're just trying to clear your record, not actually listen to what they're saying.

there are lots of words people don't enjoy being called, and in most cases, when they say 'pls don't call me that', people respect that and move on. even if the word isn't a slur, if it hurts someone's feelings, we all as a society have agreed that it's pretty shitty to keep calling them that. if your friend asked you not to call them 'buddy' anymore because their dead grandparent called them that, or something equivalently personal, you'd probably respect that instead of telling them 'but I call everyone buddy!!' right? even if you didn't really understand why it bothered them so much?

there is a prominent tendency for trans women to be denied this privilege, and when they ask not to be called dude or bro, people don't seem to respect this request as much as they would in other situations. when I accidentally use a gendered word and someone tells me they don't like it, I try to respond with something like "my bad, I didn't mean it as misgendering but I can see you were still bothered by it, so I'll try not to keep saying it. sorry!" and most people are willing to accept that. when trans women ask people this favor, a lot of people get VERY defensive, and treat the request as inane or unfair, instead of just apologizing and moving on. this is why people are upset when this happens, and it's why people are calling your actions transmisogynistic

also like you might not be doing this, but a lot of people DO use dude and bro in an intentionally gendered way to make trans women uncomfortable. it's a power play bigots use to talk down to them or otherwise maliciously harass them. do you know what arguments they use to defend that behavior when called out on it? 'oh I call everyone that' 'dude is gender neutral calm down' 'dont overreact its just a word'. by acting like this, youre all just giving credence to those same arguments.

"WELL THEY SHOULDNT GET SO MAD AT ME WHEN I DIDNT MEAN ANY HARM"

they can get as mad as they want!! also, are you sure they're 'mad'? or are they just expressing their feelings about a negative topic to you, and it makes you feel bad, so you have to make them out to be unreasonably emotional? how do you think they should have phrased 'dont call me that' to better spare *your* feelings?

also like, in most cases, these women do not knowww you. if your main response to someone saying you disrespected them is to say "I didnt mean it that way, I meant it in a friendly neutral way", well that's NOT YOUR FRIEND! she has no idea what your opinions are or what you think of her!!! she has no reason to assume you only upset her in a friendly way and not a bad unfriendly way! but she did get upset, and she did the one thing she can do which is *tell you what upset her* and your response is to say "well actually you shouldn't be upset at all"??????

and another thing:

it's not just the issue of using the word 'dude', it's because you're coming off extremely dismissive of women who have asked you to stop doing something that harms them, and because your argument is basically that they just shouldn't be so bothered by it. or that they're stupid, irrational, or otherwise crazy for telling you that it bothered them at all, just because you Technically used a gender neutral word according to Your Rules. be honest, does that seem fair? If people were calling you something that bothered you enough to ask them to stop, and they responded like this, how would it make you feel?

focusing solely on your intent and what the words mean when you use them is the same thing as saying "just get over it". no woman should need to Prove to you that 'dude' is gendered for you to care about what she's saying. the fact that you're asking people to do that sucks and makes you look bad, which is why people are arguing with you and calling you a misogynist.

especially those of you who are only doing this with trans women who are actively arguing with. you're wielding misgendering as a cudgel and we can all see it, grow up please.

[molsno]

you all seriously need to stop pretending that having a trans girlfriend indicates ANYTHING about how good of an ally to trans women someone is. there's no shortage of people who violently abuse their trans girlfriends every day and face no consequences for it. they often talk openly about how easy trans women are to abuse! even disregarding outright abuse, I'd say it's HIGHLY unlikely you'll find a tme person of any gender who hasn't been transmisogynistic to their trans girlfriend at least once. if you seriously believe that dating a trans woman means someone couldn't possibly be transmisogynistic, or even that they're less likely to be, your worldview is wholly detached from reality. what's next, are you going to act surprised when a cis man abuses his cis wife because you didn't think someone who dates women could be a misogynist? get real.

[euniexenoblade]

If you're here about people calling me intersexist or what ever:

The tl;dr it's bullshit, spun by a bunch of transmisogynists who tried to kick up a harassment campaign against me, but most people saw through it as the bullshit it is.

But, anyways.

It started off with this post, where while high I made a dumb post about how a group of tme trans people who still align in some way with womanhood had been calling themselves "afab trans women," which is incredibly transmisogynistic because 1) afab people saying they identify as trans women implies that trans women are not women and 2) "afab trans women" is a concept terfs made up in the 2010s to mock trans women. The point was never about intersex people specifically, it was about people not understanding that "trans woman" is a specific term with specific meanings, and by them trying to use it it implies they see trans women as transmisogynistic concepts and not as a type of woman.

Whether you agree with me, whatever, I don't fucking care. Just block me and go away. But, the blogger status-quo-hater found my post and went on a rant. When I first saw it I had intended to ignore it, but I checked out its blog and found it interacting with someone who has previously intentionally misgendered me and I just decided I didn't need that shit - so I blocked it. Naturally it noticed cuz it was refreshing my blog every second waiting for a reply, and when it found I blocked it, it once again went on a weird rant about me hating intersex people and deleting comments (at the time, the only comment I deleted implied I was a man) from intersex people trying to "calmly" explain things to me (nope, i hadn't even had that many comments yet).

This launched into a bunch of people suddenly reblogging it's addition and saying some weird fucking shit. Insults, misgendering comments, I even got a couple of weird Christian comments ("may god have mercy on their soul" die). So I started using the ability to hide reblogs on my OP of these people and blocking them, and as it kept going it just go too hard to keep track of and decided that, fuck it! If these are the people status-quo-hater attracts, I'll block everyone that reblogs it's additions. And, I tried to do that but again, it got way too difficult, so getting tired of being misgendered and insulted, I turned the reblogs off.

Since then my inbox exploded with suicide bait, hatemail, dumb shit trying to bait me into saying dumb shit (examples), and my posts started getting spammed with comments that 1) were harassing me. no they were not "calm explanations," they were aggressive harassment that at times misgendered me (not all but enough) or 2) a series of people were spamming my posts, one person posting the same comment ten times, which was fucking annoying. So I was deleting comments by this point, and as I went I just started deleting any comment saying negative shit cuz, again, these people run in the same groups and the most "calm dialogue" doesn't look like such when you're being harassed by a bunch of dumbasses.

Tumblr user dabwax left some fucked up comment on my post. I deleted it and blocked her. So she made a post where she intentionally misgendered me. After someone informed her she was misgendering me, she acknowledged it but blamed it on me (for blocking her, she had been on my blog to screencap me) and refused to edit the post to reflect my correct pronouns. Genderstarbucks added onto her post and subsequently took part in misgendering me - a person I never blocked and never had an excuse to misgender me. The difference between genderstackbucks and dabwax though, is that genderstarbucks at least changed the incorrect pronouns after being told (even though the post still took part in me getting harassed). Then, status-quo-hate, a person who's bio literally says

Proceeds to reblog posts calling me "they" instead of my stated pronouns of "it."

I'm not going to keep this up, it's fucking tiring. Instead, I'm going to say that these people are transmisogynistic. This is clearly a disagreement over terminology and at most should have just been us blocking each other, instead both status-quo-hater and dabwax intentionally lied about me, misgendered me, and did everything they could to motivate people to harass me (especially dabwax).

At the end of the day, this is a mostly failed transmisogynistic hate campaign. And, really the only reason it failed is cuz other trans women stepped in to help take the heat off of me (and cuz I started to ignore them).

To close this out, here's a collection of hatemail I received:

So yeah. Fuck off.

[h3adlessangel]

is longlegs transmisogynistic ? (no)

last thing i’m gonna say on this because the discourse is getting increasingly stupid—through your misinformed (or outright brain dead) takes on longlegs, it’s been all but proven that y’all don’t actually understand what legit transmisogyny is. nicolas cage playing a serial killer with a botched face and effeminate/androgynous traits to his personality is not inherently transmisogynistic. but equating that androgynous serial killer/child predator/overall creep to trans women IS transmisogyny. YOUR perception is skewed. YOUR head is in the gutter.

it’s worth mentioning that cage stated he played dale cobble as “neither male nor female”, to which i implore you consider the radical notion that trans women are (get ready for it) FEMALE ! i know people love their bioessentialism on here, but the fact that you equate androgyny to trans women is literally transmisogyny in action. (don’t bring up the thing about his mom/hermaphrodite thing, i already know. i did my research.)

considering that 60% of y’all who are critiquing the film haven’t actually *seen* it and are operating on word of mouth bullshit, longlegs is so separate from whatever y’all are calling trans/queerphobia, from its messaging to its performances. it’s seriously time for y’all to step outside of yourselves instead of doubling down on your bad faith arguments.

i understand that buffalo bill instilled a collective anxiety around the “trans-coded serial killer” stereotype within the queer community. but nothing in longlegs insists, implies, nor indicates that the characterization of dale cobble is representative of transness. as a matter of fact, no other trans women i’ve spoken to take issue with it (they usually take more of an issue with the messy structure of the third act, which i agree with). but the opinions of trans women on this topic seem to matter the least to TME people, as fucking always.

you see a scary man with feminine characteristics and assume that it is a caricature of trans women and transfemmes. all that implication and underhanded messaging, all that “coding”, that’s all you guys. the call is coming from inside the fucking house. you clearly don’t understand what transmisogyny is, because you’re too wrapped up in your own white-knighting and hand-wringing to take a step back and acknowledge that the way you think about us is transmisogynistic.

xoxo, an actual irl trans woman.

[trans-androgyne]

i think as an intersex trans person who has felt really left put of the conversations around tme/tma and transandrophobia, I think my problem with transandro stuff is how much of it is just transphobia, and how often it genuinely ends up being a shield from transmisogyny. If the term tma was expanded to include everyone who feels it applies to them, that wouldn't change any of the points made about the transmisogyny problem of the wider trans community. Any validity transandrophobia has is kinda drowned out by the obvious resentment towards transfems a lot of people posting have. The way systematic issues faced by transfems will be responded to by anecdotal examples of bad things happened to transmascs sometimes. And despite the fact the transandrophobia people (or people who dislike tma/tme more broadly) often being up intersex people while still not especially caring about us and it's frustrating. tme/tma would bug me less if people could agree if it were camab exclusive or not, because as much as they say it is at least one semi popular transfem tma sex worker isn't and nobody seems to care so the inconsistency would be nice to get clarity on, and transandrophobia people would just have to use their term while still getting called out on transmisogyny and not pulling out their shield of "while actually transandro-" Because that's what feels so mraish to me. idk long rambley mess from an intersex person who's been mad at the wider trans community for a while. (for the record though, I hate the idea that being tme/tma reveals your asab anymore then calling yourself transfem or transmasc does. both are really frustrating binaries for intersex trans people, but only one is criticized commonly. It seems like interssx excluding binaries are fine sometimes)

I appreciate you wanting to share your perspectives but this was frustrating to read. You don’t seem to have enough familiarity with the broader transandrophobia conversation to comment on it like this, because I have been checking the tags daily for months and have yet to see one singular example of a transmasc shielding themself from transmisogyny accusations by pointing out the existence of transandrophobia. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’m saying it isn’t a pervasive issue like you’re making it out to be. This reads like someone who has mostly seen the conversation through screenshots of the worst actors. Meanwhile, we get called transmisogynistic for using the word itself and obviously defend ourselves; I do not doubt these are the conversations you’re seeing. If you think calling it “just transphobia” is acceptable, again, you should not be speaking on this. Is most of the transmisogyny tag “just transphobia” as well or does it matter that it’s directed at transfems?

“Any validity transandrophobia has is kinda drowned out by the obvious resentment towards transfems a lot of people posting have.” No, it isn’t. Does transmisogyny become less real because some transfems are transandrophobic? If there is open transmisogyny going on that doesn’t get addressed, that’s one thing. But how could you expect zero transmascs to hold any resentment towards transandrophobic transfems who tell us we don’t deserve to talk about the way they’re transphobic to us? It’s not a good situation but it’s the reality—you don’t seem to be free of resentment towards any part of the trans community yourself. Tensions are high in the community right now. Are transfems also not allowed to talk about transmisogyny until they clear all resentment towards transmascs? Because half the transmisogyny tag would have to go away if so. It is abundantly clear that transmisogyny being a more established term is biasing your viewpoint here and I hope you’ll work to overcome that before trying to reflect on the conversation further.

[odysseys-blood]

theres a lot of back and forth about paimon especially so i just wanna put in my two cents about it bc speculation on paimon and gender can be tricky and theres a lot to take into consideration. this isnt an end all be all post and not the best written but im just speaking from my place as someone who is trans (though i myself am tme) and works with gender themes in my own characters so this is gonna be kinda long

So! Paimon

a lot of the issue from the back and forth stems from how paimon is written by default. When you meet paimon, he's designated as just a pretty boy that likes to crossdress and they emphasize heavily that paimon is a man every time they talk about his femininity and how he presents himself.

Now crossdressing itself is not at all transphobic, hell drag is a big thing and its not uncommon for queens do figure out that they're transfem when they get into it. In fact a lot of queer people do push to erase gender boundaries within clothes because in the end....clothing is just cloth wear what you want be who you want to be, whether it be a woman wearing masc clothing, a man wearing femme clothes, or anyone just wearing something neutral feeling.

Where it becomes a problem is the push to enforce paimon's masculinity at every turn. While its good that paimon isn't a character that's put in to be played for laughs (as feminine men and trans women often are in media), it comes off odd in a way for paimon to have a feminine voice, dress femininely, love feminine things...and then at every point have it enforced heavily that paimon is a man. THAT is where a lot of the issue stems from at when you see it happening as someone who has seen transmisogyny (if this is your first time seeing the word, its transphobia that arises specifically for a trans woman being a woman. ergo the word being a mix of transphobia and misogyny) in practice it looks worrying. When you're someone who knows how to spot this kind of thing it can feel like paimon's gender nonconformity is being demonized (while they also highlight it. its an odd mix).

This isn't to say that it is a concious thing that's being pushed either i'm not saying the writers are personally transmisogynists at all, HOWEVER since transphobia and transmisogyny is rampant in society to the point where it subconsciously controls biases, thats how it can come off transmisogynistic. Think of it as similar to racism: even if you think you yourself are not racist theres still likely biases you have picked up or have been taught just because theyre so pervasive in society. This doesnt mean its your fault it just means its something that you have to unlearn conciously and put in the work to do so.

This is also not just a problem with whb because again like i said, its systemic. Think about other characters in media who are written this way, such as Bridget from Guilty Gear, or Vivian from Paper Mario. While these two are different in that their status as trans women have been solidified, the treatment they've gotten is largely the same. Especially bridget considering how she for the longest was the poster child for the "femboy" archetype and how femininity is enforced yet also discouraged in these characters until she was finally labeled transgender in gg strive.

All this to say...its messy and theres a lot of points to consider so there really isnt a reason to go at each others throats. Using paimon's canon pronouns and gender isn't exactly a problem and neither is choosing to instead see paimon as a transgender woman and using she/her pronouns. But at the very least it doesn't hurt to educate yourself also and understand why paimon's writing can come off transmisogynistic and transphobic. WHB is not a game thats heralding itself on being progressive (even if there are aspects to it that might seem so) so there's not much to expect from it in that regard but still we can be mindful and discussion isnt bad.

(also a footnote i dont think ive seen any transfem or tma players of whb in the tag....ever but if anyone is and wants to add on or thinks ive overstepped let me know)

[catgirlforeskin]

I don’t think anyone is more personally despicable to me than the type of tme who writes/reblogs callout posts comprised almost entirely of trans women and then try to hide behind “ohh, well it’s not transmisogynist, we should just be holding individual trans women accountable when they do harmful things :)” when the “harm” being done is having a milquetoast kink or using a label a little weirdly. Doubly so if they hide behind the shield of “well I never said if I’m tme or tma heehee 😊” to try lending themselves more authority

At least when (admitted) conservatives spread lies about trans women to try getting us killed or socially exiled, they do it knowingly and openly. The tmes who handwring about how “oh, the panopticon is bad and yeah I’m only seeing these accusations because trans women are under a microscope by all of society, but the watchtower guards said this tgirl was doing real harm so we have to kill her just to be safe🥺” are far worse; if you want to participate in the ongoing genocide against trans women, don’t hide your hands and insist there’s no blood on them

[sapphicsvibes]

ill be honest with you 'transandrophobia' used to be called 'transmisandry' before they realized it was too on the nose, and the originator of the term also openly blogs about a lesbophobic r*pe kink that I dont want to even name.

There's definitely a need for transmascs and trans men to be heard given what I've seen from some transmascs who feel isolated even from other transmascs as they try and find a place for themselves where they feel supported and heard, but as a trans woman 'transandrophobia' shit is not it. it's 90% trans men talking over trans women and the originator of that term joked about being in 'the transmisogynist groupchat' like throwing trans women under the bus to take ownership of trans community will not create a healthy space for anyone.

Personally I think it's something that has to come from trans men being more supportive of trans women without letting the feeling of the invisibility of their plight embitter them against their sisters, like noone else is more able to understand some of what you go through than we are, but I have seen enough transmisogynistic sentiment out of the 'transandrophobia' crowd that I block it on sight, I have a small collection if posts that I've screenshotted if anyone ever asks why. Some part of me still wants to believe trans men could be community to us, but its going to take honest effort from trans men at a community level to make that effort, and right now I just see trans men who want to throw us under the bus to make themselves feel better and gather rapport with other tme queer people. Because it really is as easy as saying 'see these mean trans women say we dont suffer as much say we dont have it as bad as them theyre talking over us' and put words in our mouth instead of building community with us and cis people clap clap clap and reblog.

Trans men who feel isolated deserve a healthier community, and trans women deserve better than 'transandrophobia' rhetoric in our community.

The idea that it stemmed from a term like transmisandry is weird to me. Transmen aren’t oppressed for being men, that’s just transphobia. Misandry doesn’t exist. 

I also had no idea that it started from someone who did weird shit like that - it really makes me scrutinize the people who use the term harder. How can a group like that actually be a safe space for anyone if the creator supports that shit?

but as a trans woman 'transandrophobia' shit is not it. it's 90% trans men talking over trans women and the originator of that term joked about being in 'the transmisogynist groupchat' like throwing trans women under the bus to take ownership of trans community will not create a healthy space for anyone.

This is genuinely terrifying but at the same time, not surprising at all. And I say this because I mean, this is literally what I’ve seen. I had no idea about the group chat, which is insane in itself, but when you say 90% is speaking over trans women, that’s literally what I see in the tag. Even when I look in the transmisogyny tags, it’s usually, if not always, filled with posts that are tagged transandrophobia, and I feel that more and more posts about trans fems gets buried. (That and the whole, perish afab trans fem people getting a lot more vocal).

To me at least, it’s just repackaged misogyny on all fronts, with a sprinkle of lesbophobia. 

I think the sad thing about your take on community is that, it shows that a lot of trans men have not really shed their transmisogynstic mindsets that they grew up with. They still have these ideas that trans fems are inhernetly dangerous to them, and that trans fems are trying to hurt them, and this is a mindset that was implemented in their since before many of them identified with their grandness or even knew they were trans. We grow up in a society that spoonfeeds us terf beliefs and reinforces those as we get older. And as people who grow up thinking we are cis women, we are often times made to be the main victims of trans fems. 

And even when we do come out as trans, etc., some of us still think those harmful thoughts and don’t bother to challenge them. It is because we are trans, that we think we are above challenging and dismantling thing harmful thoughts. What I’ve found with the transandrophobia people, is that, this community gives them space to validate those thoughts. It gives them a safe space to feel truly victimized by transfems thus, they don’t actually feel the need to challenge those thoughts because people in those group are telling them that it’s a normal part of the trans man experience. 

Also, it’s crazy because I find the whole movement excludes trans mascs who aren’t trans men. I am trans masc but I’m also not a man, and I have trauma from men - both cis men and trans men, so a group like that just isn’t for me. I’ve been dealt a bad hand by both trans and cis men LMAO. So like, I don’t feel at home in such a community.

And some of the things i've seen these men say about lesbians......

But anyway, I do think trans men deserve a space and a term and a healthier community but the transandrophobia group is really big unfortunately.

I’m really sorry for any transfems who are often times stuck in the crossfires of this and made to feel unsafe or just bad for existing.

[molsno]

I keep trying to post rent lowering gunshots on here which doesn't work because I've been too scared to go all the way for some reason and I've decided I'm not gonna be a whipping girl who caters to tmes anymore. maybe people will have enough decency to at least not harass me on my birthday.

anyway trans women who are into incest kink are cool. if that makes you personally uncomfortable, alright! the unfollow button is right there! but if you think that automatically makes me or any of the trans women I'm talking about groomers or sexual predators you are a raging transmisogynist lol. if you're unbothered by tme people calling their partners "daddy" or "mommy" but you draw the line at a trans woman calling her girlfriend, who she's not at all related to, "big sis" it's immediately obvious that you just think transfeminine intimacy is repulsive.

like, again, I'm not saying you have to be comfortable with any kink, but are you capable of viewing trans women with that kink as human beings? so many tme people claim to oppose things like incest kink because it "normalizes rape" and then go on to expose intimate details about trans women's sex lives without their consent, and it's so blatantly obvious that it's all horseshit. if you're publicly speculating about someone's sex life without permission you are violating their consent. it's an incredibly invasive breach of boundaries and it makes me sick to see how much disregard tme people have for trans women's privacy. it's clear you don't see us as people, just degenerate sex objects that you can discard at will.

and honestly the fact that this type of behavior is so common is the most frustrating part. have you ever stopped to wonder why there are seemingly a lot of trans women who are into incest kink - specifically involving sisters? did it ever occur to you that perhaps a lot of them are themselves victims of incest and csa? have you ever seriously considered that transfem relationships are generally more intimate than tme relationships because trans women are so starved of love and care that they fantasize about being unconditionally loved the way a sister would be instead of being discarded by everyone they know? like, trans women have our own community separate from the wider queer and trans communities specifically because we're so frequently outcasted by those communities the minute we do something they don't like.

I really don't care if I lose followers or even friends for this. if you think it's ok to harass, misgender, and publicly smear a trans woman for doing something no different than what tme people do, you're a transmisogynist. your opinion really does not fucking matter to me. I will stand with my fellow trans women over you forever and always.

[pocket-deer-boy]

thank you for defending the tme tma stuff it really makes someone feel beaten down seeing people argue over how its nonsense all the time.. its reallynice seeing men defend this stuff seeing we arent alone in wanting to be treated decently

No problem! I’ve seen some people say gnc men also fit into the TMA category, and idk i don’t think that’s accurate. Like, the whole thing about the transmisogynistic caricature of a trans woman is that they’re considered hyperviolent and dangerous, but are also treated with all the typical sexist tropes of being hysterical, hyperemotional, duplicitous and untrustworthy, etc. Sure, a person may lump trans women together with me under the roof of “men who dress like women”. But if someone says something transphobic to me cause they assumed i was a trans woman (and i have been misgendered in the past this isn't exactly a stretch), i get to defend myself by saying i’m a man. Their comment remains as transphobic as ever, but because i’ve stated i’m a man, they’ll probably put me in the sissy category instead. Trans women don’t really get that luxury unless they keel over and promise everyone they’re totally not a woman. For this reason i don’t really think i fit into the category of being trans misogyny affected. Simply put i get to defend myself against it, whereas transfems could only redirect this bigotry towards other transfems.

I’m open to critiques or additional insights to this of course. But if my understanding of the terms TME and TMA are correct then yes, they’re very good terms for discussing who’s hurt my transmisogyny and who isn’t, or at least who gets to wriggle their way out of it and who doesn’t.

[cagandante-communistoide]

hi i was the tma intersex ask and i also happen to be non-binary! and i feel the same way about being placed under binary people and it's honestly so incredibly isolating because tma people's genders are held to such strict standards that not many of us even feel comfy publicly labelling ourselves as enby (ESPECIALLY gender neutral.. and god forbid we're agender or genderfluid or use neopronouns!!)

the thing is i do still label myself as that regardless, at least online and around other trans people.. and the more you get to know transfems the more you'll realise how many of them are actually secretly non-binary but are too afraid to say it and publicly present themselves as completely binary women because even that isn't taken seriously but it's at least a step above being a gender that the majority of the world doesn't even believe exists in the *first* place

and tbh sometimes i wonder what is the point of defending our right to use tme/tma when we end up just saying *trans women" and "anyone who isn't a trans woman" *anyway*, like the reason why i prefer those terms is because it's completely ungendered (but still acknowledges how society genders us) like tme enbies are out here feeling misgendered or attacked by the word tme while completely ignoring the fact that tma enbies exist and that tma is the only way of talking about our own oppression without misgendering ourselves.. tbh they probably don't think tma people can be non-binary anyway

and honestly just like my last ask.. even though my gender is completely outside of the bounds of male/female, i *am* still placed in a binary whether i like it or not.. i am either a tme enby or a tma enby based on many factors including how i medically transition and how i express my gender

and i 100% believe that society treats trans women as women (as much as they like to call them men) simply because i am also treated like a trans woman despite being tma.. just for being someone who was assigned male and transitioning in a similar way to many transfems (despite never being asked to be treated like a woman ever)

i still end up experiencing the struggles of most women but even worse because i'm tma.. and notice how it's very similar to how no-med enbies who were assigned female are treated (minus the transmisogyny), we're both treated as women, we both get shit for not performing womanhood enough, we both get harassed for being gnc, we both get harassed for wanting surgeries to remove/change our "female" parts (if you're a transfem who has ever considered top surgery to remove breasts after going on estrogen you'll know EXACTLY what i'm talking about)

and the only difference is that it's worse for us because we experience transmisogynistic exorsexism not just the general misogynistic exorsexism they deal with

like if anything there should be solidarity between us but instead they want to pretend we don't exist and maybe pretend to feel bad for a trans woman once in a while, what about the tma people in your *own* community? is it harder for you to acknowledge that someone with the exact same gender as you can be tma and you're not? do you even know any tma people with a similar gender to yours?

it sucks tbh being ostracised from the transfem community for being enby and even *more* ostracised from the enby community for being tma..

^

can't get over that one time i heard someone say "binary privilege isn't real." You just know that person's idea of a nonbinary person is a """made up xenogender""" or boygirldyke AFAB person identifying as trans "for fun". Or worse: "basically men" and "basically women". We don't register as a real group of people with real genders and real material consequences for it even to the most gender liberated people because to regender or degender under the gender binary is to unperson yourself if you can't be shoved back into your AGAB, esp if you are TMA. When it happens to a binary gendered person, they notice. When it happens to us, we're just not real humans who live in the real world and experience real things. I wonder if they would say the same if they had to look an enben in the face after they got done talking about how on top of having to strictly conform to gender roles to be referred for healthcare, the transmedicalist healthcare system for trans healthcare defines the vast majority of nonbinary people out of existence and you have to prove to your GP your gender even EXISTS, just so you can get misgendered anyway everywhere you go because NB people can never ever pass before saying "actually there's no difference between the way I am treated as someone who everyone agrees my gender even exists and you, someone who will never ever be included under 'men and women' no matter how trans inclusive we make the gender binary." sounds a lot to me like binary privilege and exorsexism are real.

[nekrotiize]

I've seen a lot of things about Cohost, ranging from people highly recommending it to unsubstantiated inflammatory claims (IE people expecting it to be perfect and pure). How is it, in your opinion?

People get mad at the "baseless inflammatory claims" thing less because of people expecting everything to be perfect and pure (they do not) but more because the recommendation of Cohost as an alternative to Tumblr came on the coattails of a situation where a trans woman was being personally targeted by the honest to got CEO of Tumblr, with this all leading to a massive conversation of systemic transmisogyny and how it's upheld both off and online. A lot of people who were boasting about how they were allies to trans women were doing so performatively, and this was revealed heavily by those claims being launched against the (to my knowledge) mostly transfeminine staff of Cohost. Most of the claims I've seen against the staff of Cohost were the standard fare for transmisogynists - largely claiming that all of them were sex pests with little to no evidence, especially using very extreme, damning labels such as "pedophile", or "pedophile supporter", and other such things. These claims were, again, unsubstantiated, and largely based on using TME individuals's oftentimes uninterrogated latent transmisogyny against them, alongside how reactionary people tend to skew online, especially when it comes to the topic of objectively reprehensible sex crimes. People see a catchy headline and hit reblog without bothering to at the very least check the sources with a clear head, resulting in yet another trans woman being decried for things they didn't even fucking do.

As for how Cohost is, I find it suitable for what it is currently. I think it's worth looking into, but I'd bear in mind that it's missing some features you'd expect from social media, which is fine considering it's branding itself as something of an "anti-social media social site". Some of these things, however, are minor QoL features we've grown accustomed to on Tumblr (moving tags around comes to mind), though they do seem to be working on the site to make it a bit more functional. The staff is small, so they're likely a bit swamped at the moment.

It's worth noting that they do have an official forum you can suggest site changes to, and you can see through that forum what they are currently working on, what's already been added, what's been rejected, etc. Staff transparency is quite high. It's something I can definitely appreciate. Overall, considering the staff size and its functionality as a Tumblr Alternative, I'd definitely rate it pretty high up there. It's similar enough that it's not too hard to get used to, and it's not banking on the Twitter aesthetic in the way some other suggested alternatives are. You can post long-form content, and even commit CSS Crimes. People are making visual novels in the contents of their posts. Look into it, if you can. It may be for you, it may not be. Who's to say!

[velvetvexations]

Hi Velvet!

Dunno how familiar you are with my recent postgasm, but it made me wanna write you a letter!

First so i can apologize for thinking you were a sockpuppet when i first found your blog. but the biases you've internalized were just too confusing to me another trans woman, at least at the time, so i assumed you were trying to piss me off.

but when i messaged you on anon way back to ask why you post like you hate trans women so much, you were really sincere! and it showed me that i was wrong because i saw you were willing to understand an anon that was probably another trans woman.

anyways now that i know i can talk to you it makes me never want to stop talking to you! i can tell you understand what i'm saying so i get the feeling you also wanna shed the deeply ingrained transmisogynistic biases that tell you to hate yourself. you just wanna love the woman that you are, just like me! you might just not be sure how to yet!

but even if just reading this ask pisses you off, i can tell my words still get through to you, so i know the longer i talk to you about this the happier you'll get! eventually!

Bye! Sorry i was mean to your boys, but i gotta prioritize my girls. i'm biased!

P.S. i see you hover dangerously close to blackpill rhetoric a lot which is largely what made me write that absurdly long ask. i wanted to check in to at least see if you're okay!

You seem like an incredibly weird person.

My self-loathing exists but goes far beyond transmisogyny, which is one of the few things I can definitively say I do not aim at myself. I go out of my way to cultivate an image of being a dangerous and unstable creep that ticks the worst stereotypes because I think that's cool and groovy. What am I going to do, call myself a failed male? Slap that on a shirt and I'd wear it for fun.

It certainly has nothing to do with my politics or the discourse I engage in. I happen to dislike a particular orbit of trans women on this site because they're tankie radfems, not because they're trans women. That precise reasoning applies to just as many self-identified TMEs. I don't speak in favor of transmascs who feel stepped over because they're "my boys", they're literally just people I see being treated unfairly the same as intersex and non-binary people often are by frameworks that I have the authority to declare are dangerous nonsense. There's no bias, against trans women or for anyone else.

[sunieepo]

honestly, if i may, all of this talk about the way people treat trans women has reminded me of an experience i still remember vividly back when i was peripherally part of the tumblr / twitter mfrp community. which please note i was never a very active participant, i personally found mfrp very boring and so i was never really fully integrated into these communities - but while i was in them i did befriend a few trans women and i noticed a very persistent pattern in these supposed LGBT-friendly spaces regarding the moderation of trans women.

there was a persistent issue in multiple different mfrp communities i was peripherally involved in, in which trans women would always be regarded as "abrasive" or "aggressive", for making the same kinds of comments and jokes that tme people were making. and the (majority tme) moderation teams would almost always rule against trans women, silencing them or labeling them as deviants / weirdos for behaviors that they would be much more forgiving towards tme people for.

as a sort of bystander i didn't really have a leg in to comment on the actions of moderation teams, i could only offer being a friend to trans women as i watched them be ostracized from these spaces by the very same people who would plaster "terfs dni" all over their bios. i'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, there is definitely more i could have done in those situations, but i do want to call out why all these "fuck terf" type posts just never really resonate with me, seeing them be rbed by people who i know would just jump at the opportunity to demonize a trans woman again (and i just saw it happen earlier with that stupid shit slinging post falsely accusing a trans woman of something she didn't even do regarding cohost...) (i'm aware op of that post apologized for their behavior but what occurred is what occurred)

it's not enough to say "fuck terfs" and i hate that people always center on the buffoonery of terf behavior instead of centering and caring for and supporting the trans women in their lives. it's really frustrating for me to watch as a staunch feminist to continually see the way the lgbt community has let down trans women. the recent wave of discourse regarding "transandrophobia" is also extremely worrying to me - i have seen a non-insignificant number of posts made by certain people in that community that claim that the lgbt community is Too centered on trans women: as if it's a competition, and as if the visibility of trans women is somehow a boon to them rather than a consequence of people using their cause to simply be performative instead of genuinely uplifting and loving.

sorry this isn't the most well thought-out post, i'm just rambling and i have a lot of complicated feelings on this. i don't want to derail what's happening right now too much by bringing up other topics, but i will say i do think it's inevitable that at some point we do need to confront some of the "transandrophobia truther" type sentiments i've seen lately, because they absolutely are damaging to trans women and lead to situations exactly like this.

please, if nothing else, i really hope everyone takes this as an opportunity to be kind to the trans women in their lives. the least you could do is offer them your support. reblogging posts dunking on transmisogynists is not enough. we need to make our communities safer for trans women, and that doesn't end with car hammer explosion memes.

rbs off because i'm not interested in centering my voice as a tme person and this post isn't really something polished i want escaping from my social circle. if you're a mutual of mine and you're feeling unsure about my stance on some of the topics mentioned above, my DMs are open and i am happy to discuss, but at the very least all i ask is for us to be better to trans women. that's all.

[butchmartyr]

re: your tags abt stevonnie- i get your point that nb characters that can be more easily read as cis are more palatable, but i feel like saying that adding stubble is a course correction from “basically a girl” kinda lends itself to transmisogynistic implications. like obviously it’s not common for trans woman to keep facial hair but it’s not like a trans woman’s gender is “more complicated” just bc she doesn’t shave or is otherwise read as “masculine”. (or cis women with facial hair, but their gender isn’t called into question nearly as often) not meaning to like accuse you of anything or put you on the defensive, since you’re a butch trans woman and are obviously the most affected by this idea, just kind of confused. (was your point that just adding the stubble and calling it a day wasnt really doing much? sorry for misunderstanding if that’s the case)

i was saying that adding the stubble and calling it a day doesn’t do much yeah, not saying a trans woman’s gender is necessarily more complicated or anything else, nor am I praising their meh-tier decision. basically tl;dr as a genderfluidy nonbinary trans woman stevonnie reads as a kind of lame approximation of bigender/genderfluidity without actually committing to more than nonbinary feminine beauty (which isn’t to say non-binary people can’t be feminine, just that they shied away from letting much more than that shine through), and when they do try to distance stevonnie from cis women to move away from this, it starts with this kind of transmisogynistic implication that facial hair is “different” or not woman. at least it reads as such to me

stevonnie is introduced as a beautiful, drawing person who the writers wanted to present as trans with the pronouns, and likely wanted them to fill the “androgynous, sort of male sort of female non-binary beauty” trope if I had to guess, but they failed at this both in presentation being predominantly feminine, and in mainly showing men displaying attraction to them (and this attraction is given in the same ways they do with women; see the Kevin storyline). so after the writers noticed this they then do the shaving stuff in the jungle moon episode along with changing their outfit, which reads as course correction to me to make them more obviously “different than a woman”, and as you point out has transmisogynistic implications which is what I was partially getting at. imo it’s an issue that naturally arises from an over representation of tme non-binary people who haven’t done the work but want to distance themselves from women in an easy simple way