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harrypotterfuryroad · 2 years

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hi! i support trans rights.

just saw your blog and was scrolling through it when i saw you talking about how trans supporters don't really understand what terfs are. because of that, it got me wondering; what is a terf then? the main thing i know about y'all is that you don't think trans women are women. i disagree with you, but i wanted to hear why that is from an actual terf.

i don't mean to be confrontational or anything, just genuinely interested. if you could answer, that would be exceptionally snazzy.

hi i support trans rights too. everyone deserves to be free from discrimination, especially for things like seeking housing or employment or medical care. kids shouldn’t be taken from their families by de facto theocracies and shouldn’t be punished or tortured for nonconformity

so the quick answer to your question is that there’s no such thing as a “terf.” it’s a term that ascribes rather than describes, and strengthens a shortcut in your brain that tells you that anyone who disagrees with you is doing it personally and maliciously. calling someone a “terf” is like if catholics started referring to anyone who wasn’t at their specific sunday mass as a satanist, even if they’re another flavor of christian. the fact that a majority of people labeled as terfs aren’t even radical feminists (because very few of the people using the term can even accurately define radical feminism) should be enough to convince you of that

but the question underlying that is “what makes a trans woman a woman or not,” which of course depends on your definition of woman. is a woman “someone who identifies as a woman,” or is a woman an “adult human female”? (same thing goes for men btw, but for some reason no one gets as mad at the phrase “adult human male” 🤔) one of these definitions serves to validate the feelings of people who identify as women, and the other is an externally verifiable observation that can be used when examining larger societal trends. one of these definitions correctly identifies members of a class regardless of cultural context, and the other breaks down as soon as you export it out of 21st century american online culture (see: “joan of arc probably would have identified as a trans man today”-type posts). one of these definitions is circular, and the other is externally grounded

this definition is often argued against by some variant of “women have never had any kind of universal experience” with regards to misogyny (and the corollary that some trans women do have misogynistic behavior directed towards them), but 1) every culture in history has had some kind of culturally encoded misogynistic norms and 2) we’re not defining woman as “someone who faces misogyny”

but even the definition of “female” is facing backlash now, mostly by intentionally distorted interpretations of biology via intersex disorders. the classic is “terfs are stupid because they think sex is only xx or xy,” which is at best disingenuous if not intentionally misleading. nobody is denying the existence of aneuploidies of the 23rd chromosome, we’re just saying that any of these conditions are still classifiable as male or female (i know intersex disorders include more than these but that’s the best example). intersex disorders also do not support the argument for a biological basis of transness for this same reason, and using them as a cudgel against “terfs” is only tokenizing and trivializing people who actually have these disorders. this is also why there’s a push to replace the term with disorders of sex development but we’re getting off topic

ultimately trans women aren’t women because they’re male. if they were women who weren’t male, they wouldn’t be trans. i appreciate and understand their struggle with gender norms, but they’re not unique in their distaste for them. if i stick with my definition of “adult human female” it might hurt their feelings a little, but it supports even more people. i know you’ve probably heard otherwise but a lot of “terfs” have very personal and intimate experiences with dysphoria

another thing that pushed me away was how statistics of violence against the trans community were being covered up or distorted to uphold a culture of fear. not too long ago i vocally supported trans people in all situations. i was horrified that trans women were being murdered on the street at a genocidal rate by feminist extremists and nobody was doing anything. so i decided to educate myself and read about the people who were murdered. i couldn’t find a single instance of a feminist attacking a trans person, or even an attack that was motivated by feminism, but i found lots of cases of men murdering trans women, a lot of them for reasons unrelated to them being trans (burglaries, mugging, etc) or after paying them for sexual acts. the fact that this pattern was largely glossed over by trans activism in favor of a narrative where the wizard author lady was solely and personally assassinating trans women with tweets felt really wrong to me. transphobic violence was being treated as some malevolent miasma that just randomly caused people to die instead of a pattern of male violence. obfuscating the patterns of violence faced by trans people doesn’t do anything to help anyone, but the people trying to address the patterns of violence were being labeled as bigots and being blamed for those patterns

if i was that wrong about “terfs” murdering trans women in cold blood, what else did i have wrong about them? were they even real? who is served by lying about something like this? once i started verifying things on my own instead of letting a red or green name in a sketchy browser extension tell me who to believe, everything fell apart. the dichotomy of “trans ally” and “terf” doesn’t really help anything. i’ve seen trans people hounded for being “terfs” just for saying something that was dogma a few months ago, i’ve seen people face sustained harassment for being a “cryptoterf” just for asking a genuine question, and i’ve seen widely-reviled people welcomed with open arms just by making some superficial change (by both “sides”). there are lots of trans people i agree with about almost everything and lots of “terfs” i disagree with about even more, but if i’m sticking with my principles then their affiliation doesn’t matter, or at least it doesn’t bother me

also it’s kind of annoying that discussions about things that are only tangentially related to trans stuff get framed in those terms. like, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re here from the “not all men” post, which had nothing to do with trans issues, but was enough to get tons of people screaming at me about my supposed transphobia. ten years ago saying something similar would’ve gotten people screaming at me about supposed misandry. the screaming isn’t done with the intent of supporting anyone, it’s just screaming for the sake of affirming ingroup affiliation. anyway i’ll wrap it up here bc it’s getting a little off topic but i hope this was helpful

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bitch-in-a-bag · 3 years

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can we talk about how the LGBT movement has changed in the past 15 years?

in the light of the events surrounding Chris chan, and people prioritizing pronouns over the rape of a woman with dementia, I think it displays just how... different things are.

i personally feel like it's been co-opted by the more loud and entitled mtfs/ males/penis-havers/whatever pc term exists for the XY chromosome'd, who go too far and aren't reasonably kept in check. I think terf no longer has meaning anymore because it's just become a word we use to silence anyone that disagrees with a trans woman. immediately you're going to call me a terf, I accept that, but please continue reading. I may suprise you. calling someone who's transgender a terf is kinda messed up anyway, and that's exactly why im writing this.

I also think that everyone else (allies, ftms, etc) have followed suit because they've written this messed up narrative that EvErYoNe iS VaLiD. except for trans penis-havers, bc they're the most oppressed and the most valid, actually, regardless of their experiences.

I never used to believe the above because it was always written off as terf shit, and ignoring it kinda benefitted me, but between seeing ftms getting bashed for refusing to follow new "TME" rules as if they aren't trans too, and seeing outrage around Chris chans pronouns, I think it's time to start saying things that may make people uncomfortable. innocent people are already getting hurt by this, and we need to do better. it's time to get uncomfortable.

I want to remind you that perception is both the relying factor, and also the downfall of newer lgbt theory. if my profile were mtf coded, maybe it currently is, you'd call me a self hating trans and I wouldn't be that big of a deal. terfs would probably target me.

if my profile was ftm coded, I would be absolutely skewered for daring to speak out about these issues, even though they do actually affect ftms disproportionately. terfs would try to convince me that being trans is a plague and a mental illness, and to just ~be a cis woman~!

and if assumed cis, I would 100% be assumed radfem terf, and everything I say would immediately be dismissed because of the genuine damage terfs have done. but terfs would still probably flock to this post and berate me for daring to validate trans people At All, because to them, being transgender is a mental illness akin to an eating disorder, and "giving in" to it is "self harm". clearly I don't believe that, so hopefully you'll give me at least some benefit of the doubt.

so, does my identity matter? i have a feeling you'll say yes, because it gives us a good idea of experiences I do and don't have expertise in, and thus room to talk about. but I refuse to directly identify what I actually am because I want the focus of any resulting conversation to be my message and not my self identification. if you read between the lines and figure it out that's just fine, but I would like to be heard first and foremost.

my profile is thus an attempt at being cis female coded, somewhat out of comfort, and that is likely what I'll be assumed to be due to the beliefs I am expressing, even though there is a substantial risk of getting misgendered and dismissed, no matter what my birth sex may actually be. i will give you a hint about my identity: I am transgender, on HRT and everything, and I have been personally affected by all of this. rest assured, this is well within my lane to speak about, and it does matter if you misgender me.

I want you to really think about that. before you respond, really think about if someone saying words on tumblr, talking about their OWN experiences and their take on recent history that applies to themself, really more worthy of being misgendered and harassed than... someone who said they transitioned so they could date lesbians, and then raped their own mother with dementia.

is that fair or just? or is this just a new way of letting people with penises do whatever they want? I personally think it's the latter. we need to hold people like Chris chan accountable without getting caught up on something as minor **in comparison** as misgendering and self identification. Is it sad and confusing that someone who self IDs as transgender became 1:1 with the most dangerous stereotypes that exist for trans women? Of course it is. But it doesn't mean that self identification is suddenly more important than a literal crime being committed.

I would normally dismiss it as a fluke or outright trolling if the evidence weren't so damning that this is in fact a real event that happened. If I hadn't seen this happen to other people, and if I didn't literally know another mtf person who used their dysphoria as an excuse for date rape on multiple occasions and never got any consequences for it.

It's not a one time thing, it's a developing problem that we need to stop before more people have their lives ruined. I can't even imagine how traumatizing and messed up it is for an FTM person to be date raped, by another transgender person no less. When I, an abuse survivor, told people of this MTFs red flags, people violently silenced me. People who didn't know I was trans called me a terf and transphobic. We, as a community, could've protected someone from getting date raped, and we didn't. Trans women can be awful, horrible fucking people, because they are people. Protecting them at all costs is wrong. Protecting them from transphobia is what we should be doing.

That being said, misgendering is still skeevy, and I haven't done anything like raped a disabled woman who is no longer able to consent, or date raped my own partner. if you give a shit about respecting my identity, please use they/them for me. if not, use visual perception and make assumptions that will most likely be incorrect, skew your own argument, and put me on the same level as a rapist, and arguably a fetishist. And I do need to remind you that calling someone transgender a rapist and a fetishist without evidence is still definitely classic transphobia, to the letter, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that.

as someone who is same sex attracted, I also want to bring this up as well.

in the US in the past 15 years, the movement as a whole pretty much went "YEAH BORN THIS WAY" with Lady Gaga, and then jumped ship to prioritize mostly mtfs at every angle. do mtfs need support? absolutely. but they don't need misguided toxic positivity, and that's what it's turned into.

it's gotten genuinely homophobic to the point where actually homosexual people are constantly being erased and demonized via "genital preferences are a fetish uwu", and vulva havers, especially the trans ones, are constantly being told to shut up about their experiences.

as much as you want to deny bioessentialism, its still very much well and alive with newer trans movement sentiments when we classify ftms as not worthy of speaking about their own issues with terms like "TME". it's also incredibly ignorant towards FTMs who pass, but dress feminine for comfort, and get mistaken for MTF, and treated like garbage because of it. They are not remotely exempt from misogyny, transphobia, or the intersection of the two, and it is not anyone's job to tell them they don't ever experience that when they do. Turning ftms and biological homosexuals into our enemies-- especially when the actual cause is transphobia and harmful gender stereotypes-- does nothing good or healthy for our movement.

Dont be mistaken, though, passing isn't the focus or end all be all here, it's the perception of others that ends up drastically effecting your experiences. There are words like misogyny that imply treatment via birth sex, however this too can be reliant on external perception. If an MTF individual either transitions very young, has an abundance of resources to transition, or just gets lucky and passes well, chances are she will experience a lot more misogyny than people may give credit to. inversely, someone who just started questioning yesterday, but lived as a male their whole life up until then, they genuinely cannot speak about misogyny with that much room because they simply haven't experienced it at an accurate enough angle or for enough time to understand it as a repeated and sociological force.

It works the other way as well, though; someone who's known that they're trans for a long time and haven't had the resources to transition, or do not or cannot pass in the eyes of society; these people suffer pain that we don't neccesarily have a word for yet, imo. It makes dysphoria worse and it makes living seem hopeless. And as a community, we deal with this is in a really messed up way by over-validating them instead of solving the core issue at hand. and people who suffer from this, but also acknowledge they can't claim what they haven't experienced, are left with nowhere to go.

And its important to acknowledge these things because they're integral to the over-encompassing trans experience. Instead of lying to everyone and telling everyone they pass/giving out unconditional positive regard, our focus should be making it so that it **doesn't matter if you pass**. that you're still worth respect and dignity if you're transgender, no matter what passing is or what it means to you, and no matter how you present. But also, if you do something awful, you still need to be held accountable, especially if you use yourself, your body, or your trans status to contribute to other axi of oppression.

Transphobia is a word that encompasses and addresses all of that, regardless of birth sex. "TME" shuts that down in favor of only letting MTF's speak. Which is still very bio-essentialist, and I can't help but feel like we've gone full circle.

Once upon a time you couldn't even get married if your partner had the same genitals as you. in the US, this was less than 7 years ago. and if you care about human rights activism, you know damn well that legal modification is not the end all be all. people who are genuinely homosexual are still oppressed, but the trans movement has started stepping on them to make ground we don't deserve. homosexuals are ok and valid. it's not a genital preference, and the prescence of trans people doesn't make conversion therapy sentiments ok, ever.

we've gone full circle, and it's not right.

#trans rights #homosexuality #human rights #lgbt #lgbt community #trans #tw: rape #transphobia

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butchbarbieagainstterfs · 4 years

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Do you think pansexuality is biphobic? I have seen multiple posts about it. As a questioning pansexual it made me feel like shit. I know you mostly post about terfs, but I want your opinion.

Just to clarify I’m not bisexual so idk how valid my opinion is here?

However, I do not think it’s biphobic, no. It’s just another label to classify yourself as. As one post I’ve seen pointed out, the bi and pan labels might overlap but the distinction matters to some people and that’s valid. You use whatever labels you feel comfy with! <3

Honestly I feel like TERFs may well have caused that argument as well tho? Like I know they don’t like the term pansexual at all so if it wasn’t them that started it, I’m sure they back the idea and encourage it. They feel like the root of so many issues within the LGBTQ+ community.

And just to clarify, I always welcome asks of any kind! Not just related to TERFs, related to LGBTQ+ issues, political things or honestly even just a vent about your family or telling me about your pets or something. I’ve had all those kinds of asks!

I appreciate asks so much (when they aren’t the usually rude ones from TERFs) so you’re always welcome to ask me things even if they seem unrelated <3

#my stuff

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monsterfuxxxxer · 4 years

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When I was young, trans ppl fled the bi community because it was super transphobic. To be fair, all communities were transphobic. Look up lesbian separatists and other anti trans groups of the late 90s, early 2000s. Panphobes are right when they say pan was created to mean cis and trans ppl, but they're wrong about the reason. We created pan to mean cis and trans, to prevent the transphobia from spreading. So that you literally cannot be pan and transphobic at the same time. We have some fetish pans, and some pans who think trans ppl are different genders from cis, which is really bad. But the pan community has always been trans allies.

This response ended up being LONG wow

While I see that you have good intentions, it’s important to point out that no one is immune to transphobia based on identities alone.

I see that you are aware that it’s a problem when pan people draw a line between transmen transwomen and men and women, but you also said that pan was created to include cis and trans people. I want to expand on this because the line of logic here is what people are having a problem with:

I would disagree with “panphobes are right when they say pan was created to include cis and trans people” because bisexuality already did that. We can’t go saying that pansexuality was created to include trans people because that’s the transphobic problem that pan critiquers are pointing out.

The thing that by very very simple definition alone that differentiates pan and bi are the roots of the words, as I explained in the response post. Bisexuality has always included men, women, nb and any genderqueer people. That being said, it makes sense for young people to not know this when looking at definition alone and without knowledge of the bi communities intricacies, to create the pan label to include all genders.

HEAR ME: BI PEOPLE ALWAYS INCLUDED ALL GENDERS, BUT ITS VALID TO HAVE CREATED PAN TO DO THE SAME THING AND ITS VALID TO ID AS EITHER.

To hear more on that, skip to the “I want to draw a line between actual lgbt+ ideas and terf mentality” section

I have a couple things to say before that though:

The mentality that you can id as pan and that means you’re not transphobic is the big issue here. The pan community has to stop spreading this mentality because it isn’t true. Pan people absolutely can be transphobic, as can anyone in any community.

Pan people are being targeted rn because of saying things like “because I’m attracted to men women AND trans people, I am immune to transphobia.” We have to stop letting people believe that transmen and transwomen should be classified differently than men and women, and that being attracted to trans people makes you immune to transphobia.

This exact mentality is why pansexuality is being attacked rn.

We’re wasting time arguing over whether bi or pan is the one true valid identityTM when the truth is theyre both great. The difference between them is either small or nonexistent but matters to some people and that’s fine! They can coexist! It’s wonderful and beautiful! They’re FUNCTIONALLY synonyms but as I said, it’s preference!

What we should be spending time on is spreading info to help people avoid falling into terf mentality.

I want to draw a line between actual lgbt+ ideas and terf mentality.

The bisexual people you knew that excluded trans people? Probably affected by terf mentality.

They were young and unless they came from an lgbt+ positive family, had an education system that taught them about trans identity, or were magically never affected by problematic mainstream ideas, terf mentality probably bled into their ideas.

Pan people that say being attracted to transmen and transwomen makes them different from bi people? Terf mentality.

At some point in everyone’s lives, we were led to believe that transmen and transwomen are different from men and women. We were led to believe that bisexuality mean an attraction to two genders, and that those two genders were the binary of men and women. At some point, we were all led to believe these things and through community support, NOT faceless tumblr attack posts, unlearned them and grew as people.

I believe that it was somewhere in this miscommunication in which pansexuality was created to include genderqueer people that don’t fall into the men/women label. it is mostly young people identifying as pan and it is mostly young people that only have the words they hear and their interpretation of them to give meaning to. Even if they stumble upon the real bi mentality that bi includes all genders, it’s still valid to id with the pan label, or to change and feel more comfortable with the bi label, or the omnisexual label or literally anything it doesn’t matter and it’s harmless and we should support them.

So to the people spreading pan hate: if your goal is to divide the community, keep it up. If your goal is to stop transphobia, there is a more effective less harmful way to do that which also saves you from dividing the lgbt+ community

Spread information about how bisexuality includes all genders too, and the matter of preference between identifying as bi or pan is just preference.

Doing this will stop people in the pan community from getting the idea that “bisexual means two genders” to begin with.

And keep spreading information about transmen and transwomen, what it means to be trans, transphobic people and blogs to avoid, and how to avoid transphobia all together. Share resources that educate people about bisexuality, pansexuality, and the trans identity.

Alright that was probably much longer of an answer than you wanted but if you read all that, thanks!

#asks #pansexuality #bisexuality #pansexual discourse

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natcaptor · 5 years

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Hey!!! If you called a trans man or transmasc enby a “woman with internalized misogyny” and said “she can call herself whatever she wants but she’ll still be a woman scientifically speaking” you’d be a MASSIVE TRANSPHOBE! When people call me, a transmasc enby a girl with internalized misogyny I immediately know that they are a transphobe regardless of their gender or sexuality! When terf lesbians call trans men confused butch lesbians we know they are MASSIVE FUCKING TRANSPHOBES even though they are also lgbt, right? We know that when you direct hatred towards and undermine the identities of people under the non-binary umbrella you are being enby/nbphobic despite that not being classified as a phobia like homophobia because that’s what we call it when you direct that sort of shit at people in these communities.

So why??? Why??? Is it considered okay to use the SAME FUCKING RHETORIC on pan people?? Why is it not considered massively panphobic or at least completely shitty and unacceptable to say that pan people are just confused bisexuals or bisexuals with internalized biphobia??? Why is this:

Perfectly acceptable under the guise of bi positivity? When this is LITERALLY THE ARGUMENT PEOPLE USE TO SAY “other than intersex people you can’t be nonbinary because you were born one gender and being nonbinary is just a form of gender nonconformity rather than an actual identity”.

And why the fuck is it okay to call pretty much all pan positivity biphobic and to assume that all pan people have issues with bisexuality or are trying to define it despite not IDing as bi but to then go and make super panphobic bi positivity posts and try to define pansexuality as “not a real sexuality but a philosophy”? This is the same rhetoric as aphobia and nbphobia and it’s so gross and I’m so sick of panphobia being excused because “it’s mostly just the same as biphobia so it’s not unique” or similar buckshot that is based in the idea that pansexuality isn’t real.

“Oh but pansexual is a new identity that comes from discomfort with the bisexual label from biphobia!!! Oh but it’s the etymology fallacy!!” Shut the fuck up. I get that there’s been misinformation spread about bi and pansexuality but that doesn’t give you the right to dismiss every pansexual as a biphobe who doesn’t understand language or the origins of the terms.

I don’t care who you are, even if you think panphobia isn’t real, this shit makes you a massive gatekeeping douchebag.

I dont have a banner but panphobes don’t clown on my fucking post. I’m literally just gonna block you. I’m not here to debate my existence.

#panphobia #pansexuality #long ish post #nat rants #intracommunity

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artthetransguy · 6 years

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‼️ You do NOT need dysphoria to be trans‼️

Starting off I should say I'm a binary trans person, I have dysphoria, I've been out for 6-7 years I think, I am medically transitioning (been on T over 3 years and almost 7 months post op top surgery), and I used to identify as a truscum and transmed. I'm going to rebut the common arguments that truscum, transmeds, terfs, and transphobes make. I will also attempt to answer questions others have (I originally posted this on Facebook and some of my friends had questions). I will mostly be arguing by citing information, but I will also tell my thoughts and opinions, as well as personal experience. 😡Arguments truscum/transmeds, terfs, & transphobes make😡 ⭕️"You need dysphoria to be trans". Not true. So first off, what is dysphoria? The medical definition of dysphoria defined by Merriam-Webster is "a state of feeling unwell or unhappy"(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dysphoria). Anyone can have dysphoria, even cisgender people, so this argument makes no sense. Does this mean that cis people who have dysphoria (which they can and do experience) are trans? no of course not. Why? because that's not what being trans means. I do realize that trans people will shorten 'gender dysphoria' to just 'dysphoria' like when they say "my dysphoria is really bad today" you know they are (usually) talking about gender dysphoria. What else is wrong with this argument? When I rebut this argument (which I do a lot) I usually say: 💬"how do you know?", I get responses such as "It's common sense", "you're so stupid/a dumbass", "it's science", but they can never, and have never provided a (reputable) source that says this. (I say reputable because I have gotten, and I'm paraphrasing, "my 20 year old friend who is about to get top surgery and has been on T for years says you need it" to which I replied "I'm also 20 and just had top surgery a few months ago and have been on T for over 3 years. Does that make me credible?" He didn't think so). 💬"What kind of dysphoria?" They then may say "you need some kind of dysphoria" or "you can't like *insert body parts here* and be trans". Well, what about the people who have finished their transition and no longer have dysphoria? are they still trans? Not all people will have dysphoria about the same parts. Some trans people have hair dysphoria, voice dysphoria, chest dysphoria, bottom dysphoria, social dysphoria, and the list goes on. ⭕️"Trans is short for transitioning so if you don't (medically/physically) transition, you aren't trans". No, it is not. Trans is short for transgender, not every trans person can or wants to transition. They may not transition for medical reasons, safety reasons, or they just don't want to. ⭕️"Having dysphoria doesn't mean you hate yourself/you have to suffer" This argument before made sense to me because I was misinformed about what gender dysphoria was, as are many others. What is gender dysphoria? The medical definition of gender dysphoria defined by Merriam-Webster is "a distressed state arising from conflict between a person's gender identity and the sex the person has or was identified as having at birth 'A significant incongruence between gender identity and physical phenotype is known as gender identity disorder; the experience of this state, termed gender dysphoria, is a source of chronic suffering'. — Louis J. Gooren, The New England Journal of Medicine, 31 Mar. 2011"(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona…/gender%20dysphoria). Another important point in this is the "a distressed state" in that definition. Distress is defined by Merriam Webster as "pain or suffering affecting the body, a bodily part, or the mind...a painful situation...state of danger or desperate need"(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/distress#synonyms). Seeing this definition and knowing what these words mean, we know that gender dysphoria is quite literally defined as pain and suffering. ⭕️"Being trans literally is the definition of dysphoria" Well, we already got the definition of dysphoria out of the way. No, it is not the definition of dysphoria. The APA (American Psychological Association) says "Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth". (https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx). ⭕️"You need gender dysphoria to be trans" So now knowing that being transgender just means that your gender and sex aren't the same, and knowing what gender dysphoria is, we could say that we know this isn't true. But don't take my word for it, let's hear it from the experts: ☑️"Not all transgender people suffer from gender dysphoria and that distinction is important to keep in mind. Gender dysphoria and/or coming out as transgender can occur at any age"(https://www.psychiatry.org/…/gender-dysphoria/expert-q-and-a). ☑️"It is important to note that not all gender diverse people experience gender dysphoria"(https://gic.nhs.uk/info-support/gender-dysphoria/). ☑️"For some transgender people, the difference between the gender they are thought to be at birth and the gender they know themselves to be can lead to serious emotional distress that affects their health and everyday lives if not addressed. Gender dysphoria is the medical diagnosis for someone who experiences this distress. Not all transgender people have gender dysphoria. On its own, being transgender is not considered a medical condition. Many transgender people do not experience serious anxiety or stress associated with the difference between their gender identity and their gender of birth, and so may not have gender dysphoria"(https://transequality.org/…/frequently-asked-questions-abou…). ☑️" Many, but not all transgender people experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives"(https://www.lgbthealtheducation.org/…/Understanding-and-Add…). ☑️" Do all transgender people have gender dysphoria? No they do not, because not every transgender person experiences the distress associated with gender dysphoria"(https://www.lambdalegal.org/…/article/trans-related-care-faq). ☑️"Gender dysphoria refers to distress that 'some' TGNC [transgender and gender nonconforming] individuals may experience at some point in their lives as a result of incongruence between their gender identity and birth sex, which may include discomfort with gender role and primary and secondary sex characteristics. Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition. However, transgender is an identity, not a disorder, and the diagnosis is only applicable when TGNC people experience distress or impaired social / occupational functioning as a result of the incongruence"(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809047/#R15). ⭕️"Being transgender is a mental illness" This argument is used both by people who try to say that a trans person is delusional and therefore their identity isn't valid, and by trans people who don't want to de-medicalize transgender identity. We know this argument is not true from some of the other points I've made. Being transgender isn't a mental illness, not even gender dysphoria is considered one. "Gender dysphoria is a recognized medical condition, for which treatment is sometimes appropriate. It's not a mental illness"(https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/). Also "The World Health Organization will no longer classify being transgender as a mental health disorder, the public health agency announced Monday.

Transgender and genderqueer identities, which WHO refers to as “gender incongruence,” are in a section about sexual health conditions in a newly updated version of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)"(https://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/being-transgender-no-longe…). ⭕️"There are only 2 genders" When people say this they usually mean sex, but even then it is untrue. Both sex and gender are on a spectrum and aren't binary. "Sex is a determination made through the application of socially agreed upon biological criteria for classifying persons as females and males. The criteria for classification can be genitalia at birth or chromosomal typing before birth, and they do not necessarily agree with one another"(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891243287001002002). The binary classifications of male and female leaves out everyone who does not fit into these categories because of genital makeup, secondary sex characteristics, chromosomes, or hormone levels. When people say that there is only male and female, they forget that intersex people exist. A good read that I'd recommend that I read for school is "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough" by Anne Fausto-Sterling. In it, Anne says "Western culture is deeply committed to the idea that there are only two sexes. Even language refuses other possibilities; thus to write about Levi Suydam I have had to invent conventions-- s/he and his/her-- to denote someone who is clearly neither male nor female or who is perhaps both sexes at once. Legally, too, every adult is either man or woman, and the difference, of course, is not trivial. For Suydam it meant the franchise; today it means being available for, or exempt from, draft registration, as well as being subject, in various ways, to a number of laws governing marriage, the family and human intimacy. In many parts of the United States, for instance, two people legally registered as men cannot have sexual relations without violating anti-sodomy statutes. But if the state and the legal system have an interest in maintaining a two-party sexual system, they are in defiance of nature. For biologically speaking, there are many gradations running from female to male; and depending on how one calls the shots, one can argue that along that spectrum lie at least five sexes-- and perhaps even more"(http://capone.mtsu.edu/phollowa/5sexes.html). Another thing is that gender is a social construct, which I know is said a lot and is misunderstood. Pretty much everything has been socially constructed, so what is a social construct? "Social constructs or social constructions define meanings, notions, or connotations that are assigned to objects and events in the environment and to people’s notions of their relationships to and interactions with these objects. In the domain of social constructionist thought, a social construct is an idea or notion that appears to be natural and obvious to people who accept it but may or may not represent reality, so it remains largely an invention or artifice of a given society". So how is gender a social construct? The page goes on to say "Gender, which represents ways of talking, describing, or perceiving men and women, is also a socially constructed entity. Generally distinguished from sex (which is biological), notions of gender represent attempts by society, through the socialization process, to construct masculine or feminine identities and corresponding masculine or feminine gender roles for a child based on physical appearance and genitalia".(https://www.encyclopedia.com/…/socio…/social-constructionism). ⭕️"Non-binary doesn't exist because there is only male and female" Well for one, tell that to all the non-binary people. But no this is not correct. As we know, sex and gender are not binary so this identity makes sense. And also, whether or not you believe in them, they will continue to exist. ⭕️"You're a transtrender" People say a transtrender is someone who isn't "actually" trans, and just uses the label or pretends to be trans because its cool, or because they want attention. This is an argument made by transphobic people, including truscum and transmeds. People usually call others this for many reasons like: disagreeing with them, not fitting into their gendered stereotypes, not passing, not having dysphoria, not being the ideal trans person, they are experimenting with gender and gender expression, and/or being non-binary. Non-binary people are a big target of this argument. Heres the thing about this argument, no one thinks its cool or fun to be seen as trans in the sense that we are marginalized, are attacked, are killed, and so on. Also, Not every trans person is the same and wants to conform to gender norms. I'd also like to add that I get this comment a lot, despite being a binary trans person with dysphoria. They use it as a way to immediately discredit you and don't even know who you are. ⭕️"You're/you were just pretending to be trans" This is very similar to the last point but I wanted to go into more detail about this one. Some people may transition and then detransition for whatever reason (I'll go into this later). I know a few people had identified as trans and used a few different names and wanted to go by different pronouns then found out it wasn't who they were. Does this mean that they were faking it or pretending for fun? No, of course not. They thought they were trans and experimented and found out that they weren't. People should be able to experiment with their gender without getting accused of pretending to be trans. Most, if not all trans people go through an experimentation stage where they cut or grow out their hair, wear different clothes, go by a different name and pronouns, and so on. If we never went through an experimentation stage, how would we have known that we were trans? ⭕️"Most trans people detransition afterwords so you are going to regret this" This is usually said by cisgender transphobic people when trans people go on hormones or get surgeries. But what is the reality? "Surgical regret is actually very uncommon. Virtually every modern study puts it below 4 percent, and most estimate it to be between 1 and 2 percent (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfafflin 2003, Kuiper & Cohen-Kettenis 1998, Pfafflin & Junge 1998, Smith 2005, Dhejne 2014). In some other recent longitudinal studies, none of the subjects expressed regret over medically transitioning (Krege et al. 2001, De Cuypere et al. 2006). These findings make sense given the consistent findings that access to medical care improves quality of life along many axes, including sexual functioning, self-esteem, body image, socioeconomic adjustment, family life, relationships, psychological status and general life satisfaction. This is supported by the numerous studies (Murad 2010, De Cuypere 2006, Kuiper 1988, Gorton 2011, Clements-Nolle 2006) that also consistently show that access to GCS reduces suicidality by a factor of three to six (between 67 percent and 84 percent)... When asked about regrets, only 2 percent of respondents in a survey of transgender people in the UK had major regrets regarding the physical changes they had made, compared with 65 percent of non-transgender people in the UK who have had plastic surgery"(https://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/myths-about-transition-reg…). ⭕️"If you don't have dysphoria, how would you even know you're trans?" You can know that you are trans because you have a disconnect with your body which is called gender incongruence. "Gender incongruence is characterized by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex"(https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en…). So it could be argued that gender incongruence is like gender dysphoria with presentations similar to the DSM-V definition, but does not require significant distress or impairment. There is also something called gender euphoria, which is the opposite of gender dysphoria. "That is, euphoria or happiness upon being correctly gendered, upon naming their identity, and being validated and recognized as their authentic self"(https://everydayfeminism.com/…/these-5-myths-about-body-dy…/). ⭕️"If you don't have dysphoria that means you are comfortable in your body, ok with being your agab (assigned gender at birth) and those pronouns, and ok with dressing as your agab so you aren't trans" This is not true either. Just because someone doesn't have dysphoria, that doesn't mean they are comfortable with their agab. Like I said before, trans people have a disconnect with their body, the same goes for non-dysphoric trans people. They have a disconnect but do not have distress, or pain and suffering, because of the disconnect. ⭕️"What if you don't REALIZE it's dysphoria? What if you thought EVERYBODY felt like you?" I see people making this argument like, "they just don't know what they are feeling is dysphoria". People know themselves better than anyone else. Also, if you are not a therapist or anything like that, you do not get diagnose someone else. This could also just be a genuine question. Some people (like myself) didn't know what transgender or dysphoria was and some still may not. I didn't know what being trans meant and I didn't know that what I was struggling with was dysphoria. For me personally, I thought I was struggling alone for the longest time. ⭕️"Non-dysphorics, non-binary, people who don't use he/him or she/her pronouns make the community look bad and make everyone hate the trans community more." The people who hate trans people will hate us regardless of if we have dysphoria, are non-binary, use different pronouns that aren't common, and so on. Why not learn about those in your community (or learn about those in the community if you are not in it) instead of bullying and attacking those you don't understand and siding with transphopic people. ⭕️Fake trans people are taking resources away from 'real' trans people (like hormones, dr. appointments, surgeries, therapy, etc.)" If this is true, why be mad at the "fake trans" people and instead be mad at the gatekeepers, be mad because there is a shortage of doctors that treat trans patients (very few doctors that would take me around here but I have had one for a while now so its good), and be mad at the lack of education doctors, nurses, therapists, and so on, have on trans people. It isn't other trans peoples fault we have to fight to get our resources, it's the world we live in where we are marginalized and oppressed. (Important to note that I am not talking about myself here. The transphobia, marginalization, and oppression I have endured cannot be compared to that of trans women, black and other poc trans people, non-binary people, and places where it is illegal or punished by death to be trans/queer in. I have a lot of privilige here and I know this). 🙂Other questions or comments🙂 🔶"Are there degrees of dysphoria? Like, "you have to have dysphoria about 35% of your body to make it into 'Transgender Circle'?" Yes, not all trans people have the same or the same amount of dysphoria. Some say its like waves where one day they feel really good and other days dysphoria is really bad. Some peoples dysphoria is much worse than others, but as long as it is distressing, it is still dysphoria. Every exclusionist is different. Some say "you just need some type of dysphoria" and others say "you need to have chest, bottom, social, etc. dysphoria to be trans". But the truth is, neither is true. 🔶"What is the difference between BDD (Body dysmorphic disorder) and (GD) gender dysphoria?" BDD is "a pathological preoccupation with an imagined or slight physical defect of one’s body to the point of causing significant stress or behavioral impairment in several areas (as work and personal relationships)"(https://www.apa.org/…/und…/ptacc/body-dysmorphic-traynor.pdf). GD is "a distressed state arising from conflict between a person's gender identity and the sex the person has or was identified as having at birth 'A significant incongruence between gender identity and physical phenotype is known as gender identity disorder; the experience of this state, termed gender dysphoria, is a source of chronic suffering'. — Louis J. Gooren, The New England Journal of Medicine, 31 Mar. 2011"(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona…/gender%20dysphoria). (I am not a medical professional but I will try to explain this) BDD and GD are very similar because they are both distressing and about the body, but there are differences. BDD is where your perception of your body is not the reality, where in GD you know what your body looks like and it doesn't match your gender identity. BDD is also compared to OCD. "The intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors exhibited in BDD are similar to the obsessions and compulsions of OCD. BDD is distinguished from OCD when the preoccupations or repetitive behaviors focus specifically on appearance"(https://adaa.org/…/other-relat…/body-dysmorphic-disorder-bdd). 🔶"Why doesn’t it harm the community to include people who experience euphoria instead of/not only dysphoria?" People say "having non-dysphorics and non-binary people makes the trans community look like a joke" but these people aren't going away and they are supported by the science. As I've said before, the people who hate trans people will hate us whether we have dysphoria or not. Bullying the trans people you don't understand won't change anything in regards to trans rights. What do you do when you encounter bullying? If someone is bullied for how they look, their skin, their hair, or their religion, should they change themselves? The easiest way would be to say yes but that isn't how things change. We need people to know that some people are different and that is ok and they deserve to be respected just like everyone else. If you are going to argue the "fake trans take away resources" I rebutted that argument earlier. 🔶"Why do people insist that you need dysphoria to be trans?" This is an interesting one because I used to be a truscum/transmed. But before I dive into this I first want to preface this by asking Well why do people believe things are true when we know they are demonstrably false? Look at flat-earthers for example (hang in here with me). They can't comprehend how the earth can be round, despite the demonstrable evidence that shows us the earth is round. They believe it because it makes more sense to them. They make arguments where they say the evidence is for a globular earth is fake and also argue things that they experience like "I don't feel the earth spinning" or "the horizon looks flat to me" or "we can't see gravity so it doesn't exist". They can't conceptualize the things they don't experience in their life. People are afraid that the de-medicalization of trans people will result in medical professionals taking away hormones and surgeries. It may also be the case that they know this is true but ignore the evidence because they think the de-medicalization of trans people will make it so we can no longer get hormone treatment or surgeries. I can tell you right now that the people of the ICD, APA, DSM, and WHO are not gonna let that happen. Gender dysphoria is a medical condition that is treated with hormone therapy and gcs (gender confirmation surgery). Gender dysphoria is distressing and that is certain, medical and psychological experts know this and aren't going to take it away. People may become afraid or offended because hearing "you don't need dysphoria to be trans" goes against what they have known to be true for so long. For me personally when I was a truscum/transmed I was young, I just found out what trans was, and "you need dysphoria" made the most sense to me because gender dysphoria was how I knew I was trans. I followed truscum/transmed blogs and youtube channels and I never questioned it really. I really only changed after I started taking science classes at college and learned what scientific papers were, and also, the biggest reason I changed was because things started coming out saying "trans isn't a mental disorder" which I thought it was. After I got out of the truscum/transmed community, only then did I realize how toxic it was. I hurt so many with my words and I was spreading false information solely based on my beliefs. The truscum/transmed community The truscum/transmed community is filled with people saying things like "I just don't understand *blank*" or "How could you be trans when *blank*" and these are as a way to say "your identity is confusing to me so I'm making fun of it". A lot of the scum/med arguments are questions where people "don't understand" which is the first step to learning. If you don't understand something, look it up or ask a trans person (with their approval of course). Asking non-dysphoric trans people is how I was able to comprehend how non-dysphoric people felt. I was able to ask and I always treated them with respect and got respect in return. If you sincerely ask people instead of making fun of them, you might get the answers you need to understand. Important note, many trans people are tired of having to explain to others why they exist so if you ask and you are confronted with hostility that is probably why, and it is completely understandable. I'd be angry too if everyone constantly invalidated me, attacked me, told me I'm a faker, and said my gender doesn't exist. I know I went on a tangent here but I feel this is important also. ❤️I am willing to answer questions if you have any. Share this if you would like. Also, feel free to use this post for your own arguments❤️

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bifaq · 6 years

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A little note on why we don’t encourage the use of male/female

One of mod peach’s answers has been passed around various transphobic blogs over the past few days, all of whom are doing some variation of calling us out for being anti-science and not having empathy for the people who submit questions for this blog.

Why is this, you might ask? Because peach spent a good chunk of the answer reiterating our stance that it’s not really a great move to say “female” when you mean “woman” and “male” when you mean “man.”

I’m making this post for two reasons:

To explain why we use the language we use, since I know it can be confusing if you’re not too into trans issues and/or English language around gender

To explain why that answer might have come off as unnecessarily short/pissed

Lets start with 1.

Male and female are simply adjectives for being a man or being a woman. Using them does not make you a transphobe, a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), or anything like that.

But platypus, why shouldn’t we use them, then?

The answer is: it’s perfectly fine to use them, when it makes sense in context. I use them all the time for example to make constructs like “female academics” or “male feminists.” In this case, you use the words to make clear that you’re talking specifically about academics who are women, for example.

Where we, on this blog, don’t like to use them, is in sentences like “I’m a female mostly attracted to males, but I’ve been questioning my attraction to females.” Why? Because in this case, it would be super easy to say “I’m a woman who is mostly attracted to men, but lately I’ve been questioning my attraction to women.” I know that by far not all people who use the first kind of sentence mean “I only recognize those assigned female at birth as women and those assigned male at birth as men.” BUT unfortunately there is also a large number of people out there who do it, who like to deliberately misgender people. It’s unnecessary to raise associations like that, especially in our followers and mod(s) who experience misgendering, and that’s why we ask you not to use it.

You might think now “I would never knowingly misgender people, but I just know that I would never be attracted to people aside from cis women and cis men.” It simply doesn’t work that way. Unless you get a full medical history from each person before “deciding” whether you are attracted to them, you don’t know for sure what kind of “gender markers” their body has. Unless you ask them, you don’t know for sure what that hot person sitting across from you would name as their gender identity.

If you’re a bit confused by why biology doesn’t neatly translate into gender in the penis = man, vagina = woman way most of us learned, you might want to have a look at this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By2Vi42jUYD1MFZUdjVBb0dRYm8/view

It’s a comparatively short, nicely illustrated brochure about various scientific discoveries on gender and what it may have to do with our bodies.

If you want to read up more on the biological and/or medical history side of things, I can recommend the books “Evolution’s rainbow” by Joan Roughgarden and “Sexing the Body” by Anne Fausto-Sterling. The latter has been rightfully criticized for being more widely cited on intersex issues than actual intersex people, but her book is still a very readable overview of queer medical and scientific history, I think. Oh, and both of the authors are actual biologists, so if you’re still wondering “but what about science?” … you know.

That said... I’m not saying “science can explain your identity to you” because, let’s face it, science can be biased. Until 1990 the World Health Organization classified homosexuality as an illness. Your definition of your identity comes first. Just know that when people play the “but science says gender is a binary” card, they don’t know the whole scientific discourse around it.

Okay, on to 2.

We get a varying number of submissions to this blog, and a surprising lot of them use the male/female language I have described above. We also have lives outside of this blog, and depending on our mindset when answering asks, and especially the amount of transphobic bullshit we experience, how we read those asks might range from “just another submission” to “slightly cringe-y” to “what the fuck kind of ideology is behind this.” Generally, we aim to be open, friendly and informative to everyone while also drawing a clear line and showing where unacceptably bigoted thinking begins for us. If we sometimes make the wrong call about a submission, we are sorry about that. Hopefully, if you’re sending us a message, you also know our blog a bit and know where we’re coming from. If not, we always encourage second asks. We also answer non-anonymous asks privately if you ask us to, so if you want a direct conversation, there’s that.

You might be wondering why I’m not directly reblogging the reblogs we got to argue with them one on one. For one, I don’t want to have to repeat my arguments on every one. For another, I don’t actually think most of those reblogs come from a genuine place of wanting to exchange views, and I wouldn’t want to put all our followers (and us) through a pointless debate with likely hateful third parties.

peace and love and all that crap

mod platypus

#gender binary #language

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