#trans feminine resources

[justdavina]

Very sexy transgender girl wearing a HOT yellow mini skirt very shear top and bra! Very nice!

[bfpnola]

please watch the whole video! i’ve always loved the work of @/thatbrownguurl on tiktok!

— reaux (she/they)

[auau5n]

my family is having a hard time understanding what feeling like a boy is/ what it means to be trans. they're supportive, but they can't understand what defines being a girl/boy/nonbinary, or feeling those ways. so! if you could put in the tags or comments what it means to be trans/cis to you and explain that to the best of your ability, that would help me a lot. also reblog for greater reach of course. thanks for the help guys :]

[rat-man-fruit-juice]

2023 TDOR Resources and trans resistance

For mutual aid and strategic planning, check out

https://transresistancenetwork.wordpress.com/

I don't mean to get doomer about the U.S, but if you can please get passports and prep.

Please reblog, especially if you're trans and/or have a trans audience

[oysterie]

i do acknowledge i need to watch what i say wrt gender women men cis ppl etc just augh.

[ipso-faculty]

Perisex allies: stop this shit

CW: intersexism

Came across this infographic during some google image searching and I'm still kind of a state of despair about it because it's not just offensively wrong about what intersex is, it was used to teach university students about queer issues:

Alt text: LGBTQIA+ are defined one by one. Intersex is defined erroneously as "These are people who were born with genital organs of both sexes (male and female). It is a genetic condition."

It's one thing for your rando perisex person to be getting this wrong on social media. It's another thing entirely when it's professionals getting this wrong in an educational setting. 😩 And that this infographic appears in a peer-reviewed publication. 😩

It's even worse to know the students that were taught with this infographic were medical students, who will be the ones traumatizing intersex people for decades to come 😩

It's so wrong in so many different ways:

Intersex is not limited to people with genital differences. Most intersex people have intersex variations that are not apparent at birth, with puberty being the most common time of life for variations to present. Many people find out in adulthood having no outward physical differences.

Of the intersex people with genital differences, they do not have two sets of genitals. Most genital differences are still recognizably female or male (e.g. spadias), and those who have ambiguous genitals have one set.

Intersex is not "male parts + female parts" or even "intermediate male/female parts", it is an umbrella term for anybody whose primary/secondary sex characteristics don't line up with what is expected for male and female bodies. Some intersex variations make women look more feminine, or make men look more masculine.

Defining intersex by genital differences doesn't just exclude most intersex people, it also sets the tone that we are defined by our genitals. To be publicly intersex is to have non-stop DMs about your genitals. This sort of framing sets up openly intersex people for invasive questions and harassment, and it keeps large numbers of intersex people from coming out.

Many intersex variations do not have a known genetic basis. Many intersex variations are caused by exposure to certain hormonal levels in the womb. Certain medications when taken during pregnancy can trigger intersex variations.

While bodily variation is necessary for being intersex, the social experience of stigma, discrimination, isolation, hyper-medicalization, and hyper-sexualization are all just as much a part of being intersex.

📣 Perisex allies: this is shit you can stop. When you see other perisex people parrot this sort of misinformation, correct them. Direct them to look up resources written by actually intersex people.

Here are some starter resources to give:

Intersex explained by Hans Lindahl

Media and style guide by IHRA

FAQ by intersex-support

A recent post I did compiling information for trans people who want to be better intersex allies

[genderqueerdykes]

if you are a trans man or masc, masculine nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid or other gender non conforming identity, masc gay, a bear, a butch, stud, or boi, or other masculine queer person and don't feel welcome in any queer spaces, you're not alone.

the communities both irl and online have become EXTREMELY hostile toward mascs and men to the point of straight up excluding us and changing their wording to justify their violent exclusion. from renaming nonbinary spaces to "femme & them" and "she+" spaces, to telling men & mascs that they would "Scare" the women and "nonbinary" folks just by being there, as if masculinity and manhood are inherently traumatizing to be around.

masculine and male nonbinary folks have it so hard- most nonbinary spaces are almost definitely women's spaces who also conflate womanhood with nonbinaryhood, and often times just view nonbinary people as confused women. we are not inherently traumatizing to be around: masc enbies need places to go. we are still nonbinary and still trans and still queer for fucks' sake

nonbinary has never and will never mean femme or woman-adjacent inherently. nonbinary means what it means: people who don't or refuse to adhere to the gender binary, regardless of what side it is. masculinity is included in this, femininity is not the only way to be nonbinary.

masc queers do not have to bend over backwards to try to be more feminine and thus "less threatening" in order to have places to go. that's dysphoric and just inaccurate to a lot of queer folks' identity and presentation. it blows my mind because it makes no sense, anyway, even within the gay community, hypermasculinity has been present and even sought after by some people who find it very attractive, twunks, hunks, bears... but between the periods in queer history people started viewing masc gay leathermen and kinksters as the ones who were responsible for spreading AIDS and thus removing them from pride parades,

AND the lesbian separatism moment picking up to remove butches & male & masc lesbians from lesbian spaces identity, paving the way for modern rdical femniism, we've only entered a downhill landslide of hating men and mascs and ultimately trying to erase us from the queer community entirely.

the queer community is not the "women & femmes community". the queer experience is broad and vast, it includes a wide variety of masculine and male experiences, as well as genderfluid, multigender, completely ungendered and other gendered experiences. the lesbian, trans, bisexual, nonbinary, gay and general queer communities aren't the "safe place to hide from men & mascs community" like estranged rdfems and terfpilled trans folk like to tell you they are.

this is the QUEER community and it includes ALL forms of queerness, masc, femme, butch, male, neutral, bigender, neutral, and all. he/shes and he/hims and he/theys and he/its and so on are just as much of a part of this communities as she/hers and they/thems. you can't cast a blanket of "inherently abusive" over all men and mascs and one of "inherently abused/incapable of being abusive" over all women and femmes because that just traps you in a fantasy land that doesn't exist AND it prevents mascs and men from getting the help, resources and community they NEED.

men & mascs are hurt and abused by women & femmes every day and we refuse to speak about them because we live under a white cisheteronormal patriarchy and have complaints about how that functions. the complaints are legitimate but assuming that all men and mascs are oppressing all women and femmes and that women can never be oppressive is a false as hell narrative that actively damages people.

enough is enough. this mindset is hurting people. it's leaving masc and male queers to be estranged, harmed and even dead. i care about you if you're being affected by this mentality and these behaviors. you deserve community, safety, and a sense of belonging, you do belong, even if we struggle to form our own spaces due to unjust hatred. we will do our best to band together and keep each other safe. we must

[st-dionysus]

What is transandrophobia and why is it called that? By the guy who coined it and is kind of tired of seeing it defined in the opposite of what it's meant to describe.

In it's most simple definition. Transandrophobia is the way that the fear of men impacts the material reality and mental/physical health of transgender men.

Transandrophobia, is the way that the fear of men and/or masculinity effects transgender men’s ability to access queer and transgender spaces, sexual assault survivor resources, and reproductive health care.

Transandrophobia, is the way that the fear of men and/or masculinity holds back transgender men from transitioning or from presenting as masculine.

Transandrophobia, is the way the fear of men and/or masculinity results in the disowning of transgender men from previous found families and the isolation of transgender men in general.

Transandrophobia, is the way the fear of men and/or masculinity has resulted in people using their trauma as an excuse for abusing transgender men, physically, sexually, and emotionally.

Transandrophobia, is the way the fear of men has resulted in people refusing admittance to “male identified people” to certain queer events and safe spaces.

Transandrophobia, is the way that the fear of masculinity has led to people assuming that butches across the gender spectrum are inherently violent and hyper-sexual.

Transandrophobia, is the way that the fear of men and/or masculinity results in the forced feminization of transgender men in queer spaces, with the insistence that those who refuse to feminize themselves to make others more comfortable should not be allowed entrance to certain queer spaces.

Transandrophobia, is the way that the fear of men has led people to assuming that butches who were assigned female at birth, are at risk of becoming the enemy (a man) and should not be given the same amount of trust as a feminine presenting cis woman.

Transandrophobia, is when that the fear of men being in women’s spaces prevents trans men and non-binary people who present as male from accessing gynecological care, abortions, and birth control.

Transandrophobia, is when transgender men must make themselves smaller to be seen as “one of the good ones” and it is when a trans man who is loud or sexual or Black or Brown or too masculine is seen as a threat to the safety of other transgender people.

Transandrophobia, is when transgender men who speak up about how the normalized way of speaking ill about men in feminist and queer spaces has made them activity suicidal, de-transition, or prevented them from transitioning, are told to “shut up and sit down” or “good.”

Transandrophobia, is not when trans men face misogyny – that is just a trans man facing misogyny (which all trans men face, because misogyny and sexism effects everyone, not just women). However, transandrophobia is when someone says that trans men don’t face misogyny because they are men, make claims that trans men benefit from misogyny since they are men, or insist that trans men’s experiences with misogyny aren’t as valid or as bad as when a woman or non-male person faces misogyny.

Transandrophobia, is when trans men’s struggles are dismissed as being less important, because men don’t need help or men already have help or men don't face real struggles.

Transandrophobia, is when people refuse to acknowledge that the patriarchy see’s transgender men as failed women and not men, which is why transgender men do bot benefit from the patriarchy but are instead violently and systematically punished by it.

Transandrophobia is that and a whole lot more, I would need a book to describe the entirety of the issue, I have been writing a book on it for over six years and re-writing it over and over because if I say it wrong, or say it with too much emotion, or not enough emotion, or with too many numbers, or not enough numbers, and publish it without using perfect wording, trans men might not get another chance to speak up for a long ass time and we will once again have to find new words to say "Pretty please treat me like a human being and let me have access to the things I need in order to survive." and "Pretty please consider that if a large group of people from a minority are telling you they are being oppressed by these actions and fears, then maybe you should believe them or at least the material statistical evidence of that oppression, since you probably trust journals more than us describing our reality and lived experiences."

[katrafiy]

I think about this image a lot. This is an image from the Aurat March (Women's March) in Karachi, Pakistan, on International Women's Day 2018. The women in the picture are Pakistani trans women, aka khwaja siras or hijras; one is a friend of a close friend of mine.

In the eyes of the Pakistani government and anthropologists, they're a "third gender." They're denied access to many resources that are available to cis women. Trans women in Pakistan didn't decide to be third-gendered; cis people force it on them whether they like it or not.

Western anthropologists are keen on seeing non-Western trans women as culturally constructed third genders, "neither male nor female," and often contrast them (a "legitimate" third gender accepted in its culture) with Western trans women (horrific parodies of female stereotypes).

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and jargon used to obscure the fact that while each culture's trans women are treated as a single culturally constructed identity separate from all other trans women, cis women are treated as a universal category that can just be called "women."

Even though Pakistani aurat and German Frauen and Guatemalan mujer will generally lead extraordinarily different lives due to the differences in culture, they are universally recognized as women.

The transmisogynist will say, "Yes, but we can't ignore the way gender is culturally constructed, and hijras aren't trans women, they're a third gender. Now let's worry less about trans people and more about the rights of women in Burkina Faso."

In other words, to the transmisogynist, all cis women are women, and all trans women are something else.

"But Kat, you're not Indian or Pakistani. You're not a hijra or khwaja sira, why is this so important to you?"

Have you ever heard of the Neapolitan third gender "femminiello"? It's the term my moniker "The Femme in Yellow" is derived from, and yes, I'm Neapolitan. Shut up.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about the femminielli, and I want you to see if any of this sounds familiar. Femminielli are a third gender in Neapolitan culture of people assigned male at birth who have a feminine gender expression.

They are lauded and respected in the local culture, considered to be good omens and bringers of good luck. At festivals you'd bring a femminiello with you to go gambling, and often they would be brought in to give blessings to newborns. Noticing anything familiar yet?

Oh and also they were largely relegated to begging and sex work and were not allowed to be educated and many were homeless and lived in the back alleys of Naples, but you know we don't really like to mention that part because it sounds a lot less romantic and mystical.

And if you're sitting there, asking yourself why a an accurate description of femminiello sounds almost note for note like the same way hijras get described and talked about, then you can start to understand why that picture at the start of this post has so much meaning for me.

And you can also start to understand why I get so frustrated when I see other queer people buy into this fool notion that for some reason the transes from different cultures must never mix.

That friend I mentioned earlier is a white American trans woman. She spent years living in India, and as I recal the story the family she was staying with saw her as a white, foreign hijra and she was asked to use her magic hijra powers to bless the house she was staying in.

So when it comes to various cultural trans identities there are two ways we can look at this. We can look at things from a standpoint of expressed identity, in which case we have to preferentially choose to translate one word for the local word, or to leave it untranslated.

If we translate it, people will say we're artificially imposing an outside category (so long as it's not cis people, that's fine). If we don't, what we're implying, is that this concept doesn't exist in the target language, which suggests that it's fundamentally a different thing

A concrete example is that Serena Nanda in her 1990 and 2000 books, bent over backwards to say that Hijras are categorically NOT trans women. Lots of them are!

And Don Kulick bent over backwards in his 1998 book to say that travesti are categorically NOT trans women, even though some of the ones he cited were then and are now trans women.

The other option, is to look at practice, and talk about a community of practice of people who are AMAB, who wear women's clothing, take women's names, fulfill women's social roles, use women's language and mannerisms, etc WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT.

This community of practice, whatever we want to call it - trans woman, hijra, transfeminine, femminiello, fairy, queen, to name just a few - can then be seen to CLEARLY be trans-national and trans-cultural in a way that is not clearly evident in the other way of looking at things.

And this is important, in my mind, because it is this axis of similarity that is serving as the basis for a growing transnational transgender rights movement, particularly in South Asia. It's why you see pictures like this one taken at the 2018 Aurat March in Karachi, Pakistan.

And it also groups rather than splits, pointing out not only points of continuity in the practices of western trans women and fa'afafines, but also between trans women in South Asia outside the hijra community, and members of the hijra community both trans women and not.

To be blunt, I'm not all that interested in the word trans woman, or the word hijra. I'm not interested in the word femminiello or the word fa'afafine.

I'm interested in the fact that when I visit India, and I meet hijras (or trans women, self-expressed) and I say I'm a trans woman, we suddenly sit together, talk about life, they ask to see American hormones and compare them to Indian hormones.

There is a shared community of practice that creates a bond between us that cis people don't have. That's not to say that we all have the exact same internal sense of self, but for the most part, we belong to the same community of practice based on life histories and behavior.

I think that's something cis people have absolutely missed - largely in an effort to artificially isolate trans women. This practice of arguing about whether a particular "third gender" label = trans women or not, also tends to artificially homogenize trans women as a group.

You see this in Kulick and Nanda, where if you read them, you could be forgiven for thinking all American trans women are white, middle class, middle-aged, and college-educated, who all follow rigid codes of behavior and surgical schedules prescribed by male physicians.

There are trans women who think of themselves as separate from cis women, as literally another kind of thing, there are trans women who think of themselves as coterminous with cis women, there are trans women who think of themselves as anything under the sun you want to imagine.

The problem is that historically, cis people have gone to tremendous lengths to destroy points of continuity in the transgender community (see everything I've cited and more), and particularly this has been an exercise in transmisogyny of grotesque levels.

The question is do you want to talk about culturally different ways of being trans, or do you want to try to create as many neatly-boxed third genders as you can to prop up transphobic theoretical frameworks? To date, people have done the latter. I'm interested in the former.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is that we're all family y'all.

[hiiragi7]

Exercise: Exposing intersexism in yourself

Perisex (non-intersex) people please take time to work through this. I'd also appreciate if you reblogged, even if you don't have time to do the exercise.

When you think of an 'intersex body', what comes to mind?

-Do you think of a stereotypical "hermaphrodite"? (Ex. a penis + vagina, a penis + pair of breasts, a very feminine person with a beard)

Do you, or have you ever, used one of the following arguments;

-Intersex people are living proof that trans people exist/that gender/sex is not binary

-Intersex existing disproves everything TERFs/transphobes believe in

-Cis kids with hormone issues are allowed to take HRT or participate in sports, which is hypocritical against trans people

-Nobody is forcing kids into sex reassignment surgery or hormones, that isn't a thing that happens

-Any kind of argument which uses intersex people as a statistic, whether that is framing intersex people existing as either "common" or "rare"

Do you, or have you ever, said any of the following statements;

-Technically I'm biologically intersex now because I took HRT/had surgery, which makes me biologically nonbinary aka intersex

-I tell people that I am intersex/have a hormone condition to avoid discrimination

-I wish I was born as/could become intersex, it would help my dysphoria a lot

-Intersex people are so lucky because they're already biologically nonbinary, they don't even need to transition

-This animal was born with a mix of sex characteristics/without a sex/developed characteristics of the opposite sex over time, which means they're nonbinary/trans

When it comes to sex, do you;

-Believe that sex is binary

-Believe that all intersex people are infertile

-Believe that all intersex people produce both sperm and egg

-Fantasize about intersex bodies, or consume or create porn that displays either intersex bodies or exaggerated stereotypes of hermaphroditic bodies

-Ask invasive questions about what genitals or reproductive organs an intersex person has

-Treat AFAB/AMAB the same as "[non-medically-transitioned] perisex female/perisex male", such as saying "AFAB anatomy" when you really mean vulva, vagina, uterus, ovaries, breasts, and so on

-Believe that HRT/surgery makes you intersex

-Believe that intersex only covers certain types of variation in sex and not others (Ex. Counting ovotestes, CAIS, and CAH as intersex but not counting PCOS or Klinefelter's)

When it comes to creating (artwork, writing, videos, etc), do you;

-Wish to include an intersex character, but do little or no research on how to write/draw them

-Fail to consider how your work will affect real-life intersex people consuming your work

-Ask random intersex people to help you create an intersex character

-Wish to include an intersex character because you personally think intersex people are interesting, or because you are seeking to include as many marginalized identities as you can

-Create intersex characters because you personally find them sexy

-Refer to characters as "hermaphrodites"

-If you create pride artwork or sell pride artwork, if you include a large variety of other LGBT+ identities but do not include intersex, why is this?

When it comes to advocacy work, do you;

-Fail to bring up intersex issues in conversations which should directly involve them, such as the Kansas bathroom bill

-Attempt to push intersex people out of queer spaces by saying that they are not queer

-Fail to recognize or acknowledge how many anti-queer and anti-trans arguments are inherently also anti-intersex arguments

-Say that intersex people are just "collateral damage" or "just caught in the crossfire/targeted by mistake" when it comes to discussing discrimination

-Never think to bring intersex flags or pins or similar to pride even as an ally, contributing to pride being vastly void of intersex pride

-Never attempt to organize protests specifically for intersex rights, or never bring intersex issues up in LGBTQIA+ support groups or resource centers or online

-Never educate others on intersex issues or lift up intersex voices

-Believe that intersex people have more rights than other marginalized groups, or that they are not discriminated against for being intersex

-Believe that all intersex people who are discriminated against are only discriminated against because people believe that they are transgender

Now, not all of these will point towards you being intersexist; however, if you find yourself hitting several points listed here, you do likely have some internalized biases and intersexism to unpack.

[vaspider]

Intro Post, updated August 25, 2024

I post all asks as they were submitted. I answer at my whim and not upon demand. I will never honor requests to answer asks privately or anonymously. Anon is never turned on. These are hard self-care boundaries. Please block the tag "harassment tag" if you don't want to see to some of the horrible shit I get sent sometimes.

I will only reblog/repost/boost a given fundraiser once every 7 days. Period. Sending me more asks will not change that. If you only interact with me to ask for signal boosts, I'll just block you with no response. That is the only exception to my "post all asks" policy. I am a person, not a public resource. Don't make me feel used. It's exhausting.

If you like what I do, please consider hiring me, buying something from my company, NerdyKeppie, buying me a coffee, becoming a Patron or tossing some money in my PayPal tip jar. I am a disabled, queer, Jewish, non-binary butch, and those sources plus freelance writing are my entire income.

I will not debate my identity with anyone. I am a transmasculine non-binary butch lesbian, a cripple, a dyke, and lots of other things, too. You don't get a vote in that, and if any of those words are words you object to someone using in reference to himself, block me. I won't censor my identity for your comfort; it took a lot of hard work over decades to become proud of who I am.

ACAB includes gender/sexuality cops. You aren't the mayor of Dyketown, fuck off.

Mom is a job title to me. I'm okay with being called Mama Spider, but no other feminine terms.

No, I am not an anti or an anti-anti. Leave me alone.

No, I won't DM you.

No, I won't answer your question about Israel.

No, I won't talk to you about I/P.

Yes, I've been out for a very long time. No, I'm not interested in being lectured by people half my age over shit that happened when you weren't alive yet.

"Man bad/woman good" is regressive TERF/right-wing shit, it doesn't matter how you dress it up. Knock it off.

Curate your own experiences. If you don't like seeing what I write, then add 'vaspider' to your "filtered content" list and don't bother me about it. Tumblr is a 17+ environment and I am not responsible for you seeing things you don't like. My daughter is an adult. I raised my kid. I'm not raising you or any other kids.

Anyone who tries to turn you on your fellow trans people is a fucking Fed.

My icon has lore, apparently.

I post all asks and anon is never turned on.

[ascendent]

things that are trans about cuckoo (2024) without being explicitly trans:

ppl can't or won't call the main character by the correct name

one of the inciting horror incidents is mc being harassed by another woman in a public bathroom

mc, a teenager, has her access to money, transportation, and housing controlled by her family and is threatened with homelessness when she steps out of line

when compared to other girls her (cis) little sister is shown care and concern but mc gets zero support, resources, or even basic care or concern

when mc calls out fucked-up shit and is told she's being rude/too loud

when mc is assaulted by a woman she's told she's lying and/or brought it on herself

mc is blamed for causing her little sister's brain disorder even though there's clearly no way she could actually do that (and turns out the "disorder" is not even really an illness at all) (and then her little sister is told to stay away from mc's corrupting influence which is why she can't even listen to the same music (!) as mc)

mc is literally told she's "taking resources away" from another girl

scientists/doctors are obsessed with the future reproductive ability of an adolescent

villain tries to incite moral panic about causing little girls to go extinct when mc is literally just trying to make sure her sister gets to grow up safe and loved

monster whose whole identity is literally "mother" still given a wig, skirt, heels etc. by others to further define her femininity (subtext: bc you're only a real woman if you look like one)

when the title "cuckoo" is referring to a) a literal humanoid monster whose offspring are raised by other families similar to the common cuckoo; b) the main character, who is suddenly transplanted to a new family, stands apart from the rest of them and is repeatedly told she doesn't belong; c) a metaphor for how trans kids are treated by their parents as having somehow replaced or even killed their child

-> and as a result of that metaphor when the literal monster (a) encounters the main character (b, and also subtextually c) they have a poignant moment of recognition

honorable mention:

falling for a cigarette smoking older lesbian who promises to drive you away to paris because they like "music" in paris. wink

[ftmtftm]

This isn't something I have fully articulated thoughts on yet but honestly? I really do think that transandrophobia and the way people who talk about their experiences with it are isolated is, in part, why transmedicalism existed (exists still? I'm very detached from that discourse now) as a primarily trans man/trans masc dominated ideology.

I'm going to share my own experience and I can only speak for myself here, but when I was a really isolated late teen/early 20-something dealing with a lot of unresolved trauma re: my assault (that happened as a result of me coming out as trans to an ex), some immediate family's reaction to my transition being "well why can't you just be a masculine woman", and frustration about not being able to medically transition yet combined with the mid-2010's pressure to be a non-threatening feminine soft boy, I got sucked into transmedicalism.

I do want to be upfront and recognize a lot of my feelings at the time were a trauma response and projection. I recognize this now but I had no resources to recognize that then. I just want to make it clear from the start that I know my own thinking was flawed, that's why I'm reflecting on it openly so others can potentially recognize something that resonates here within themselves and grow.

Getting back into it though- I felt really triggered all the time in general trans spaces because of that 2010's culture. I felt pressured to be feminine or a woman in trans spaces online, just like I did around my ex or at home. I didn't want to undercut my masculinity or manhood for other people's comfort, especially not for other trans people who I felt should've understood. In contrast to this though, transmedicalist spaces and the trans men within them DID actually offer the support I was asking for. I was actually given space to talk about my assault and the pressures I was experiencing with a bunch of other trans men/trans mascs who understood it for the first time, ever really.

The idea of "there is a medical explanation for gender dysphoria that can be treated with medical transition" was also really comforting to my traumatized mind that kept thinking "if I'm open about my assault someone is going to accuse me of just being traumatized and not actually trans, if medicine is on my side I can prove them wrong" Which - let me be clear again - was a very traumatized way of thinking. I do not think that way anymore thanks to therapy and cultivating a healthier relationship with my body and gender and transness. I was not the only trans man with a history of assault that felt this way in the transmed community at the time though.

And I'm not justifying any of this ideologically right? Like. Transmedicalism is fundamentally flawed and incorrect in many of its ideas about sex, gender, and gender identity. Many people who believe in transmed ideology spout some absolutely horrible, transphobic bullshit on the regular and often align their ideology with conservatism and TERFs. I'm not here to defend transmedicalism.

What I am saying is this: It makes sense that a group of ostracized individuals who felt like they had no space to express their traumas would cling onto transmedicalism because it was the only ideological community giving them space to talk about it. Hate movements thrive on preying upon those kinds of vulnerable, traumatized people.

I'm just thinking about a lot of the friends I met via transmedicalism back then and now they're all either TERFs with a lot of repressed trauma and internalized transphobia that I've since cut off completely or they had a similar realization to myself and discovered their attachment to transmedicalism was rooted in trauma and a desire for trans masc community, addressed it, and now they live much healthier, happier lives.

I'm losing steam fast thinking about all of this because recounting trauma takes a physical toll on one's body BUT tl;dr I really do think if we had healthier spaces to address trans male/trans masculine traumas within the wider trans community via conversations about transandrophobia back 5+ years ago we wouldn't fully be here now wrt: how large transmedicalism became as a movement. I genuinely think I wouldn't have been sucked into that space if there had been more resources and space to talk about the experiences I was having, all of which are things people naming transandrophobia are trying to address in healthy manners.

I think healthy, open, conversations about transandrophobia in wider community spaces can do so much good to protect people who were in vulnerable positions like I was and can absolutely potentially prevent more people from getting sucked into the false support offered by hate movements within our own community.

[textk4kira]

what lgbt specific resource do cisgender, straight peopel who do not feel sexual attraction need that they cannot safely get elsewhere?

Hello,

I assume you asked this question in good faith, so as an AroAce trans person I will happily respond!

I would like to start off by saying cisheteromantic asexuals and cisheterosexual aromantics have always been a part of the queer community, period.

To answer your question, asexual and aromantic people need:

1. A community that accepts and affirms their non-cisheteronormative identities.

2. Many asexual/aromantic people have experienced conversion therapy for their sexual/romantic identity and need access to therapies and other treatments to heal from their trauma.

3. Similarly, they may have also experienced religious trauma due to a cultural upbringing that pushed a heteronormative, puritanical view of relationships.

4. Aromantic men in particular are demonized as sexual predators and need the love and support of our community to help them.

5. Asexual women and women-aligned/feminine-aligned people such as myself have experienced fetishization due to our sexuality orientation. Corrective rape has been used to correct people's asexual identities.

In summary, cisheteromantic asexuals and cisheterosexuals aromantics face many of the same issues as the rest of the queer community.

The rest of the LGBTQIA+ community must support their asexual and aromantic siblings.

I hope this was helpful! 💗

[genderkoolaid]

Hi!

I (24 nb) am having a serious issue with girls my age being quite misandric and using radfem rhetoric in their speech.

The issue is I understand their fear and mistrust of men in patriarchy and with many of them having horror stories to share about bad heterosexual relationships. But i am deeply uncomfortable with misandry and i don't know how to effectively point out that no it's not good feminism to hate on men.

Do you have any resources you could recommend me to build a good argument? I want to be prepared for this kind of discussion because it keeps happening more and more frequently.

I know it's not the main topic you cover on your blog but as it is closely related to transandrophobia I was hoping you (or your followers) could still give me some advice.

I wish you a wonderful day

My advice would be to start with talking about the negative impact of misandry on women first (although don't use the word misandry, at least at first). Starting off with "it hurts men" in any regard will likely not go over well, but if you first bring up the issue in relation to a group they already really care about, they'll be more likely to listen. Also, I would reaffirm that having trauma or bad associations with men isn't the problem, they aren't obligated to associate with men in ways that make them uncomfortable or exhausted, and that they have a right to feel their emotions, be angry, be annoyed, etc. Affirm that your concern is with how their actions and attitudes could be causing real harm to others, and that anger being valid does not mean you don't need to take responsibility for how you choose to act.

Some potential talking points:

When women are perceived as manly or masculine, they tend to get viewed with the worst traits of masculinity: butches and trans women are seen as aggressive, violent predators who prey on sweet, feminine straight/cis women. The patriarchy doesn't just hurt women through their femininity, but through their (real or perceived masculinity as well.

Even inside queer spaces, butches are expected to fulfill toxic masculinity: they are expected to be sexually dominant tops, not be emotionally or physically "weak," not do feminine things, etc. Butches can get ridiculed by others, even partners, for not fulfilling these things. Things like balding and small penises, that are traditionally seen as failures of masculinity in the patriarchy, are also made fun of in queer spaces; it seems like queer spaces have issues with how they deal with (real or perceived) masculinity.

When spaces make jokes about hating men, put a lot of emphasis on gatekeeping men, etc., it makes it a lot harder for trans women and nonbinary people assigned male feel safe. Some trans women & genderqueers might not realize their gender because they are kept out of spaces that could've helped them realize because of how queer & feminist spaces act regarding men. Butch trans women and genderqueers often face heightened scrutiny because of their masculinity, from both inside and outside their communities. (Also, send them this article.)

^ As a result of all of that, maybe we need to be more careful with how we think and talk about masculinity. It seems like we are reusing a lot of negative patriarchal stereotypes about men & masculinity in ways which hurt marginalized people the most.

From there, you can bring up marginalized men: you can talk about how trans men, multigender/nonbinary men, men of color, Jewish men, fat men, disabled men, etc. are negatively affected by negative patriarchal stereotypes about men & masculinity- I emphasis that because its how I would go about referring to "misandry" or "antimasculism" without actually using a word. Since misandry (and anything that sounds similar) is such a trigger word for many, its important to set the foundation that there is a big difference between the MRA concept of misandry, and the transunitist concept of misandry. Transunitist misandry focuses on how sexism & genderism* is used to target marginalized groups (specifically trans* people). Transunitist misandry does not say that misogyny doesn't exist, or that men are oppressed in the exact same way women are; its saying that the patriarchy (as a part of kyriarchy) uses gender and sex to harm not just marginalized women, but marginalized men too.

My goal with this would be to introduce and try to convince them of the idea that Misandry Is Harmful Maybe, and then once they realize how its harmful, bring up the idea that this kind of stuff needs to be named. Once they generally agree with these ideas, I think it will be much easier to help them understand why misandry is bad even beyond marginalized men: because the patriarchy relies on harmful ideas and expectations for men, even as (dominant/non-marginalized) men have a different place and more rewards; because liberationist feminism must be concerned with universal liberation, and that means it must be concerned with everyone's wellbeing and liberation; because we cannot disnantle the master's house with the master's tools, and letting any patriarchal thinking in poisons the well of your feminist praxis; because it just makes you a meaner and shittier person. In my experience people who think in the ways you described are resistant (not necessarily for bad reasons) to any kind of criticism towards sexism/genderism towards men, so my tactic would be starting with areas (like women) that they are concerned with not hurting and show how misandry hurts that group. Connecting the harm of this way of thinking to something they care about is going to make them more open to seeing it as an issue in general.

*I use "sexism" to describe the system of oppression based on physical sex, and "genderism" to describe the system of oppression based on gender identity/presentation/roles.

[velvetvexations]

I just want to rant about my least favourite Julia Serano post/passage/concept, because as a transmasc nonbinary person this genuinely raises my blood pressure. Sorry about how long this is lmao

Link: https ://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-is-subversivism.html

It's her concept of "subversivism": bigotry that posits trans people as non-subversive, and compliant with the social order of patriarchy. Essentially, it's the impossible expectation that trans people should always be subversive to gender norms in everything they do. TERFs do this a lot, by claiming that the existence of trans people who happen to fit a gender stereotype (e.g. a trans woman w/ feminine interests, a nonbinary person that dresses androgynously) mean they support gender roles.

This is a really good concept! It's very useful for explaining how anti-trans activists, particularly TERFs, talk about trans people.

The only problem is that instead of talking about her own experiences with subversivism, or using some kind of source as an example of how subversivism works, she spends most of the post/chapter making harmful assertions with no basis in reality. Specifically, she asserts that transmasculine people are seen as more subversive than transfeminine people, and that genderqueer or GNC people benefit from subversivism. And she doesn't even attempt to have a source for it, because if she talked to a single transmasculine or nonbinary person about subversivism, they would tell her that they've experienced it too. Hell, even if she just looked at how TERFs talk about transmasculine and nonbinary people, she'd see that subversivism is a common tactic. So the piece is filled with bigoted bullshit.

In one part she notes that masculinity is associated with power/boldness, but femininity is associated with weakness/timidness. And she suggests that may be why transfeminine people are seen as non-subversive, which is true! But that's also the exact reason why transmasculine people are also seen as non-subversive: in a TERF's eyes, transmascs want to go from weak femininity to powerful masculinity, which is seen as the "easy way out" of misogyny. Later, she mentions transmasculine people being supposedly welcomed into queer and feminist spaces, but fails to consider that often this "acceptance" is often contingent on being misgendered and treated as a woman. (I think some of your more recent reblogs have also talked about this). In her more recent book, she even refers to subversivism as "compulsory genderqueerness". This is clearly meant as a nod to the concept of compulsory heterosexuality. But genderqueer is not in any way a privileged identity like heterosexuality, and it's extremely offensive to suggest that it is! Some studies even indicate that nonbinary/genderqueer people have worse mental health than binary trans people. (Unlike her, I have a source for that: https ://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11930-017-0111-8).

And what's most frustrating to me is that she knows better! Like, it'd be one thing if this was just a tumblr post by a random trans person. But Julia Serano is a published academic, and very well respected in the trans community. She has done legitimately good work, too - her work on debunking AGP and ROGD is a genuinely good resource. So she knows full well that sweeping statements like the ones she makes in this piece need a source. In the blog post she magically remembers how to use sources when she talks about oppression of bi people, which makes it all the more frustrating. And the thing is, I'd also be fine with it if she didn't mention transmasculine or nonbinary people at all, and only talked about her own experiences. I'm not even asking to be included, just to be… not demonised, or gaslighted about my own experiences of transphobia!

Now, Whipping Girl was published over 15 years ago, and she might have changed her opinion since then. But she pretty clearly hasn't, since she was reposting her passage from Whipping Girl about it on Twitter a few months ago! That's how I found out about it in the first place. Honestly, it's a testament to how pervasive anti-transmasculinity and anti-nonbinary rhetoric are in the trans community that Whipping Girl is regarded as a core text for transfeminism, but I've barely seen anyone else talk about the blatant misinformation in it.

Anyway that's the end of my rant, sorry it's so long but I could write so much about this lmao

What is velvetvexations.tumblr.com if not a place to complain about Whipping Girl? You're valid, anon.

It's really not hard to tell why so many people who worship her do the same thing where they compulsively compare everything to how much better they very wrongly believe non-trans women have it. Even if she doesn't personally believe the exact same things her attitudes have bare minimum greatly influenced this bullshit and she needs to reign it in.

Like, is it bad to place responsibility on her like that? To say she needs to put in time and effort countering these things and educating herself where need be? I don't think so. She is, evidently, the Queen of Transfeminism, she, apparently, wrote the transfeminism Bible, as far as I'm concerned it's her job to climb back into the trenches when people start abusing her shit.