#trans men and other transmasculine folks deserve better

[trans-androgyne]

“It’s not about demographics but about the current way the trans community functions.”

I’m so tired. We’re just supposed deal with being the community’s punching bag until it gets bored and picks a different target? A community I can supposedly claim as mine? At this point I don’t know if I want to continue interacting with it.

Coming out was supposed to be a joyous thing. It was supposed to make things better. Instead it’s just this garbage. Forget people adjacent to me, if I can’t even count on my fellow trans men to have my back then what’s the fucking point? Might as well go back into closet. It’d be awful but I don’t see how this is any better.

I've been exactly where you are, and I'm so, so sorry. Encountering all this discourse and feeling hated, rejected, and invisible in my own community very very nearly caused me to detransition.

But I thoroughly believe I can promise you it will not be like this forever. And I don't think it will be a matter of getting bored and things going back to the way things were a few years ago. As painful as all this infighting is right now, it is stirring real, necessary conversation about transphobia. People who hold ideas like "manhood isn't an intersection" and "trans men don't experience misogyny" and "oppression only affects the primary targeted demographic" are being challenged. I didn't feel this way a year ago, but now I firmly believe that transandrophobia theory or at least something resembling it will be integrated into mainstream transfeminism, and the gendered oppression of trans men and mascs will be acknowledged. It will mean something to say someone is being transandrophobic, and it won't be okay to talk over and stereotype and make fun of/"punch up at" us.

I love the trans community, and I do it by choice. It doesn't feel like home for me right now the way I expected it to be when I came out. But I will make it a home, for me and for every single trans man and transmasc out there. We deserve recognition, we deserve space, we deserve a voice, we deserve resources, and we are going to get them. It's okay to disengage with the community for now if that's what you need. But I hope folks like myself will help make it somewhere folks like you feel comfortable and celebrated. Because trans manhood and transmasculinity should be celebrated; our identities are just as wonderful and radical as other trans people's. One day, likely sooner than you might think, other folks will recognize that too.

[constantinoreal]

Trans men and transmasc folk deserve so much better, always the butt of the joke, on top of being always invisibilized and the medical violence and the infantilization, and a million other things.

It's already bad enough the only way people knows to affirm our gender is to joke about the negative parts of being a man or masculine. Stinky, messy, insensitive, scary, abuser, rapist-Enough!

Even other trans men do this. Openly talking about how they regressed, chose to be less, decided to be boring, etc etc. The rest of transmasc folk don't have to know about your insecurity and self-hatred, sorry to say. A jab at yourself is an jab at the rest of us; I know loving yourself is hard, but learning to not internalize the relentless microviolence everyone else constantly performs on us is also a must.

Because being a man or masculine is not inherently a negative or bad thing, and insisting it is only puts down and erodes the self-steem and self-love of every men, yes, cis included.

So progressive and queer yet so many in the community don't know how to uplift and voice themselves without always putting down another group. It's exhausting.

Do better. You don't even need to become the spokesperson for every transmasculine individual, just stop shitting on masculinity for no good reason or making the same old joke of how stinky we are. People needs to learn for real how to better support and affirm trans men and transmasculine folks.

We won't ever progress if people within the community still have it ingrained that one gender is the good one and the other gender is the bad one. It's a preconceived notion that hurt EVERYONE.

If you are a trans guy or a transmasc individual: You are worthy of love, you didn't choose to be boring or worse, being your truest self can only be positive, your masculinity is beautiful and not an inherent threat to the rest of humanity. I love you

[astrologypersonalityandcartoons]

Okay, I need to get this out. Especially since a lot of people probably don't get it. I firmly believe the following:

Trans men/mascs can be oppressed,hurt, or discriminated against

A unity of trans people (men, women nonbinary folks) should be the norm.

Saying either of these things doesn't mean that transfems are less oppressed. It means we can all be oppressed in a society/world that would see us all dead/silent rather than thriving and loud. Not only surviving but dealing with the issues that our community is presented with as a unified force for the betterment of all trans people. People who hate trans people and don't listen will likely always be like that. But we have to be better than that listen to each other. Listen to every other trans person you can, be the difference. I firmly believe that if we stand united instead of arguing amongst ourselves on who has it worse, if we all deserve to be here and be a part of this community, etc. And realize transmasculine people/trans men, transfemmes/trans women, and literally every trans person in the community deserves to be here, have their problems heard, and we should actively be helping each other when we can not pushing other parts of our community down or lying and saying there's not a problem for X group of trans folks when there clearly is, and all of us need to face it together.

Sincerely, a recently out Trans Man who is tired of the hate that I've seen circulating for transmasculine folks/ trans men. Just hate it as a general thing.

[ayellowbirds]

[image: a twitter thread by @LiamDel. Transcription follows]

TW: oldschool transphobia The thing about "don't use x term for x group" is this discussion really only exists online. Offline, there are many predominantly older people who identify in extremely individual ways that they spent decades fighting to be, that now get told they can't

I know trans men that call themselves lesbians for so many reasons - maybe they never go on T or get any surgeries because its an intrinsic part of their identity and who they are to have the body they do - it bears scars of being in punchups with skinheads and police violence.

They never had the freedom to choose which identity they were - they were dykes for decades before we were born, and they've led the Pride parade with Dykes On Bikes and let countless queer women find safe haven in their home and cared for so many gay men as they died in the 80s.

They weren't able to call themselves transgender. The language didn't exist. The internet didn't exist - I can't stress how small each of our worlds was back then, how the flow of information was so slow and sterile. The idea of BEING transgender/queer DID NOT EXIST for so many.

You'll see many older trans people that identify as 'crossdressers' or have zero intention of medical transition. They're too old for surgery or too poor or discovered they were trans yesterday. They have ZERO idea wtf a truscum is, they have never heard the term transtrender.

Some get 2 hours a week that they get to wear the clothes they want to, then its back to being an elderly person with a homophobic/transphobic manager and family. Some get fired anyway for misunderstanding who can see what on FB - and older people don't get employed again easily.

If a trans guy said they were a guy to a medical professional back then, they got put in an insane asylum. I know a guy this happened to. He's not even that old. Once the asylum was shut down - the only escape - he accessed T by trading E with trans women in the same situation.

He is poor as shit, and he has dedicated his life and money to helping young trans men that come to the support groups he runs and tell him "You're not allowed to say FtM anymore" and he has that term tattooed in his flesh as a medal of "fuck you" to society.

I know elderly trans women who are the epitome of grace and fire, for whom the term "transexual" was freedom from a cage. They, when given space, patiently point out to me that they are trans-sexual, not trans-gender, as they have always been the gender they are - woman.

Please educate and inform cis people of what the current expectations of them are in the current time in terms of terminology and thought. But you cannot then look back over your shoulder and say "oh and all the trans people that came before me - change your offensive identity"

The online community young trans people have access to is literally life saving, I know from experience. But I implore you to go to your local trans support group, and listen. Don't interrupt someone - they know their identity better than you. See, and hear, and think.

You will learn so much. You will find things that sit uncomfortably with you, and these are amazing opportunities to confront your internalised transphobia. You may find people you feel might not represent The Community how you want to be represented- what a great time to reflect

on the importance of making space for every nuance and facet of our community, and consider ways that you may not have realised of being more inclusive of everyone. You may see people that might come across as 'shameful' to you - and hearing their story, you may come to

understand that the only way they are alive today is by doing whatever it took to survive, however ugly. You may come to the realisation that literally every trans-aware medical professional was taught from the ground up by these elders, who had to literally beg for treatment.

And, hopefully, you will come to find deep and meaningful connection and kinship with people older, wiser, sillier and stronger than us. Please don't tell them what they are.

While you're here, I wrote a similar thread delving into the mental health stats of transmasculine folk and why they stand out from other LGBTIQ identities. This may help you frame older trans masc people in a new light. TW: everything around depression+++

[link to another thread here]

Adding here - if you feel like an older person is offending you with their outdated language, assume they've never heard of twitter or any conversations we have here, and say something like "have you heard why some people don't use x anymore?" They're usually excited to learn.

(If a t*rf shows up, consider not engaging - we have such a wholesome discussion happening here and you deserve better than spending time and energy on someone who won't listen ♥)

[trans-androgyne]

I don't really do this like at all but I have no idea where else to express my frustrations and dejection. This is pretty negative so no need to even read it but If you do I really appreciate it. I'm a transmasculine teenager and I remember first coming to tumblr from reddit cause I heard there was more transmasculine folks here and I was like waooww! Sounds great. I expected cool memes or positivity or representation just something I could relate to because I genuinely hated myself for being trans, so much. Can't come out at school, can't transition for like another four years, can't entirely come out to family either, so I can seek solace online. Now tumblr has become by #1 doomscroll site and I hate myself more than ever for newer reasons. Wooow. And this time it's coming from other queer people and it feels worse than anything I read from a genuine right-wing bigot. I keep feeling like my existence is just irrational and misogynistic and hopeless. I don't know how to feel any better about my identity as a transgender male.

Gods, I've been in really similar spots, I'm so sorry. Seeing the same old vitriol from cis transphobes is one thing. But when I stumbled into the discourse about transmascs on here, feeling that hated and rejected by my fellow queer and trans people pushed me to the brink of detransitioning. There are two main ways I pushed through that.

The first was to focus on other transmascs. Sure, I can hate myself for "choosing the wrong side" or whatever, but would I ever, ever say that about another transmasc? I wouldn't. I would never tell them half the stuff I believed about myself. It became clear to me that queer masculinity, especially trans masculinity and manhood, gets pushback both from inside and outside the queer community that it does not deserve. One's gender and gender presentation does not relate to their morality. Queer masculinity is beautiful and radical, no matter what anyone tries to tell you, and I let myself fall in love with it and engage in it out of spite. Even if I couldn't accept it on myself, I committed myself to letting other transmascs out there know that I believed their transmasculinity made the world a better place. After a while, it was a little easier to feel that way about myself too. I still get insecure about it, but I can always lean on other transmascs and transmasc allies about it.

That's the second strategy. I felt so isolated and alone as a transmasc, especially when we were being blamed for predstrogen being banned, that I ended up making a discord server centered on trans men and mascs. I've gotten so many friends and even two new partners out of that! It turns out that there are plenty of people who love transmasculinity even if they aren't transmasc themselves. An example is my trans femme S.O. who loves me being her transmasc stone butch and praises my masculinity constantly :) I suggest to all transmascs ever to surround themselves with as many people as they can that see the value of transmasculinity and don't hold bigoted beliefs about transmascs (because yes, believing that we're all annoying and attention-seeking and self-centered and misogynistic is bigoted). My server is always open if that might help you, but other spaces are out there as well. Just know you deserve to be supported in your identity and there are plenty of people who would give you that support. You are always, always, always welcome in my inbox, or DMs, or anywhere else. Please reach out if I can be of any help.