#transmasc discourse

[lord-radish]

imagine thinking that trans men are inherently bad or evil or predatory on the basis of gendered privilege and societal power structures. cringe

[intersexability]

Here’s your friendly reminder that AFAB and AMAB are meaningless and obsolete terms!

[transmascissues]

i absolutely cannot believe people are trying to start discourse about whether nex benedict was actually nonbinary / whether it was okay for him to describe himself as nonbinary to some people if he didn’t actually identify that way as if he isn’t literally DEAD because he was KILLED. this is a MURDERED CHILD and these monsters are so busy getting mad at the possibility that he might have been a trans boy who described himself as nonbinary to his family because that was easier for them to take that they’re turning a CHILD who was MURDERED into fucking discourse. even when we die at the hands of cis people’s violence, our own community finds a way to make us the villains of the story.

and all of this bullshit on top of the ways that cis people are already trying to say our grief over his death is unjustified. all of this on top of people claiming he wasn’t murdered and speculating on other causes of death (i literally saw someone say he “clearly went home and took the coward’s way out” and i have never been more disgusted) or claiming that he started the fight as if any action on his part could’ve been enough to justify his death. i am haunted by the sound of his father screaming that his child was not filth because that is what people have been saying about this poor kid, that’s how cruelly his memory is being treated, and even the trans community can’t get it’s shit together enough to look past the stupid discourse and see the tragedy in front of us. did you all forget that it was supposed to be up to us to grieve him in the way he deserves when the rest of the world fails to care if people like him live or die? did you all forget that this child was our sibling, the future of our community, a life that we should have had the chance to know and treasure while he was still here but that we now have a responsibility to hold close to our hearts in his absence? nex’s life was precious and it was ended far too soon and if you truly believe that anything is more important than mourning his life and fighting for a world where no more trans people have to meet such an awful fate, you’re a traitor to this community and you do not deserve the place you occupy within it.

i’m so tired. i can’t even imagine how tired his family must be, to see the public treat the child they’re grieving so horribly, to see the world fail their baby again. leave him alone. he was already robbed of peace in life; the least you can do is let him finally have it in death.

[calamityquellerei]

positionality vs identity

making this post in response to circulating claims about "transmasc privilege" and a noticeable gap in some of y'alls understanding of oppression.

positionality can be thought of as the way society perceives and treats you, and what privileges you are afforded accordingly.

identity can be thought of as your internal sense of self.

for most people, the two do not line up perfectly. your positionality depends on what people immediately see, not what you tell them. your positionality may also vary day to day based on a number of factors including but not limited to the people you are surrounded by, the space you are in, and the positionalities and identities of those perceiving you.

privilege is based almost entirely on positionality, not identity.

a good example is the diversity within the transgender community. if you take three transgender men at different stages in their transition they will each have a different positionality. one may have the positionality of a gender conforming cisgender man, the second may have the positionality of a transgender man, the third may have the positionality of a gender conforming cisgender woman. the gendered privileges these three people are afforded are vastly different despite all three of them having an identical gender identity.

if you have the positionality of a certain marginalized group, you will be targeted with the same oppression as them whether or not you share an identity with them. the fact that you don't share the identity doesn't suddenly make that oppression go away. you can be oppressed based on a positionality that does not align with your identity.

if you have questions on positionality vs identity i urge you to reply to this post instead of ignoring the gap in your knowledge.

[pezpenser205]

i love you trans people please keep doing that

[kiruliom]

can we stop the belief that terfs hate transfems exclusively or like more than they hate cisgender men or transmascs and pretending it's just the trans women's battle against them and you're allies for them or whatever. this literally undermines how much harm theyre doing both to the trans community as a whole and even to the people (cis women) they claim to be protecting. terfs hate trans men just as much as trans women, transmascs arent safe because terfs view them as "uwu confused girlies trying to escape oppression", that is a very narrow worldview and inherently transphobic itself (it excludes butches, transmascs who's medically transitioned, intersex people, etc. etc.) transfems arent more oppressed by terfs than any other people theyre oppressing, please understand this. Im so sick and tired of people undermining my transmasc siblings when it comes to harassment from terfs because "well you arent a target to them", why are they harassing them then????

I just geniuenly dont like how the queer community can claim to be transmasc friendly and then view transmascs the same way transphobes view them (again, uwu girlies who are tricked into ruining their feminine beauty, they dont know anything and how lucky they are). feels both andromisic and misogynistic at the same time on top of transmisic idk how the fuck you manage to fuck up that badly

tldr: stop pretending transmascs arent affected by terfs nearly as much as transfems

anyone can reblog, except terfs of course they can fuck off

transfem is used as a way to refer to "TMA"/"AMAB" trans people transmasc is used as a way to refer to "TME"/"AFAB" trans people I know the definition is a bit more fluid now so I just wanted to note that

[marxism-leninism-meowism]

my goal as a trans man is not to emulate cishet white manhood and I really fucking wish other queer people understood that.

[littletissueghosts]

Transmasc Person: "I am a straight guy, since I am a guy who loves women."

Toxic Queer People™: "Ew, straight guys are all predators, since only non-queer people are straight! Anyways, discrimination against straight men isn't real, even when they're a minority."

Transmasc Person: "Okay, I am a lesbian, since even if I'm not a woman, I still have a connection to womanhood."

Toxic Queer People™: "Lesbian is woman-only! If you are in any way a man or not a woman, you are not a lesbian! Transmascs can never be lesbians or have a connection to womanhood/a lack of manhood! Stop invading the lesbian community!"

I dare you to make it make sense.

[babsaros]

hey. when cis society is oppressing a trans man, what he is experiencing is. In Fact. misogyny. i'm sorry i know none of us like to be reminded of our agab, and it hurts whenever people perceive you as the wrong gender. but a cis person hate-criming, assaulting, verbally abusing, etc, a trans man is not doing "transandrophobia" because they do not perceive him as a man.

they perceive him as a woman failing at her gender, as a woman who has been seduced and lied to and manipulated because women are so easily led astray, just like it says in the bible. they perceive him as a woman who has been mutilated. they perceive him as a dyke that needs to be fixed. if they are hate-criming him because they *do* perceive him as a man, because he passes well enough they aren't thinking he could be trans, then they're doing so out of homophobia, perceiving him as a gay man, a pervert, a sissy, a danger to children. OR, they are being transphobic but specifically because they think he might be transfeminine instead. when cis society oppresses a trans woman, they are able to do it on multiple levels at once. She's a woman failing at her gender, a dyke that needs to be fixed. Or she's an evil and grotesque crossdressing pervert, a rude caricature, a danger to polite society. she will never be doing enough to escape oppression entirely, no matter if she gets every surgery she can and wears makeup every day and passes perfectly, because she lives under a patriarchy, and she's a woman, so she lives in a panopticon, and HAVING to get surgery and wear make-up to be respected IS oppression, especially if the alternative is being hate-crimed.

trans women (and trans men who pass) are not experiencing "transandrophobia" when a 'queer women and nbs" event turns them away at the door for being too masculine. they are. IN FACT!! experiencing the byproducts of misogyny in a patriarchy!!! where the terfs and coward cis women running those events and occupying those spaces have been taught (sometimes through experience, sometimes by men, sometimes by women) throughout life that men = stronger and more dangerous than women ALWAYS. That they need to protect themselves at all times and always be vigilant. That men and women can't be friends without sexual tension (and so as queer women the mere existence of what they perceive as a "man" is a threat). That women need a separate sports league because they can't possibly compete with someone who has even a little bit "extra" (an unquantifiable amount actually because there isn't a standard range) testosterone. That women should cook and men should fix cars. i promise you, i promise i promise i promise. it's misogyny. like!!! you don't say cis gay men experiences "androphobia", bc that's not a thing!! you sound like fucking mens rights activists guys please! you don't say a black man experiences "misandrynoir"!! because living in a patriarchy fundamentally means men do not experience oppression based on their gender. its not happening. shut the fuck up. stop walking us back to 2014 can we please take a step forward and stop bitching about this. there are genuine issues in the world and i'm frankly sick of people who should be smarter than that needing to be gently hand-held through this fucking explanation for the millionth time and still stomping their feet.

[lord-radish]

"transmasc discourse" its discourse to you. The otherness of being trans in a cisnormative society, the disconnect between what's expected of you based on your sex and how you actually feel about yourself regarding gender and the struggle to express yourself and finally be happy as transgender reads just as well to me from a transmasc perspective as it does from a transfem one.

The idea that transmasculine people benefit from patriarchy and misogyny is bunk when you consider that transphobia manifests as people not taking trans people as the gender they present as, and transphobia tends to be a default in cisnormative spaces. I would wager that transmen are still often victims of misogyny due to that expression of transphobia. The idea that transmen transition, become one of the guys and kick down the ladder for other queer identities because they assimilate as "oppressors" and inherently become a part of the problem is absurd and deranged.

Transmasc people are as queer as gay people, bi people, transfem people, non-binary people, pan people - they are a part of the queer community, and I'm absolutely against othering them or turning them into intra-community "oppressors".

If we're talking about assimilationists, they exist along all axes of queerness and aren't inherent to the transmasc experience. If we're talking about misogyny, transmasc people tend to suffer from it due to transphobia. I've heard for years about bi people and ace people and trans people "harming the community", I'm not about to roll over and see the same thing happen to transmasculine people.

In closing:

[ID: A screenshot of a post by tomohawk12345 that reads "This sexual minority isn't part of the sexual minority group", with two emojis with buck teeth and glasses after the text. End ID.]

[transmascissues]

if you ever get involved in discourse that boils down to "can trans men be/do X?" i need you to understand that you're asking the wrong question. the right questions are: what gives you the authority to tell trans men what we're allowed to be or do? what makes you think we would listen to you? why is it your business? (hint: it's not.)

trans men can be and do whatever we want forever. stop worrying about what arbitrary rules you want to hold us to and start worrying about your own life for a change.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

The whole point is you don't know if they're fem cis men. You don't know if they're trans men. You don't know if they're trans women deeply closeted for their safety. You don't know if they're trans women whom misgendering will drive them further AWAY from their egg cracking and harm them. You. Don't. Know.

Misgendering is bad. "Clocking" someone is bad. Making assumptions about someone's identity and then turning it into a "joke" is bad. What's funny about misgendering someone?

Also, this discourse is literally in the context of the queer community. It's literally in the context of the queer community having an antimasculinity and gender essentialism problem. It's also in the context of gender stereotypes and the fact that smelling like flowers or painting your nails making you a girl doesn't become less of a harmless stereotype because it's a trans woman saying it. Like oh wow we went full circle from "girls play with dolls and like pink" to "trans girls play with dolls and like pink". Congrats on alienating every non-femme trans woman and femme trans non-woman.

It's not fucking transmisogyny to tell you not to misgender people or assume liking frilly things makes someone a girl. It's not fucking transmisogyny to tell you that the QUEER and especially TRANS communities have an issue with valorizing femininity while demonizing masculinity. It's not fucking transmisogyny to acknowledge this while acknowledging that actual transmisogyny demonizes transfemininity while infantilizing and erasing transmasculinity.

I'm putting the word transmisogyny on a high shelf until the rest of y'all learn what it actually fucking means. Transmisogyny isn't when an entitled white trans woman gets called out for doing actual harm. Like "joking" about misgendering someone. Or "joking" about being racist and going through a "nazi phase". Or "joking" about "raping cuntboys". It might be affirming that some queer people take your white woman's tears at face value, but here's the thing:

You're lovely women who deserve to have every access to transition, to resources, to be treated equally to cis people. You're just really fucking shitty people. You're bigots, you're cruel, you're cliquey, and you're like every boring high school mean girl who never grew out of pettily bullying other vulnerable people to get over the pathetic inadequacies of your own life circumstances.

People like that deserve community and kindness too. They also deserve not to have their behavior tolerated and to have to deal with compassionate rehabilitative justice. Those things can both be true, especially when the people they are hurting explain until our throats are raw how they're hurting us and they just keep doing it. Because the thing is, it's not actually about any "societal pressure to transition", and the fact you think it is shows you haven't listened to a single actual criticism anyone has had of the whole "egg discourse".

Other people have already explained more patiently and eloquently than me what exactly the problem with calling someone an egg is. I'd think you'd be concerned minimally with how it hurts actual transfem eggs more than anything, even if you don't care about how it very much does hurt transmascs and GNC cis men and the movement of transfeminism as a damn whole to insist "haha liking fem things=woman".

Explain what's funny about that. I'll wait.

Anyway, this was reblogged from someone I long ago considered a friend, someone I thought was better than this. I really thought most trans people were better than this when I first entered the community. I still hope some are. You deserve to be told that this is wrong, because you deserve to be reminded that you're better people than this kind of bullshit.

-your utterly over it neighborhood intersex transneufemmasc

[angelic-prince]

Trans man: here's an issue that we face

Everyone else: you hate women and also you've never faced any oppression your just making it up

Trans man: finally snaps and goes off on everyone

Everyone else: your so transmysgonisit and horrible and you've never suffered but we'll all continue to make fun of you for anything, receding hair, voice cracks, having a "micro dick", height shaming, and also never siding with you. But you better not say anything about our treatment for you because we can use all the buzzwords to destroy your life

And then go cry that trans men don't have their backs or whatever. Like y'all don't deserve our support lol

(op is dyslexic anyone making fun of typos will be eaten alive)

[thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra]

anyways, if you’re a queer person currently being targeted by internet discoursers, know that it will pass. it always does. people just enjoy having someone to punch, and when you’re too beaten up to be fun to punch anymore, they’ll move on to a new target.

maybe they’ll pretend they were with you the whole time, or they’ll apologize and say that they were tricked into it. you don’t have to forgive them.

[pocketsizedquasar]

TPOC-Prioritized writings on anti-transmasculinity / transandrophobia

transandrophobia / anti-transmasculinity are both theories that have been spearheaded primarily by trans poc, particularly Black transmascs and transfemmes.

unfortunately, as with Everything created by queer and trans poc, particularly Black queer ppl, white trans ppl (regardless of gender, and regardless of whether they "believe" in this form of oppression or not) have coopted these theories and dominated these conversations, such that both "sides" of the "discourse" are divorced entirely from the racial connotations in which these theories were created, and the ways in which they were created specifically as an intervention against white feminism, and to highlight the ways multiple marginalizations affect the marginalization of masculinity. these are theories that explicitly interact with and can only be understood in conjunction with transmisogyny, as well as other oppressions like racism and misogynoir.

*"anti-transmasculinity" as a term and theory was coined by Black trans folks (some of whom's writings are linked below), and is specifically a theory within the context of Black transfeminism antiBlackness, and transmisogynoir, and cannot be divorced from that context. i try be very intentional about my use of the terms 'anti-transmasculinity' and 'transandrophobia' in different places here, because i do not want to dilute the former’s very particular context.

anyway, here's a list of miscellaneous writings on the subjects, with a priority for collecting writing from trans poc (not all of the authors are tpoc, but this list was intended to prioritize tpoc voices). the intention of this is not to be a be-all end-all on the subject, nor exalt any one of these individuals or pieces as exclusively ~correct~ or whatever, but to combat the whitewashed nature of these discussions online, and raise awareness to the myriad of people speaking on this subject. (nor do i claim to speak for any of them, or claim that any of them speak for me. i tried to make sure i didn't platform blatant racists, zionists, transmisogynists, or other bigots, but i'm not pretending to be 100% accurate about that.)

they aren't in any particular order (except the first one, which i think is an extremely foundational text for anti-transmasculinity theory as delineated by its creators, within the context of antiblackness and transmisogyny, and necessary reading to understand anti-transmasculinity as a theory). I tried to group all the links from the same authors together.

This is a non-exhaustive list! I will likely come back and add more writings as I find them. please feel free to recommend to me any works to include (including your own! especially if you yourself are a Black trans person or a trans POC).

Now with an Archived Read-more Link!

Racial-Class Paternalism and the Trojan Horse of Anti-transmasculinity by Nsámbu Za Suékama. if you read nothing else from this list, read this.

“But even as TME struggles escape the mainstream imagination, they persist, and are often both fueling and being fueled by the war on trans women and transfeminine people. Nothing makes this clearer than in how a Western binary system triangulates that war with Anti-transmasculinity. This is why I say that Anti-transmasculinity is a Trojan horse for Transmisogyny. Like the wooden horse in the Greek myth, it might not seem like what it is, for its actual contents and character are invisible, but at the heart of it, there is a violent campaign going on that is key to how the West aims to lay seige to its civilizational "enemies." And, like the walls of the city of Troy, materialist transfeminism has fortified the opposition to Western domination, in such a way that to overcome the stronghold requires a new strategy for the Man, one that follows up the open and vicious attacks on TMA people with a different, more hidden form of warfare.”

“today’s gender paternalism frames any manhood and masculine embodiment outside of (western) cisheteronormativity as not just biologically illegitimate but also the result of a barbaric threat to civilization. And who typically figures as the face of that barbarism but the Black trans woman? Materialist transfeminism has to theorize Anti-transmasculinity.”

"Non-Men", maGes, and Black Masculinities by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman

One such argument, which is really a collection of arguments but can be consolidated into one, is that trans men are attempting to take a place alongside cis men in the hierarchy of patriarchy. In other words, while they may not have been so before naming themselves as trans men, they are aspiring to be oppressors. This employs a number of rhetorical devices that I have identified before including the idea that trans men are “betraying” cis womanhood and therefore should be seen as threats unless they act as footsoldiers for transmisogyny. The problem with this is that it treats trans manhoods as embodiments that exist as something which merely aspires to be cis manhood.

"For Those Seeking Fight or Flight: Black Trans*feminist Nihilism" / primer on transmisogynoir by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman (not about anti-transmaculinity specifically (though it does come up), but a very good + important read on Black transfeminism & transmisogynoir, so I'm including it)

anti-transmasculinity needs its own theorizing outside of general "transphobia" by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman

anti-transmasculinity & antiblackness inherently linked (& another) both by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman

There is a hidden epidemic of violence against transmasculine people by Orion Rodriguez

a thread master post linking to multiple threads about anti transmasculinity by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

a thread on anti-transmasculinity as an epistemic injustice (translated) originally by magicspeedwagon in French; English translation by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

Not transmasc invisibility, but erasure by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

Girlboy Boygirl Blues - antitransmasculinity as a denial of individual history & more by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

"irl we just kiss" - ‘transmasc vs transfem’ discourse & reactionary ‘boys vs girls’ politics in trans spaces by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

transmascs & being treated as predatory by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

transmasc mental health statistics by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

violent anti-transmasculine hate crimes by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid

thread on examples of systemic anti-transmasculinity by magicspeedwagon

a thread on anti-transmasculinity and its erasure by storyjunkie

anti transmasculinity & transmisogyny and the degendering of Black people by afrodykee

anti transmasculinity & transmisogyny cannot be theorized in opposition to each other by afrodykee

white transfeminism's anti-transmasculinity by afrodykee

Black trans people & erasure of TPOC voices from the trans community by thatspookyagent

transmasculine nonwhite expereince by thatspookyagent

trans men being silenced by thatspookyagent

queer POC being pushed out of conversations by thatspookyagent

cis women's harm to trans men by novascotioducktoller w/ addition about TMOC by thatspookyagent

medical violence in anti transmasculinity by Caleb / sethpuertoluna

example of medical anti transmasculinity by Dominick / transguyenergy

response to inclusion of a trans man in an ad (thread) by Dominick / transguyenergy

anti-transmasculinity around periods by Dominick / transguyenergy

anti-transmasculinity towards pregnant trans men by Dominick / transguyenergy

transitioning as a transmasc of color by gendercriminals

white (cis) women & racist transandrophobia by dead-lavender-society

transandrophobia as an indigenous trans man by petrichorvoices

examples of transandrophobia by transvermin

the “lost lesbian” narrative & antitransmasculinity by vaguefiend

cis women & transandrophobia by vaguefiend

intersectionality & transandrophobia by visible-schizo-spectrum

more transandrophobia from cis women by cock-holliday

tl;dr : there’s LOTS of theory and discussions out there abt anti-transmasculinity, transandrophobia, how these things relate to other forms of transphobia, how it interacts with other marginalizations, most especially race, and the ways in which it affects transmascs. this information is everywhere. it’s out there. y’all (white ppl) are just refusing to engage with it.