STFU, Transmisogynist Trans Folks!

girlslikeusnews:

someone submitted a link to a story about a young trans guy fighting to get his real name used at graduation.

not only does this go against my personal editorial policy of not linking to stories about trans youth

but it goes against the general editorial policy for this news service

this is a news service by #girlslikeus for #girlslikeus

As in, while I sympathize with this kid’s fight, this isn’t the place for it.

I spend hours every week wading through piles of trans related news stories to curate the links for this site

so that other #girlslikeus don’t need to

so that we can have one, just one, news service that focuses on us, that recognizes that we are human, and that treats us with consideration and respect.

please don’t submit links to stories about trans men or trans masculine people

they won’t be posted

metapianycist:

impromptuonedykedanceparty:

GOD I’m so fucking creeped out

I was looking at the blog of that ~totally not transmisogynist~ radfem I’d reblogged last night (hoping in vain for an apology or something)

and ran into a post promoting THIS:

[Image: a giant banner that says “RAD FEM TRANS* FEM”

Image text:

RADfem/TRANS*fem

Welcome to RADfem/TRANS*fem where two feminists, Pi; a radical feminist who identifies as a gender abolitionist, and Jacq; a trans* feminist who identifies as being gender reflective, discuss issues of gender, feminism and patriarchy from two different perspectives.

Come learn with us about the ways in which people from two different feminist backgrounds, that have been criticized from both sides as being misinformed, bigotted, and oppressive, build bridges together and recognize the importance of creating solidarity between both communities because after all, all of us feminists want to have the same thing: respectful, safe, inclusive and consensual conversations that cause us to reflect on patriarchy, sexism and oppression.

If you have any questions that you’d like Jacq and Pi to answer together, please send us an ask!

….

So I clicked over to this, fearing the worst. And of COURSE, ‘TRANS*FEM’ is not someone who experiences transmisogyny.

Radical Feminist: ravefromthegrave
Trans* Feminist: LIVELAUGHAWESOME

Aside from that introductory post, there are two so far, one by each on gender, and each post affirming that they’re both virulent transmisogynists, here are some excerpts from each:

The more that I’ve talked to Pi (RADfem) though, the more that I’ve come to understand the theory of exactly how much gender is a result of patriarchy and is actually a concept created in order to maintain the oppression of people who are female-assigned. I recognize the validity of the radical feminist belief that we need to destroy gender altogether (gender abolitionism).

(~Patriarchal culture TOTALLY waits to check whether I was female assigned, and upon finding I wasn’t, TOTALLY affords me benefits instead of oppression. Totally.~)

And this gem, ‘cause the radscum of course wants us to know that her entire approach to ‘gender’ is predicated around transmisogyny, featuring a quote from a trans woman completely twisted around to vilify her:

Gender identity is the product of gender. And this is where we often get misunderstood: it’s not that I think trans people’s gender identities in particular aren’t valid - it’s that I think that nobody’s gender identity is valid. It doesn’t matter if you’re trans or not. Gender identity only exists because gender exists. Both are equally socially constructed. And socially constructed doesn’t mean “not real”. I think it was Red Durkin who said something like: “a brick wall is also socially constructed, but it’s still pretty fucking hard to just walk right through it”. And that’s the problem - we can’t step outside of the system. If I could choose not to have a gender assignment, or my assigned gender to not mean anything, I would. But that’s not the point. It doesn’t matter what I choose. Females are still oppressed worldwide because they are female. To say otherwise is to erase female oppression.

There is a difference between sex and gender. Sex is a biological reality, gender is socially constructed roles and norms for these sexes. I know that there are more categories than XX and XY. Those categories doesn’t change the fact that XX and every other category that isn’t XY, is oppressed by XY. To claim that one can identify their way out of their oppression is kind of making a mockery out of women who aren’t privileged enough to make that choice.

(~I’ve never actually BEEN karyotyped, but thank god people check my karyotype before deciding whether to oppress me!~) And on the radfem’s about pages, this, because of fucking course:

I’m in a long term relationship with a FTM transsexual who I met pre-transition (and am still with a year into transition), so I might blog about things related to that, as my personal relationship with a FTM are influencing my politics in this matter.

Ahah. ha. ha.

So yeah. In addition to being terrified and disgusted and before I go hide for a while, I’m just gonna say: this is why.

to allllll the fucking people who don’t experience transmisogyny, the cis folks, the dfab trans folks: this is why we need this language, why we need to talk about it and won’t let you gloss over it and pretend it isn’t there.

This is why you’re automatically assumed to be vile transmisogynist scum.

‘Cause you’ll turn on us and work happily for those who want us dead in a HEARTBEAT if you think you’ll get something out of it - even if it’s just a token of ‘oh, well at least you’re not one of THOSE trans people’ from radscum who’ll go on to misgender and fetishize you.

Reblogging to spread the word about this transmisogynist bullshit.

genderbitch:

inchoaterica:

noahkins:

…and trans men go along with it and shove trans women out of women’s space. Being complicit in oppression is still oppression, and IDGAF what your excuse is.

No, we will not “come back later when things have changed.” I spent a decade and change forced to be stealth to be a queer girl and now i’m basically not a queer girl anymore not because cis women don’t want trans women around but because trans men are so fucking threatened by our presence they fall on themselves to shove us under the bus.

No, y’all need to stop saying “this is the space i grew up in so i have more of a right than you.”  a)bullshit, you’re still a MAN invading WOMEN’s space and b)um hi i grew up here too. I just had to bite my tongue and be Erica the Horrible Secret.

Yes, cis women enforcing patriarchal bullshit is the problem here. But when trans guys go along with it, especially when they start taking leadership positions (why is so much in my town that used to be the “queer women’s community now run by white men?), trans guys are being just as bad. The fact that you have a hard choice doesn’t mean to oppress someone else down the line.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

genderbitch:

You transmisogynist expansionist fuckers only needed an excuse. Cisfuck bitches gave it to you but it’s not like you waited for it before.

freedominwickedness:

widdershinsgirl:

venak-hol:

alexthefab:

neutrois:

calliowong:

So. It’s been a while since I’ve written you all, folks. As far as I know, this will be the last update letter I will write you.

I guess this is it, for now. There’s no chance I can go to Smith College, as the administration has returned my application without reading it not once—but two times now.

The first time, the Office of Admission at Smith found fault with my transcript, which read “male.” Smith would not process my application, despite the fact that I had spoken to Dean of Admission extensively over the summer about who I was and my specific case. Still, I corrected the “male” clerical error with my school guidance staff and promptly sent back my application for review.

The second time was on March 5, five days ago. My FAFSA information reading “male” was targeted this time as the reason why I was not a woman in Smith’s eyes. I won’t give you an analysis of what was written; I’ll just leave you with a photograph of the letter at the end. You all can decide what it means for yourselves.

A lot of press time is dedicated to transmen / genderqueer people who transition at women’s colleges, and a general rise in acceptance of this. But we often don’t see the other end of the coin: transwomen who are not allowed into women’s colleges. May this change soon as well.

This is why I feel so weird about trans men wanting to go to women’s colleges. I mean, why? And if you succeed and get accepted doesn’t it indirectly create policy at the institution that keeps trans women out? Why would a guy want a women’s college on their CV anyway? I don’t understand. =|

I hope my commentary isn’t unwanted here, but if it is, I sincerely apologize for stepping into an issue that isn’t mine to comment on. 

I personally seriously considered several women’s colleges when I was applying. Men sometimes do attend women’s colleges, so it’s not too unusual, and I was considering it for my own safety. In my experience, the patriarchy instills a natural entitlement in men along with a hatred of women that translates into what’s almost an inability to stomach ‘women’ ‘wanting’ to ‘become’ men. Note the quotes, that shit is toxic but it’s what they’re thinking. I’ve had guys try to ‘put me back in my place’ and received multiple rape/death threats from 15 and 16 year old boys. I went through high school trying to get the hell out of hallways as quickly as possible because it spread pretty quick that I was trans and I got locker checked if any of the people it made ‘uncomfortable’ caught up with me. I genuinely feared for my safety and had to enroll in self defense classes, have a friend walk me to my car, etc. 

I considered women’s colleges because women are, in general, far more understanding. They’re also less likely to be infected with the self righteous rage the patriarchy instills in many men. I thought it’d be safer. 

I wasn’t thinking I might bar a trans*woman from entering, but if I had I would have never even thought of applying. As difficult as things were for me, trans*women have it way worse. 

I just wanted to make it clear why a trans*man would want to attend a women’s college, and I hope this wasn’t an offensive addition. 

Thank you. However, that doesn’t significantly change my opinion that trans men are abusing technicalities to go to women’s colleges, nor the fact that women’s colleges abuse those same technicalities to keep trans women out.

As it happens, my application to Smith would have been impossible, as I graduated from high school many years ago and that school district has it as a matter of policy that once a final transcript has been issued, it is unalterable, so that piece of documentation is completely unalterable for me. Even if every other piece of documentation were in order, the fact that there is an “M” on my high school transcript would bar me from Smith forever, even if in every other way I were an exemplary candidate.

For trans men, a critical piece of male privilege is the ability to be considered “female” for the purpose of admission to women’s spaces, even while presenting and living as fully male, up to and often beyond completing the process of transitioning physically and legally, and thus being able to ignore the fact that trans women are almost always completely barred from all gendered spaces.

Once again, it has to be pointed out that the plural of anecdote is not data. What the actual statistics tell us is that the patriarchy treats trans men and CAFAB nonbinary trans people with contempt, ridicule, and threats, but those threats are largely empty — actual violence against trans men is rare, and deadly violence is practically unheard-of. Lethal rage is almost exclusively reserved for trans women and CAMAB nonbinary trans people.

This discrepancy arises from the fact that male supremacy is not threatened by female-assigned persons transitioning in a maleward direction. From the patriarchy’s point of view, it is “only natural” that inferior females seek to imitate superior males, and transitions can be accepted as the strongest possible affirmation of male superiority over women. Thus, the patriarchy’s anger at CAFAB trans people for being “women who refuse to stay in their place” is counterbalanced by the patriarchy’s contemptuous amusement at CAFAB trans people for “trying to be men”. CAMAB trans people, in contrast, are the greatest possible threat to male supremacy; for any male-assigned person to transition in a femaleward direction is the ultimate rejection of men’s superiority over women.

This is the context in which we must consider trans men’s ongoing attempts to define “trans inclusiveness” at women’s colleges as being about them.

biyuti:

(rebloggable by request)

anon asked:

So from a couple of your posts I have seen you say transmisogyny rather than transphobia or similar things and as a cis person I was wondering what you meant by that. If you are willing to, I would like to hear/see what you mean by that. Thank you!

I answered:

I don’t even know if this anon will still be around… but I finally have time to answer this question. (although, re-reading the question i’m realizing that my answer is actually to a different question, but I’ll answer this question ,.., i don’t even know what I”m talking about here. lol)

To make it very clear: transphobia depends on transmisogyny. So. If we address and dismantle transmisogyny, we’ll also take care of transphobia at the same time. However, the converse isn’t true. If all we do is talk about and attempt to dismantle transphobia, we’d still end up having to take care of transmisogyny (and, by extension we’d have failed in dismantling transphobia in any meaningful sense of the word).

Now. This seems like a fairly… large claim and one that probably should be substantiated in some way.

When you look at the history of ‘transphobia’ and where it may come from, we can see that the historical roots lay in colonization and (along with what I”ve said in the past about the binary) the colonial enforcement of white genders.

We can see the roots of transmisogyny (I guess the ‘birth’ would be more apt) in the writings of missionaries and other colonialists, who encountered any of the many trans feminine range of genders. You can see it in how they describe us and how clearly the misunderstand essentially everything. And…

You can see it how, in 400+ years later, the fascination that the white gaze has with our bodies, our exists and all the fear and disgust that accrues around this fascination and surveillance hasn’t changed. At all. Nor has the constructions of us as ‘men in dresses’ or as un-women have changed.

And yeah, I realize that many a trans man would point to their near erasure from history as evidence of a broader understanding of transphobia that includes transmisogyny… but. That would only represent a move to decenter trans feminine people from our place in history. It also places a positive valuation on all the colonial attention paid to us as something… enviable, rather than recognizing that this attention is literally the source of systemic oppression of trans people (but most especially trans feminine people of colour). It isn’t accidental that trans women of colour are the most adversely and violently impacted trans people. It is simply the modern iteration of a 400+ year campaign to eradicate us from the face of this planet.

All of this is why I say that the default for cis people is transmisogyny. Because conceptualizing transmisogyny as a subset of transphobia is both historically wrong and transmisogynist. Transmisogyny is the foundation that transphobia is built on, this is also why pretty much any attempt that trans men have made recently to dismantle transphobia has simply resulted in their being massively transmisogynist and, well, shitting on trans feminine people. This is also why, in a larger sense, trans men have been more effective: because cutting down a branch is about a bajillion times easier than uprooting the tree.

faketransgirl:

If you’re about to say something in the form of “Nuh uh, trans men are just as bad off in that situation!” “Trans men are treated just as badly by that group!” etc.

reconsider many, many times.

tal9000:

gcvsa:

The funny thing is, when men misrepresent their gender identity to gain access to segregated spaces, it’s far more often done to gain access to trans women’s specific space than it is done to gain access to women’s space, in general.

Just another thing the TERFs concern troll about that in reality affects trans women at a far higher frequency than it ever does cis women.

They know they wouldn’t have any luck at all trying to infiltrate (cis) women’s space by posing as us.