So I wanted to put this together not because anyone needs to see all of this stuff, or read every word here, but because I think compiling these kinds of posts is useful when we’re talking about transmasc issues in the community.
There is, frankly, way too much for anyone to go through and dissect here. It’s exhausting, and it stressed me out just trying to find the posts to make this. I’m not going to go through everything here and point out why it’s all wrong. I don’t have that kind of time.
What I’m saying is that there is a problem.
Not that the problem is worse than anyone else’s, not that it’s the only problem, not that nobody else has problems on par with or even worse than this.
But there is a problem.
Transmascs are made to feel unwelcome- intentionally or not. There is dwindling space, there is less and less room for our voices. Less support for our perspectives. Less compassion for our experiences.
There is a hostility growing, an assumption that trans men are inherently violent people- are the oppressor. That we must be stopped, that we must be kept out of the community, that our oppression doesn’t matter or worse, doesn’t exist.
I lay this out for you because I want it to be clear why I and others are trying to build space for a healthier community for transmasculine folks; spaces that support and validate them, that are compassionate, trusting, and understanding (without allowing room for misogyny or transmisogyny). I want it to be very clear why I make the posts that I do, why I think it’s so important to change the broader understanding of transmasculine struggles and transphobic oppression.
I’m exhausted after compiling this. A lot of these posts are recent; this year, or within the last few. Some of them are older. Some of them are from my own inbox, or comments off my posts- and I left many of the posts I found out, too, prioritizing the ones that make sense without the surrounding context and the ones that contain their entire message, stated, and easy to understand. These posts are from other trans men, trans women, nonbinary people- from within our own community.
I just want folks to understand that this is something that exists, that people believe, and that can and does permeate spaces in ways we might not see right away. This is important. This matters. This isn’t okay.
So, I’ve mentioned this before but back in the day, I was deep into tumblr feminism/sj spaces and it fucked me up as much as any intensely culty environment will fuck anyone up. But hands down the biggest issue it caused me was making me feel guilty for bristling at ‘women and non-binaries’, and having social dysphoria. I wasn’t supposed to identify more with men’s experiences, because that made me a fundamentally bad and harmful person. I wasn’t supposed to find the term ‘shrimp dick’ horrifically offensive and dysphoria inducing because it was trans women saying it. I wasn’t supposed to want horrible, evil testosterone. I certainly wasn’t supposed to EVER mention times my obvious gender shit put me in unsafe situations.
It’s been a long ass time since I was down that rabbit hole and honestly, while I’ve shaken most of the other hardcore SJ stuff off (like, I know longer think I have believe whatever anyone says if they tick enough boxes), the anti trans masc stuff has really stuck with me. In 4 days I’m going to my first appointment with the trans team in Reykjavik and I’m excited and terrified for all the normal trans reasons but I STILL feel guilty, even if I recognise it as unnecessary guilt. I STILL feel like this is something I’m not supposed to talk about, and that I’m not supposed to feel a connection to other trans masc people without vetting them to make sure they’re sufficiently self-flagellatory for being the wrong kind of trans.
Hell, despite using a different name than the one on my birth certifcate for the last decade, I’m only just looking into getting it changed on my passport because when I first started using my name, I was in this fucked up pit of tumblr and I felt like I was somehow appropriating transness by wanting a more androgynous name. And I felt insanely self conscious about having picked something with an ‘ay’ sound in it before I realised that names like that are something to be mocked and used as proof of what a shitty person you are.
This kind of blatant bigotry is fucked up in the extreme and it fucks people up in turn.