#transandrophobia
no amount of discourse is going to make transmascs go away. no amount of discourse is going to make us stop talking about transandrophobia. we are not going to let what happened to the tumblr aspec community happen to us.
In addition. A trans man being treated as a man in the way a cis man is is NOT any form of privilege. It is in itself oppression. It does not benefit me to be turned away from reproductive healthcare because I am a man. It does not benefit me to be treated as an inherently inferior parent because I am a man. It does not benefit me to no longer have access to vital DV support services because I am a man. It does not benefit me to have my experiences with abuse and sexual violence dismissed because I am a man. It does not benefit me to be treated with hostility and suspicion in trans spaces because I am a man.
It does not benefit me to have my experiences of oppression on the basis of me being a trans man dismissed because I am a man.
I’ve seen a post where someone said that trans men erroneously use transandrophobia because, paraphrasing here, “what we are really experiencing is misogyny but we don’t like calling it that because makes us dysphoric”.
and like….yeah okay and having word for our oppression that doesn’t misgender us and make us dysphoric is a bad thing….how????
having language that is both useful and affirming is something we should strive for and transandrophobia is a lot more that “just misogyny”.
Also, like, lol – have people seenthe backlash that we get when we docall it misogyny? “You’re a man, you can’texperience misogyny. it’s just misdirected.”
people who act like all trans men have a super easy time raising money for top surgery etc piss me off so much…
i’ve been trying to raise money for my top surgery for probably 3 years now and out of the $8000 i need, i’ve gotten exactly $100. i’ve watched so many other trans people have these absolutely wild experiences with being able to raise tens of thousands of dollars while i’ve basically just had to come to terms with the fact that there’s no way in hell i’ll be able to pay for it through fundraising so i have to just pray i can save up enough
like…whatever image you have in your head of trans men as this group of people that everyone is desperate to throw their money at, i can assure you it’s dead fucking wrong, and i can’t put into words how exhausting it is to hear people talking about how easy it apparently should be for me to get the money i need while the reality is that i have no fucking clue how i’m going to be able to pay for my transition
every time i make an attempt to raise money and inevitably fail, i just feel more hopeless because i was sold this story about how miraculously easy it would be if i just put in a little bit of work and i had to find out the hard way that that literally couldn’t be further from the truth
I’ve seen this attitude from non-trans men that, “why would you choose be a man?” in this almost degrading tone, but honestly… even if me being a trans man were a choice, I’d still choose this every single time. I would choose this happiness. I would still choose to fight as I’ve done for years to be seen. I would still choose to transition. If this were a choice (it isn’t, but if it were), I am very content with it.
I love being a man. I love my trans body. I love my male body. I love my male identity. I love my fellow trans men. I love my community. I love the compassion trans men have, I love our drive, I love our dedication, I love our resilience.
a few things to keep in mind as you talk about the current situation with roe v wade:
- women are not the only people who can get pregnant, and therefore are not the only people who get abortions or the only people affected by restrictions to abortion access — sincerely, a man with a uterus
- the recent legislation against trans people transitioning, particularly as it relates to trans men and transmasc people, has been justified by the politicians supporting it using the argument that transitioning jeopardizes our reproductive potential, which they see as more important than our actual lives. if you support the legislation against us or have been silent about it, you cannot claim to be fighting for reproductive rights. you don’t get to only care about it when it affects you — if you let them get away with that rhetoric against trans people, you give them the power to use it against you. if you can’t stand in solidarity with us, you will end up standing against yourself
please don’t forget us in these conversations, and don’t be silent about the attacks on our bodily autonomy
all of this is connected — criminalizing transition, overturning roe v wade, it’s all working toward the same goal. if you care about one part of it, you have to care about all of it, or any efforts against it willfail
if you don’t care enough about us to fight our oppression for our sake, do it because you cannot fight against your own oppression without fighting ours too
Its undeniable that trans men face unique discrimination that trans women don’t face right? We have to worry about abortion and reproductive healthcare access, for example.
You agree with that right?
So why are you getting more angry at what we choose to call that discrimination more than the discrimination itself. Why is the response “you’re talking over trans women” instead of “wow. As a trans woman I didn’t know that. I am glad that you are able to talk about your experiences, lets fight this together.”
The cries of one marginalized group don’t drown out the cries of another. that’s not how it works.
TERFs be like
“We’re not trans-exclusionary! We include trans men in our feminism, they’re our ““sisters”” too!”
*proceed to fight against language that includes trans men in necessary reproductive healthcare and rights*
*refuse to listen to the lived experience of trans men and the unique struggles they face in comparison to cis people of either (binary) sex*
*victim-blame transmasc survivors of s//xual assault bc they went into men’s spaces and apparently that justifies fucking r//pe*
*just outright insult transmasc bodies with no provocation, for fun I guess?*
just got this reply to my post about the whole “testosterone is poison” thing and i want to clarify something because i’m sure a lot of other people will make the same assumption that this person did:
[Alt text: reply from @screwyouandrew which says: “It’s ALWAYS either a transphobe trying to convince you not to transition or a detransitioner who wants to project their feelings on to everyone else. Sometimes it’s a mix of both. I have never seen anyone outside of those groups say that bogus]
like…it’s absolutely not always those people, i can assure you
is it often them? yeah!
but that post was actually inspired by a tweet from a trans person who posted a picture of a shirt that said “survivor of testosterone poisoning” and said “this would be perfect for trans women”
this rhetoric is much more common within the trans community than you think, and that’s what makes it so frightening — it’s not just the people who we already know hate us and don’t want us to transition, it’s also members of our own community
no hate to the person who sent that reply, it’s totally possible that some people just aren’t in the right circles to come across the trans people who say this stuff, but the trans people saying it absolutely do exist
i wish it was just garden variety transphobes, that would be much easier to stomach even if it would still suck, but unfortunately that’s just not the case
lateral transandrophobia is very real, and this kind of harmful rhetoric exists within the trans community as well as outside of it
idk who needs to hear this but testosterone is not poison, it did not poison you, you just didn’t like the effects it had on you
as it is, testosterone is highly controlled (to the detriment of countless trans men/mascs trying to access hrt) because the fearmongering about its effects is so prevalent
it’s literally illegal for us to have it without a doctor’s permission, and even its controlled status is used to get in the way of us being able to access it (delaying when we can refill prescriptions, etc)
how do so many people see that think it’s like…all fun and games and totally harmless to talk about it like a literal poison?
even if none of that were true, it would be shitty — i wish every day that i could get top surgery and undo what estrogen did to my chest but you don’t see me calling it poison just because i don’t like it’s effects! and why don’t i? because i know my experiences aren’t universal and me not liking it doesn’t make it poison, so i’m not going to shit on it and make the people who like/need it feel bad!
but ESPECIALLY when fearmongering about testosterone has led to legal restrictions that have fucked so many of us over AND there have been so many attacks on transitioning access recently, how do people not see that talking about it that way is bad?
access to testosterone is incredibly precarious for many many people right now because its status as a controlled substance makes it a particularly easy target for people who want to stop us from transitioning — there’s never a right time for comments like that, but even if there was, *right now is not it*
not to mention, the most recent example of this rhetoric that i’ve seen (the one that inspired this) is especially disturbing because it’s literally a trans person looking at a shirt made by a transphobe calling testosterone poison and saying “oh that’s perfect for me!”
like…how can you look at something made by a transphobe (which was made with the sole purpose of being transphobic), think “i love this! perfect for me!”, and not realize that there’s something Very Wrong With That?
i have so little patience left for this bullshit at this point. i want to be understanding because i know dysphoria sucks and testosterone’s effects are super painful for some people, but i just don’t have it in me
testosterone is not poison, it’s a very natural hormone which most (if not all) people have in their bodies in some capacity, and for some of us the effects of it are genuinely so healing and just…generally wonderful
i’ve been on t for almost two months now and i’m fucking THRILLED! i love what it’s done so far! my therapist of almost 7 years said she’s never seen me smile as much as i do now! my voice has only just started dropping and i’ve already gone from hating the sound of it to almost crying from happiness when i hear it sometimes because it sounds so much more right!
does that sound like the effects of a poison to you? no! of course it doesn’t! because it’s not a poison, it’s a fundamentally neutral hormone that some people will love, some will hate, and some will be totally indifferent to. there’s nothing inherently bad about it, no matter how much you personally disliked it
if you care about trans men and transmascs like…literally at all, you should be advocating for testosterone to be descheduled, not adding to the demonization of it that allowed them to restrict it in the first place
why shit on something that’s been so incredibly life-changing (and life-saving) to do many members of your community, which so many of us have had to fight to get, when you could do literally anything else?
deeply deeply exhausted with the way everyone seems to think it’s perfectly okay to relentlessly make fun of how trans men and transmasc people look
i see it everywhere, from cis people and other trans people (including other trans men and transmascs — thanks internalized transphobia). no one has any qualms about just…throwing as many “jokes” and criticisms at us as they possibly can. if it boils down to calling transmasculinity ugly, it’s fair game to them and i’m sick of it
no one wants to hear about how bad you think our facial hair is. no one wants to hear your comments about our acne or hairlines. no one wants to hear about how upset you would be if you had our scars. no one wants to hear about how gross you think bottom growth is. nobody asked for your opinions on our bodies so please stop sharing them!
and of course, it’s all part of this larger idea that transmasculinity is something to be mocked and rejected. the comments about our voices, our names, our clothes, our hair, everything — nothing about us is free from being ridiculed in one way or another
but the criticisms of our bodies in particular have been on my mind lately as i’ve started seeing changes from t, and it’s absolutely exhausting seeing all these things that i really like (or at least feel neutral about) and knowing that the rest of the world, including members of my own community, will see them as my body being ruined
leave our bodies alone. we’re literally just sitting here existing, that’s not an invitation for you to make every joke you can think of and pick apart every inch of us
the “jokes” aren’t funny, y’all just have a fucking pathetic sense of humor
Mfs are like “I totally see trans men as men” and then perform cringe culture against anything associated with transmascs with the same vigorous vitriol they’d do to boy bands or YA
I’ve noticed that when I remind people that “women’s issues” affect men too- periods, pregnancy, abortion, higher sexual assault, etc- they react very dismissive. Like, “oh yeah, trans men too, i guess.” And it’s because they don’t view trans men’s issues as men’s issues, they view them as a subsect of women’s issues. People, including many, many allies, just straight up do not conceive of trans men as men. They certainly may believe us when we say we identify as men, but in their minds we are always just a different flavor of woman- and I know this because I have gotten this point of view in my own head, where I have to remind myself that my issues are, in fact, men’s issues. Not women’s. Not “non-men’s.” Abortion is a men’s issue. “Pink taxes” are a men’s issue. These are things that affect men.
Comic about trans men in the health care system I made for magazine Ottar last autumn! Please note that it presents a Swedish perspective unless stated otherwise, as it is mostly based on Swedish studies. I would however argue that it has implications on the state of healthcare for trans people in other places as well. Thank you so much Hedvig for translating this!
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