Not me, but if you’ve been following the drama, they removed this post about the unique issues we face as “divisive.”
It fucking sucks. There’s been a lot of discussion in other trans masc spaces about “transandrophobia” and this seems to absolutely demonstrate it. We aren’t treated seriously in spaces that should be welcoming for us.
People assume “trans” means trans woman. Spaces for trans people are often for trans women. Jamison Green wrote a while back about us not really having our own community, decades ago, and it still feels true today.
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Wild. The reddit trans community has always had problems but this is absolutely ridiculous. Removing a post about erasure of transmasc issues is a frankly incredible level of callous detachment. The queer community has always denigrated and mistreated the transmasculine community. It’s at least somewhat heartening to see some outrage in the comments. But the moderation team should be thrown out over this. Bigotry and erasure have no place in queer communities.
Reddit and discord are fundamentally unsafe places for trans people, any queer communities there are intentionally or unintentionally helping prevent people from moving to more safe platforms.
I know tons of trans people on discord. What makes it unsafe for them?
I think there’s a disconnect between people who use discord as an IM client and people who use discord as a way to find communities. Ive been using discord since like the friends and family alpha, and I’ve never once joined a server that was larger than “4-12 people I know irl who hate group texts.” The way I understand and think about discord is drastically different from somebody who uses it more like a decentralized forum full of hobby or creator driven communities. I’d guess that the latter half is what is being referred to as dangerous for trans folk, but again I cannot confirm as discord is functionally equivalent to like MSN messenger for me
I’m part of some pretty large discord communities and I wouldn’t describe any of them as hostile to trans people. However, I am not trans, so I was curious if there was some insight I was missing out on.
to answer to anyone asking why discord, any community that doesn’t have a focus on queer topics, statistically is not great for trans folk. Many big communities are, yes, but you also have to remember discord has a LOT of servers.
People assume “trans” means trans woman.
I used to think that a majority of trans people were women, because that’s the representation I encountered most online. It was rather surprising for me then to, in a Polish book about transgender experiences, read a psychologist (or therapist? I can’t remember exactly) say that they usually had trans men visit them and that trans women were somewhat of a rarity. It makes me wonder if this gender disparity exists in any form in reality and why representation online seems to focus around trans women more often.
The book I mention is Ciała obce by Paula Szewczyk.
Just for clarity, “asshole” is still gender-neutral, right?
Yeah, you can even get ranks in it. Like Major Asshole.
I mean, even if it’s a trans community, it is on reddit.
Trans men are men.
As a trans woman I wish that others in the community would be treated better. Trans means all trans people and that means enbies, men, and women.
I think that people generally associate trans with trans women because of the media. If we are scary then we are a more effective scapegoat. It’s easier to make trans women scary because they can brand us as perverted men.
I am also aware that there are significantly more trans women in online spaces than trans men. I also see people complaining about more trans women being moderators but of course that’s going to be the case when we make up a larger percentage of the user base. I have no idea what to do about this. I would like there to be as many trans men as there are trans women in these spaces but idk what can even be done to achieve that. I talked about this before with a trans man I know and we both had zero idea how to do that.
Trans means all trans people and that means enbies, men, and women.
Yes! My gods the experience I had when I first started actually figuring things out around 10 years ago was horrible because of people not getting this. I tried to join a few online communities that claimed to be for trans people or at least trans inclusive and it was such a horrible experience. Multiple large communities the literal second they learned I’m AMAB and not on HRT I either got outright banned, told my existence was triggering to other members and I should either leave or not participate in any discussions, or told that I’m not actually nonbinary.
That I just have too much “internalized transmisogyny” and I’ll be so much happier once my egg cracks the rest of the way. The last one particularly hurt because I’d had an entire gender crisis back in high school and I literally told them that the idea of being a woman felt just as wrong but in different ways as being a man and they just laughed at me like I didn’t know what I was talking about. Took me so long to actually start willingly engaging with trans communities again.
God I’m sorry.
It should be so simple. Not taking hormones doesn’t mean you aren’t trans.
If someone else is uncomfortable that should be their problem. It’s true for us and that includes you.
It should be! But my gods it feels like there’s a very loud portion of at least the online trans community that thinks that the only valid ways to be trans are “fem-leaning androgynous enby” if you’re AFAB and “trans woman” if you’re AMAB. As if the second that they can look at you and read “that’s a dude” you stop being valid or something. Which is so messed up.
I don’t know, I think that’s part of why I’ve always vibed more with the transmasc crowd than the transfem one despite being AMAB. It’s not the same but I spent my entire life getting bullied by the men in it for being too effeminate. I had a baby doll that I took care of while my Mom took care of my baby brother when she did something I couldn’t help with. I cried too easily, I didn’t care about cars and sports like they did, I had no interest in sex. It was like the way everyone else saw me was “girl badly pretending to be a boy” except I didn’t feel like either.
Yes! Enbies are valid and there are so many ways to transition. I always say to just do what makes you happy because everyone is different and there is no “correct” way, just different ways.
All of Reddit is a fucking mess. Never look back
There is a PhD in here somewhere about how deeply rooted patriarchal influences are even within the queer community.
Trans men aren’t taken seriously because they were AFAB.
Trans women control trans spaces because they were AMAB.
Isn’t that just “trans women have male privilege” with a coat of paint? I’ve been in plenty of trans spaces that are dominated by transmascs; I think it’s more because Reddit has historically attracted a lot of men, so those who transition end up on trans subreddit. It’s not wise to make assumptions about what every queer community is like, especially when it comes to saying trans women have an advantage. For example, back in the day on Tumblr, Tumblr attracted a lot of women, particularly in fandom/fanfic communities (ex. the classic “i really like m/m slashfic, almost like i relate to it or something”), so the community was often dominated by people who weren’t transfem, and this led to serious problems with transmisogyny at times.
> frames point in terms of AGAB language
> point is essentialist bullshit that equates to “trans women are functionally men and trans men are functionally women”Every time. Fuck off.
I think we need to be extremely careful about word choice and examining the underlying sentiments when talking about anything that goes anywhere near ‘trans women have male privilege.’ I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing or that you believe that, but arguments that hinge on gender essentialism (which I believe a lot of the AMAB/AFAB ‘discourse’ winds up being/turns into) should be avoided. Both because gender essentialism in general is a flawed lens to view the world with, and because I don’t think I’ve ever once seen a productive conversation about it. At least not online.
I’m a trans guy and I’ve seen the kind of behavior in the OP online for around 20 years and I have no hope it will stop any time soon. It’s depressing AF and the only solution I’ve found is to drop spaces that tolerate that like a hot potato. That’s a lot of potato dropping, but it’s better than hanging around a space with people who make you miserable.
I am effectively saying that trans women have pseudo vestiges of male privilege.
It’s just a thesis statement though, I don’t know if that actually holds water. Feel free to challenge that.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that gender essentialism is bunk.
However just because it is bunk doesn’t mean people don’t unconsciously bias themselves and perpetuate it.
I think if that were the case we’d see enbies who were AMAB holding more privilege in queer spaces but that doesn’t tend to be the case. If anything, they are one of the most overlooked groups.
i’d like to see more than “i don’t know if it holds water”, especially since you don’t couch it nearly as well in your previous post bringing it up
a thesis is on the onus of who brings it up to substantiate it; if you can’t defend it, i would question the wisdom of bringing it up in an already contentious conversation
I mean I’d have to flesh out an essay to really make a conclusion either way.
Sorry if my assertion offended you that wasn’t the intent.
A transmasc friend of mine has speculated that this whole transmasc erasure thing is just a continuation of good 'ol misogyny
It just feels sometimes that we aren’t treated as “really” trans, that even in communities we should be respected in we are still viewed as our assigned sex at birth, that the same people who say “trans women are women” don’t really believe trans men are men.
And AFAB non-binary people get it a bit worse, from what I’ve seen.
I’ve noticed it in IRL spaces too, not just online. I don’t really hang out with other queer people anymore.
Dude there are still so many people even other trans people that think trans men and transmasc nonbinary people aren’t actually real it’s fucking wild. I’ve seen so many of them get treated by default like the only reason they transition is because they are so tired of misogyny they decided to join The Patriarchy to escape it.
It’s like people literally believe "Eww, Men are evil who would want to be one willingly?" idk, I feel like that’s a pretty strong argument that they are actually trans but what do I know?
baffling to me because as far as i’m aware it’s a fair bit easier for trans men to pass, testosterone is a hell of a drug
It being “easier” for us to pass is often used to justify treating us like shit. It’s assumed by many other LGBT people that you transition and magically get treated as a cis man by society.
Like yeah, at the store the cashier treats me as a guy. I don’t get cat called, I don’t get harassed in public.
But if I go to the doctor? What about how my family treats me? What about what happens when I’m in a “safe” space and disclose?
And it’s not always easier to pass for everyone. You can end up in still being read as female, TERFs and transphobes absolutely love mocking the way that our voices don’t always conform to masculine expectations.
The double fucking bind is that we aren’t “queer” enough to be welcomed by other queer people, but we are still too queer to be welcome in society. We are fucking invisible.
that makes sense!
