dontcallmequeer:

ah that post was about cafabs saying “trans people” in order to portray violence committed against trans women as ‘violence committed against trans “people”’ in an attempt to profit of off it

for example it is so often that i see charities for ‘trans people’ pop up in response to an act of violence committed against a trans woman, and gain donations from well meaning people, only for all of the money to go towards trans men, and not to the people who’s suffering actually warranted the donations.

opiumhug then commented that cis people also use the same term: ‘trans person’ to refer to a trans woman in a way that implies that they aren’t really a woman, but something else. which is also a good point

androgyneity:

On this Transgender Day of Remembrance I think it’s really important for the trans community to keep intersectionality in mind, especially those who are CAFAB and/or white. So often violence against trans women of colour is co-opted and used as a prop by less marginalized members of the trans community, and we need to prioritize the majority of victims and survivors this day is supposed to be about, and who needs to have the loudest voice when it comes to arranging TDOR events and activism: trans women of colour.

We also need to look toward the new year, and how we take the message of TDOR into the rest of our interactions and community-building as trans people. Every single trans person, especially those in positions of privilege, needs to make it their intent to honor the value and contributions of trans women and black and indigenous trans people of colour in life, at every opportunity. We cannot allow the most vulnerable members of our community continue to go underrepresented and under-valued, we cannot allow them to be tone-policed and forced out of transgender spaces for refusing to submit to transmisogyny and white supremacy. We need to create spaces for leadership and consultation for trans women of colour, and many of us need to take a step back and assess the space we take up. Assess whether we could be making room for others who need a voice, or at least use our platforms to prioritize and amplify other voices.

mxbees:

[Image text reads: The Secret to Decoding Transbr0 Rhetoric]

Prologomena

Overall, I think that the trans community is particularly vulnerable to men’s rights activism, particularly as it instantiates itself amongst trans men. A lot this has to do with the erroneous idea that there exists a singular trans community. But as I’ve written in the past:

the fiction that there is an ~umbrella~, that there is a ~trans community~ hurts trans women of colour most

The trans community is a curious community in the sense that it is one of the only I allegedly belong to that truly thinks that transness, on its own, is enough to overcome the differences that exist between men and women. Obviously, I don’t mean physical difference but differences in power and oppression. It treats ‘trans’ like this great leveler rendering trans women and trans men (and enbys) alike in our experiences of oppression.

Of course, reality shows us that this is far from the truth. Trans women (in general) do not experience gender-based oppression like trans men. Indeed, white trans women do not experience gender-based oppression like trans women of colour. Why? Because overlapping oppressions compound each other and cannot coherently be extricated from the whole. None of this is particularly controversial. Indeed, many of the transbr0s I refer to in this piece explicitly acknowledge that trans women of colour have it worse. The problem lies in how they use this information.

Nothing discussed in this essay is particularly new, especially not if you’ve paid any amount of attention to the arguments radfems typically use to dehumanize trans women. Which, on its own, should tell you something about the nature of these statements and why they should be treated with great suspicion.

It isn’t even new for transbr0s to regurgitate radfem ideology as their men’s right activism. Here’s a great example of how this looks in practice:

I’m not using [female socialization] to justify excluding trans women from women’s spaces though, just because that idea has been used against trans women doesn’t mean it doesn’t hold any truth…The idea that trans men were never socialized as female hurts trans men.

I’ll discuss this example later on in greater detail. For now, simply take it as evidence that some of these transbr0s are fully aware that the ideas they espouse have been used to harm trans women. That this isn’t just some clueless men asking ‘what about teh menz?’. That this is a real problem that is growing and becoming mainstream. But becoming mainstream just as the wider trans community fully begins to grapple (at long last) with the violence that trans women of colour have to deal with. This timing isn’t accidental.

No, there isn’t a conspiracy or anything like that… but we are seeing the same growing backlash within trans discourse that feminism has been experiencing for a while. Elements that have always existed moving out of the fringe and into the mainstream. The fact that we have people within teh ~community~ taking up radfem ideology and dressing it up as 'inclusive’ politics should concern everyone, given that trans men have the potential to damage and harm trans women in ways that radfems only dream of. Why? Because they (and many other people) think they are fully entitled to the spaces, energy, lives, labour, of trans women. Trans women are pressured to work with and accept trans men in ways that has never been true of radfems.

Keep reading

n3ut:

feather-clan:

Friendly reminder using “nounself” pronouns actually derails the non-binary movement and makes non-binaries look like a joke to a society who already scorns them 

It’s also really upsetting to a lot of non-binaries because of that 

ok, can we get something straight? 

these are acceptable reasons to dislike nounself pronouns:

-intellectual, racial, classist, and ableist gate-keeping within the trans community due to hyper-individualized language that must be respected in order to participate but is only accessible to those with privilege (see: historically things like “manners” and “etiquette” were fabricated purely to suss-out and exclude the lower-class (who would not have been educated on such things) within mixed circles. nounself pronouns were not intended to, but do actively, serve a similar purpose.)

-the tendency to lump together purposeful violent misgendering by cis people with accidental and unavoidable misgendering by underprivileged/uneducated trans people, which results in the vilifying and exclusion of people who need safe space most.

-prioritizing the comfort of primarily white middle-class trans people and individualism over inclusion and accessibility of trans spaces

-other reasons to do with intersectionality and oppression

these are not acceptable reasons to dislike nounself pronouns:

-“if people use nounself pronouns no one will take us seriously” - it’s not other trans people’s faults if cis people dont take you seriously. it’s cis people’s fault. trans people do not need to adjust their gender expressions for the comfort of cis people.

-“someone came out to someone else and that person googled it and found nounself pronouns and now they won’t take their gender seriously” - I really doubt this actually happened irl. but if so, wow, that person is a huge transphobic piece of shit. you know whose fault that is? theirs. not trans peoples.

-“i want to distance myself from trans people who i consider to be more on the fringe of the trans movement, so i can reinforce my own identity as a ‘normal’/’acceptable’ type of trans person by discrediting them.” - This never works ever. I understand that being associated with people who you dont relate to can be shitty, but in a human rights movement, sacrificing the fringe to normalize yourself never works. because then the thing that will be the fringe will be the next weirdest thing, and the next weirdest thing, until you are the weirdest thing. cis people seeing trans people throwing each other under the bus for being “too gender-nonconforming for cis people to accept” only reinforces the idea in cis people that there are Good Trans and Bad Trans and that its acceptable for them to disrespect certain trans people who dont appeal to their gender norms.

it’s fine to have disputes within the trans community that hinge on the well-being of trans people. but you know what “derails the nonbinary movement”? trans people alienating other trans people for the sake of cis comfort.

if you want to discuss noun-self pronouns being problematic at least do it for the right goddamn reasons.