#of fucking course i dont get the same oppression a trans woman or cis gay man has; im not them!

[jules-hoard-of-stuff]

Stop feeling bad about my identity challenge

#vent in tags #i just... idk #i cant feel proud of being a man bc apparently thats terrible #i cant feel like a manly man bc im not one #if i feel like a gay man that feels wrong to others bc that means im 'just a straight girl who wants gay guy dick' apparently #and if i ever complain about my struggles with being transmasc its #“oh but x identity has it worse you fucking man! you gross man!” #hi not all queer oppressive experiences and trauma are equatable and in fact most of them cant fucking be compared #of fucking course i dont get the same oppression a trans woman or cis gay man has; im not them! #we all have our own struggles! why cant i put a name to mine? #why CANT i say the word transandrophobia? #why does me using words have to somehow automatically hurt trans women? i have no idea how that works #and whats worse is trans women dont tell me that OTHER queers and people tell me that #but the more i look the more it seems like everyone wants to pit us against each other. all the time #and now the fucking government hates us too are you *shitting me* #im just so tired #i wanna be a gay trans man without it causing me untold amounts of grief and pain from both in and outside the community #i wanna be effeminate without being told “oh youre secretly still a giiiirl' #sometimes i dontnwanna fucking bind ok? it hurts. #im so tired of everything right now #i just wanna be happy with myself

[its-an-inxp-again]

Hey

Idk if you ever got the answer to your thing. But I’m a person who is queer but regularly uses the term lesbian to make things simpler. I can tell you why I hate the phrase monosexual- it feels transphobic to me- I am not attracted to men at all, but I am attracted to women, non-binary folks, gender queer folks, and agender folks. If I was with a partner and they transitioned to be a man I would still love them. That wouldn’t change. Sexuality is fluid and calling someone monosexual seems to erase that and really put people in boxes. Everyone has exceptions. And as someone who has identified as bisexual and pansexual in the past and find those not to suit me and fit right (especially since I am not sexually/romantically attracted to people physically/based on appearances- it’s more about personality and what I could do with a person)

I don’t mean this in an antagonistic way, I really hope it doesn’t come off that way(I’m bad expressing myself sorry).

(I’m sorry, I know you’re not trying to be rude. My answer, however, will sound rude and upset because you touched upon some stuff that needs a lot of unpacking to me lmao. Just know this anger is not necessarily directed at you but at biphobia in general.)

Why do bisexual people may need to use the term monosexual?

A. It is descriptive

I see what you mean but as you said you're queer and lesbian is a term to make things simpler, right?

So I wouldnt call you monosexual because you’re clearly not attracted to only one gender (but if you want to who I am to stop you?). Monosexual is someone who is almost exclusively dating/is attracted to people of one gender. There are plenty trans people that are straight or gay that would NOT date a partner if they realized they were a different gender. For real: kat blaque made a video (here it is if youre interested) on youtube about this - she’s trans and she wants to date men and wouldnt feel comfortable on continuing dating if a partner of hers realized they were actually a trans woman all along. She wants to date guys not girls and that's FINE it just means A. She actually recognizes the girl gender, obviously B. She's straight af and that's wonderful! It’s not a box if that’s how her experience is and she likes it that way!

Also how is being monosexual transphobic? Cant a girl just like guys exclusively (both cis and trans) or like girls exclusively (both cis and trans)? It's not even enbyphobic since you dont need to be attracted to a person to support their rights. (Gay men arent attracted to women but can be 100% feminists.) Being open to fuck somebody is not the same as supporting their rights: fetishization is a thing. Again, I refer to the video Kat Blaque made.

Sexuality IS fluid but to some people (like me and you) it is more than others. Some people don’t feel comfortable dating people that dont fall into the gender theyre usually attracted to and thats 100% okay.

B. It helps in talking about biphobia and panphobia in society

Biphobia and panphobia are for the large part based on the assumption that you cant be attracted to more than one gender (not even non-binary and so on) and that if you do you're weird/disgusting/mentally ill/a sexual predator. I can tell you 100% that's the narrative both straight and gay people can and may perpetuate since I struggle w this kind of shit every single time Im attracted to someone no matter their gender (YES, EVEN IF THEY'RE A GUY, BECAUSE THE OTHER DAY I WAS ATTRACTED TO A GIRL AND NOW I FEEL LIKE A FUCKING ANIMAL THAT CANT CONTROL ITSELF, even though it makes NO sense because if it was two girls or two boys the actual number of people my hormones activated to wouldnt change, but it would make my experience not subjected to biphobia!). I’m not saying gay people are the same as straight people. But I do feel alienated BOTH from heteronormative society AND from (subtly biphobic) gay spaces because of my bisexuality. I costantly feel like I’m outside both of those worlds and you know how humans are: I just need a term to encompass it all easily, to say “I don’t identify with any of this” (which is both straight and strictly gay spaces: ie, monosexual). To me is literally the same as saying non-bisexual/non-pansexual.

I dont mean to say lesbians or gays have it easier or are just like straight people. But we do have different experiences and I need terms to express that. It honestly doesnt matter to me if you identify as lesbian or queer (though I think you’re implying you’re more queer than anything). But I do need a term to talk about how society at large treats sexuality; ie, as a monosexual thing. Another concept that’s been thrown around is bi erasure. A strictly monosexual society is bound to view a girl dating a girl (or girl presenting) as if theyre both LESBIANS and erase a queer person the moment they’re in a m/f relationship, because people cant COMPUTE that it may not be the case and that the girl dating a cis straight dude isnt betraying her queerness.To think so is basic biphobia.

In some ways, I think it’s the same as when transgender people started using the term cisgender - which is applicable to both straight people and queer/gay people. They simply needed a term which meant “not-trans” as they were saying “I dont identify with this” (ie the cisgender experience). Does it imply that cisgender people, no matter if queer, have something in common? Yeah, yeah it does. Does it imply that queer people are just the same as straight people, or face no oppression? Of course not. Seeing people being offended upon being called monosexual feels like people being offended upon being called cis to me.

Also, saying that the terms bisexual people use are transphobic is almost implying that bisexuality is inherently transphobic? Or reeks to me of that kind of rhetoric. I use the terms I need to use, just like any other marginilized group does, and nobody outside of that group has any right of denying me that. It’s like I’m trying to create a safe space for myself and people like me and yall come around to judge us YET AGAIN. And I'm just tired of hearing this bullshit. I could accept this kind of criticism only if it came from a trans person themselves, I guess? But it’s not usually trans people who accuse us of being transphobic, in fact, many trans people identify as bisexual and use bisexual terminology lmfao.

“Hearts not parts” rhetoric

Finally, about personality being superior to physical appearance. That's amazing but I do want to note that, not you necessarily, but many people who are into the “hearts not parts” rhetoric are, how can I say this. Slut-shaming people? I’m not sure if you are doing this but I feel it needs to be said just to be sure. A lesbian trans woman can be just attracted to a girl for her physical appearance and just want to fuck her - and THAT'S OKAY. That's fine. I am a sexually attracted to people and that doesnt mean I have to form a deep bond first. Sex positivity is about accepting that people can feel like this and not shame them for this. "Hearts not parts” rhetoric has in the past infantilized, sanitized or outright shamed other queer experiences. It's fine if you feel that way but dont start acting like you're morally superior because of that. That's catholicism with extra steps. My bisexuality its not the symptom of some predatory and animalistic thing that should be purified into something more palatable and less sexual. That’s the same thing they used to say about gay people and now gay (biphobic) people are using this against us. That’s also the kind of thing trans women (especially if they’re sapphic) constantly hear every fucking day. Queer people have a good part of their discrimination rooted in the shaming of purely sexual desires. Forcing ourselves to be more palatable and less sexual is just respectability politics. I’m tired of it. (This is obviously different from being on the asexual spectrum: but you dont see ace people going around pretending they’re morally superior than everybody else, and many are actually very sex positive)   You would still love your partner if they were a different gender: that’s great, but that’s not how some (most) people feel, and they aren’t superficial because of this, just different from you.

Also, I think you’d really benefit from hearing a trans person say they don’t care if someone has genitalia preferences. Here it is. This obviously doesnt mean that every trans person will feel like she does, but it does mean that we can’t generalize trans experiences/preferences/what they feel transphobia is. Just like straight people dont get to say what’s homophobic or not, cis people dont get to say what’s transphobic or not. The definition of those terms relies entirely on the community that is targeted by these things.

I hope this wasnt excessively confusing but I wanted to make my point clear.

#ask #anon ask #sometimes i say stuff #tw biphobia #tw transphobia #tw panphobia #tw queerphobia #lgbt #lgbtqia

[winterywitch]

anyway heres a summary of my discourse beliefves:

cishet aces/aros do not belong in gay spaces, bi spaces, lesbian spaces or trans spaces

for me my whole life the LGBT community has been more than that. my perspective is not that of some sad brainwashed child, forced into being more ~tolerant~ than i should be. i genuinely believe and have always believed the LGBT community is more than that, and im not just gonna drop that anytime soon, because i dont think the right to only consider the LGBT community as for “SGA and trans” people is liberation.

therefore cishet aces/aros belong in ace/aro spaces, which for me, count as LGBT.

but not gay, bi, lesbian or trans spaces.

there will be overlap because they are LGBT. but no, cishet aces/aros should have no claim to anything specifically for the L, G, B or T of the community.

for me the community is

Lesbians

Gay men

Bisexuals [SGA or not - as an SGA bi person, i get to speak on this.

Pansexuals

Trans people

Nonbinary people [counting agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, etc. non-cis, non-binary identities]

Intersex people (of course should they want to - the point of this list isn't YOU HAVE TO BE LGBT it's You Can Be Included)

Queer people [anyone who isn't cis or isn't het, including aroace people. non sga bi people im a little iffy on re: them 'reclaiming' queer]

Allies [i think this is important for people in the closet, as long as we dont let cishets get too big for their britches]

Aroaces

and hell, here’s a + to include anything i might have forgotten

aroaces are not functionally cishet.

straight privilege is straight privilege. it isnt not-homophobia privilege. to experience straight privilege you must be straight.

they definitely benefit from not experiencing homophobia. they can be absolute dumbasses abt homophobia for that exact reason.

but they dont experience straight privilege, because they’re not straight. that is all straight privilege has ever meant for me in my LGBT community.

cishet aces are cishet, and also aces. this means they benefit from cis privilege and straight privilege, but aphobia weighs down that straight privilege because they dont perform straightness in the Right way. i dont believe this necessarily makes them systemically oppressed the same way we are. but i dont believe aro or ace identities are privileged either.

there is no coherent Ace Community boogieman that is unanimously a bunch of homophobic, transphobic, racist jackasses, and if you believe that, you are a complete dumbass

yeah, the ace community is comprised of white cishets but, im gonna wager even more commonly, its comprised of literally every LGBT identity and race you can imagine. the ace community is not the white cishet community. it’s the community of everyone who IDs as ace or aro. this is not white cishets as a rule, as a majority, or even half the time.

that being said, inclusionists can say some stupid, shortsighted shit sometimes that is completely ignorant of LGBT history/oppression. i dont agree with the implications that i dont stand for every single thing they say and will not be held accountable for every single thing they say.

similarly, unless you wanna be held accountable for every single thing your side says/does before being allowed to call us out, uh, dont expect the same of us. the onus for this is on exclusionists, i have been around long enough to know you guys started this one. it is up to you guys to start being decent on that one, and then we’ll follow suit. those of us who dont are jackasses.

you are never at liberty EVER to explain to an ace person why their abuse or rape took place. that is called gaslighting, and no, you don’t get to throw a fit when someone calls this what it is. when you call a rape/abuse survivor an annoying disgusting freak for daring to talk about why their rape/abuse happened (since they factually know why it happened and you dont) and then proceed to insist that your headcanon of their trauma is the correct interpretation and theirs is not because theyre a filthy cishet ace (which they rarely are), that is quite literally the definition of gaslighting. and hey, don’t do it.

you are never at liberty EVER to explain to an ace person why their parents forced them into Therapy Specifically Designed To Convert Them Away From Asexuality (which may have a more efficient, shorter name). you dont know how that therapy worked or how the therapist worked because you werent there. you dont know that it was only because of homophobia so therefore this person has no right to claim their own trauma.

not everyone you hate is a cishet ace. don’t call people cishet aces unless you know for a fact they are cishet aces. i imagine you wouldnt want to call a trans lesbian a cishet, which exclusionists have done too many times for me to count. your platform should not be “you said something stupid and harmful, youre a cishet ace,” it should be “you said something stupid and harmful, end of statement.”

for some reason this is a controversial point in some discourse circles, but no one owes you sex. your partners don’t owe you sex. relationships do not equal sex. relationships do not even equal romantic love. relationships are a decision between multiple people on closer emotional intimacy.

if romantic and sexual aspects of a relationship are necessary for you, that’s understandable and okay! but you aren’t OWED that. people don’t need to out themselves as aro or ace for you. people dont need to feel pressured to give you anything they dont want to give. and you dont need to stay in relationships that dont make you happy.

allosexual privilege is not real. no one but white cishet men are 100% celebrated and privileged for experiencing sexual attraction. even white cishet women are oppressed for their attraction in many ways, and repressed from early childhood - so you can imagine how absolutely horrific sex-based oppression is for the LGBT community. we are not celebrated for sexual attraction, we are treated like we are dirty, and we are sexual predators.

WITHIN THE COMMUNITY, yeah, sometimes we are definitely, blatantly favored over aces, and people run around saying asexuality is unnatural, and sexual attraction is what makes us human. this is harmful and damaging, and it shouldn’t happen. i dont consider it systemic oppression and it definitely does not make allosexual privilege a thing.

calling people allosexuals is not something i condone. its not comparable to “cis” as a label, because cis people are an actual oppressor class towards trans people - non-ace LGBP folks are not towards ace people.

intracommunity bigotry is real and it is traumatic. people devalue it constantly and pretend it’s just a slap on the wrist, but it is an absolutely traumatic thing to have to face every day of your life. but it isnt the same as OPPRESSION, and we dont have to conflate the two concepts for intracommunity bigotry to be treated with the seriousness it deserves.

similarly, dont call people REGs unless they are not only aphobes but also truscum or TERFs. i also personally dont really believe in equating aphobes with truscum/TERFs but i dont believe in silencing trans people who openly talk about the similarities, either.

dont call people AERFs unless youre a trans woman holy shit

as someone who was directly affected by the truscum discourse when it happened [not debatable, by the way], this is pretty much recycled truscum discourse in my eyes. you dont need to lecture me on how its not.

just because someone on the “other side” called something you did ableist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, racist, etc., does not mean you get to shut your eyes and plug your ears. ESPECIALLY if you are part of a privileged class relevant to that accusation. for example as a white exclusionist you dont get to ignore the concerns of inclusionists of color or lecture them on the racism of the ace community. for example as a cis inclusionist [or honestly, even just a non-trans-woman inclusionist] you dont get to ignore the concerns of trans exclusionist women or lecture them on the similarities between TERFs and exclusionists.

“aspec” is not exclusively for the autistic community and i have NEVER seen claims that it was until ace discourse started. thats transparent as fuck to me and youre not fooling anyone. dont just make shit up lmfao

jokes about how Oh Lol Cringe aces inherently are, arent funny especially considering how many of these Jokes are steeped in anti-autistic ableism

idk when this happened but recently ableist jokes are the new Hot Topic of Comedy and thats like, mind-numbingly bad

i dont care what side youre on, IF YOU ARE USING THINGS LIKE FICTIONAL CP/PEDOPHILIC SHIPS/INCEST/RAPE CONTENT TO COPE WITH YOUR TRAUMA, YOU BETTER BE DOING THAT SHIT IN PRIVATE, ONLY SHARING IT WITH LIKE-MINDED, ADULT SURVIVORS, AND NEVER LETTING THAT CONTENT CIRCULATE OUTSIDE OF THAT GROUP. end of story. no ifs, ands or buts about it. speaking as a survivor who uses stuff like this to cope, being a survivor does not give you a free pass to, inadvertently or not, contribute to the pedophilia and circulation of grooming material on the internet. it is your RESPONSIBILITY as a survivor to not continue that cycle. if you avoid that responsibility, you have no right to play victim or pull the “im a survivor ;-;” card when people call you out on this.

educating kids on asexuality is not pedophilia, grooming or sexual abuse. jesus christ lmfao you dont have to assume people word it in a way thats inappropriate or predatory just because theyre pro-ace. kids NEED label/identity options, they are discovering who they are and without a label that fits for them, theyll likely feel like shit. let them have their labels. knowing about asexuality might greatly improve their life if it fits them!

for this reason, stop being weird about mogai labels/trying to “ban” them from everyone’s vocabulary/trying to turn them into some Cringe Joke that is only about Cishets Trying To Be Special. they didn’t fuck over EVERYONE.

inclusionists, in advising kids and questioning people who ask you for answers, be more open-ended. the insistence of “oh youre not a lesbian you’re a quioromantic demi-homosexual!” without also making it ok to just be a lesbian is what hurt and confused so many people on their journey to discovering their identity and its why they resent the whole mogai thing, fairly so. make it okay to just be a lesbian, or just be gay, or just be bi, or just be trans, while letting people know their other, more specific options.

asexuality is not an NSFW or TMI orientation

ace headcanons arent INHERENTLY homophobic, racist or ableist. they absolutely can be and ive seen that shit with my Own Two Eyes [pure innocent baby ace autistic papyrus headcanons back in the undertale fandom (shudders)], but they are not INHERENTLY so.

headcanons for characters with marginalized identity labels that arent identical to the ones you headcanon that character with are not oppression. and you dont get to police this shit as if its factually wrong

absolutely zero sexual interactions with minors ever, thanks!

trying to Bother The Pure Aceys by talking about sex is unacceptable

posting bullshit in ace positivity tags is unacceptable

stop calling people doing nothing but talking about their experiences “freaks”???

dont engage in the whole Oh There Are Valid Identities And There Are Special Snowflake Identities thing its not a very good look

biphobia is its own thing independent of homophobia

biphobia perpetuated within the community isnt necessarily systemic oppression but its traumatic and wrong and shouldnt be treated like some Lol Cringe Joke

you cant just say UM THAT LITERALLY NEVER HAPPENS???? when someone calls your side out on shit lgfkhghgfh especially when it literally does, all the damn time

ace [IRL person, whether or a celebrity or god forbid a flat out bigot] moodboards arent funny

you shouldnt agree to sex that you as an ace person dont want in a situation that you can control if the sex happens or not, but the pressure to provide sex to a non-ace partner is very real. stop blaming ace ppl for that pressure lol speaking as a victim of coercive sexual abuse, you cannot blame the one who didnt want it, even if they COULD have spoken up.

you’re not a bad person for wanting sex if your ace partner doesn’t. there is nothing immoral about not being ace. you just dont get to have sex anyway and you arent owed it if you are set on this committed, monogamous relationship - if sex is a big deal to you, you need to leave that relationship or work out an open situation.

laughing off peoples’ experiences as The Discourse is completely unacceptable, it encourages people to shut up and never analyze themselves and their identities

its not cute in your ace ship headcanons if the ace character is an asshole that rolls their eyes @ or judges their non-ace partner

similarly its not cute in your ace ship headcanons if the non-ace partner is an asshole that rolls their eyes @ or judges their ace partner

you dont get to tell people “ok you identify as heteroflexible but ACTUALLY you’re [insert identity]” literally ever, i understand the concern with people using “safe” identity labels to avoid facing their LGBT identities but acting on that concern in that way is not concern, its concern-trolling and its not fuckin okay.

legitimizing your own identity by delegitimizing the identities of others is bad

DO NOT, AND I REPEAT, DO NOT, BLANKET-TERM PEOPLE AS QUEER, LITERALLY EVER. DONT DO IT

DONT FUCKIN DO IT!!!!! NOT EVERYONE HAS RECLAIMED THAT SLUR, AND IT IS 100% A SLUR ON TOP OF BEING A CULTURE WITHIN THE COMMUNITY

JESUSS CHRIST DONT FUCKIGN DO IT!!!! WHEN YOU REFERENCE THE QUEER COMMUNITY YOU BETTER ONLY MEAN PPL WHO CALL THEMSELVES QUEER AND HAVE RECLAIMED IT/ARE PART OF THAT SUBCULTURE

we need more nonsexual, non-alcoholic spaces for LGBT folk that are safe for minors, trauma survivors and ace people, but thats not our fault, the prevalence of sexual and alcoholic spaces exists because we were literally not allowed to exist anywhere else until very, VERY recently, and even now it’s a Barely thing

you cant tell someone their experiences didnt happen like my god

we think ace discourse is about more than cishets because exclusionists make it about asexuality as a whole. you guys cant make it about more than cishets and then be like But Ok It’s Just About Cishets You IRrational Crazies?? :/

yes self harm through exposing oneself to the discourse tag is possible, no it’s not funny, no it’s not just ~cishets~doing that, triggers are not exclusive to PTSD survivors, shut the actual fuck up

you dont have any room to comment on the validity of quasiplatonic relationships if you’re not in one, most of the time you guys complaining about them and saying theyre Special Snowflake Things dont actually know what they are. mind your own business lol let people live

if youre not intersex, you dont get to tell people that the intersex community doesnt wanna consider itself LGBT, so they are wrong for saying intersex people are allowed to consider themselves LGBT. youre not being a good ally. sit down, shut up and let intersex people talk amongst themselves.

[to be added to at some point im sure]

asexuals STOLE dragons from CHILDREN to make themselves seem PURE AND INNOCENT, the MONSTERS

#discourse tag

[lesbian-ed-discourse]

this just in: biological sex is not the only aspect of gender, oh my gosh how surprising. y'all act like what someone has in their pants automatically indicates exactly how they'll act and think, which is not feminist at all. y'all literally said you dont think transmen/women aren't actually men/women. good job on being "welcoming" and "positive" - while simultaneously treating trans ppl like shit. so yeah, thanks for that. (pt. 1)

And secondly, denying biological sex doesn’t deny someone’s gender. Insisting that they must actually be men/women depending on their sex does - which is what y’all are doing. Trans ppl may have some particular type of junk in their pants, may have been raised a certain way but that doesn’t make them men/women - it makes them fucking trans. (pt. 2)

Trans people experience the world much differently than cis ppl do, and our brains function and are chemically different to someone who’s fine with their assigned gender. The science behind this is there, and there are several studies which suggest that the brain structure of trans ppl is entirely unique to them, just like it is for men and women. (pt. 3)

Actively denying trans ppl’s gender - by saying stuff like, “well, they’re actually just a man/woman” does actually hurt them. It does actually get us killed. Bc you know who else says that? The guy that murdered a trans woman who fucked him and now thinks he’s gay. The parents of trans teens who deny their child’s gender, resulting in depression and oftentimes suicide. (pt. 4)

I’m not saying you shouldn’t talk about biological sex - of course that is important. I’m just saying there are ways to do that without calling transmen “females”, and transwomen “males”. Surprise surprise you can talk about biological sex and how it affects people without automatically assuming that everyone with that junk is a woman/man - and triggering dysphoria and possibly trauma. (pt. 5

Examples of treating people like more than just their junk include - talking about specific body parts without calling their owners any pronouns, ex. “People with vulvas” “people with prostates” etc. actually talking to trans women, and men to see how they feel about this. As a trans person, it makes me feel like shit to hear you say I’m not a man - but it’s not surprising either. (pt. 6)

A majority of the population thinks I’m not actually a man, so you’re not particularly special. Most people don’t give 2 shits about people like me, or they just dislike us/want us killed and gone. You know how many times I’ve been called a “fucking tranny”, and a dyke? The answer is a hell of a lot. And you don’t get to just come in here and tell me that that’s ok because I’m actually just a woman. (pt. 7)

Reducing people to their biological sex is transphobic. You can acknowledge that someone has certain bits, but you don’t know how trans people think or feel or how being seen as just a dick/vulva feels. We aren’t just sex, we’re actual people with feelings - who wanted to be treated like actual people. (pt. 8)

I just want to say that if you being gender critical plays into a societal norm of treating trans people like they don’t exist, what makes you any different than the homophobic and misogynist politicians who want to see us dead? Maybe if being gender critical makes people lapse into depression and dysphoria, you should think about why you think it’s a good idea. (pt. 9)

Because the fact of the matter is is that this kills people. It kills young people, maybe not actively, but it still kills people. Trans teens have such a high rate of suicide because of people like you who think it doesn’t hurt to be reduced to your sex, who think it’s ok to not listen to trans people and treat them in ways that hurt - even when they've told you very specifically what is transphobic. You don't get to decide what is and isn't transphobia. (pt. 10)

So, first off: we’re using totally different definitions of the terms “male/female” the way we use it, doesn’t mean “man/woman” (as in the gender and gender roles assigned to someone) but refer to a biological reality, what sex someone is, and what sexual characteristics they have. To us, using “female” is the same as you using “afab” or “people with vaginas” It’s merely a biological descriptor, it doesn’t come with any “you should be like Y, and act like Y, and follow these gender roles” It’s just stating what “junk” (and reproductive system and secondary sexual characteristics) someone has. No more, no less.

I’m sorry that this causes trans people dysphoria and distress, I get why being reminded of their bodies, and their “supossed role in society as a man/woman” like that would (but I don’t see why “people with vaginas” is considered more acceptable? Since it also reminds you of your anatomy?) And I would recommend that if any discourse that uses these words is too triggering for you, that you disengage from it for your own well-being.

Now, cis women also suffer from not aligning with what their supposed role in society is. That’s what gender roles are, and they’re a tool of women’s oppression, which we as feminists want to combat. To be able to do that, we need to look at the roots of it, why is patriarchy the way it is? And the answer, harsh as it may be, is that it’s related to bodies and the sex of them. 

Being born a certain sex means you’re treated a certain way from birth. Little girls are raised to play with dolls (to learn to be “motherly”) and wear dresses, told that they’re less intelligent and inferior to boys, and that their only worth is how attractive they’re to men. Little boys are taught to be assertive, to be strong and to be leaders. This creates a divide, a hierarchy, and what each person is taught is completely dependant on the sex of their body.

This carries on to adulthood too, and yeah, there may be nuances, a non-passing trans man will be a lot more catcalled on the street than a trans man who passes as male. The same way, a non-passing or closeted trans woman (that’d be read as a cis man) may not experience misogyny BUT a passing trans woman will. And this is all because of the way misogynistic men assume what sex you are based on how you look. This is all because they see you as “female/afab” and that makes you a target for misogyny.

Now, I’m not gonna say that if the hypothetical passing trans woman I talked about revealed she was trans (so of the “male/amab/people with penises” sex) that was going to make people treat her like a man. Because society is transphobic and misogynistic and they’d see her as a “man deviating from their assigned gender role” which they hate.

And it’s this, this misogyny tied to what gender roles you’re supposed to follow because of your body, what causes violence against trans people, violence that is very often dished out by cis men. Cis men who in no way listen to anything radical feminists have to say because if they did, they’d be against gender roles.

Now yes, this also leads to trans women internalizing some “men” behaviours, because of being socialized as boys, including sexual entitlement (as we’ve seen with the cotton ceiling discourse, that lesbians are evil if they don’t open their legs for any trans woman) and we have to analyze that, but this doesn’t diminish the violence trans people face at all, and I want to reiterate that we don’t support that.

I’m sorry that this makes young trans kid want to kill themselves, but people shouldn’t stop speaking about important things just because it hurts you (and I’m saying this as someone who has struggled with depression and with wanting to commit suicide). We don’t want any trans kids to feel suicidal at all, but we can’t just not speak about sex when it’s relevant to us and our experiences, so again, I say that if this hurts someone that much, it’s better that they disengage from the conversation.

I support trans & dysphoric people treating their dysphoria however they see fit, I support them having legal protections and rights so that they don’t get discriminated against in any aspect of life, I support them in living free from male violence, and that they enjoy the same freedoms and obligations everyone else should. Calling them “male” or “female” when talking about feminist discourse (or about sexual orientation) where someone’s birth sex and the sex they’re read as is relevant to the conversation, doesn’t suddenly contradict the above. 

We merely said we’d welcome any trans men that feel they could relate to our experiences in our positivity blog, because there is and has been historically a lot of overlap between the trans men and lesbian community (many trans men used to identify as lesbians and viceversa, many lesbians have dated trans men, etc) so yeah we share common experiences because of our shared sex, and if they’re female-attracted, even more so. So we just said they’d be welcome on our blog, if any of them wanted to. It doesn’t mean we want to force anyone to take on any label they don’t want to (re: straight trans men and the label “lesbian”) it just means that if any of them felt they could relate to what we post, that that would be perfectly fine by us. But we’re not going to make anything aimed specifically at trans men.

As for trans women, I personally don’t mind if any of them follow us if they’re able to relate to what we post. I don’t like obsessively policing who follows me or who other people follow (mod m speaking here) But, again, since our blog was made to be a space for female/afab lesbians, it’s the perspective we’ll be speaking from. So we’re not going to make anything specifically aimed at trans women either, because we feel there was a lack of spaces that focused on female lesbian sexuality and talked honestly about exclusive same-sex attraction, and what that entails (because with discourse like the “lesbian are bigots if they don’t like dick” we’re becoming less and less able to talk about our sexual orientation and desires and what that entails, because other people thinks us talking about our lives is inherently evil, when it’s not meant to hurt anyone, it’s just us speaking our truth)

This doesn’t mean we hate trans people at all or wish them any ill. All we want is a positive space for us and people like us to talk about our experiences. 

Mod M :D