trans people: we are being attacked and murdered for being trans and can’t go outside without feeling unsafe
cis people: listen i know that’s hard and all but some frustrated teenagers on a blogging site are making jokes about us and i think that’s the real issue we need to focus on here
Look, you know I love you. You know this isn’t me trying to tell you that you’re terrible forever. You know I don’t hate you for what I’m about to say.
But, well, y’all keep fucking up. And you keep fucking up in the same exact ways, even after hearing me and other trans women tell you ad nauseam exactly how you’re fucking up. And hell, you probably literally are sick of hearing it. But if you’re serious about doing right by trans women – and, if I call you friend, you are – then please listen.
(And please, don’t try to claim that it’s misogynist to specifically address cis women instead of just “cis people”. That’s BS and you know it. Cis women oppress us in certain ways that cis men do not.)
Okay, so:
I get how important it is to love your bodies, and I totally support that. I also get that it can be cathartic to attack your oppressors’ bodies. I understand where that’s coming from, totally.
But:
As a woman with a penis, I can tell you with certainty that, as a woman, you would not be afforded more respect if you had a penis. In fact, you’d face even more of an uphill battle getting the jobs, recognition, etc. that you want, because every single time you did anything at all, people would just dismiss you for being a trans woman. You could fucking cure cancer, and all anyone would say in response is, “that’s a duuuuuuuuuude lol that’s disgusting”. You’d face even more misogyny, even more abuse, and even more dehumanization in general.
The uterus and/or vagina is not the fount of all womanhood. In saying or implying that it is, you are saying that trans women are not women. And you know that’s not true.
Trans women are women. Some trans women have penises. Ergo, some women have penises. So when you insult penises/testicles/etc. in general, you are attacking other women’s bodies. How is this pro-woman? How is it feminist? (TWEFs needn’t bother replying to this, obvs.)
Trans women’s health issues are women’s health issues. When you say you don’t care about the health of people with penises, you are necessarily saying that you don’t care about trans women’s health.
I know you know this already; it’s all pretty obvious stuff. And yet, when I bring it up in reference to something you posted, y’all resist it in various ways, usually tearing pages from the Derailing for Dummies* playbook. Which frustrates me so much, because you know better, and I know you know better.
Yes, by all means, be proud of your vagina! And support/boost/offer education about how CAFAB reproductive systems work, since society actively tries to suppress that information! And defend everyone’s right to choose tooth-and-nail! And raise holy hell about the fact that it’s easier to get Viagra than it is to get birth control! But here’s a thought: you can do all of that without degendering trans women, without shitting on our needs and our bodies, without situationally revoking our personhood when it’s convenient for your arguments.
You can. You really can. If I thought otherwise, we wouldn’t be friends.
So please, please pay more attention to what you say and what it means. This shit needs to change. So please, help change it.
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* No, I don’t care for the title. It’s still a good (and wonderfully sarcastic) reference to the derailing tactics folks use.
Hey, so, this is a post that I reblog periodically because folks still need to see it.
“not all cis people are transphobic” thats. a lie thats a complete lie hell even most trans people have some internalized transphobia that we try to beat down so idk where u cis folks are comin from saying ur not transphobic lol
there’s been a lot of confusion lately around what is or isn’t transphobic, and a lot of the answers people give are messy so i thought i’d make a post directly explaining it. i hope it helps!
preferences
everybody has preferences based on appearance, of course, and you wouldn’t call a straight man homophobic for not being attracted to men. however, if a straight man is not attracted to women that look like men (i.e. pre-transition), then they cannot say that they are attracted to women because they’re ignoring a huge part of that demographic. they are attracted to women with vaginas, not women. to say you’re attracted to women with vaginas is not transphobic; to say you’re attracted to women and then not count women that don’t present in a feminine way is.
if you’re a straight man and you find a fully transitioned trans woman (male to female) and wouldn’t date her because she used to have “male” genitalia, that is transphobic. as i said before, preference based on appearance is understandable. preference based on whether or not somebody used to be a different sex is not
to sum up: preferences are okay, but if your preference is only because of the fact that they’ve transitioned, you are being transphobic. you cannot say you are attracted to women and leave trans women out. consider saying you’re attracted to biological women instead.
language
unfortuantely, society has a lot of transphobic terms that we use so commonly we don’t realize that they’re even harmful. the first part of this is terms that we use to refer to actual trans people. a common phrase is “tranny.” this is an extremely offensive term and we’ve only ever heard it associated with negative things. please do not refer to people who are transgender as “trannies.” some alternatives: call them by their names. we’re people too.
if you have to reference the fact that somebody is transgender, don’t refer to them as “a transgender.” doing this is incredibly objectifying, reducing us to nothing more than the fact that we don’t allign with the gender that we were assigned. please refer as us as “people who are transgender,” or “transgender people.” the people part of it is very important to include – we are people too.
trans girl/trans guy – these are terms people use a lot to refer to transgender people. the gender after the word trans refers to the gender the person identifies as. i’m transgender and i identify as a girl, so i’m a trans girl.
for a list of things you might ask a trans person that are transphobic, please click here
transmisogyny and transphobia in feminism
transphobes are often perpetrators of another type of internalized hate – misogyny. misogyny is the belief that men are superior to women, and in the context of transgender people, transmisogyny is where transphobia is supported by misogynistic behavior
radical feminism. a lot of radical feminists believe that trans women are not truly women because gender is a binary and therefore trans women deserve to be held to the same standards as men, and treated accordingly. while it is true that gender is socially constructed, the societal pressure put on men and women to be a certain gender is very real, and whether radical feminists like it or not, trans women like myself experience dysphoria when we’re treated like men, especially those of us that are pre-transition. feminism strives to overthrow the patriarchy and do away with all of the effects it has, and one of those effects is dysphoria occuring to trans men and women as a result of societal pressure. to call yourself a feminist and to be against trans people means that you see women as tits and a vagina, which is not only objectifying, but it is also doing exactly what sexists do, and reducing women to nothing more than their bodies. if you do this, you are being transphobic.
violence against transgender people and your role in it
when trans women transition, they are seen as women by otherwise transphobic people, and are therefore subject to sexism. a common term for a trans woman is a “trap,” as a lot of straight men believe that they’re being tricked into having a gay relationship, as they still see women as men. as a result, trans women, especially trans women of color, are subject to some of the highest rates of violence in the world. the average age that a trans woman lives to is 30 to 32 years old. that was the average lifespan during the dark ages. the fact that a man believed he was going to be having sex with a woman but found out the woman was transgender has literally been used to win court cases. this is engrained very deeply in our society. trans men face a lower rate of violence against them but they are subject to sexism when it’s found out that they’ve transitioned. because of this, transgender men also have a lower lifespan than cisgender people, on average.
this is where you come in. as a cis person, you have the privilege of not having to worry about your gender, or at least not to the extreme that a trans person does. you may feel pressure, as we all do, to conform to your role, but you will not face the same kind of oppression that a trans person will for it, especially not trans women of color. that’s why it is your responsibility to ensure that trans people have a safe environment. there are many small things that you can do. as a cis person it’s your responibility to educate yourself. start here, and continue to read and be objective when you take in media. it’s not something that can be easily unlearned, and nobody is expecting you to be perfect overnight. however, we are expecting you to make the effort.
I hope this post helped!! if there’s anything that you find confusing feel free to message me and i’ll reply or add it to this post. thank you for reading!
So much of the Euro-American understanding of being trans (or anything other than 100% constantly identified with your assigned gender) focuses on discomfort.
Some people take this idea to an extreme and claim you can’t be trans unless you hate your body and want every surgery available to you. As many other writers have said before, that’s not true. It’s perfectly possible to be trans with only mild dysphoria or none at all. It’s perfectly possible to be trans and have a mental map of your body that looks just like the one you already have.
But I’d like to push even harder against the idea that trans=discomfort. I’d like to offer this: sometimes the exploration of one’s gender can be motivated by pleasure rather than discomfort.
Let me give an example. Let’s say there’s a person named Cal. Most people think of Cal as a boy, and Cal’s all right with that. So far as Cal’s concerned, a boy isn’t a bad thing to be. But sometimes, Cal likes to imagine being a girl and being treated as a girl. Those fantasies are always accompanied by feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, anticipation, and warmth. Eventually, having had these thoughts for years, Cal asks people to use ‘she’ pronouns in private and to refer to her as a girl. Cal does this for another year before claiming the label “trans”.
Some people would say a person like Cal can’t be trans because there’s no dysphoria, self-hatred, distress, or even discomfort. There’s just a pleasure-based preference. But why is distress necessary? Why are trans people supposed to be defined solely by our pain and self-hatred?
It’s my opinion that defining trans people solely by discomfort is an aspect of transphobia. The idea behind trans=discomfort is that being anything other than 100% cis is so awful that no one would do it unless the alternative were unlivable. Think about that: defining trans people solely by their experiences of discomfort means believing that being trans is so awful that only misery could drive us to it. And to me, that sounds like the thinking of someone who really hates trans people.
So I’ll come out and say it: sometimes transition or self-exploration of gender is not just about lessening discomfort, but is about improving and deepening the pleasure we take in our lives.
“Think about that: defining trans people solely by their experiences of discomfort means believing that being trans is so awful that only misery could drive us to it.”
Okay so imagine that a mother gives birth to a baby boy. And imagine that the mother really wanted a girl instead. So the mother decides to raise the child as a girl. She buys pink clothes, little dresses, hair pins, scolds the child when he “doesn’t act ladylike” etc etc etc.
Most people would see this as child abuse. And they would be right.
But what if I told you that this happens every single fucking day. Children who are not boys are forced to act like boys, and children who are not girls are forced to act like girls.
This is what it’s like growing up transgender in a household with a family that does not accept you.
it’s important that we pay tribute to Leelah and Zander, but it’s also important that we pay tribute to the five trans women of color murdered in 2015 so far. I have seen next to nothing about these women. They are just as important as Leelah or Zander. They deserve the same recognition. They deserve the same respect. Remember their names.
florida might make it illegal for trans people to use the right bathrooms but everyones still riding the hype train for same sex marriage having been legalized and this is why ive got no time for ~gay rights activists~ bc if gay people are the only lgbtqia ppl ur focusing on i want nothing to do w/ u
please do read this article esp if you’re cis. this is horrifying. honestly the summary doesn’t do it justice re: horrifyingness.
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