1:16pm June 16, 2014

Really wish that…

youneedacat:

People would stop using words like “DFAB trans” and “AFAB trans” as shorthand for, or synonymous with, “trans man” or even “trans masculine”.

I really think this is the source of a lot of messed-up ideas and misunderstandings.

Plus it completely makes it sound like the rest of us (other genders, genderqueer, neuter, neutrois, genderless, etc.) don’t exist or are somehow still the same as trans men on some level even though we’re often something totally different, with totally different types and levels of privilege and oppression and experiences in general.

Signed, someone who’s “AFAB” and genderless, and doesn’t like being assumed to have the experiences, motivations, or actions of a trans man by default

did a trans woman call u out for something lolololol

lolololol no.

What’s the problem, can’t take a factual correction without making a personal attack?

You picked the wrong person – my father is dying, I’m on my last nerve, and I’m in no mood to suffer fools. You can’t hurt me any worse than I am already hurting right now, so I’m not vulnerable to your attempts at social pressure. Other than that it motivates me even more to make sure people know the truth about things, because I know there’s people that won’t say this because they’re afraid they’ll get mocked and accused of various transgressions against the echo chamber.

There should be nothing at all controversial about pointing out that being DFAB is not the same as being a trans man, and that “DFAB” should not become a shorthand for “trans men”.

There should be nothing controversial about pointing out that the experiences of people DFAB are extremely varied, and that you can’t possibly generalize about them by extrapolating from the experiences of trans men.

There should be nothing controversial about pointing out that the privilege and oppression faced by different DFAB people is, well, different from each other. As someone (was it you, trying to actually use information instead of just pointing and laughing) pointed out, we all do benefit from transmisogyny. But that doesn’t mean that our experiences are identical or that we are all trans men, or that our experiences of privilege (including WRT transmisogyny) are identical to that of trans men.

These should not be hard concepts.

Yet everywhere I go on tumblr, I see DFAB and DMAB people alike using “DFAB” as a shorthand for “trans man” or “transmasculine”. Sometimes quite explicitly.

And as someone who is not a man, is not masculine, is not feminine, is not gendered, it offends me to be presumed male, to be presumed to be benefiting from male privilege, even, every time someone uses “DFAB” in that way.

But of course it can’t be that. It can’t possibly be that I have a real, you know, reason, for any of this. Much more fun to mock me and assume I’ve been “called out” for something and pick a fight. Much more effective as a means to keep the echo chamber echoing, too. Because lots of people inside the echo chamber are terrified of the very idea of being ‘called out’, or having been thought of as the sort of person who gets 'called out’, that’s part of what keeps it an echo chamber.

But basically it’s really simple:

Trans men are one type of DFAB trans people.

There are dozens, at least, of other types of DFAB trans people.

Don’t treat “DFAB trans people” as a shorthand for “trans men”.

Say what you mean, mean what you say, don’t pretend we’re all identical. That goes whether you’re DFAB, DMAB, even a trans man yourself (trans men are some of the worst about this kind of thing, actually). Just don’t do it.

Shouldn’t be that complicated. Shouldn’t be controversial. Shouldn’t invite ridicule and mockery from people who apparently really want DFAB to mean trans man. (I can’t fathom the reason that someone would want it so badly that they’d mock anyone who points out the obvious reality of the situation, but then again a lot of people like their reality oversimplified, it makes it easier to build ideologies.)

Or could it be that you thought I was saying twenty different things that I wasn’t actually saying? Hint: When reading the words of an autistic person it’s best not to read between the lines. I didn’t write anything there.

Would that this was a world where trans and genderless people could simply explore what our experiences are, rather than pointlessly get into fights over what they’re not, because everyone wants everything to be too simple. Every time you simplify something to this degree, you bury the experiences of thousands of people. I refuse to be buried in the service of ideology.

Now piss off and stop mocking people for telling the truth. You aren’t going to shut me up that way, you’re just going to motivate me to keep talking.

Notes: