1:37pm June 16, 2014

Really wish that…

transluminescence:

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

Um, I’m probably missing some context but isn’t the issue more about transmisogyny (something which most of not all DMAB trans people experience since moving away from masculinity is seen as moving towards femininity) and how all DFAB people are capable of perpetrating it and oppressing trans women and DMAB trans people in general? And the fact that the position of neutros/genderqueer/genderless etc is something that’s often coded to mean only DFABs in the first place? And DFAB trans people occupying positions in which we use male privilege to our benefit in certain ways then use our birth assignment to access others?

Like IDK, I am DFAB trans and somewhere in the region of female and neutrois, there is nothing masculine or male about me and i am a woman in many ways, relationships etc and neutrois in other ways/contexts so if I see people talking about DFAB trans ppl being oppressive towards DMAB trans people or anyone else really by using their masculinity/male privilege, I’m like OK that’s something to be aware of but it doesn’t really apply to me personally cos I’m not male or masculine in any way, so I don’t worry about it. If it’s something about DFABs using birth assignment against DMAB trans people I go ‘ok that could apply to me so I need to be conscious of it’ so I guess my point is, if something doesn’t apply to you, if it’s not about you, why worry about it?

i think OP is trying to say that they are tired of dfab trans ppl being associated with Moving Toward Maleness and treated homogeneously as The Full FTM which i mean, i dont blame them because thats irritating, but also

like you said, as dfab people we occupy a place of privilege over dmab trans people and especially trans women and i dont appreciate the sentiment that just because not all of us are moving toward maleness we dont occupy that place of privilege that im getting from OP ….. lemme know if any of this is bad/gross. im just tryin to clarify

#long post #trans stuff

Okay so if you “don’t appreciate the sentiment” that you’re “getting from the OP”, and the “sentiment” in question was not written anywhere in the OP, then is it possible, just possible, that the “sentiment” in question comes wholly from the inside of your brain, and not from the OP at all?

I’ve never said I don’t benefit from transmisogyny, or that I don’t have privilege over trans women. Of course I do? How is that even in question?

I have said that I don’t have male privilege, that I am not a trans man, and that my experiences of privilege and oppression are different from that of a trans man in several key ways. (Including a total lack of male privilege. Just for, you know, the biggest, most annoying, assumption.)

Isn’t it hard enough to have a conversation about these things, without having to have a fucking conversation about fucking things I didn’t even fucking write? Or think?

How about when you have vague “sentiments” about a post, that aren’t actually expressed anywhere in the post, you keep them exactly where they originated – in your own mind? And how about you take responsibility for those sentiments, rather than blaming them on “the OP”? Because this is just fucking ridiculous.

Way to take a potentially inflammatory topic and pour gasoline on it. Because when you write about those “sentiments” that originate in your head, as if they originated in my head, then people start believing you, and I somehow have to answer for things I never said, and that starts to piss me off.

Notes: