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1:36pm August 18, 2014
Anonymous asked: re: treatment of trans men in social justice: i actually stopped identifying as a trans man online, i lie and tell people that i'm agender. i want to be able to talk about feminism and how sexism affects me without people calling me scum and telling me im worthless. i dont know whether other trans men are sexist assholes but i do know that the way people talk about them makes me hate myself. i feel like im not accepted anywhere anymore & i cant be proud of who i am. i just needed to get that out

…wow.  I hope that someday you won’t feel the need to hide.  Hiding takes a toll.  In my case, I really am genderless, but I tried to force-fit myself into the role of a trans man for a year or two when I was younger, because I felt like I had to.  And it was really uncomfortable, to put it mildly.  Being able to be yourself is important.

The power dynamics in the trans community are far more complicated than a lot of people want them to be, and that creates a lot of problems for a lot of people.  There used to be an assumption that trans women had all the power (that’s what people thought when I was more involved in the trans community), and now there’s an assumption that trans men have all the power.  And I don’t think either of those assumptions are accurate all the time.  Who has the power shifts a lot depending on circumstance and there’s no room for that kind of ambiguity in people’s minds.   It’s especially difficult because two different trans people can be dealing in five different privilege dynamics with respect to each other, many of them contradictory, and people really don’t want to think about that too hard.

Notes:
  1. withasmoothroundstone posted this