Transgender inclusion beyond privileged tech bubbles. Building resilient online queer communities: resisting gentrification, assimilation, wreckers, and respectability politics.
@barks shares accessible threads about complex issues affecting internet communities.
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Index of threads: https://mastodon.social/@TransGuideDog/114336739134154235
Quickly dropping on this account to share this link:
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/why-transgender-people-are-not-feeling
There is a promo effort to groom Gavin Newsom as the next Democrat candidate in the USA, despite his statement that trans people should not get to transition before age 25.
You can't expect any kind of "big tent" politics under the circumstances: trans people will not light themselves on fire to keep you warm.
There is a public consultation from the European commission, still open for a few hours, about LGBTQIA+ rights. A few fascists had their say: can we drown out their voices? Participating is quick and easy, it took me less than 5 minutes.
Behind this struggle for language, there are more complex social dynamics, of course, but let's keep this thread focused on this single topic today.
Remember my thread on "why is there so much trans lingo"?
https://mastodon.social/@TransGuideDog/114382399837751027
Sometimes, words don't quite work out and get replaced. That's why I personally stopped saying "transmisandry" and now say "anti-transmasculinity".
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Additionally, when people use the word, it's often in a context of immediate pain: policing their language, derailing a raw and emotional conversation about their oppression into a technical debate about academic topics... it helps nobody, and adds insult to injury.
Queer people are way too busy surviving being queer to put in years into studying humanities to magically guess the ivory tower language to talk of their pains.
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It doesn't help that "misandry" is often perceived as "men's rights activism" language. The word will put people on edge in any context.
However, for men who use the "transmisandry" word, you cannot simply discard the fact trans men face all sorts of discrimination that are unique to the transmasculine experience: denying them specific language feels like denying their reality.
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That's why "transmisandry" causes offense: misandry is a concept like "reverse racism", something that doesn't happen at the institutional, systemic level-only as interpersonal prejudice.
Transmasculine author Devon Price articulates this perspective by saying "Trans men suffer under systemic transphobia and sexism. But no one is oppressed for being a man.":
https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/transmisandry-is-not-real
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Transfeminist author Julia Serano coined "transmisogyny", being the intersection of the two concepts the word is comprised of: misogyny and transphobia.
We saw the word expanded further in the word "Transmisogynoir", encapsulating the three forms of systemic oppression faced by Black trans women.
Those words are used to describe those forces within the frameworks of intersectional feminism.
[3/7]
I want to start with the conclusion: looking into this matter recently, I changed my language to say "anti-transmasculinity", as I never saw people take offense with that word, and its meaning is clear.
If your goal is to avoid pissing off people unnecessarily... you can probably stop reading here.
What's at stake in the language used can be quite a technical conversation, removed from the object level.
[2/7]
Let's discuss today a subject that often causes avoidable disputes in Queer Fedi: the language to use to discuss discrimination against trans men.
Why does the word "transmisandry" arouse animosity, to the point of derailing important conversations?
Hopefully, you'll find my take nuanced and charitable enough to explain the opposing perspectives, and you're welcome to share yours in this thread's replies. 🧵👇
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