More languages
More actions
TME Discourse PUNCHES DOWN!
(What I wrote to someone using TME to talk bad on other trans ppl)
Systems of oppression weaponize ALL of us against each other
Trans men don't hold institutional power over trans women
I am not the enemy nor a threat
We mustn't erase each other's struggles
trans men are not a homogeneous group of people and no they don't hold systemic power over trans woman let alone women in general.
Trans men are not institutionally positioned as men Within the class society
Non-passing trans men in particular are denied *both* male privilege *and* cis acceptance. They face erasure, misgendering, and violence (e.g., being perceived as “failed women” or “gender traitors”).
Comparisons of BIPOC cis men to trans men is invalid. Unlike BIPOC cis men, trans men’s relationship to patriarchy is fractured. Their access to male privilege is conditional (if they pass) and often comes at the cost of being forced to assimilate into cis norms. Non-passing trans men, however, are frequently subjected to **misogynistic violence** precisely because they’re read as gender-nonconforming women.
While transmisogyny (TMA) uniquely impacts trans women, labeling trans men as “transmisogyny-exempt” (TME) ignores that **non-passing trans men are often subjected to misogynistic abuse** (e.g., sexual harassment, infantilization) because they’re perceived as women while also being trans.
Trans women face disproportionate violence, but framing this as “trans men have power over trans women" is wrong.
Trans men do not control media narratives, legislation, or healthcare systems that harm trans women. The primary oppressors here are **cis people** (governments, TERFs, corporations) and class systems/the bourgeoisie in particular — not trans men. Blaming trans men for transmisogyny redirects anger away from the actual architects of violence.
Unlike cis men, trans men cannot “opt out” of transness. Even when passing, their trans identity makes them vulnerable to systemic harm (e.g., being outed, denied healthcare). This is not comparable to BIPOC cis men’s uncomplicated access to patriarchy.
Intersectionality isn’t about ranking oppression, but lib analysis leads people to do that, which is what gives it a bad name.
It's the #1 complaint from anyone you talk to.
We should talk about how oppressions overlap without losing sight how class constructs these.
Your argument risks **replicating TERF rhetoric** that frames trans men as “confused women” who can access male privilege (a lie used to invalidate trans masculinity). It also ignores that **many trans men are survivors of misogynistic violence** and that **non-passing trans men are often excluded from both cis male privilege *and* trans-inclusive spaces**
Non-passing trans men aren’t ‘systemically powerful’ — they’re hypervisible targets of both transphobia and misogyny.
True solidarity means fighting **together** against cis supremacy, not policing who’s ‘exempt’ from which oppression. Transmisogyny won’t be defeated by scapegoating trans men — it’ll be defeated by dismantling the systems that harm us all.
If you dismiss my lived experience, I'll have to rethink things with you. I don’t owe anyone endless debates about my humanity.
I don't feel safe being around people that see me as the holder of privilege that I don't have and it makes me actually pretty dysphoric and it's hard to claim my gender identity when that happens
It's very triggering and it's hard enough to be Butch and be treated like a evil man let alone to want to be a man and then have to deal with that
I kind of think this is what sets people back a long way in their understanding of the politics at hand
And if trans men, especially those who don't pass, are feeling alienated and therefore avoid interacting, and the whole discourse seems to reveal that the individuals involved pronouncing these things have never been around a diverse range of trans men if at all then the communication breakdown will not get resolved
It's like a cycle of isolation and wacky suppositions based in ignorance which generates more isolation and round and round
It also makes it hard to claim my pronouns too, because of the way that people treat me if I say that my pronouns are he him and then I have to deal with just ignorance coming from people that are supposedly supportive of trans people but who suddenly think that my personal inclinations cancel out everything that I've ever lived through and continue to live through. Like what's the point if you're not seen for what you are? Might as well crawl back into the closet
And it mirrors so much the way that lesbians were treated by feminists all throughout the 20th century
Do you know why they were treated like that?
Because back then they were seen as male aligned or as men or things like that. So it's literally the same thing except that now it's happening to transmasculine people. Back in the 20th century, people barely knew the difference between CIS gay people and trans people. It's literally the same thing for the new generation of masculine gender identities
Back in the 20th century it really was about stigmatizing transmasculine people.
Lesbian doesn't have the exact same associations with transmasculinity anymore that it used to, at least in certain parts of the world
In other parts of the world is still does
But for those who see separation from lesbianism, which is correct,
They have reinterpreted lesbianism in a more feminine way
And transmasculine people are now specifically sidelined
The essence of transphobia is that the system cannot tolerate or respect people who have a mixture of masculine and feminine traits and this type of discourse about transmasculine people and trans men is committing the exact same errors because it cannot hold our complexity
Lastly, it's a tragedy because harboring these types of attitudes towards trans men and transmasculine people truly undermines the love and care that would be possible in relationships with trans men and transmasculine people. I don't think that there is any trans men or trans masculine people who would feel safe in that type of relationship where their lived experience is denied
I certainly know that along the same dynamic, Butch people are also subjected to unsafe Dynamics Within personal relationships because of their perceived proximity towards the patriarchy
This is really the same thing and it feels the same
Ultimately, the whole discussion is plagued by left-sided thinking, dogmatism.
A failure to examine and understand the specific conditions of trans men and transmasculine people.
Sigh
People who are victims of misogynistic violence are obviously going to be triggered by the fact that other people are labeling them in such an exclusionary way and actually it kind of reminds me of how cis women exclude trans women from their specific experiences with misogyny
Of course, the root is the same, just from a different angle. Somebody who is seen as in some way male aligned or adjacent (in this case, because of the way they were born physically) gets invalidated and excluded from their own lived experiences with misogyny
Sometimes I think that a hetero trans feminine person might understand me
In ways that others cannot
But this TMA/TME mindset had better not become widespread
Because then who's going to understand me, I'm not a gay man
I would like to have a relationship with someone that can see me as a man and not have anything weird attached to that
But this whole discourse just brings doubts
As to whether that's even possible and if I have to now worry about that when I go out into the world looking for someone because I already have to worry about it when I'm dealing with cis women whether they are straight or lesbian or otherwise
The fun part of reinterpreting lesbian in a more feminine way instead of a neutral way, is that also now trans men and transmasculine people are sometimes marginalized from certain lesbian spaces that are supposedly trans inclusive because now it is supposedly not lesbian to date transmasc people or trans men even though both transmasculine people and trans men have always been in community with lesbians for ever. This has even lead certain lesbians to avoid identifying as men and then just call themselves other more vague names, or leveraging almost century-old terminology so that they may be understood because it is better accepted then something more modern
I think seeing all of these things has solidified my commitment to being in the closet from now on to avoid being ostracized from multiple different "communities" for the way I would like to identify
The closet is more elaborated now: "woman" for transphobes, "nonbinary" for "trans inclusive" transmasc exclusionary ppl, and man for the ones I feel comfortable with
Trans men experience assault at rates comparable to trans women, but resources rarely acknowledge this
Being read as “confused women” or “failed men” leads to social isolation, workplace discrimination, and mental health crises
Bans on transgender healthcare make it even harder to access testosterone, a controlled substance that is harder to obtain than estrogen
Transmasculine and trans man identity has shame attached to it in almost every space even the ones that supposedly are inclusive
Trans men and transmasculine people deal with fetishization from everyone but in a different way than trans feminine people and trans women face
Research and data collection of generally ignores transmasculine and trans men experiences
And when I say that trans men and transmasculine people experience fetishization I do mean that they experience it a lot within LGBT spaces
Types of Fetishization that Trans Masculine genders experience:
|| - **The “Soft Boi”/“UwU” fetish**: Non-passing trans men/transmascs are infantilized as “innocent,” “pure,” or “adorable” in ways that erase their masculinity and autonomy. This is especially rampant in queer femme/feminine spaces where transmascs are treated as “safe” or “non-threatening” (read: not *real* men). - **Butch/Stud fetishization**: Transmasc people who align with butch/stud identities are often hypersexualized as “dominant” or “aggressive” - **Pregnancy/“Mpreg” fetishization**: Transmasc people with uteruses are fetishized for their reproductive capacity (e.g., $0rn categories like “pregnant boy,” invasive questions about “masculine pregnancy”). - **“Best of Both Worlds”**: Reduced to their body parts, denying their gender and treating them as sexual novelties. - **Transition/Detransition Voyeurism**: reduces transition to a spectacle, and denies bodily autonomy - **Trauma Fetishization**: Romanticizing or eroticizing the pain of being trans. Media portraying transmasculinity as inherently tragic - **Racialized Fetishization**: Trans masculine people as aggressive, hypersexual, delicate, mysterious, asexual, invisible - **Neurodivergent/Disability**: "childlike", "innocent", "quirky" - **Man-Lite Tokenization**: Inclusion in LGBT+ spaces without respect. - **TME Rhetoric**: Erases the complexity of lived experience, can be weaponized to reduce someone to a stereotype, symbol, or political prop. Validates TERF lies that trans men 'opt into patriarchy'. Dangers: Strips us of agency, solidarity becomes conditional, and gaslighting/erasing our oppression is dismissed as 'privilege'. Huge warning sign in relationships, TME can be weaponized to gaslight trans masculine people while fetishizing them. ||