I stand on my throne of shit and shout into the decaying air:
There are forms of violence that do not impact trans men. Transmisogyny is generally more violent than transphobia against trans men, intersecting both misogyny and transphobia, and often manifesting as literally murderous desire, and intense objectification. It is normalized in our media. It is considered an excusable bigotry.
But that doesn't mean trans men don't face violence, even if it's not amplified to that degree. There are very similar struggles at the intersection of trans experiences, of misgendering and medical abuse and corrective rape and a societal push to hate yourself and kill yourself and fade into nothing. There are things only cis men are exempt from.
“Transmisogyny is a more violent force than generalized transphobia” ←→ “transphobia is still violent and trans men will have some experiences analogous to trans women”
I'm too angry and sad to continue writing this.
I don't know where I'm going with it. It's not poetry or an essay.
It's just pissed-off ranting in a fancy layout.
Gender makes me want to kill myself
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Take two.
Given the state of things, I think there's more to worry about than whether trans men being erased is worth complaining about or who is statistically more often the victim of sexual assualt (when all trans people are at much higher rates) or who gets to call themselves a fag or whatever. Transition is being made impossible for minors and difficult for adults. Mass media outlets are comfortable misgendering and calling for violence against trans people. It just strikes me as ridiculous to try to pin the blame on other trans people, when the machine of violence is crushing everyone into oil for its wheels.
On the other hand, the way transmisogyny is ignored or overlooked in queer spaces is terrifying and infuriating. The way, in theatre, [DATA EXPUNGED BY THE SIR INGE CYBER(THOUGHT)CRIMES UNIT] The way trans women will have vent posts they made 2 years ago twisted to be “problematic” for not accounting for every experience, and trans women who make their living online will have their followings they rely on to live threatened, all because of lies and deliberate misinterpretations.
But this, too, is a bit more complicated. Every trans woman I am thinking of here is autistic. Not articulating yourself clearly, coming across as awkward, being read wrong—all of these shape the way these transmisogynistic currents pulse. I don't see this happen nearly as much to non-autistic or non-psychotic trans women. If you're neurotypical, you can walk it off, or never become a target in the first place; brainweirdness makes you easy and acceptable to ignore, to vilify, to gloss over, to accuse.
Even as a binary trans man, I have found myself spoken over by [DATA EXPUNGED BY THE SIR INGE CYBER(THOUGHT)CRIMES UNIT]
Gender is as performative (or a performance) as it is innate. How you perform your gender, manifest it, embody it, is vital to its formation. This is not a matter of passing or HRT; this isn't transmedicalism; this isn't a denial of the existence of nonbinary people. It is a matter of many aspects of transphobia arising from living in transition, be it social or medical or whathaveyou. The firm association with your assigned gender, through performing its expectations and not attempting to frame it in a transition and expression of denial, creates a very different experience of transphobia. [DATA EXPUNGED BY THE SIR INGE CYBER(THOUGHT)CRIMES UNIT]
I don't even necessarily think this is a problem on its own. Especially in the cases of gayness, through drag queens and butches we have a rich history of GNC and genderweird homosexuality, and it would be ahistorical (and just plain rude) to deny that. The problem is when this becomes our image of transness, and these experiences the deciding factor on transphobia. Nonbinary AMAB gays getting the attention and affection while the bisexual trans woman standing beside them is ignored; nonbinary AFAB lesbians dictating what transmasculinity is, talking down to trans men about our experiences of it and associating it with womanhood; these are problems. These are transphobic. This is my problematic controversial take: even if these people are trans, it's a different kind of trans, and should not be the authority.
Synthesizing this and the particularity of transmisogyny to intersect with ableism and go after autistic trans women, I have found myself having more in common with autistic trans women than I do with non-autistic trans men, or nonbinary non-performing transmascs. I do not experience transmisogyny. It would be folly to say I do. What I do experience is the way transphobia and ableism intersect; the way autism and psychosis and brainfuckery influence gender; transition, medical and social and messy and dangerous; the expectations and pressure to “break gender roles” and be GNC instead of trans (when did “let boys be feminine and girls be masculine” become more important than “let trans people transition”?); the view that I am regressive for existing.