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[thread] over time, i've felt more & more like "transmisogyny exempt" is a tool of analysis that's really lacking & somewhat harmful. i'm drawing on the work of someone without a twitter or public work on this, but: no one & certainly no trans person is truly transmisogyny exempt
i've spoken before about how "privilege" is an inapt theoretical tool for looking at LGBTQ+ intracommunity dynamics, because (among other reasons) it lacks the generational aspect privilege was built on. this will also build upon that idea. https://twitter.com/l1quidcryst4l/status/988113085415198721
transphobia & transmisogyny are experiences of discrimination heavily based in perception. this isnt to imply that there are not non-perception based barriers (access to surgery, name & gender change, family rejection, etc are less perception based), but that it plays a key role.
and due to that, transmisogyny "splash damages" non-trans women. i know many, many non-trans women who experience transmisogynist harassment because they are perceived as trans women or in proximity to trans womanhood. cis lesbians, non-binary people, even gay men.
but it also goes beyond "splash damage". transmisogyny is also a (perhaps oversimplified) synthesis of a variety of experiences. i've seen arguments made that what gay men experience for their perceived proximity to femininity is "actually" transmisogyny, but i don't like the
framing of "actually". gay men and trans woman both experience a shared discrimination for perceived proximity to femininity. trans men, non-binary people, and trans women all experience a shared discrimination for the audacity to resist coercive gender assignment.
cis women and trans women (and even non-women) experience misogyny on behalf of being or being perceived as women. transmisogyny attempts to synthesize these experiences into one, and while it can be useful, it's also an oversimplification.
to call someone "transmisogyny exempt" can (sometimes unintentionally) imply they do not experience these multiple forms of discrimination that all underly the concept of "transmisogyny". and i think we can harm our own discourse by doing that.
this is also not to imply that there are not unique experiences along the intersection that makes up trans womanhood. but "transmisogyny" as i see it used isn't just speaking about those unique intersections, and many of the experiences i see it used for are not unique.
moreover, we have significant more to gain by solidarity in shared experiences of discrimination than we have to lose in opening our theoretical tools for analyzing the discrimination experienced by trans women to non-trans women
it does not help us to draw a line and say "everyone in here experiences transmisogyny and everyone out there doesn't". it's tempting, but it harms our ability to ask "where is the discrimination a shared experience and how can we fight it together?"
it feels based in the same emotions that fuel lesbian separatism and the removal of bisexual women from lesbian spaces, and "afab" hatred, and more. it is tempting to take our interpersonal and sometimes local struggles and give them a political basis, but it can also be harmful.
it is also the same basis on which non-binary people who don't want to be "women" get de or misgendered by other trans people. this attempt at drawing strict community lines around birth assignment instead of recognizing the complicated nature of these various and interlocking
forms of discrimination and oppression is harmful to us and we need to strive to do better. none of this means "trans women don't experience unique discrimination" or even "trans women aren't marginalized in especially harmful ways that many cis women, gay men, trans men, and
non-binary people aren't", because: the experience of being both trans and a woman comes with a really heavy mixture of misogyny and transphobia. but it's about recognizing that that mixture effects people regardless of identity, birth assignment, etc. and that attempts to draw
clear lines along something that is not discrete does not serve us, and feels grounded in local & interpersonal experiences & attempts to map lateral privilege onto non-lateral experiences. we dont have to do that & our solidarity and struggle will benefit for resisting it [end?]
