Transphobia: a thread

The definition of transphobia is too broad. Excluding male bodied people from my dating pool, or wanting single sex provisions for women and girls is not transphobic. Grave concerns for med trans for kids is not transphobic.

1/?

2/?
There are behaviours which i condemn in the strongest possibly terms. Harrassment, violence, discrimination, bullying against trans people, cutting contact with people just because they are trans etc. This is transphobia, plain and simple, and must be combated.

3/?
I have mixed feelings regarding disgust and anger towards trans people

It is normal, natural, visceral to feel angry and disgusted at eg a male taking hormones to simulate breast feeding a child, or publicly dressing as a baby in a nappy to involve passers by in their fetish

4/ it is normal and natural to feel anger and disgust at some of the behaviours too, harassing lesbians, calling women names for wanting to protect children, "pov terf in my mentions," I could go on

But i have issues with how it's expressed online. Here's why.

5/ One common thing gc people do is share an image of a transperson who's done or stood something objectionable. The transperson has usually taken the picture themselves and put it in the public domain. I don't share these images. Why?

6/
First, there's no bad publicity. By sharing the images, i am giving the oxyfen of publicity to somebody who may be behaving terribly, but who needs medical and psychiatric help very much more than they need a social media platform. It may also encourage them to post more.

7/ Second there is often an element of public fetishism in these pictures. Individuals may post pictures because they want to involve unwilling bystanders in their fetishism. By posting their picture, you are playing right into their hands. They LIKE it. That's why they posted it

8/ Third, by reposting the image, i put it on the time line of my followers, and engage them in somebody else's public fetishism without their consent.

9/ Even stating how disgisting the image/behaviour of the person in the picture is does not help. This is because many transwomen posting images like this have humiliation fantasies. They WANT to have a bunch of women calling them names. I am not going to add fuel to that fire.

10/ Finally, sharing these images can cause pile ons, and bullying and harrassment of yes, predatory, but also deeply damaged and disturbed individuals is not what I'm here for.

11/ The story about the transwoman looking for an infant to simulate breastfeeding made me angry, horrified, disgusted, concerned for the child, thoughts about the personality structure of the person doing this and the women playing along. I felt it was sick, selfish, wrong.

12/ "I have given suck, and know how tender tis to love the babe that milked me" and just thinking about what that person intended to do made me viscerally angry for days.

Then somebody i only met recently in this debate said something that rocked me on my heels.

13/ Imagine a 15 year old boy, with a troubled background, probably autistic, who has been pulled into pornography via anime, and now he thinks he's a woman. Before he is even a man, he thinks he's a woman.

I fucking hate telling women to be more empathic. Fuck that.

14/ women get enough of that shit every day, I'm not gonna join in.

For me, though, that thought did make me feel empathy for that boy, and even some for the older versions of him who come on twitter to tell terfs to fucking die.

15/ I can't engage in the elaborate self harm scheme of anybody else, even where their self harm scheme involves hurting others too. I want them to stop, and i feel that posting their pictures is likely to achieve the opposite effect.

Hurt people hurt people.

16/ On the other side, it is worth noting that images can be very effective at peak transing people, where words can't.

In that case, i feel that the picture alone, without attendant condemnation and disgust, may be more powerful.

17/ writing about troubling images in the language of disgust is likely to have the opposite effect intended. Words of disgust, or even mockery, may make casual readers feel "yeah, ok, that's weird, not my cup of tea, but really, there's no need to be mean."

18/ I prefer to talk about behaviour, rather than appearance. Since when was feminism into making fun of how people look?

Plus, it is offputting to trans people who may want to join the GC side, with our without transitioning.

19/ do if i ever do post a pic, I'm gonna consider doing the following:

Mark it sensitive so you have to click to see it

Blur faces

Remove links to the persons bio such as user names etc

Consider not opening to replies, so any pile on happens off my timeline

20/ and just to conclude, I'm not telling anybody else what to do, just telling you why i don't post pics, or talk about trans people's appearance.

It isn't transphobic to do it exactly, but i find it troubling in the extreme.

Ends