so like, I’ve grumbled a bit in other places about how there’s a handful of transfem academics I follow who do great work in their fields and have cool stuff to say about transfem things, but who consistently fuck up their analysis of trans men. And I just don’t know how to handle it, emotionally, because I want to engage with their work (which is good!) but every time I see their dismissive asides about trans men or their passing-over of trans men’s issues I feel like I’m getting an electric shock.
I’m going to use names in this post, mostly because they’re not famous-famous and I can’t just imply who I’m talking about, with the exception of one because it isn’t citeable from written work and that’s slightly too personal for me to want to name her. Like I said, they do good work, I respect them, don’t fucking go and harass them off the back of this vent. I also don’t mean for this to imply that this is a ~conspiracy~ or ~in cahoots~, the only links are that they’re moderately prominent transfem academics who work on trans issues, some of whom know each other.
But like. How am I supposed to feel okay when the best article explaining the Bell v. Tavistock puberty blocker case I’ve yet found, by English Literature lecturer Grace Lavery, doesn’t mention trans men at all and makes no analysis of how the case is rooted in anti-transmasc fearmongering, only naming Abigail Shrier as someone who had previously written a hit piece about Lavery rather than as the author of a major anti-transmasc conversion therapy book?
How am I supposed to handle Jules Gill-Peterson throwing asides into her writing like “Black and brown trans women are in danger. White trans men are not.” when any look at the reported rates of violence and abuse against us would prove that untrue? How am I supposed to feel happy about her romantically aiming for “[T]he right to be invisible. The escape from the archive and escape from representation as something Black and brown trans women deserve. That we struggle for.” – when that same invisibility of trans men (including Black and brown trans men) is used to paint us as lazy whiners who have never done anything for the trans community?
(How am I supposed to be okay with Gill-Peterson romanticising invisibility when Julia Serano recently endorsed TME/TMA language on the basis that trans men are apparently romanticising hypervisibility?)
How am I supposed to feel about a trans woman academic who refuses to study trans men’s issues for personal reasons (fair), but then turns around and speculates about trans men’s place in alternative subcultures without asking us?
I just hate this. A lot. And it’s not like I can say anything about it, because I’m just some fucking nobody, and I’m a white trans man so I’m ~safe~ anyway and probably only upset because I don’t have ~real problems~.
I really really hope this doesn’t come across as like attention-stealing or derailing because I promise this is meant in the full intent to bolster your argument and take part in your grievances
Which is to say. Yeah. Yeah. This is actually honestly exactly how I feel as an aroace person reading literally almost anything LGBTQIA+ related, too. :(
Gay people will write such incredibly soulful and nuanced discussions if the impact of compulsory heteronormativity on everything from sexual trauma to fashion, and then maybe at best will toss of something like ‘and maybe not being interested in sex could lead to similar problems.’ But mainly they just take it as given that aros and aces are only minorly inconvenienced by their 'oppression.’ People who are ace or aro are always expected to say that 'obviously,’ they have it pretty good compared to others. Actual statistucs showing sickening levels of abuse and sexual assault and all-around bad shit never get so much as a glance.
But that’s literally almost all if the literature. It’s impossible to ignore. I went to a book store that had a LGBT+ section for the first time recently, and it was a pretty big one, and I did not find even ONE that even BRIEFLY discussed ace or aros’ suffering. If we were mentioned at all, it was usually only as a token, like 'haha, look at all these wacky things people like to identify as these days? ☺’
And like. It DOES fucking suck. For aros and aces and trans men and enbies and whoever else gets that. Invisibility is suffocating. It’s gaslighting. It’s the parent who convinces you that you’re the abuser, actually, and controls everything you do and turns your own friends against you until you don’t even believe in your own experiences anymore.
And getting that from the people who are supposed to be safe - your own community? People who’ll look down on you and tell you you’re a terrible person for talking about yourself because you’re supposed to listen to the most marginalised voices, and your suffering isn’t nearly bad enough to qualify?
Yeah. It is like an electric shock. And then I tell myself I deserve it actually for being selfish and arrogant enough to believe that my feelings matter here at all.
