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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe it would be a good kick in the butt to know that as a gender theorist, your theory sucks if you hate yourself.

River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 1d

A transmasc who believes that only women can say something meaningful about gender, or that they only could have ever said anything worthwhile as a woman, is suffering massively from internalized self hatred but they are held up as fonts of wisdom.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 1d

This doesn't mean a work created under these circumstances isn't valuable, because the way we think under that kind of duress is important, but that it isn't actually at all enlightening or forward thinking.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 1d

And yet and yet! Internalized self hatred is what people want from transmascs because it reinforces their prejudice and desire to control us.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 1d

If you are an academic work recommend to me because of your gender theory, but also you are written by a person who finds it impossible to transition, despite the intense desire for it, then the work you do on gender is going to be rife with internalized self hatred.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 3d

That is how to trans people are thrown under the bus, because not pushing for our rights too, means that the fascists were correct in their calculus that if they just took as much as they wanted, they would gain territory, even if they finally reach a point of being stopped.

River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 3d

So whether we return to democracy or not, trans people are not considered people under that democracy, and what happens to us is not in the calculus for the return.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 3d

Throwing people under the bus is how the least impacted are the most desirous of returning to their normalcy, that Jimmy Kimmel is the marker for things getting better, so that is the extent to which they will fight.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 3d

It's also why people who are feeling better about the state of things because Jimmy Kimmel is back not only don't make me feel better, but make me feel increasingly alarmed, because for me as a trans person, things are continuing to worsen at a rapid pace.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 3d

It's amazing to watch in real time as the people advocating for the rights of marginalized people, y'know, the ones actually being attacked, to be increasingly framed as anti-solidarity. This is how people are convinced that throwing people under the bus is saving democracy.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

Someone who manipulates you to perform gender for them does not respect you! They use you as an attack dog and don't see you as a real human being much less a real man.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

Anyone, including women, including trans women, including trans men, who requires any gender conforming behavior from you for your manhood to be acknowledged are only interested in manipulating you. And they will manipulate you against other trans and nonbinary people.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

And recognize that you are not the only person denied manhood, it is more common among cis men that society is willing to admit. Being sure of your own self will make you stronger than any validation anyone else would give you.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

Trans men, do for transmasculity what you wish cis men would do for you. Treat you as respectfully as a real man, while not putting that in conflict with the real ways in which you differ from the idea of what a cis man is,

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

I would like for trans men to support transmascs as much as transfems, and not pit us against each other to alleviate their own dysphoria. I would like for trans men to celebrate the bravery and variety of transmasculity, and be proud to be included with us.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

because frankly just about everyone will discuss gender relations using the definition of man by the patriarchy, but then woman with the width and breath of womanhood via feminism.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

You can see transmasc invisibility at work, but also the erasure of the width and breath of what manhood and masculinity is,

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

Trans men are just as much men as cis men, and are also just like cis men, because "cis man" itself is a construction. These are manmade boundaries, so to speak.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

It is excruciating for trans men that they are not in fact "just like cis men". So they attack transmascs, much the better if they are protecting women by it. Trans men are rewarded for doing these things in a way that cis men aren't.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

Because transmascs, unless stealth, can never win the approval of cis men broadly, and because transmascs are vulnerable for reasons aligning with cis women, they seek (and need) the approval of cis women.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

For a trans man, the quickest way to recognition of manhood is to aggressively "protect women". But one of the key differences between transmascs and cis men is who they are trying to please.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

To be seen as not a real man is to be oppressed, but more than that, it's psychologically devastating and is fed by our trauma. I can see the difference between these two, because I suffer from one and not really from the other. Something a lot of trans men-especially newly hatched-have trouble with

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

Trans men do not get recognition as being men by society, but possibly on a smaller more personal scale, they might, sometimes. To the extent that they are taken for cis men, then they do, to the extent that their transness is not known.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

People (including trans people) will conveniently "forget" that these are malleable categories if it suits their purpose.

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River doesn't know what to say @riverraven.bsky.social · 5d

The key fact with the patriarchy is that man and woman are ideals as tools of control. There is no man, an individual person, who can also be not man in service of the patriarchy. There is no woman who can also be not woman in service of the patriarchy.

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