Thread by @LiamDel

Lets get a little uncomfortable together and talk about trans infighting. I'm not subtweeting, anything I reference I've seen from multiple people. Imagine anything typed with a calm voice, I'm not sardonic or biting here. White trans folk may feel challenged, but we need it.

CW: all the shit trans folk experience including sui*, violence, murder, anxiety, depression, discrimination, erasure, as well as racism, and refugees in detention camps. I do not invite comparison or argument in the comments. I compare ONLY to give context. Cis folk, look only.

I'm predominantly talking about Australian trans communities, because that's what I know - please keep in mind communities and populations are different across continents.

Okay. So. Infighting! It suuuucks! It hurts all of us! It REALLY hurts nonbinary, PoC and questioning folk!

If you've just discovered you're trans and are feeling overwhelmed about the future that holds, seeing a bunch of folk who are further ahead in transition than you can imagine just tearing eachother up is going to make you recoil. Especially if you're younger/vulnerable.

Nonbinary/genderqueer folk get flak from both sides, and whenever there's "trans men/women are shit because x!" there's no safe space for them. They get it double. It really blurs your argument when you forget nonbinary folk exist, and it must be shitty for intersex folk too.

From here, I'm going to provide in-depth answers and context, without defensiveness, to some of the infighting I see levelled at transmascs the most. These things I predominantly see online or from America, but I'm going to frame my answers specifically from an Australian view.

Lets start big: variations on "how dare you whinge about being transmasc when trans women are murdered all the time". It is a horrendous, disgusting fact that trans women are murdered frequently and without justice. But its striking that the people using this line are white.

It seems to always be white people, co-opting PoC pain and atrocities in this way to attack trans men. Its pretty fucked - Black trans men exist and face great dangers. In Australia, Asian trans women are the ones murdered but I only see white people talking about American stats.

Our government also incarcerates PoC refugees from all over the world in offshore concentration camps, including queer and trans folk facing violence for their identities, without medical attention - and the LGBTIQ community here ignores them to instead talk about US issues.

The Indigenous brotherboys and sistergirls here also face compounding minority stress, institutionalised systemic racism, murder, and interwoven intersectional issues that only they know the full brunt of.

This isn't to diminish the horrors of what happens in the US whatsoever.

But when the only things white trans folk talk about or weaponise is what is happening in other countries, ignoring the atrocities happening here where we can actually DO SOMETHING, and only invoking it to attack other trans people, it makes me wonder what trans PoC see and think

This style of infighting is also something I only see online, and seems to come directly from the US. I could be very wrong, but its not really animosity Australian trans folk do or feel in person. We seem to be less divided, and the trans women I've spoken to here seem to agree.

"What do transmascs have to complain about?! Aren't you glad people ignore you?!" is a variation on the same. And after chatting to those trans women I mentioned, they suggest the root of this question seems to be plain and simple lack of information of what trans men go through.

Its a cycle feeding itself - Trans men appear to have it 'easier', so no in-depth look at what they go through, which makes it look like trans men have it 'easier'.

So, here's some of that in-depth look, without "who has it worse!" bullshit. Any comparisons are ONLY for context.

I try my best to monitor every retweet and interaction (keeps trfs and bigots away), but if I suspect someone cherry picking and taking my stuff out of context to attack trans women I will block you immediately and without remorse.

Again, predominantly Australian stuff here.

So, erasure as a positive thing... I can understand how on a surface level, it seems nice - the idea being that we escape being attacked. But, we're empathic humans who feel hurt for the people sharing this same journey with us. Transphobia hurts us too.

Growing up, whenever I saw a transphobic depiction on TV, I knew they meant me too. I'm not saying we feel this pain equally as strong as trans women, because it isn't as cuttingly personal, but we aren't immune to it at all: Queer women know the guy who yells "FAGGOT" hates her.

For me, I knew those 90s transphobic caricatures were abhorrent and cruel, and while I knew they somehow showed hate for me as well, I also didn't see trans men at all. I thought I was a total freak, a fraud, and that only trans women existed. If I was hated, at least I existed.

Erasure can feel like gaslighting.

"You don't exist."
"You're not important at all."
"You have no pain."
"What are you even complaining about?"

And here's where trans men begin to have issues that well, are Transmasc Issues (nonbinary folk included!).

Many of us experience female socialisation- this in no way implies trans women experience male socialisation, I speak only about the real lived experiences felt by many trans men in how we were raised. Anyone who is, was, or ever will be treated like a woman experiences misogyny*

Many transmascs are taught from birth the same any woman is: Always be small, be quiet, never assert yourself, everyone has a right to touch you, asserting your needs is rude, always smile, never complain, never speak up, everyone else's needs come first, you look after people.

So we... don't speak up. We stay small. I suspect this is why trans men get a bad reputation - the few who escaped this stifling upbringing are the loudest ones. They're the ones who hurt us too, telling other trans men to "be a man, sexism doesn't exist cause I never felt it".

But I don't feel they're the majority. I've attended enough support groups in multiple states and online over decades, to know that most trans men don't enjoy toxic masculinity because it grates against the feminism we innately adopted to survive and explain our lived experiences

We KNOW this female socialisation, in our masculine controlled society, hurts women. But did you know everything they face, all the stats on sexual violence etc, are compounded when you're transmasc? Men prey on 'androgynous 'women', on vulnerable people, and fetishise us.

(CW sexual violence)
I've been trying to find the study for weeks, and I apologise greatly for not being able to link it, but I have seen an Aus/NZ(?) study that found over 50% of trans men had experienced sexual assault I believe by the time they were 25. Often more than once.

And like cis women, we never report it - because we fear transphobia on top of it all. And its normalised, against all trans people - cis people feel entitled to all our bodies. Gay men aren't exempt from this- they feel entitled to "try" our bodies, and get violent if we refuse.

https://twitter.com/LiamDel/status/980180425812267008

I know this doesn't flow well, but here is where I pick apart study data line by line detailing how trans men's mental health is the only statistic among LGBT(intersex/PoC/disability/ace/etc intersections notwithstanding) that doesn't improve over time.

Erasure is a big part of these numbers. We KNOW, it is ACCEPTED that erasure harms bisexual folk to a huge degree, causing horrific mental health outcomes greater than lesbians and gays. Trans men feel very similar, but feelings are difficult to quantify - a couple real examples:

There is a strange and fluid intersection of sexism with trans men, where people treat us as women depending on the time and place. I know a trans guy alive today that was put in a horrific mental asylum simply because he was trans. There aren't many transmasc elders alive today.

We highly suspect its because, well, they've all died - homeless, lack of medical care, suicide. And data keeps bolstering this: above I linked an Aus study suggesting at any moment, 2/5 transmascs are suicidal. And here's a recent US study saying similar.
edition.cnn.com/2018/09/11/hea…

Any data that I can find that actually separates transmascs/femmes, our horrific mental health stats are all within a few percentages of each other, and the US study above says teen trans men are most suicidal, the Aus one says trans men are the only group that doesn't improve.

Not "we have it worse!!"ing here- intersex people have much worse mental health outcomes than all of us, and many are trans too. But it does make it extra painful when other trans folk suggest transmascs are equal to cis men in all ways, when we are at LEAST all equally troubled.

Erasure of trans men is also contributing to our poor physical health. I asked a research coordinator why he was specifically excluding trans men in his HIV study, and his response:
"The data we have collected so far suggests trans men are at lower risk of HIV than cisgender men"

Seriously!??!

I had to educate and link this professor to several studies all stating transmascs are at very high risk. His data affects all of Australia. He never replied, but he did immediately contact a trans guy working for an AIDS organisation to ask if this was true.

Trans men in Australia weren't allowed hormone therapy for a long time after trans women were, too - and then for a long time, only straight trans men were allowed it. I'm 31 and in my own memory, I wasn't allowed T because I was attracted to men. "A confused straight woman".

This warped sexism against trans men is an intimate, ingrained part of many of us - we experienced sexism and misogyny first hand when everyone (even ourselves) thought we were women, and those experiences don't just stop or have a defined end point once we transition.

I know so many trans men who are terrified, anxious and acutely aware of how they are perceived by women, EXPLICITLY because they know exactly what its like to walk home in the dark with heavy footsteps following you and they can't bear to be the cause of that familiar dread now.

We have first-hand experience of domestic violence at the hands of men, at very high rates. When you say "men are shit" WE GET IT! We agree! And we have to live with the complexity of people seeing us and feeling like we're "turning into our abuser" because we discover ourselves.

I have so much more to say and many more examples, there's so much nuance to get into. But I’ve been writing this for hours and am so fatigued by looking at study data showing how much pain all of us are in every day.

There are asshole, abusive trans men out there. Absolutely. There are asshole, abusive people in every letter of the LGBTIQ spectrum and all the spaces in between. Those asshole trans men hurt other trans men too, and in our support groups we do our best to undo toxic cultures.

Trans communities and trans people are some of the kindest, introspective, aware spaces and people I've ever encountered, nonbinary, genderqueer and questioning people included. All going through so much, and I refuse to watch us grow divisions along ridiculous gender lines.

We are above that. We're a mess of conflicting traumas and survival coping mechanisms, but we are also emotionally intelligent beyond compare and capable of moving mountains within us to change and heal for the better - I see it every day across our whole community.

I'm going to keep responding to harsh words directed at me from other trans people by empathising and seeking the root of the issue, and I'm going to continue to educate and converse with people who show disrespect to others.

(*trans woman once explained her feeling of female socialisation, paraphrasing, "I know what it was like to be a girl because I wasn't allowed it. No emotions, no femininity, no affectionate contact, etc."
Every one of us has a lived experience that doesn't negate anyone else's.)

advocate.com/commentary/201…

And of course I had this tab open the whole time and forgot all about it. Loree Cook-Daniels really simply and with an easy to read graph provides information about the types of violence trans men experience.