Thread by @MariBrighe

Thread:

One of the most fascinating manifestations of transmisogyny is the way it shapes the public discourse on transness overall.

In many ways, the wider public perceives trans women as the “source” or “root” of transgender phenomenon. We are to “blame” for this “deviance”.

Because of this, most discourse and policy actions on trans issues is framed in a peculiar way:

People/society need to be protected from trans women, but AFAB people need to be protected from the corrupting influence of transness *itself*.

I’ll tell you why that’s interesting

It becomes a lens to understand the difference between transmisogyny and garden-variety misogyny.

In this scenario, trans women are demonized, but AFAB trans people are infantilized.

Transness isn’t something AFAB trans folk are, it’s something that *happens* to them.

This framing is almost never used for trans women. We are viewed as defective *people*.

And that’s the misogyny/transmisogny distinction here. The “uterus magic” of sex-essentialism means that AFAB trans folk get denied agency, and pitied as too naive to understand “the agenda”

Whereas for trans women...the “phallic taint” of sex-essentialism means we retain all the danger associated with men, but amplified by the distrust of femininity (which is viewed as artifice and deceptive).

They see us as both corrupters of men and thieves of women & girls.

And so, when laws are targeted at trans folk, they are generally intended to:

-criminalize and marginalize trans women, and must us as visible and “marked” as possible
-prevent AFAB trans people from ever transitioning or even being exposed to trans “ideology” to begin with

To intersect this back to my lengthy thread from last week on purity culture:

Trans women are viewed as deeply deviant because femininity is extremely sexualized in our culture, so people cannot imagine anyone would “give up maleness” for anything other than sexual reasons.

To make things worse, our weirdly puritanical culture still has hang ups about the idea of women’s sexual pleasure, especially w/o procreation.

By our very nature, trans women cannot bear children, which society views as the true “purpose” of women. Even T*RFs will tell you that

Because of this, trans women are already “failed women”, because uterus magic.

So, (according to the wider public), we are people who transitioned to womanhood for sexual purposes who don’t even have the decency to make babies while doing it.

Perversion incarnate!

For certain theorists, like Blanchard & Bailey...queer trans women are EVEN WORSE.

Not only are we transitioning for sexual reasons without having the decency to be fetus incubators, but we also don’t even have the decency to be pleasure objects for men! [Women’s OTHER purpose.]

So, that’s half of the Villainy of Trans Women.

The other half, of course, is that we’re “infecting women and girls” with our twisted ideology and convincing them to “mutilate” their bodies.

Which, as I discussed in this earlier thread, is a TERRIBLE sin to heteropatriachy.

https://twitter.com/maribrighe/status/1376962703672143874

You see this in even the bills rhetoric around trans youth bills.

The worries are:

For young trans girls: their presence in bathrooms/locker rooms, & competing in sports [They ARE the danger ]

For AFAB trans kids: their breasts, reproductive capacity [Must be protected!]

In essence, the structure of our culture is such that we place trans women as the most extreme of villains, the culmination of all thing bad, dangerous, and corrupt about gender and sexuality.

And trans men and other AFAB trans people are naive, innocent, preyed-upon victims.

And, of course, what makes that all the more utterly fucked up is that the actual reality is trans women are PROFOUNDLY marginalized, and we have extraordinarily little social power. We’re terribly vulnerable.

And that makes it very hard to counteract this overarching view of us

As per usual, if you like my threads, tips are always appreciated.

I’m working on other ways to support my work and put my thinky-thoughts out, but I’m also stressed out, neurodivergent healthcare worker who is on call 24-7 one week out of three. 🥴

ko-fi.com/maribrighe

The usual trash rabble have found this thread, and I remain extremely grateful for the limit replies feature. Still will be blocking transphobes who quote-tweet though.