Thread by @AlexPetrovnia

I’m very thankful that the trans Twitter community has gotten to a place where we can discuss this, because this exact issue has had very tangible negative impact on my life.

https://twitter.com/alexpetrovnia/status/1405239716610519042

As a transmasculine person who came out in adulthood and who has a history with very gendered abuse, THE major factor that stopped me from transitioning was terror that I would become the type of man who had abused me. I was afraid that there was no other option of masculinity.

While I was questioning, I found an online trans community to do research for myself. This community was majority transfeminine. That isn’t a problem inherently, however this community had an issue with vilifying masculinity and all masculine traits at large.

It was understandable. For many transfeminine people, their masculine traits are huge sources of dysphoria. However, the conversations happening in this community did not distinguish between their feelings towards their own masculine traits and masculinity at large.

Some of this seemed relatively innocuous. But hearing “ugh body hair is so gross” 1000 times in a space you were expecting to be a safe space for your transness and transition is not helpful for one’s self esteem or confidence in their transition.

Some of it was less innocuous. There were a few who would loudly proclaim that they were done with men, men are evil, etc.
Both the seemingly innocuous and more direct rhetoric was extremely harmful for me.

The negativity around masculinity and masculine traits legitimized my worst fears: that there was no option for an unabusive masculinity. And being told this by trans people, who I expected to be the only people to accept my transition, was additionally devastating.

This experience re-closeted me. I was petrified. If even other trans people thought there was no good version of masculinity, what possible hope was there for me to transition?

I didn’t come out until I found a transmasculine-specific community. Many of the people there had fled similar situations as mine in other online spaces. Many believed that they wouldn’t find solidarity or safety in many queer or trans spaces due to vilification of masculinity.

Transmasculine erasure within trans spaces has tangible negative consequences for our community. Transmasculine people are trans. Transmasculine people belong in, and deserve to feel welcome in trans spaces. #TransMenAreMen

Another quick thing. Transmasculine people don’t owe you misgendering for your comfort. It is not acceptable to consistently reduce transmasculinity to being “basically effeminate” or “nothing like ‘real’ masculinity” or any other similar contortion.

I see this issue frequently, from people modifying or qualifying their language around transmasculine people, to openly saying that transmasculine people’s masculinity somehow doesn’t “count”.
#TransMenAreMen and if that makes you uncomfortable, please examine that.

I suspect that this issue has a lot to do with why transmasculine people are often underrepresented in trans spaces. It’s a circular issue. The less transmasculine people feel safe in trans spaces, the less vocal we will be. The less vocal we are, the easier it is to erase us.

Unintentionally, I believe this issue creates a feedback loop.
Where transmasculine experiences are absent, they will be undervalued. The less that general trans spaces value transmasculine experiences, the more transmasculine erasure will occur in society and activism at large.

It is not uncommon in my life IRL for cis people to literally not understand that transmasculine people exist at all. I’ve had doctors not know that there is any trans experience besides a transfeminine one. This has tangible consequences.

When people interact with something completely foreign to them, they often do so with hostility. Transmasculine erasure in society at large has made trans resources less accessible to me, and made cis people hostile towards me. It also contributes to rampant misgendering.

I am often assumed to simply be a butch lesbian, because many cis people are unaware transmasculine people exist at all.
To illustrate the extent of this, several of the nurses as I was receiving top surgery didn’t understand what the procedure *was*.

These were the nurses prepping me for this procedure.
I have frequently had health professionals (especially around reproductive healthcare) tell me openly that they didn’t know transmasculine people existed until I walked in.
There’s no way this does not have tangible impact.

I wrote briefly about this here:

https://twitter.com/AlexPetrovnia/status/1389657841607364611

To be explicitly clear: none of this thread should be taken to mean that the hypervisibility of transfeminine people is in any way an advantage.
However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the opposite side of this coin — transmasculine erasure — also causes harm.

In fact, I truly believe that the ways transphobia manifests towards transmasculine and transfeminine people are inextricably linked. Without understanding that they stem from the same cultural biases of misogyny, trans liberation is not possible.

https://twitter.com/alexpetrovnia/status/1374012928383389703