One of the most affirming aspects of feminist movement has been the formation of an intellectual environment where there has been sustained dialectal critique and exchange. Hearing the voices of radical thinkers (among them the voices of women of color), the face of feminist theory and practice changed. Many unenlightened white women broke down the wall of denial and began to examine anew how they had talked and written about gender in the past. There has been no other movement for social justice in our society that has been as self-critical as feminist movement. Feminist willingness to change direction when needed has been a major source of strength and vitality in feminist struggle. That internal critique is essential to any politics of transformation. Just as our lives are not fixed or static but always changing, our theory must remain fluid, open, responsive to new information.

from Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks (2nd ed. 2000)

i think genuinely one of the biggest political weak spots on the trans community in terms of actually pursuing liberation is people’s aversion to meaningfully challenging the gender binary because it is personally gender affirming for them. so much reactionary bullshit in this community is intimately tied to exorsexism and transmedicalism/

and like. i also don’t want to downplay why people would feel like that. you spend your entire life suffering because of being denied your gender. it impacts your identity and your relationships and your work and your everything. and then when there’s finally a chance that you may actually be able to cross the great divide that separates the group you are forced to be to and the group you have always felt you belonged in, there is all of this talk about how we should dismantle the groups entirely, when you have barely - if at all - gotten a chance to even exist in a way that doesn’t make you want to kill yourself, when the groups are still influencing everything about the world all the time.

but the thing is! we feel this way primarily because in our present culture, to be gendered as cis-binary is to be made human. it is to socially exist, to be seen, to be loved, to have existential, ontological meaning as a person. and nonbinary people do not get to pursue gender euphoria that also makes us human, you understand? nb/gq/gnc people do not have the option of pursuing being socially recognized as you truly feel you are and not wanting to kill yourself. some people can be happy on either side of the chasm and carve out space for themselves there, but too often only on the precarious edge. and the rest of us can only jump off or wait to be shoved off.

do you understand? we don’t have the option. our insistence on fighting and deconstructing the binary is not an abstract political choice based on what we speculate would be the most #radical. it is as much a choice made out of trans survival as any binary trans man or woman’s pursuit of a passing and stealth life. and plenty of us also do not want the concept of “man” or “woman” to be erased entirely; many of nb/gq/gnc people are men and women! sometimes both at the same time! others want to see new concepts to gain acceptance and social recognition!

but that is the problem with the community’s exorsexism when it comes down to it. it is binary gender ideology which provides the foundation for patriarchal ideology and power as a whole, and so as feminists it is the binary we need to challenge (early radical feminists circled this realization, although they failed to develop it productively; intersectional feminism leads us to challenging the gender binary by challenging the related privileged oppressor/powerless oppressed binary). nb/gq/gnc people strain under a binary system and binary culture, and so tend to be more conscious of the binary and the need to challenge it, just like cis perisex women are more likely to be conscious of patriarchy than cis perisex men because they experience a lot more direct and obvious strain under it. all trans people are ultimately oppressed by gender binary ideology and exorsexism, and it goes against trans people’s class interests to support it. but a lot of trans people who identify strongly with the binary have, for decades at this point, actively decided to sacrifice the pursuit of trans liberation and liberation from patriarchy as a whole, in favor of keeping the binary in place so they can experience being the ones who benefit from it and wield it against others. like lower-middle class people being fierce defenders of capitalism and taking great pride in self-sufficiency and financial sense and not relying on handouts.

the way people use the word “femme” drives me fucking goddamn coocoo bananas. what is the point of that word if you use it in ways that makes it clear you think “men” and “femmes” are not overlapping categories. its just like with people using TMA supposedly to include people who aren’t trans women & then just defining TMA as “trans women and transfem nonbinary people” like. at this point just be OPENLY exorsexist it will make everything so much more straightforward

im so glad other nb/gq bloggers on here have started talking more and more about exorsexism in trans spaces because it truly does make one feel insane. like there’s nothing i can even say in a lot of cases because just my being nonbinary makes my testimony disqualified in the minds of exorsexist trans people who run their mouths about “transsexual materialism” and “transgender liberalism” and all the exorsexist stereotypes and tropes they love to throw out. i could explain in detail how profoundly exorsexism has shaped my life and my body and it would not matter to them because they need to have nb/gq trans people as a scapegoat for why everything is so scary. the nonbinary experience of being the gender minority ruining society scapegoat for the gender minority ruining society scapegoat community.

i think the best way to understand how transmasc erasure relates to misogyny is. you know when a new movie or show comes out and people get furious about how they made the female character an ugly hairy butch dyke, when in reality they just made a conventionally attractive woman with short hair and makeup and a normal amount of peach fuzz?

how do you think those people same people react to an actual ugly hairy butch dyke? do you really think the primary victim of this kind of vitriol against percieved-female masculinity is conventionally attractive, gender conforming cisperi women?

it’s not a coincidence that the patriarchy cultivates disgust and violent hostility towards perceived-female masculinity, while also often refusing to actually depict it or discuss it publicly. the hatred is there. the target is never made obvious. its on purpose. stop taking everything the patriarchy says at face value.