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Feelings, and a personal plea....
Apr. 21st, 2015 11:35 amChrist, I feel so tired. Sparkle have pulled this shit after many years of criticism for representing themselves as "for the trans community" while excluding trans men & trans ppl who were assigned female, and people are promoting Buff as the alternative. Just feeling that yet again I fall between two stools and am wrong wherever I go :S
"Q. Why is BUFF called BUFF?
A. BUFF is about trans masculine people feeling positive and proud of their bodies and identities. The word 'buff' traditionally refers to big, strong, muscular men, but we think feeling buff should be for everyone!"
Honestly if anything I find this quote from the Buff FAQ more alienating and dysphoria-inducing than "even the butch boys sparkle" - especially as a disabled man. I don't feel buff, I don't particularly want to feel buff, I *can't be* buff, and at the same time I constantly feel like a failure as a man (including a gay-identified man) for NOT being buff. :S
I'd be fine if it was actually aimed at *masculine trans people* (I have no problem with masculine ppl wanting to celebrate their own masculinity!) but "transmasculine" basically means "trans men and other trans people who were assigned female" and I just... :S This is one of the reasons why I Can't Trans Community any more. The increasing use of "trans(*)masculine people" to mean Trans Men Plus is just making me more and more exhausted, as well as watching my butch trans women friends being excluded (and probably others).
I'm not "transmasculine". I'm sick of the rhetoric that male=masculine being replicated by trans communities, I'm sick of the lumping-together of trans people assigned female (and even butch afab women) into it with the implied assumption that there's something inherently "trans"/crossing/out-of-place about masculinity in people who were assigned female (and in women).
I also get that it started out as a way of trying to include more people who aren't binary, but when "masculine" is ALWAYS used and NEVER "men" or "male" *even in discussions specific to trans men*, it feels like such a way of ungendering trans men and erasing our actual maleness. "Yeah, fine, you can be 'masculine', but you're ~not reaaaally~ male or a man, are you??"
Very often I'll refer to myself as male or a man - including talking about my issues with gender expression - and then someone in the conversation will refer to me as "transmasculine" and I'll feel hit in the face. It feels *every bit* as un/misgendering as calling me a butch woman, and MORE than calling me "butch" (rather than "a butch", don't do that) - because I know lots of cis men who describe themselves as butch! (Including "butch boys"). It erases both my gender and my expression of my gender (and expression of my sexual orientation, as the two aren't un-linked for me personally). It erases my struggles and the shit I deal with every day, including hostility for being a feminine man.
So please, please, *never* refer to me as "transmasculine" or lump me in with "transmasculine people" - especially as in doing so you're also implicitly saying that trans women (and all women!) have to be feminine.
Basically: everything is fucked, I feel like shit :( Please be sensitive and respectful of that feeling in any replies.
"Q. Why is BUFF called BUFF?
A. BUFF is about trans masculine people feeling positive and proud of their bodies and identities. The word 'buff' traditionally refers to big, strong, muscular men, but we think feeling buff should be for everyone!"
Honestly if anything I find this quote from the Buff FAQ more alienating and dysphoria-inducing than "even the butch boys sparkle" - especially as a disabled man. I don't feel buff, I don't particularly want to feel buff, I *can't be* buff, and at the same time I constantly feel like a failure as a man (including a gay-identified man) for NOT being buff. :S
I'd be fine if it was actually aimed at *masculine trans people* (I have no problem with masculine ppl wanting to celebrate their own masculinity!) but "transmasculine" basically means "trans men and other trans people who were assigned female" and I just... :S This is one of the reasons why I Can't Trans Community any more. The increasing use of "trans(*)masculine people" to mean Trans Men Plus is just making me more and more exhausted, as well as watching my butch trans women friends being excluded (and probably others).
I'm not "transmasculine". I'm sick of the rhetoric that male=masculine being replicated by trans communities, I'm sick of the lumping-together of trans people assigned female (and even butch afab women) into it with the implied assumption that there's something inherently "trans"/crossing/out-of-place about masculinity in people who were assigned female (and in women).
I also get that it started out as a way of trying to include more people who aren't binary, but when "masculine" is ALWAYS used and NEVER "men" or "male" *even in discussions specific to trans men*, it feels like such a way of ungendering trans men and erasing our actual maleness. "Yeah, fine, you can be 'masculine', but you're ~not reaaaally~ male or a man, are you??"
Very often I'll refer to myself as male or a man - including talking about my issues with gender expression - and then someone in the conversation will refer to me as "transmasculine" and I'll feel hit in the face. It feels *every bit* as un/misgendering as calling me a butch woman, and MORE than calling me "butch" (rather than "a butch", don't do that) - because I know lots of cis men who describe themselves as butch! (Including "butch boys"). It erases both my gender and my expression of my gender (and expression of my sexual orientation, as the two aren't un-linked for me personally). It erases my struggles and the shit I deal with every day, including hostility for being a feminine man.
So please, please, *never* refer to me as "transmasculine" or lump me in with "transmasculine people" - especially as in doing so you're also implicitly saying that trans women (and all women!) have to be feminine.
Basically: everything is fucked, I feel like shit :( Please be sensitive and respectful of that feeling in any replies.
