Fear and the Failed Identity of Transmen

From a comment left for my blog made by an ftM woman.

In a nutshell this is the typical comment I usually receive from your typical ftM woman.

First they make some sort of unmistakable over sexist remark in order to establish a divide/hierarchy between them and me. This is done for two reasons: 1) this helps reinforce their faux "male" identities through the use of male/female sexism. As in if they treat me (a self described Butch woman) in a sexist fashion they believe in their own warped way that that defaults them to "male". 2) After establishing through the hetero-patriarchal-binary sexist system that they are not women and I am a woman, they believe through their thick internalize misogyny that they can then use my femaleness as an insult against me. Clearly this is a big fail all the way 'round because while they may drug and mutilate themselves into something away from your average woman in the streets, they cannot drug and mutilate themselves into actual men. And because I am not a self hating female, being called some sort of "woman" isn't an insult whatsoever.

Second, come the remark/s about how crazy I am and how I am in need of mental help as well as something usually about my "anger" issues. These remarks are the typical projection line of defense towards what write. Rather than face up and deal with their own misogynistic mentality that has them actually PAYING someone to remove normal HEALTHY breasts from their female bodies, then drug themselves for the rest of their lives, its easier to project their anger and self hatred towards me.

Last, we get something to do with my intelligence on the matter or according to the ftM women, my lack thereof. A fear based response made to discredit the truths I publicly make. Easier to write me off as a crack-pot because they cannot argue with the truth, nor does their self created identity have the capacity to withstand any notions that are not 200% in their disordered favours.

dirt

Femme Invisibility-Butch Invisibility

When walking about alone in the hetero-patriarchal world, that is the world, and the world that presumes everyone is straight, you do not exist. Is it the way you walk just as much with your hips as with your legs that invisibilizes you? The make-up you put on your weary face most mornings? The face with the eyes tinged always with a bit of sadness even on happy occasions. The dress and nylons you wear to work or dinner? The gentle butterfly motion of your hands when you speak? Invisible hands my eyes bring to life, real life, as you fix the bathroom plumbing or fix me? The girlish sound of your voice, made girlish still even when angry because sometimes I'm a jerk? How is it that you do not exist when you walk out the door alone, yet I SEE! I see you everywhere!
Like you dear Femme, I too am invisible. Invisible alone. Invisible with everyone, save you. My invisibility is an invisibility squared. Squared because what is seen, who is seen, isn't me. Me being an adult woman. What exactly is it that they miss? My soft light haired skin? My non adams appled throat? My lack of a five O clock shadow? My breast? My hips? My small capable but delicate hands? What? And what is it exactly that they see that screams male to them? A short cropped head of hair? A man's button down tucked in just so? Trousers? My stance with its slight air of command? My cocky walk? Or is it my strong white privileged presence that even today had a Mexican man shrink and apologize for merely stepping in front of me or rather the me he assumed I was; the middle class white male that daily I am sickened and ashamed of passing as?
I wonder to myself how high the price you certainly must pay each day for your Femme invisibility? This "passing" privilege that is no privilege at all, but a prison sentence. Solitary confinement. Is your crime so great? How do you handle the masturbatory eyes of men? Male privileged men who believe they have the fucking right to tell you how pretty you are today or ask you if thats a new blouse while staring at your breast with one hand on their filthy cocks. How do you deal with the women at the office who try and fix you up with the "great guy" they know? How is it they cannot see, you do not want a guy. That there is nothing about any guy that you would want. Some even knowing you are a lesbian! Knowing, but not believing because "you dont look like a lesbian, are you sure?"!!! How horrifically fucking insulting! You are a Femme, of course you are sure! And so I wonder, as the woman who does see you. I wonder what damage, what dents, what toll all this takes? And I hope, I dream, I pray even, that my Butch touch can even for a moment smooth away a little of what has been scathed.
What has invisibility cost me? What is the price for my mistaken identity? How do I, who is so terrible at math, collect the sum? What euclidean formula will give me an answer? There have been so many obstacles to overcome because of this privileged invisibility. How do I tally up the toll, the cost of internalized misogyny? A misogyny so deeply embedded that for so long I thought it was just part of my being, part of who I was. The years it took to unravel that evil, evil that took the form of hating myself because I could never be this thing I was assumed to be. The thing I believed I had to be if I ever wanted to have the thing I wanted most, a Femme partner and lover. But with immense work and thought, understanding and self discovery I tore through that gordian knot! But the price of it all remains a mystery that only you my sweet nancy drew solve with your breath on the back of my neck, your hand in my hand.
Alone we do not exist, but together we are unmistakable, that much is certain. What is it about us together that screams lesbian, that apart stays silent? Together you are no longer "straight", together I am no longer "male", together we are lesbian women and nothing can hide it. Is it the way we look at each other, looking like only women look? The way we touch each other, the way only women touch? The way we kiss each other, the way only women kiss? Anne Sexton closed her poem The Double Image regarding one of her daughters saying "I made you to find me". Is that it then? Is it like that for us? Was I made so that you could find you? And you made so that I could find me? Our identities may not be dependant upon each others to exist, but surely they are contingent upon our visibility, not to mention our love and happiness.
dirt

Given that its Veteran's Day

The real horror of war is that the propagandist "old lie" that Owen ends this poem with is still being told today.

There is nothing sweet or glorious in dying for one's country, there are no hero's in war, only victims on whichever's side.

Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori-It is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country

dirt

Relinquishing Woman

Capped from a popular ftM forum regarding male privilege. This was the typical response out of several pages of responses.

If you are a woman and you believe that after forty plus years of feminism women have made some strides under patriarchy, you only have to read something like this to see women are more lost now than ever.

This isn't the "T" talking, this is what has caused this woman and women like her to take the "T" in the first fucking place! Granted the skewed patriarchal ideals and visuals we have of femininity plays its part, but far more than that is the continued confined roles women are allowed to have and allowing themselves to have by not demanding more. Feminism isn't about having the choice to have your body whittled into that of a pseudo male in order to gain male privilege. Feminism is supposed to be about women dismantling the architecture of male privilege so that the opportunities available to women are equal to that of men!

Is this now then the new feminism, the latest "wave"? Is this what our kind suffered, stomaching the likes of tortures such as these for?

So that now women have the options, thanks to a sick fucking misogynistic medical establishment, to simply stop being women? Early feminism tried to warn us, teach us, inform us about the cunning of patriarchal systems which have led us through our internalize misogyny to identifying with patriarchy.

Feminism today is teaching us to screw identifying with men, we can leap forward and now become men! We need not fight and struggle for equal pay and equal rights, we can have those things and more if we simply relinquish being women! And since there is no talk and no pride and no hope for being women, when relinquished, do we even know what it is exactly that we've lost???? Moreover, do we even care?

I dont know about you, but I care. I want to know. I need to know. In fact I want all women to know, even those reliquishers.

dirt