I Do Feel Like TMA And TME Can Be Useful Terms In Specific Conversations But The Way People Treat Them

I'll take "things that didn't happen" for 500, please.

tamago tamago tamagotchi

So I kind of want to unpack this because it's phrased like the literary equivilant of barbed wire and people keep getting caught on snags. And what is being said here is heinous enough that I think it should be presented plainly

(A solid post on the topic here by @velvetvexations, who got into the psychology of it. I wanted to expand from a logic/phrasing perspective)

Lets tackle that second paragraph piece by piece

First, this sentence which is objectively true. Cisgender perisex* women have systematic cisgender privilege, so, for example they aren't affected by things like restrictions on access to HRT/Transition Surgery or being forcibly outed to transphobic individuals or institutions. While they can still experience individual transphobia(see gnc presenting individuals), they still have access to that systemic cisgender privilege. I just want to put a pin in the fact that this is true of all cis people over all trans people. Trans people of any kind do not have cis privilege, because they are not cis. Including closeted and stealth trans individuals. To use my own example, both of them would be affected by restrictions to HRT access, even if they are "percieved" as cis.

So when I say cis privilege later on keep all that in mind

Statement A: Cis women have privilege over trans women

*I am not intersex, it is just my understanding from reading intersex individuals experiences that while intersex people can be cis, they do not have access to the cisgender privilege outlined here. Please correct me if I am wrong

She says this to deflect from the fact that that is the conclusion she is directly going to build to. It's about the same as saying "I'm not saying men of color are uniquely violent, I'm just pointing out that statistically they commit most crime"

Now lets unpack the less straightforward part

A reminder: this isn't about closeted trans men. It would still be reductive if it were, but look back at the original ask. This is about all non-passing trans men

(Though both the asker and answerer seem to use "passing" as a synonym for "stealth". you can pass but not be stealth, plenty of trans people are out publically)

(An aside: The language the asker uses here seems pretty suspect, treating "non-passing" as identical to being percieved as cis. While we could argue that they meant closeted, the answerer does not contest this point and instead uses it as the base to opine on trans men as a whole, so I am going to make the assumption that she is in agreement with the base premise)

Statement B: All non-passing trans men are percieved and treated identically to cis women.

As noted re:the askers uncontested language, this group seems to include trans men at any stage of transition. Either they pass as men or they are considered cis women, with no inbetween.

Statement C: This is a privilege

Statement C is one of the snags here, because the answerer uses "male privilege" here, which when combined with Statement B can be read as "cis women have male privilege", which is absurd. But thats a snag, the meat of the statement is different. She's calling it male privilege but goes on to define it as a privilege specifically and exclusively trans women don't have, which isn't what male privilege is(see: cis women). Why she is using the phrase wrong I don't know, but lets just simplify it down to what Statement C says: it is a privilege of some form. We will get into the form

Statement D: Trans women do not have this privilege because they are seen as trans

So the privilege is conferred based on being cis(or the appearance of), and non-passing trans men have it because they are "only" seen as functionally identical to cis women.

So, trans women lack this privilege because they are discriminated against on the basis of being seen as trans specifically, while trans men have it because they are seen as cis. Discrimination based on being trans is transphobia.

Statement E: Trans men do not experience transphobia because they are seen as cis

Consider in the context of the first statement. Cis women have privilege over trans women. Trans men have privilege over trans women because cis women have privilege over trans women. Cis women have this privilege because they are cis, so calling it male privilege was an obfuscation

And this part puts to bed the whole "maybe they meant closeted" arguement. The answerer identifies that the privilege specifically stems from transmasculinity.

Thus,

Statement F: All trans men, regardless of the stage of transition, are seen as cis because they are transmasculine.

Conclusion: Trans men have cis privilege

Do we see how this arguement has become completely disconnected from reality yet?

And this isn't part of the original exchange, but I wanted to quickly discuss this bit

"May have been traumatic and horrible for you"

"You still get to be one"

Look at the phrasing here. You still "get" to be one. Womenhood is the ideal state which confers privilege and is inherently desirable. If you don't want it, there is something wrong with you specifically. Womanhood cannot be traumatizing on its own merits, it can only be traumatizing because you are broken in some way and can't appreciate how good it is.

In a quick two sentences, it makes clear the incredibly cruel statement "misgendering is a privilege. you should be grateful they are doing this to you"

— Penelope Douglas, from Nightfall (Devil's Night Series)

So you hate pancakes ass moment fr

The average woman working in the healthcare industry cannot comprehend a transgender man existing.

I'm so glad that y'all are so into Monkey Man and the badass hijra priestess army, but friendly reminder that hijra are NOT trans women. Hijra are their own distinct gender; trans women are women. India has both :)

man I just be talking about things and stuff 🐶