Politically inconvenient truths
Disclaimer, this post won’t make much sense unless you’re fairly involved in niche internet drama.
If your argument is so weak when you feel threatened when someone says something that is true, but contradicts you, you are the problem. Any decent argument can hold its own against conflicting anecdata.
We all understand that just because your uncle got carjacked by a black person once, it doesn’t make black people criminal.
We all understand that just because every class has that one person who’s really good at tests, it doesn’t mean standardized testing is actually effective.
The answer to anectdata that conflicts with your argument, is actual data that supports your argument. It is not to plug your ears, or to tell the person sharing the anecdote that they aren’t allowed to talk about that, or that they’re bigoted, or that they’re running a psyop.
Is everybody still with me so far? Okay. Read carefully. Your argument for why pressing people to transition in the name of “egg cracking” has to be able to withstand the fact that some people actually are impressionable enough to transition just because people tell them they should, when they are not actually trans, and that this process does actually have a negative emotional impact sometimes. You can’t just say that all detransitions are transphobes committing a psyop, even if some of them are. If they’re testifying in front of the government to try to make HRT illegal, that’s one thing. But if someone is just trying to share their experience, and find community with other people who have been through a similar disruption, and you call them a bigot for that:
- You are being unreasonable
- Other people who could have been on your side will recognize that you are being unreasonable and be put off.
That second point usually doesn’t seem like it’s happening, because you’re in an echo chamber. Most everyone who responds already agrees with you and thinks the same as you. But you don’t know how many fence-sitters saw your words and silently turned away.
And, while we’re here, my absolute least favorite variation on this issue: people who claim transandrophobia isn’t real, not necessarily because they don’t think trans men face discrimination, but because they think admitting it is real is the same as admitting misandry is real, and they don’t want to do that because it would support cis men.
Seriously, this a mind-boggling failure of reasoning to me. “I’m going to reject one of the incredibly few coalitions that has an inherent reason to ally with me, because supporting them might give a few bonus points to one of our enemy coalitions”. News flash: the enemy coalition is already strong enough that you “throwing a bone” to the few members who both listen to anything you say and are disingenuous enough reinterpret “trans men are discriminated against for transitioning into men” as “cis men are discriminated against for being men” wouldn’t actually change the balance of power at all. The only side you are hurting is your own.
Additionally, saying transandrophobia doesn’t exist is just a denial of reality in a linguistic sense. Imagine if I was an alchemist, and I said “there are two elements, fire and water. When fire alters something, we call that burning. When water alters something, we call that ‘being altered by an element’”.
And then when my apprentice said “being altered by an element can describe a lot of processes though, shouldn’t we make a word for when water specifically affects something?” I got all offended and said “No! Having a word for water affecting things steals attention from burning, which is more important! And additionally it benefits people who don’t think that elements exist!”
…Okay, that was a silly example, but do you see my point?
My last argument on this subject is that when you say “Transmisogyny is transphobia directed at trans women. No we don’t need a word for transphobia directed at trans men, that’s just regular transphobia.” You’re doing the same as people who say there’s women’s clothing and regular clothing, or “toys for girls” and “toys”. It’s saying “we need a special word for what happens to women, because men are the default”.
“But Atom (that’s my name)” you might say, “transmisogyny is misogyny for trans women, so transandrophobia would be androphobia for trans men, and androphobia is not a real system force! Transandrophobia is on the same level as reverse racism or heterophobia!”
To which I say, sure, 100%. There is no societal discrimination against cis men that is on an equivalent level to misogyny. This is a politically inconvenient truth that I accept. However, the issue those other terms is that people are saying “there’s a word for the systemic oppression of people on one side of the binary, so there must also be a word for the dislike of people on the other side of the binary”. And the problem with that statement is:
- It conflates “being systemically oppressed because of a trait” with “some people disliking you because of a trait”
- In the cases of heterophobia and reverse racism, it ignores that the binary is drawn on the line of a power structure, where one side of the binary actively oppresses the other side.
So, for transandrophobia to actually be on the same level as misandry or reverse racism, that would imply a binary where trans men actively oppress trans women. I don’t not believe that this exists. Sure, you can bring all the anecdotes you like about trans men mistreating trans women in their interpersonal relationships, and even leveraging transmisogyny to do so. I agree with you that this happens. There is not all peace and love on planet trans. This is a politically inconvenient truth that I accept.
But I don’t believe that you could find me any instances of trans man legislators trying to outlaw estrogen. Or institute bathroom checks. I don’t believe that you could find me any cabal of trans man employers with a gentlemen’s agreement not to hire trans women. This is what actual systemic oppression looks like, and I don’t even believe that you could find me any significant quantity of trans men who would do these things if only they had the power. Nor do I believe that you could find any significant quantity of trans women looking to systemically oppress trans men. Systemic oppression of trans people is generally done by… cis people. Because that is where the actual line of power is drawn.
And yes, I know about the study that found that trans men on average earn ten cents per hour more than trans women. I am not even going to argue about the methodology of the study, although I have seen good arguments that it is flawed. Let’s assume it is completely true. In a world where trans men hold all the cards, do you think that this pay gap would exist?
If a study found a ten cent pay gap between black people and chinese-americans , would you take this as evidence that chinese-americans oppress black people? Of course not, because you can recognize that while such a pay gap would indicate that chinese-americans do have some slight privilege over black people, not because they are an actual privileged group but because anti-black racism is so intense that other minorities are elevated by comparison.
I am not trying to argue that transmisogyny is not real. I believe it is real. What I am arguing is that the beneficiary of transmisogyny is not trans men, any more than the beneficiary of anti-blackness is chinese americans. Being relatively privileged over another oppressed group is not the same as being an oppressor. Being the warden’s favorite prisoner doesn’t make you a guard. Being the person the bully picks on the least isn’t the same as being a bully.
We are very used to seeing privilege as something that goes hand-in-hand with malice. We are used to the idea whoever has privilege over someone else, is oppressing that person. But that is not actually how it works in this. The only oppressor of trans people is cis people.