Being a transfemme public figure, even on a small scale, puts you into contact with such an overwhelming deluge of double standards and collective gaslighting that at some point you simply accept that you are being consigned to an alternate reality than the one you perceive and can demonstrate.
I think a lot of my growth recently has come in deciding how I'm going to grapple with that - trying to salvage my reputation by traditional means does not work when people literally will not acknowledge that they scrutinize me differently than they scrutinize others.
I will be impugned for doing absolutely normal things that every other creator also does, but when I do them they are, for some reason, bad and evidence of malignancy.
There is a certain highly personal, reclamatory freedom that comes from seeing the absurdity for what it is and reformulating approach accordingly.
@KomradeKemet I think it comes from the fact that america is so hypermasculine societally. As a result, misogyny is hypercharged, which intersects with transphobia. This is what is often referred to as "transmisogyny"
That's not to say transmasc ppl don't suffer they absolutely, unequivocally do. Transphobia against transmascs takes different shapes. the public eye, here in the US and in US discourse, is constantly fixated on transfemmes for violating so many societal taboos at once.
@DemonMama I can definitely confirm.. in my little corner of the planet it is the case too.. culture is a copy pasta after all... was an incredibly unsettling thing I found the same talking points of Republicans in my national discourse.
I think it's utterly justifiable the people's boldily autonomy and even identity are discriminated against in any way. It's such a clown world we live in demonmama.
@KomradeKemet @DemonMama rejecting compulsory maleness is the ultimate betrayal of male supremacy, and for that we must be punished
@dangerdyke @DemonMama reject masculinity, return to based
@KomradeKemet @DemonMama I think it's multi-layered.
People hate transfemmes because
1. Women are looked down on in general (mysogyny)
2. Men are punished for being woman-like because
3. Gender roles must be strictly enforced in order to control people
4. When an AMAB person decides to transition to be a trans woman, they are disrupting the first 3 tenants above
5. People think that once you are assigned male you will always be male, so if you're a trans woman, and they think you're cisgender
@KomradeKemet @DemonMama
(Cont'd) they might end up feeling attracted to you, and they think that.makes them gay
6. Being is gay is bad in their perspective because they think it's icky (they can only ever think of LGBT+ people in a sexual manner) ->
7. Trans women cannot be divorced from a sexual context, so they must be punished for the fact that the bigot may feel attraction toward them (a la Frolo fetishizing Esmerelda and hating her for it in Hunchback of Notre Dame)
@KomradeKemet @DemonMama
(Cont'd) 8. There is also a religious element to it that changing your gender and physical traits (via surgeries, HRT) is going against God's Design.
Overall, I would say the issue fundamentally stems from a need to control others in order to maintain unjust hierarchies. If people let go of disgust and fear, they'll look after one another, and that reduces the power that Rulers can use to exploit the people below them. Exploitation cannot coexist with empathy.
@DemonMama I see where you're coming from, tho my experience in being piled on comes from a different place. People who want to punch down on you because of your identity are dishonest and simply want to see you fail.
@DemonMama the hate against Transfemmes specifically is such a weird phenomenon.. I don't even understand why they're so fervent in their hate.. I know they hate Transmasc people too but like.. why the obsession with Transfemmes? If anyone has an idea why please enlighten me. I have several theories but I'd like to hear from y'all.