Transcreature

krackpotkara:

transcreature:

I get so frustrated looking for trans women resources that I find respectable. If I had the time I would love to start a tumblr (with an attached website to make it easier to go through the history by categories) that linked to all of the fabulous free resources and advice…

Can I ask for some linguistic definition, you say a resource for trans woman, but that means a female identifying CAMAB person, but in your note, you say non-Binary and Genderqueer inclusive? Do you mean making a resource for CAMAB trans people instead?

hmm thanks for pointing that out. I’m not really sure if my thoughts on this are completely correct and I would be down to change them after a good conversation, but I guess I should explain why I tend to use Trans women rather than CAMAB trans people. 

I don’t think that the CAMAB and CAFAB as identity labels for the trans community are all that great. They are categories, and useful especially when we are talking about transmisogyny and different privileges within the trans community, but, they are not how individuals typically identify. I don’t tell people I’m a Coercively-Assigned-Male-At-Birth-Trans person, I typically tell them I’m a trans woman, a trans person, a genderqueer, or a combination of those (like a genderqueer trans woman), depending on the space and context. I feel like CAMAB and CAFAB are things that have come mostly just out of online writings and at times can appropriate the coercive mutilation of intersex genitalia at birth and subsequent years. 

I like to use identities in an inclusive way. When I use trans, I typically mean all trans identifying people, not just trans women, or trans guys, or binary folks or non-binary folk. I don’t do the trans* asterisk often because I feel like it’s redundant. The trans identity should already be inclusive of non-binary folks. Sometimes I’ll use it as an easy and simple way to point to people that this is trans* subject is non-binary inclusive, but sometimes I get annoyed at how trans* gets used to be binary exclusive. And that just kind of annoys me,  it seems hypocritical and counter-productive. 

I also feel like it’s important that we recognize that trans* people go through very different experiences and need different resources. A lot of time when I see people talk about “OMG so kewl, this new awesome trans* resource” it’s directed mostly by genderqueer people who were gendered male at birth. 

So when I use trans women, I mean it to be a much more inclusive identity than just MTF transsexuals. I use it to define a whole tribe of people who find a commonality of experience from the term, but I feel like often it gets abused by certain privilege trans women who seek to define their own status against others. This is called the Trans Hierarchy which privileges passing, surgery, and assimilation as the markers of a true trans woman. It’s a really messed up standard that happens more often in white, economically privileged trans women spaces, and I tend to avoid them because women will say really fucked up shit about other trans women who do not have enough privilege as them. As a woman who gets ranked pretty high on the Trans Hierarchyand sometimes gets read as white, they’ll often talk to me like I hold their same racist and privileged perspectives about those Other Trans Women, who “aren’t ladylike at all or are an embarrassment to us”.Nothing pisses me off more than when people tell me that and expect me to agree! I hate that I have to come out as a trans woman of color and genderqueer as if it matters in a trans woman space, they should already be inclusive! And just adding an asterisk to Trans Woman* is not going to fix it. I’m all about confronting all trans women spaces for their racism and cissexism and holding them responsible to the way that they should’ve been from the start.

So yeah, that’s kind of why I prefer using Trans Women as a collective name in which we can form a space to share experiences, support, and resources that affect us. Using CAMAB Trans folks, has a way of invalidating the woman part of our experiences and again perpetuates this standard of only accepting CAMAB trans folks as women if they pursue surgery and hormones.

I could be wrong on this next point, but from my experiences, it seems that non-woman-identifying-CAMAB trans folk don’t seem as hung up about identifying under the umbrella term of woman unlike non-man-identifying CAFAB trans folk. I believe that this has everything to do with privilege and exclusion from different spaces. From what I’ve seen, many CAFAB trans folk are generally more accepted in women’s spaces, especially if they do not identify as men. On the other hand, CAMAB trans folks will be excluded from these same spaces unless they strongly identify as women and often they still won’t be accepted until they are passing— it’s happened to me and other trans women I’ve talked to.  On the other side, exclusive many men’s spaces seem to be pretty hostile and invalidating to all types of trans people even though they don’t require specific born-men policies. So my point is that non-women identifying-CAMAB trans folk don’t have any have a significant loss of privilege by being included in a space that defined as for trans women.  

On a personal level, I would’ve have loved the opportunity to be included in trans women’s spaces when I still wasn’t sure about hormones and have my identity valid without expressing my desire for physical transition. For a while, I just wanted to see what kind of transition I could pursue without HRT and what kind of acceptance I could find as a woman in trans spaces.

I also recognize that trans woman is an identity that I hold very dear, that I feel has history and power behind it. CAMAB trans people does not.

Anyways, thanks for reading through my thoughts vomit on this subject, I’m still forming my opinions about this and I always leave room for me to grow to have more nuanced opinions.