Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of bickering discourse between transmascs and transfems; fights about transmisogyny and transandrophobia; lateral violence and idpol.
I think it comes from a fundamental disagreement about how to apply feminist theory to trans people. At its root: does patriarchy oppress women, or does it oppress AFAB people?
People tend to be a lot more aware of injustices that they have personally experienced, so naturally there’s a predisposition for each group to see themselves as the biggest victims. And they see the other group as the trans equivalent of “Men’s Rights Activists”, people who are pretending to be oppressed for purposes of clout. Of course the other group do have some legitimate issues affecting them, they just aren’t as important, or maybe they aren’t systemic.
So which does patriarchy oppress? Women or AFAB people?
Well I hope I don’t sound like an Enlightened Centrist here, but the answer is both.
Kyriarchy theory / intersectional feminism gives us a framework for understanding that oppression takes place along multiple axes. There is not a simple “progressive stack” defining a clear linear order of who is oppressed more. Reality is more complex.
Women are oppressed. Trans people are oppressed. Trans women also face oppression that cannot be explained merely by being a woman or by being trans, but is unique to the transfem experience.
AFAB people are oppressed. Transmasc people face oppression that cannot be explained merely by them being trans, it’s unique to transmasc people.
Non-binary people face discrimimination that isn’t shared by binary trans people. Trans people who have not changed their presentation face unique forms of oppression, and trans people who have changed their presentation face other unique forms of oppression.
I think it’s actually inherently a mistake to try to make overarching claims about one group of trans people having privilege over another. It’s a mistake to try to apply oversimplified concepts of patriarchy to the diverse range of experiences lived by gender diverse groups. None of us fit cleanly into patriarchal society, so none of us can be completely explained through patriarchy theory.
Instead of worrying about who is more oppressed, how about we listen to each other about the substantive experiences we go through? I don’t know what it’s like to be a trans man, so I’ll listen to them about that. They don’t know what it’s like to be a trans woman, so I hope they’ll listen to me on that.
