dxstroyit has done me a great favor by making this comment. On his blog he presents himself as “truscum”, and confirms what many of us have suspected: Many of the ones attacking girlfags are not only trans men; they are truscum transsexual separatists. A quick review of the most hostile attackers proves as much.

This may explain the difference between the gay male friends of girlfags, who feel no hostility towards them, and the language used by these tumblr activists.

Reducing queer to a fetish

My gay friends (who were all raised as men) would never reduce the identity of another queer or transgender group to a “creepy fetish”. They know that this is a concept that were made to invalidate or mock the identity of marginalized groups, homosexuals included.

Gay men raised as men also know that such a tactic is bound to backfire. There is a lot of fetishization going on in many gay male cultures. There is, for instance, sexual fascination for leather, bondage, drag and bears. And there is a lot of sexualization and objectification. Gay porn or gay saunas are beyond politically correct, to put it that way. And a lot of gay men fetishize straight men.

That does not mean that you can reduce the identity of gay men to a fetish. It only means that they are human. So are the genderqueer and the girlfags.

The girlfag’s fascination for gay men is an expression of her own gay  sexuality and/or male gender identity. That’s all. The fact that the truscum need make use of the fetish argument to invalidate them, says more about the truscum than it says about the girlfags.

(More about how the fetish theory has been used to persecute minorities here!)

This leaves us with the question: What is it that really motivates the truscum attacks against girlfags?

Ideas from the anti-trans radfem camp

Apart from religious fundamentalists and a small tribe of sexist researchers, the only influential group that uses the fetish argument these days is a group of radical feminists called TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists).

Hate mongers like  Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys and Cathy Brennan argue that all trans women are perverted men who should be excluded from all “womyn’s places”.

The TERFs do not recognize the true gender of any transsexual person, man or woman.

(More about the transphobicTERFs here.)

Using the tactics of your own enemies to invalidate queer

How can transsexual people who have felt the oppression and stigmatization of society, use a terminology that is currently used to invalidate  transsexuals? How can truscum use the same destructive tactics as the TERFs?

Some have speculated that the truscum FTM separatists may have once belonged to a lesbian radfem culture and that they have assimilated some of the more aggressive ideas from them.

However, it seems to me that many of  the girlfagbashers (including dxstroyit AKA fedorablystumped) are bisexual or sexually attracted to men, and unlikely to have been part of lesbian culture, so this does not make that much sense to me.

Others argue that their narratives may have been influenced by the post-structuralist philosophy taught in “Women’s Studies” at American universities. I am sure they could have found the fetish argument there, but these university departments are definitely not teaching an essentialist truscum gospel. They are normally much more open to the true diversity of sex and gender.

So although these hypotheses may provide clues to what is going on here, they do not give us the full explanation.

First generation separatists

Some have speculated that the truscum attacks on girlfags may reflect a trend away from political liberation toward cultural assimilation in some gay/lesbian and transsexual circles. In order to be accepted by a heteronormative society, some homosexual and transsexual men and women try to placate cis and straight people by becoming more like them.

In order to make sense of all of this it may help to look at the previous generation of transsexual separatist, the so-called “Classic Transsexuals” and the “Harry Benjamin Syndrome’s” tribe. 

Like the truscum, the HBS tribe (which was exclusively MTF) taught a gospel of strict separation between the “true transsexuals” on the one hand and the crossdressers and drag queens on the other. The HBSers hated the word “transgender”, as this umbrella term indicated that they had something in common with the gender benders. 

Like the truscum they adopted the language of their oppressors, trying to force crossdressers and crossdreamers back into the closet by calling them fetishists and “autogynephiliacs”. Non-binary identities were, at best, tolerated as belonging to a completely different species. Or they were ridiculed.

It all got really ugly. I know for a fact that their tactics contributed to suicides among gender dysphoric crossdressers and crossdreamers. The separatists scared many of them away from expressing their true identity.

It became abundantly clear for those of us who were forced to interact with this movement, that the main driving force was internalized transphobia. They had adopted the ruling medical paradigm of fetishes and paraphilias. This caused them to do absolutely anything in their power to distance themselves from crossdressers and drag queens.

It is not hard to understand why. Many of them had grown up in the 60s, 70s and 80s. They were facing gatekeepers who demanded total adherence to sexist stereotypes of femininity, before giving them access to hormones and surgery. 

Moreover, it was clear that a significant portion of the HBS crowd had been crossdressers themselves, and many of them had been married to women. In short: They had themselves been very much like some of the people they were now persecuting.  And this was why they needed to force the crossdressers underground. The very existence of gender dysphoric crossdressers threatened their neat and clear boundary between those they called “transgender crossdressing men” on the one hand, and “true transsexual women” on the other. This mirrored the distinction between “transvestic fetishism” and “gender identity disorder” found in the psychiatric manuals.

It all made sense, in a sickening and depressing kind of way.

The HBS movement collapsed two years ago. Today there are a couple of blogs left.  The main reason for their downfall seems to be that younger generation of trans women are much more open and undogmatic about their sexuality and their own journey of discovery.

Young trans women may still be facing conservative gatekeepers, but they take part in networks online that give them alternative views of what being trans is all about.

(More about the Harry Benjamin Syndrome here!)

History repeating

The young female to male transsexuals, on the other hand, have not been part of this history. The fact that the truscum want to occupy  the word “transgender”, while the HBS crowd believed the term was an insulting crossdresser invention, tells me as much. The truscum have  learned nothing from the HBS debacle, and are now hell-bent on repeating their mistakes.

And maybe this is also the point in history where the assimilation policy of some LGBT activists reinforces the truscum fear of “fetishists”.  The gay and bisexual truscum trans men may fear that they will be mistaken for fetishizing girlfags, in the same way the HBSers feared they would be mistaken for crossdressing men.

The general assimilation tendencies found in some LGBT circles are probably strengthening this fear, by undermining the legitimacy of gender variant people who fall outside the various binaries of sexuality and gender.

When I read trucum posts and trucum comments, the message of truscum being “binary” and therefore normal is quite common. So is the fear of being rejected by health personnel who may deny them hormones and surgery. Over and over again young truscum argue that any association with “non-binaries” and fetishists may threaten their acceptance by both doctors, their families and society at large.  

I sense the same fear of “contamination” now, as I faced when defending transgender and queer people against the HBSers. The separatists channel the revulsion instilled in them by friends and family towards girlfags and the genderqueer. This is most likely why they use the fetish argument, call girlfags creepy or mock genderfluid people, calling them cis, snowflakes or transtrenders.

It seems to me that these trans men fear any association with girlfags, as it may be taken as a sign of themselves being nothing but fetishists. 

The irony is that by recycling the fetish argument in this way, they are actually strengthen the ideology of the sexist transphobes out there. And by doing so, they also undermine their own standing in society.

It seems to me that we are facing a textbook example of how a system of oppressive power is upheld by those who are oppressed.

This is a tragedy.

• For a first hand discussion of the girlfag experience, read Ili’s blog post over at Crossdreamers.com: “I am something that does not exist!” (On queer schwulwomen, girlfags and guydykes). 
• See also:  “You are not one of us!” said the separatist transsexual (on the HBS and “classic transsexuals”)
• Susan Schmitt: “Checking Our Privilege, Working Together: Notes on Virtual Trans* Communities, Truscum Blogs, and the Politics of Transgender Health Care”

The tribes of transsexual separatism

I have followed two waves of transsexual separatism. The previous one was dominated by male to female transsexuals, who called themselves “classic trassexuals” or transsexuals suffering from “the Harry Benjamin Syndrome”. Their main agenda was to distinguish themselves from the transgender movement, which they believed was an invention of male crossdressers and gay male drag queens.

Right now we see a second wave of separatism on tumblr, dominated by female to male transsexuals,  who go by the highly stigmatizing name of “truscum”.

It seems to me that both groups are dominated by white, middle and upper class people from North America and Europe. Note, for instance, that influential trans activists like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, who come from different backgrounds, support the idea of a broad transgender alliance. 

All of this makes it tempting to conclude that this may be an example of some kind of “classism”, We should keep in mind, though, that most white, middle and upper class, trans women and trans men do not support this type of segregation.

I have identified the following main motivations for supporting the exclusionary agenda in my discussions with these separatist tribes.

1. A fear of contamination.
You will often find that the separatists have accepted the prejudices of their oppressors, including — for instance — the idea that gender variant people are sexual fetishists. They therefore desperately try to establish a clear boundary between themselves and the unwanted ones.

The definition of this demarcation may vary. The “classical” trans women used the time of transitioning, surgery, sexual orientation and “natural femininity” to determine who was in and who was out. The truscum use gender dysphoria as the litmus test.

2. Embarrassment
This fear of contamination is driven by a fear of embarrassment. Even if they know better (having — for instance — gone through periods as crossdressers themselves), they do not want others to associate them with crossdressers, drag queens, girlfags, genderqueer, transsexual prostitutes, or any group of people who do not live up to the clear and distinct gender binary.

This is why the “classic transsexuals” did not want to be called “transgender”, and why the truscum try to take over the term. One young truscum told me he did not want his mother to google “transgender” and find pictures of drag queen and crossdressers.

3. Access to treatment
You indicate that the separatists may be exclusionary because they have access to hormones and surgery, while you and others have not. I do not think this is always the case. In fact, I see that many of the separatists complain that they cannot afford treatment, or if they can afford it, they are refused treatment by the gatekeepers, precisely because some health personnel stick to very old fashioned ideas about the “true transsexual”.  

You would think that transgender people who have been labelled “unfit” by doctors and therapists, would turn against the system instead of propagating its ideology. But this is not necessarily how the human mind works.

The desperate and understandable need to fit in and be affirmed by friends, family and the society at large, forces some transgender people to stick even harder to the stereotypes. This is why these separatists turn their anger against the “non-binary”, crossdressers, girlfags and genderqueer instead, arguing that it is their insistence on being transgender that stops the “real transgender” from getting the treatment they need.

Reinforcing a repressive system

In this way the separatists end up strengthening the very system that makes their life a living hell, that is a system that forces transgender people to lie about their sexuality and live up to strict gender stereotypes.

This is also a system that hurts gender dysphoric transgender people, especially those who are still struggling with their identity. It also hurts people like you, gender dysphoric transgender people who know that they are transsexual, but who do not have the power or means to trick or go around the system.

Fortunately the attitudes towards transgender people is changing, also in the medical establishment,hopefully leading to a more liberal and open approach to the need for treatment and support.

nonbinary-support:

block out the haters
and keep on being you
the greatest way to prove them wrong is to keep being nonbinary
if they don’t believe you/we exist, then no amount of words will help them
so just keep existing and constantly proving them wrong

-Mod Virgil

One of the major problems I have found blogging on tumblr is how hard it is for some people to understand that neither biological sex nor cultural gender are binary.

Intersex people prove the first point. Indeed, there are XX men out there who do not know about their “condition”, and XY women who give birth to babies.

And even though I believe there may be a biological component to gender identity formation, I know for a fact that expressions, abilities and interests do not follow the traditional gender divides. We all know men who care for children. We all know women who are aggressive leaders.

But in spite of all this, a lot of tumblr bloggers hold on to their binaries, whether they are about biological sex (“penis equals man”) sexual orientation (“bisexuals do not exist”), gender roles (“all men are rapists”) or gender identity (“snowflake identities are not real”). 

We are definitely not wired for this kind of binary thinking. Before the 19th century most people in Europe followed a  model where men and women were considered variations of one gender. So this is all about harsh social conditioning where beliefs in diversity are made to look like tickets to absolute loneliness.

But hey! This is 2014! It does not have to be this way. Accepting a gender continuum does not mean that people cannot identify as men or women. It simply means that we open our minds to a richer and more colorful world of sex and gender.

transitiontransmission:

The problem with your question(s) is that you think all trans individuals are the same.  They are not.  A little bit of research goes a long way, but here’s the short of it all.  There are those who want surgeries, hormones, etc. to be as close to, or pass for, their target gender.  However, there are also those who have no wish whatsoever to try and conform to the binary expectations of gender.  These are both valid options for people trying to live their own lives.  One thing to keep in mind is that ‘transgender’ is an umbrella term covering ‘a lot’ of things, there is not just ‘one kind’ of trans person.  So, next time try and keep that in mind, and it should all start making a lot more sense.

-Transition Transmission

That’s right!

Transgender people come in all shades and colors. But that is not all. Many transgender people change the way they describe themselves, as they explore their own identities and come to terms with who the really are.

Many male to female transsexuals start out as women-loving crossdressers, man-loving drag queens or genderqueer. In the same way female to male trans men may have identified as lesbian, butch, girlfag or queer at one time or the other.

Many also report a shift in sexual orientation.

In other words: Not only are there no clear and distinct boundaries on the transgender map. People may also move from one side of the gender landscape to another.

That does not mean that transgender people cannot identfy as men or women. Most do. Nor does it necessarily mean that there are no biological components to the various transgender conditions. There probably are. But there are so many biological, psychological and cultural variables involved, that no one but the transgender persons themselves have the right to define who they are.