Transmasculine Experiences - Tumblr Posts
We need to stop saying stuff like “trans men/mascs go through everything cis women go through” as a counter to transandrophobes saying we don’t experience gendered oppression. Cis women are actually not the metric of gendered oppression, and by all measures, all trans people face greater gender related violence than cis women. Trans men/mascs are distinct from cis women and that heightens our oppression, it does not invalidate it. There are overlaps of experiences but in many ways it is important to talk about trans men/masc specific experiences (and all trans peoples experiences) so as to not treat a cis woman’s body/experience as the norm for what reproductive discrimination looks like. Trans men struggle to access safe reproductive care even in places that cis women don’t, and that’s only one example! Socially, economically, legally, cis women hold power over trans men/mascs and act as gatekeepers and police of gender for the cis patriarchy - trans men do not have that power to wield.
I FUCKING CALLED IT
THAT BITCH WITH THE PIGTAILS IS A FTM SELF-INSERT
Transmasculinity Throughout Time: Lou Alcott
Yes, you heard me. There is substantial evidence that the author of Little Women was in fact a transgender man! He actually didn’t go by the name that Little Women was published under, with family and friends he would go by Lou, Louy, or LM. His children called him “papa” and “father” and his father, Bronson Alcott, called him his son. He said in 1882, “I am more than half persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body.” As a child, he said in a journal, “I don’t care much for girls things. People think I’m wild and queer.” He would pass as a man at masked parties for fun, and delighted in people’s reactions. For his entire life, he expressed this identification as a man, and the character of Jo in Little Women was in part a self insert character based on this. So why don’t we hear about him as a trans man? Well, it’s just not convenient for most people to believe that a beloved book about girls becoming women was written by a man.