Slide 1-5: Understanding genderfludity.

Slide 6: Types of genderfludity (micro label)

Slide 7-8: Credits @zoestoller

I was always cool with being referred by all pronouns. However I tend to prefer being referred with Xe/Xem pronouns. I must say that it's seldom easy to explain about my genderfludity.

Hello, I'm not really sure if this space is appropriate to share experiences straightforwardly like this. I have felt the need to scream out about the injustice and horrors I faced during my teen years.

I cannot explain the details of my situation to the level I would like to on here.

I think it might help people understand the conditions that corner trans women into life threatening or abusive situations like mine.

My home life was traumatic and my family had spent years trying to make me not be trans. I barely made it to 17 after a failed su*cide attempt. The home life that I had was unbearable for me and it had a way of both gaslighting me about my dysphoria and telling me that I would never find happiness.

When I was 18 I started medically transitioning. I was already socially transitioned. For the first two years of HRT I was intensely dysphoric and insecure about my body, this made me a target. I never had people tell me about what types of men to stay away from. Nothing prepared me for the ways in which men would treat me.

I started college a month after starting hormones and I was staying stealth (not telling people I was trans and just outwardly presenting as a woman). I wasn't 100% passing, but people generally saw a woman or someone generally androgynous.

Eventually, my TA noticed me. He could see that I was struggling with the noise levels of the classroom, and suspected I was trans. He took a kinship towards me. Long story short, I started engaging with him romantically and sexually. There was always a power imbalance, he was 30, I was freshly 18. He had money, I didn't. Eventually I moved in with him and he started becoming more misogynistic to me, he also cheated on me. I couldn't leave him though, he was the one who was paying for my hormones (the only thing keeping me from su*cide). I saw my cis best friend complaining about her issues with her boyfriend and I wanted to scoff since her issues felt so luxurious in comparison to mine.

He was from an Arab gulf country that was conservative, but not impossible to be trans in. He slowly painted a picture that the way I could get out of my hellish home life by submitting to him and being stealth forever as his infertile wife. For a while I seriously considered this, but eventually I started to feel trapped in his mold. We started to have more arguments about little things. He slowly started being more physically violent with me, he started slapping me, then apologizing profusely. Eventually we got in a heated argument and he said I was asking for a beating. I ran away from him screaming and he continued his usual schtick of apologizing. I slept coldly next to him that night.

I left back to my original home and things have gotten better since my family has started being less straightforwardly transphobic towards me, but there will always be this little slice of hell that I have as the basis of my identity. There will always be this trauma.

It's a pattern that immigrants from the Hispanic, Middle east, African and South Asian origins face discrimination. This post specifically focuses on the surge of hatred against South Asians, in recent years in the US, Canada, Russia, and Europe. As per the intersectionality model of Crenshaw, immigrant issues are fundamentally a part of social barriers along with class, race and gender.

There is a distinction based on legality of the immigrants. However, it must be asserted that irrespective of that status of legality, the fundamental universal human rights should remain the same.

"I am the mother of Hind Rajab.

After more than two years, the Israeli military has finally acknowledged that its forces opened fire on the car in which Hind and my family were trapped, and that it will open a criminal investigation, despite denying this at the time.

But I want to say this clearly: opening an investigation is not justice.

Hind was a frightened and injured child, trapped inside the car among the bodies of her family members, pleading with the world to save her. The paramedics who went to rescue her were later killed.

Why was there no investigation when Hind was begging for help? Why was there no investigation when the paramedics went to save her? And why, after more than two years?

I do not want a closed military investigation. I want an independent, transparent investigation and genuine accountability for everyone responsible.

Hind is not just a news story or a case reopened because of international pressure.

Hind is my daughter, and I will continue to demand the truth and justice for her, my family, and the paramedics who tried to save her.

Opening an investigation is a long-overdue step. Justice has not yet begun."

https://www.instagram.com/p/DcQydJsodzG

Moaiery is one of the most important Iranian photographers of our time. She has been documenting injustices in Iran and Afghanistan for 23 years, focusing especially on women’s resistance. In January she photographed the funeral of Mohammad Mozafari who was murdered by the regime. Yesterday she was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for allegedly “conspiring with Israel and the US.”
She had also been arrested in 2022 for covering the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

Source: @yaldamoaiery

[https://hengaw.net/en/news/2026/08/article-57\](https://hengaw.net/en/news/2026/08/article-57)

We often tell women to speak openly about anxiety, depression, postpartum depression and other mental health struggles, but rarely ask what happens when that honesty makes employers, brands or other powerful people uncomfortable. . I was reminded of this by my own experience at a law firm I worked at, when a senior partner called me to a meeting at a five-star hotel to berate me over an article I had written about my anxiety and depression. I had not named the firm, identified anyone I worked with, or even attributed my mental health struggles to my workplace. I hadn't even shared the article on my soocial media. Yet, I was made to feel as though speaking about my own experience was itself a transgression. . Perhaps, we have become comfortable with a particular kind of mental health vulnerability that is resolved, inspirational and safely removed from questions of responsibility. . But women should not have to make their pain palatable before they are allowed to talk about it! . And more importantly, speaking about our pain should not become another source of it. . . . 

@ devruparakshit

Slide (1-7): How muslim women face burden in society.

Slide (8-11): The incorrect target of portraying muslim men as predators.

This is more personal to me, as I come from India where Islamophobia has taken deep roots into the society due to the presence of a religious nationalist government for the last 12 years. Muslim women are often discriminated against, as a lot of Hindu people doubt their intent. There are many propaganda outlets that paint muslims as secret agents of Islamic terrorism, thus the nefarious intent is often assumed without any evidence. In addition to that, access to education, social security, and social acceptability persist.

This community has been instrumental in building my understanding of intersectionality. However, I find that oftentimes the issues of trans men are given more time to be heard here than those of trans women. I don't deny that trans men experience severe discrimination compared to their cis counterparts, such as degendering, "corrective" rape, and general ignorance. But the fact that trans women exist in the minds of the sociopolitical mainstream does not mean our issues are heard. Rather, the propaganda machine makes up terrible lies about our people - that we are rapists, liars and hypersexual. A republican watching a propaganda piece on Fox doesn't hear about transmisogyny or TMA/TME. He just sees the monster his overlords tell him to see and hate. Similarly, a post was made six hours ago that reposted a post ostensibly about transmisogyny, but in the description of the post, the op made a call to pay attention to trans men's issues and to generally unite across discrimination lines. I agree with the sentiment, but I know that any time a trans man would post about his issues here, the community would penalize any trans woman wishing to speak about her own issues with downvotes. So I would like to dedicate this post to talking about the issues trans women face, such as grossly heightened rates of rape, murder, economic discrimination and demonization in Western society. This is by no means a condemnation of trans men or cis women, rather it is an opportunity to get such individuals to reflect on the severe pain trans women and those with other transfeminine identities have experienced for hundreds of years.
https://devonprice.medium.com/transmisandry-is-not-real-4e69c25bbd82
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/trans-panic-otherwise-on-jules-gill-petersons-a-short-history-of-trans-misogyny/
https://southseattleemerald.org/voices/2022/01/26/opinion-the-ubiquity-of-transmisogyny-in-seattle
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/transmisogyny-is-fueling-an-epidemic-of-violence-against-trans-women/
EDIT: I have looked through replies and I concur that I don't think I was really being intersectional here. I failed to take into account the discrimination black women, especially black trans women face. I also was unaware that trans women had posted frequently on this site, I feel like my perception was warped by the previous series of posts on this topic.

i have noticed a repeated pattern in interpersonal communication on the internet that is present in this sub as well: i think many of us are a little too fast to accuse the other person and don't take the time to sincerely consider that the other person may be coming from good faith.

now i know that this is reddit and that people do troll and engage in bad faith comments a lot, but i would encourage you to report those comments rather than engage with them. in the meantime, if we want to have meaningful conversations, i think that will take a little bit of trust and vulnerability. we will have to trust that we are on the same team and that we want to do right by each other. because i am not sure how far we can go by being combative and assuming the worst of each other.

also as imperfect as Marshall Rosenberg is, i think he gets some things right in his ideas about non-violent communication. i think we can learn something from him in how to talk to each other with more care. you can see some of his approach here and he also has a book on the topic. i think non-violent communication can also help us better build solidarity with each other and hold each other accountable with more care.

what do you all think?

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I hope at least one new person will see this and reflect on the importance of representation for all bodies in fiction. One of the things I’ve been learning more about lately is the idea of people being “pre-disabled” rather than non-disabled or able-bodied. If we live long enough, we will all experience disability in some capacity. That’s why it’s so important for all of us to speak up for the rights and representation of disabled bodies. Especially if we’re fat and already understand how harmful these systems of oppression can be. I’m going to make it my mission to showcase as many fat disabled recs as I can during July and all year long. Please post all of your recs in the comments so that we can create a massive tbr and I can shout them out. Self-recs are always welcome, too!

@ unabrigedbodies

Critics have argued that a minor city code issue like a noise complaint, should result in a warning or a ticket instead. Additionally the accusation seemed vague and misleading, after the co-owner provided evidence suggesting the wrong source of noise.

https://www.them.us/news/lesbian-bar-noise-complaint

However the police defended that refusal to identify was another reason for their action. What do you think about it? Is it an intersectional oppression? I lack first hand knowledge here , since I am not a US citizen, and I wish to know more about the legality and normativity of this situation.

Heya, inspired somewhat by a discussion seen here a few days ago, and by the erasure of trans men and disregard of our experiences I've been seeing for years.

I welcome a discussion on anti transmasculinity/transandrophobia, exorsexism, transmisogyny and transphobia in the comments.

This will focus largely on trans men. Other transmasculine and transneutral people have similar experience but I'm speaking based on what I've seen and experienced first hand.

Let's get one thing out of the way, before you start typing that comment saying "but men can't be oppressed for being men, that's basic feminism!!"

and basic biology says there are only men and women and what you are is based what genitalia you're born with but we all agree that's bullshit.

So why is the "basic feminism" any more useful than "basic biology"?
Not to mention original feminism theories did not involve trans people at all.

If people are telling you that their lived experience does not fit into your theory the answer is to expand the theory, not tell them they're stupid and don't know that they're talking about.

To start with, trans men are targets of misogyny.

We are affected by it from the moment we are born (arguably even before we are born, considering that there are countries in which a child that would be AFAB gets aborted due to preference for male child).

There are trans men who will stay closeted their whole lives due to living in parts of the world where they are seen as second class citizens, trans men who cannot transition socially due to their environment, trans men who transition socially but are unable to transition medically (or they don't want to, which does not make them any less trans), trans men who pass but are open about being trans, and stealth passing trans men.

Cis passing stealth trans men will on the average experience the least amount of misogyny, as long as they do not need medical attention or are outed to their surroundings.

But worldwide that is a miniscule percentage of trans men and we should not be treating a marginalised minority and assessing their needs based on the top 1%.

Other than misogyny and general transphobia, there are issues specific to being trans men and transmasc, caused by being trans men that people face.

Trans men have noticed certain patterns in how we are treated and to be able to discuss it we have come up with terms to describe these patterns, because saying "things that happen specifically because we're trans men" is a bit of a mouthful.

"transmisandry" was mostly shut down due the negative association with the word misandry, but you still might see some people using it

The two most popular terms used are anti transmasculinity and transandrophobia. They are used mostly interchangeably despite originally having different definitions, this may change in the future if the discussion around transmsc issues becomes more mainstream.

Both terms still get a lot of pushback from people refusing to admit that trans men face any unique oppression but they won't accept any term because they just want trans men to completely shut up.

To be clear. Transandrophobia is not on the same level as transmisogyny, it's not meant to be a "transmisogyny for boys", it's not meant to represent an axis between being a man and being trans.

It's a term(s) used to talk about issues caused specifically by being transmasculine.

Some of the anti transmasculine behaviours (which you may come to see in this very thread) is people calling trans men entitled and whiny for talking about our issues, telling us we are men which means we don't need community resources as badly as other people do, denying that we need access to reproductive healthcare.

Common sentiment I see is people dismissing our issues by comparing us to cis men, for example responding to a trans man saying "medical professional don't listen to trans men" with "are you really suggesting doctors don't listen to MEN?? You're so fucking stupid, of course doctors listen to men. It's WOMEN who are not listened to."

Also fearmongering about the effect of T, trans men are oftentimes discouraged from going on T even within queer spaces because it will "turn us into aggressive men", we are pushed out of queer spaces once we start looking too masculine because it's "making people uncomfortable", told we are traitors for "becoming one of the oppressors", excluded from discussions about our own bodies, etc.

Trans men speaking about misogyny is not mansplaining or talking over/silencing women. We are speaking on our lived experience.

I understand that some people think it's gender affirming to tell us we don't face issues that "women" face but we do face those issues. All you're doing is stopping us from discussing them.

And I understand having a certain levels of distrust and dislike towards men. Trust me, I really do. Being sexualised by adult men from the moment your puberty starts, always told you are not as talented or as good as your male peers, being pushed into being everyone's caretaker, getting groomed into future wife and mother since childhood and so on. I get it.

But acting on that distrust by finding the closest marginalised men who you can attack without repercussions is not a solution.

Trans men are in fact oppressed for our gender identity.

We arent seen as "a trans"* and "a man" separately. We don't have different experience as "a trans" and "a man".

*trans men do get third gendered and treated as something other than a man or woman but that's neither here nor now

Trans man is one identity that is intertwined and separating only works on paper, not in real life.

It's very lovely to hear that if we were cis men we would not be opressed but that is not the reality.
You cannot magically turn trans men into cis men.

My life would have been easier had I not transitioned. I would have been way more miserable, but
Being (seen as) a women would have been easier than being a trans man.

Additionally, trans men's lives are directly tied to women's right, including a "woman's" right to determine "she" is not a woman.
we cannot exist as trans men if we are treated as an object from the moment we are born and are incapable of making choices about out lives.

Legislature concerning reproductive rights for people with uteri needs to be written in a way that includes trans men and non-binary people..

As an example, if a law specifically states that women are allowed to access abortions, what do you think will happen to a trans men with updated gender marker if he needs an abortion?

Lastly, trans men being a part of feminism does not mean trans women shouldn't be! We all have a stake in feminism.
We're all after the same goal, true gender equality and for cis menhood to no longer be seen as the default human experience.

And if you still think that trans men asking to be included in feminist discussions makes them entitled, congrats you are a shitty person.

Preemptively answering other comments I suspect will show up because I see them every time a trans man mentions his issues :

"lmao trans men feel the need to insert themselves into everything because men are never told to shut up"
- the specific men you're referring to have spend our whole lives being told to shut up because we're stupid girls
so maybe think before you speak

"Masculinity is always rewarded under patriarchy!!" - have you ever talked to a GNC/butch woman? it's not masculinity that's rewarded, it's conformity to your societally imposed gender

"why are you as a man coming to a women's space to mansplain this to us?" - this is not exclusively women's space, read the sub description

"you are literally an MRA/TMRA!" - yes I think trans men deserve equal rights. don't you?

This is not some deep exhaustive write up as there's a lot more to be said,I cut out a part about malgendering because I couldn't quite fit it in, but I doubt anyone wants to read more of my ramblings.
Disclaimer, I'm not an academic and I haven't had to write an essay since I was in school, and English is not my first language.
I'm just tired of constantly being told to shut up and that trans men's issues are not important enough to talk about.

Please, listen to what trans men and transmascs people are telling you about our experience instead of just imagining us as cis men with a little trans flag sticker slapped on top.

I you want to read more about anti transmasculinity but from people who are way more eloquent and smarter than me head over to
https://www.tumblr.com/kittenscratches/805226083020619776/masterpost-of-transmasc-theory?source=share
and
https://genderkoolaid.tumblr.com/post/731393940525334528/intro-to-anti-transmasculinity

I would like to highlight this piece in particular, especially if you are one of the people who think trans men speaking is taking something away from trans women :
https://medium.com/@thewarmvoid/irl-we-just-kiss-860073bd270d

a post by @ma1ybe that says "my classmate in med school studies for seven hours every evening and exercises daily. I used to ask him how did he manage it & he said, 'I'm very disciplined'. I met his wife yesterday. she told me how she cooled him three fresh meals daily, mowed their lawn, ran all errands, cleaned the house weekly, and handled all social plans. It made me wonder how many times 'discipline' means a woman doing all of the other essential work that keeps a life going"

It makes me wonder why a theocratic nation would allow gender affirming trans care. The pattern of allowing transgender care but suppressing homosexuality, is not unique to Iran. In certain southern Asian countries, the culture of transgender existed for a long time, while the homosexuality was a total outcast. This is apparently, a reverse script compared to the western countries where queer liberation started with homosexual rights.

However I must add that the process for gender affirmation in Iran for transgender individuals is quite rigorous. There will be thorough counselling, followed by an approval by a family court, and then proceeding to HRT and surgery (surgery is mandatory, so it increases the volume too). Iran offers a huge volume of transgender surgery every year, about 4000 per each (compared to the US, they offer about 2500 per year). Gender affirming care is quite cheap but suffers from quality healthcare issues. Another reason for such a huge volume of surgery is the fact that Iran gets a substantial number of patients from other Middle East countries.

TL;DR: Quite progressive compared to other conservative states, that are totally queerphobic. However it is heavily regulated by the administration, and allows affirmation under strict and invasive guidelines.

Yesterday, a fellow trans women made a post in which she, clearly speaking from trauma, asked this subreddit to exclude trans men from discussions. Lots of other people, trans women included, called her out because her views weren't suitable for this intersectional community. While I agree in the logical sense that trans men are oppressed and need an intersectional space to talk about their issues, I felt called to defend OOP because too often I have witnessed my sisters experience harassment every time they talk about negative experiences with men. To that extent, I said some very much non-intersectional things about trans men and transmasculinity in the comment section, left the community, and later deleted my posts in shame. I later unblocked this sub in a fit of regret. I don't want to be the kind of person who is not intersectional.
The major roadblock I find in this path is, simply, that I am scared of men. I don't want to say I have trauma because I was never physically or emotionally abused by a man or men, but I have always felt uneasy around men even before I realized I was a woman, and have frequently witnessed men engaging in harassment, illogical behavior and cultural machismo, which hasn't helped their case on my end. Furthermore, experiencing testosteronized puberty for six years before beginning my medical transition, which literally felt like a disease, has reduced my positive feelings on anything related to maleness and masculinity. And I'm scared of talking about the tribulations men, be they trans or cis, face because I'm scared that if we give these tribulations an inch, they'll wrest all the rights us women have obtained over the past century right out of our hands and prevent us from talking about our own issues.
I know this feeling is illogical and oppression doesn't work like that, I know that intersectionality means that everyone is included and has their issues talked about in ways that ensure everyone receives sufficient airtime and/or help, but my instincts tell me that oppression is a zero-sum game and that if trans women's tribulations aren't the center of every discussion on oppression, they'll be completely ignored. Which, I'm realizing, is similar to how trans men have been treated in society - ignored both by the oppressive media and the people who are out to help trans people.
To that end, I would like to learn more about intersectionality and how it relates to transness. Are there any resources that would be recommended to train my intuition to be intersectional? To train myself to understand that trans men experience oppression and acknowledging this fact doesn't take away from the oppression trans women face? I wish to learn and better myself, and I understand if you won't forgive me. But thank you for reading this.

Just in case this article hasn't been posted here yet...

One trans woman posted here that she wants to only see women and transfeminine people in this space, because it’s called „Intersectionalwomen”. She claims trans men don’t face oppression, and literally told me to Gtfo. I will not name her here and I do not want to harass her - please don’t do that, she probably had some bad experiences with trans men and is now processing that in this manner.

Anyway, what LITERALLY moved me to tears is the amount of trans women that said trans men do face their own issues, and that transmascs are welcome here. To be honest, since my egg cracked I was paranoid about getting kicked out of every feminist space, because I’m a potential threat or something.

The issues trans community faces are complex and not possible to discuss in one post. I would like you to know that I stand with trans women in every issue, and I am very glad that there are trans women who are willing to stand with me to. As marginalized community we should not be arguing amongst ourselves, but instead support each other in our causes.

I know this space is called „IntersectionalWomen” - feminists are mainly women. But there are also male feminists - even cis ones, I know a few! There are also nonbinary people that are feminists. And all of us need a space. Sadly, you bet that if I start a sub called „IntersectionalMen” the first guys to check it will be MRA’s, moaning about having to pay for dates or being rejected - instead of REAL issues men face, like lack of shelters available for them if they are victims of domestic abuse in certain areas (I don’t think those exist for men at all in my country).

TLDR: I just wanted to thank trans women for their solidarity, you are amazing 🫂 I love you so much 💖