I feel like the situation with Imane Khelif being transvestigated by multiple transphobes and stuff, is her being subjected to anti-transmasculinity and transmisogyny. Of course i feel like the incitement of it is due to anti-Blackness/racism, especially as the features they keep inciting as evidence feels more so like phrenologizing features that would otherwise look normal on white cis women bodies, and that i think other trans people, especially white, should discuss this as more than just a trans issue. But even so, the way they're discussing her biology and body hits really close to home the ways I've had my femininity questioned growing up.
With some i've seen using her growing up tomboy as proof of 'actually being a boy' i feel like the ways they've been accusing her, it feels like criticisms levied at transmasculines, only changing the conclusion to be drawn that she's a trans woman to fit the terf narrative.

Asking because i want to know if my thoughts make sense, i think my thoughts can in large part explained away as both anti-transmasculinity and transmisogyny having roots in misogyny but since terfs and transphobes have put it forth as a 'trans issue', it's got me thinking why Imane and not a white athlete

“Ex” terf crypto dude: If you have truly changed as a person, then you should know that nobody owes you forgiveness. Nobody owes you a second chance. You absolutely should be held accountable for your past actions instead of hiding from them. That’s part of what people mean by “doing the work”. It’s not easy and it’s not meant to make you feel good. You complained an awful lot about not wanting to be held accountable for your actions just because your new friends weren’t directly affected. That doesn’t show growth or change. You need to be willing to take full accountability. Accountability doesn’t have an expiration date.

i have no idea what your response to this would be but i’ve been grappling with both guilt and selfishness recently and i really need to talk about it anonymously. you seem like a reasonable person who would at least listen before shutting me out as an irredeemable bigot (which i was at least the latter of those two words in the past). i think i’d just like some advice.

i used to be a crypto-TERF even though i didn’t directly interact with any transgender people on those accounts and i’m ashamed of it. this was from around the end of 2022 to mid-2023, although towards the end of that period i was in sort of an in-between state where i had a foot in each side and interacted with both radfem & trans communities separately (different accounts, etc.)

only a select few people know about it currently, and most of them believe me that i’ve deactivated those accounts (one twitter, one tumblr) and stayed gone since then, i.e. chosen to be a trans activist at the end of the day and keep my transmasc identity in full. i don’t blame the ex-friend who absolutely despises me and refuses to forgive or otherwise accept the apology at all! in fact it doesn’t really bother me that much since we weren’t close in the first place but even if it did i’d still understand. i just worry that instead of moving on and simply avoiding me at all costs, they’ll make a move to ruin what little presence and few friends on the internet i have if i appear more openly online. i don’t use any twitter accounts that aren’t private for a variety of (+ unrelated) reasons, but if i ever changed my mind then i don’t think i could last very long in mainstream twitter circles without them posting a callout for something that’s long done. i get that people deserve to know, but if i’m long past that phase and no longer hurting anyone by exploring gender criticism then i don’t understand why i should be treated as irredeemable forever and never get another chance from OTHER people and NEW friends who weren’t actively affected. starting over on a blank slate without lying or changing my identity online, which i seriously don’t want to do since i would feel uncomfortable pretending to be someone i’m not even if it wasn’t wrong.

i guess especially my concern would be that i’m not welcome in trans spaces at all anymore. i really want to start testosterone and change my name legally before the election later this year, and i want to celebrate that joy with other transgender people. i would worry my identity doesn’t matter if i’m a (perceived) threat regardless. like i don’t know, maybe it’s my BPD talking under the notion that nuance cannot exist but am i deserving of being alone without community forever, as if i’m exiled?

i’m not looking to be coddled (though please don’t be too harsh or dismissive either) and of course you’re free to criticize me further if you deem it warranted. i just genuinely don’t know where to go from here so that’s what i’m asking. i believe i have improved since cutting myself off from all TERF spaces, since i don’t need anyone’s approval to redeem myself and do better, especially given it’s been more than a year now, but maybe it’s not enough or there’s something i’m not getting about the obligations or lack thereof regarding how accounting for past actions, growing as a person, and the effects on other people are supposed to work. it’s not your responsibility to answer this or help me out and i know that, so it would be greatly appreciated but you can also shut this down or delete it and i’ll be fine. i wish you well.

this isn't really a question but i just wanted to communicate this somehow. currently my account is private because i was getting stalked and harassed by some transphobic separatist transfem lol. she may or may not have ended up somewhere in your engagements recently, she's part of the weird self-hating crowd on here. regardless, i really appreciate seeing you actually vocalize the issues I've seen in the community for several years now. I've been out as transmasc to myself and online for almost 10 years now but im in no position to actually start transition like i want to. so i present fem and it feels further alienating somehow, like im wearing a "woman mask" in society. nobody has ever really publicly talked about this oppression transmascs face constantly, a unique way transphobia and misogyny intersect for us that isn't quite transmisogyny because that's directed more towards transfems. its depressing that no community could ever take me quite seriously because i didn't seem to "fit" anywhere. but it helps now to see more and more people actually talk about transmasc issues and how anti-transmasculinity does exist, no matter what you label it as. i appreciate you and your words a whole lot. thank you :)

@ separatist anon: Anti-transmasculine transfems/women could say the same. You're teetering into the same ideological rabbit hole that those who contribute to the isolation you're feeling have already fallen into. People in our community (other trans men and transmascs) can do harm to our trans sisters and siblings, we can engage in transmisogyny just as others can anti-transmasculinity. There's no inherent solidarity in any of us, we ALL have to work to kill the internalized transphobia in our brain one by one.

Unfortunately, people are fragile and often turn to black-and-white thinking when a member of a certain group does bad by you. It's a vicious cycle that results in the community eating itself alive like a cheap dollar store version of Ouroboros.

There's always been a particular pattern in queer-online discourse to never acknowledge the good done by our community until it feels tangible enough to rise above our struggles, hence our intercommunity love never gets nearly enough attention as does aimless discourse, but we are loved. You need to pull out of that hole you've found yourself in before you recreate the gnawing anguish and seclusion you feel directed at other people.

Even what you're saying now is mirrored by people who feel the exact same way you do, but do so directed towards our group. Humans are funny like that. Even in discourse it's clear either sides share the same fight, anxieties are sometimes reflected. So I think one day our community will be better, it has to be, but to do so we all have to break down the unconscious dehumanization of the "other," to see those we're in a community with as more than just people whose our identities intersect within a group label. You have to do that too.

I was similarly spiraling in my early transition due to similar experiences of seeing people in my community express blanket distaste for FTM transition, the only other trans person I knew at the time attempting to talk me down out of HRT, so I understand first-hand the stages of grief. I implore you to seek out local trans and queer areas in your town, because finding people that understood me was the first step to dissecting this type of thought pattern. I met a lot of shitty trans people, those that certainly left a mental mark behind, but your idea of a non-transfem community will not save from that.

This is a barely coherent stream of consciousness written while hazy from pain killers (broken leg, ouchie), but I hope something there got through to anyone reading.

Our community is not perfect, but it's just as yours as it is mine. Isn't that worth how beautiful it can be? The future is worth aiding in.

Pretty sure that guy hating on all transfems as unhelpful and bigoted is a troll looking for callout fodder. Either you agree and you’re a transmisogynist or you disagree and they’ll use it as proof that you think trans women should be subservient to transmascs (though I haven’t seen any yet, I’m sure they’ll ss your thread to twist everyone’s words). IMO you shouldn’t post those bc you know TIRFs will take any excuse they get to make transmascs look bad, even when we’re throwing our full love and support at them.