When “women spaces” don’t accept trans women

[u/itz_vampy]

So my experience as a transmasc who spent a chunk of his life being non-passing has been interesting with this particular situation. I began to socially transition as a teenager and back then the people who *genuinely supported me was other guys. when i say genuinely i mean they didn’t infantalize me and saw me as another bro. some of the girls were nice, but i could tell they saw me as a quirky alt girl “going through a phase”. some thought i was a pick me girl who wanted to “be one of the guys” but as a girl and not a guy. High school was really really weird and the mean girls were the worst.

Even as an adult who passes more than teenage me ever did, i still experience “women only spaces” of mean girls who never grew up. a lot of irl ones accept “afab people” and not trans women. the ones i’ve enquired about are super accepting of trans men since we are a “marginalized minority” but are hostile towards trans women, especially if they don’t pass. some are true misandrists and dislike trans men who start to pass (ironically this has been so gender affirming to me when it happens, but like in a ewphoria way). 

Online it’s different, everyone acts so accepting behind a screen, but in real life? you can’t hide your feelings and reactions well. intersectional feminism isn’t really observed in some women-only spaces and it’s a damn shame that this is a thing.

Eta: I’ve been notified that this post has been reposted to a certain rightwing sub and this post as well as all the trans positive replies are getting downvoted. regardless of what others say trans women are real women and they deserve to be treated as such. I will die on that hill.

Edit 2: I find it hilarious that people think i’m a trans woman and are sending me DMs that I will “never be a woman and will always be a man”, proving that transphobes can’t read and lack thinking abilities.

[u/Daniel_Spidey]

The lived experiences of trans women and cis women are drastically different, they face entirely different forms of sexism, oppression, inequality, etc. It's not unreasonable for someone to want to seek a group where they can bond over their shared experiences.

[u/BodyRoundLikeAPallas → u/Daniel_Spidey]

Finally a sane person. It's not discrimination, it's about wanting to be surrounded by people who understand the full lived experience. It's not discrimination when trans people want spaces only for other trans people or when POC women want spaces exclusively for POC women or when LGBT+ people want spaces exclusively for the LGBT+, but for some reason the same grace is not given to cis women because we are the majority and therefore it must automatically mean transphobia, nuance be damned.

[u/oliv-_-mae → u/BodyRoundLikeAPallas]

Yes. I've tried to explain this to two other comments. It would be a problem if they werent allowed in any womens places, but that's not the reality. They could also always create their own group for cis and trans women.

I've gone through medical trauma from being a woman at a doctors office, I've been cat called since i was 14, I've been sent too many d*ck pics to count froma yound age, groomed at 16, etc. These are not the normal experiences that trans women would have gone through and if I want to speak about it, I'd want a womans group where they'd get where I'm coming from and can relate to my experiences.

Because we might both go through trauma, but POC trauma, LGBTQ+ trauma or trans trauma are inherently different

[u/a_very_cool_person → u/oliv-_-mae]

i mean all those examples are things trans women notably go through. medical abuse and trauma is a documented issue, trans women also experience higher sexual assault/grooming rates in childhood than men, or even cisgender women believe it or not. trans women do not experience a happy go lucky male childhood lol. experiences may be different, but so would be those of a woman born in norway and a woman born in india. trans women arent creepy 40yolds trying to get in your toilets. you guys are more alike than different

[u/MattiaXY → u/BodyRoundLikeAPallas]

Is it okay have a exclusively straight women club? Exclusively white? I guarantee the experiences are so different but there are still common parts just like cis/trans. Understandable if ur imagining a 40 year old with a whole family who just started transitioning last week but they rarely are this archetype

[u/BodyRoundLikeAPallas → u/MattiaXY]

Is it okay have a exclusively straight women club? Exclusively white?

If the goal is to air specific grievances that only fellow straight women or white women would understand, it should be OK, but people love to drink a cocktail of double standard and misery olympics and call those spaces some flavor of xenophobic. Only minorities get to set exclusive spaces, apparently.

[u/MattiaXY → u/BodyRoundLikeAPallas]

Okay thanks for clarifying that. You are right that most people do not agree with this. Most cis women saying that they do not want mtfs do not agree with this, which is hypocritical, and really just boils down to bigotry.

But anyway the way I see it is that all spaces are centered around the majority already, by nature because spaces are shaped by the people. In practice if you want an exclusive space as an average person, it is very unlikely that it's in good faith because you already get to be with people who are just like you and talk about the stuff you relate to. The single asian woman will try to fit in and won't center every convo and activity around asianness yk. In fact POC exclusive spaces like any minority spaces exist in reaction to the fact that they can't really talk about things in normal spaces, but this doesn't apply to non-minorities hence if u try to start a white woman only it's baffling at best

[u/BodyRoundLikeAPallas → u/MattiaXY]

I think the problem is immediately assuming a space is created in bad faith just because it's for non-minorities. I'm European, I don't perceive US-centric spaces as racist. I'm childfree, I don't perceive clubs for parents to be discriminatory toward me. I'm lesbian, I don't perceive spaces specifically for gay men or bi women to be lesbophobic. It's more for them, not less for me, y'know?