Push and Pull - Taffy Puller

As a trans man, I am constantly forced into feminism and forced out of it at the same time. I feel like I'm taffy in a taffy puller, something to constantly stretch and pull until it's suitable to cisnormative ideas of gender.

Its satisfying to watch, to theorize my life from across the room. But I'm only wondering when it'll end. When will my life not be a concept flown around and instead actually acknowledged in its complexity?

Here's how it works:

Abortion and reproductive rights are being talked about, supposedly I'm being talked about here, because I'm impacted by this. In fact, it's harder for me to access when I'm perceived as a man. We're worried about access right? This conversation is about a part of my body, and applies to me, right?

That's the pull in. If I say it doesn't impact me, I'm seen as naive. My avoidance of reproductive health due to dysphoria was always seen as something to pity or make fun of me for. Get over yourself, it's what bodies do, it's what your body does.

But to be part of the conversation, to be seen at all in something I'm already forced into, I need to be misgendered. You know, for the sake of women. It's a women's issue, you understand, right? We don't want to take away from women or their voices by making this include men.

And with that I'm pushed out as soon as I allow myself to be pulled in. Woman when it suits you, man when it suits you, a non human blob that's constantly stretched and pulled across the room.

Cis women used to realize I'm trans and immediately talk about their periods with me while going “you get it, right?” And I'm pulled in. I mentioned that they made me dysphoric, I'm another man who's too emotionally immature to acknowledge a menstrual cycle, I'm pushed out.

I'm bisexual so I'm both a butch lesbian with internalized homophobia and a homophobic straight woman obsessed with yaoi. I have people stop and tell me which attractions I have are gay or straight, we both know that neither are actually acceptable to society at large. But for the sake of theory that doesn't need to reflect your life as a weird outlier, might as well make the distinction.

If you feel good about being transgender, that's good, that's great! But you can't feel that way about being a man. Any part of your body that you feel is affirming? Women have that too, it's silly to act like they don't. You're only reinforcing traditional gender norms. Femininity is so much better anyway, why be a gross stinky balding man when you were blessed with womanhood!

Oh, but trans men that want to be feminine, they're men but need to realize that no one's going to actually take them seriously. I mean, we may be able to misgender any trans person we don't like no matter how they look, but it's hard when you look so much like a woman.

Better not mention that you can have facial hair and wear feminine clothes at the same time. Is that gender conformity? Is it non-conformity? I have a pussy and I'm wearing a skirt, I'm doing gender correctly, right? The fact I barely ever do it out of fear for my safety is just my imagination, right?

I don't exist. When I do, no I don't. I'm supposed to blend in with the rest of cis people and enjoy male privilege. I'm a gender traitor or trying to be a victim by clinging to my agab. Clearly, this is incredibly similar to transmisogyny with how it relates to gender and being trans, but I'm not a trans woman so I can't call it that. I can't call it anything else either, I can't say anything about it. At least that's what I'm told from anyone but trans women.

Men don't shut up, be one of the good ones and shut up. You know, like a woman, but not… Huh, I wonder where all the trans men are. They must've been able to fall into the woodwork. This taffy tastes great.

Edit/Update

Update made March 23rd, 2025

Jude Doyle wrote a piece that explains what I'm getting at pretty specifically. I'm glad he wrote it, because if I did I'd be too mean and less patient, as you could probably tell from the above.

Only one or two things didn't sit right with me about it.

One

The main one was the mention that criticizing cis women feminists is punching up. I generally avoid trying to say who is more oppressed than another unless if it's blatant. I usually only reserve it for when the top 1% richest people are involved.

Me and Jude differ regarding how we're perceived. I'm seen as a man almost always. I have been on the receiving end of male privilege, though sometimes in strange ways with how it interacts with transphobia (my medical concerns are taken seriously But I'm also misgenderd while getting testing and have staff act as if transition is like eating nuclear waste. I avoid misogyny with people I can't avoid but now see my situation as a bomb that could go off).

I take intersectionality as my main basis for feminism. Another part of my issue lies in what was said earlier with the stomping and the stomped on and masculinity and power, calling it "objectively true" (the postmodernist monkey that lives in my head went nuts with that one). It is still acting like gender is the only important axis of oppression when it's not. There should not be competition around what form of oppression causes the rest when all of them play into each other. I'd rather not think about where I can punch up when I'm likely privileged in some ways and oppressed in others compared to the person I'm speaking to. In the end, the mindset leaves me punching someone barely having more power than me, if any, rather than at the systems that keep that power in place.

I take a similar stance with how to handle my privilege. I'd rather focus on my privileges and marginalizations as they are specifically without thinking who is and isn't more oppressed than me. On general ideas, yes, I have more privilege as a member of one group compared to another, trans women as an example, but when it comes to practice we are always more than one identity. Rather than trying to do identity mathematics I would rather see how our experiences are similar and different while keeping in mind how our multiple identites can impact them. All while keeping a look out for experiences or identities I am not hearing before trying to find and amplify their voices.

Two

Then there's the smaller one about terfs. It may be about language than it is an actual disagreement, which is why it's smaller.

The piece points to how this is practicing the same thing terfs do. As someone who has watched terfs as a movement for about a decade now, starting discourse with them for at least half of it, I think it downplays how they treat trans women. Terfs do not see any trans person as tolerable, and what he says about how they treat trans men is spot on. But trans women are treated as predatory monsters. The way they're discussed makes you think that they're somehow the ultimate villain in a childrens fiction novel. There is nothing human or redeemable regarding trans women to them, and that's nauseating if I'm being honest. It's sickening to see someone flip a switch to act as if trans women were gone the entire world would have it's issues solved.

I've gotten treated like shit from terfs, for sure, but to act like what we have in mainstream feminist circles (despite transphobia fast approaching) is similar to being a terf waters down what terfs actually are and what they've done, what they're doing.

It is definitely cis feminism, but terfs have a specific goal to exclude rather than not think about trans people.