Contempt For Trans Men, Much?

Okay

This effed up article is proof of why a reframing of mainstream perspectives on transsexuality as a phenomenon is CRUCIAL for the survival of trans people as a community.

Note their cissexist framework from the jump:   the characterization of "transmen" as biological females and cis women/girls as  "typical girls" , how young CAFAB children who are vocal about not being girls are presented as potentially having a condition in which they are unable to be socialized properly, like some form of autism maybe, (Disableist!).

Note the correlation of young CAFAB trans kids apparently higher incidences of autistic traits being routed into causation for their very certainty that they are indeed not girls: 

“If such girls do believe they have a boy’s mind in a girl’s body, their higher than average number of autistic traits may also mean they hold their beliefs very strongly, and pursue them to the logical conclusion: opting for sex reassignment surgery in adulthood.”


Because, yanno something's gotta be responsible for the crazy idea that these "atypical girls" feel so sure they aren't girls.  They are just confused autistic spectrum females who find that they socialize better with boys, who tend to be less socially advanced to begin with.  That's it!!  (Way to undermine the agency of autistic spec persons too, by the way!!)

More and more I'm becoming militant about the use of Cis when referring to the dominant majority, i.e. those who feel comfortable in the way their bodies were first assigned a gender (which was based on their genitals) and agree either explicitly (yes, my genitals make me a man/woman and that's how it should be!)  or implicitly (thru lack of questioning how they were assigned) to take on the societal implications of that assignment.

Without that framework it is very hard to see the insidiousness of studies like these for what it is.  It starts with the premise that questioning one's gender assignment and/or asserting another gender identity than the one you were given at birth is somehow the result of a neurological disorder.  And that disorder doesn't necessarily point to the gendered hardwiring of the brain so much as that brain's inability to learn social roles properly.

Autistic Spectrum "Disorders" therefore might explain the problematic notion of why any assigned female would grow up to "believe" she  could be anything else but a female (as defined by her reproductive bits).

Before I learned the word cis, stuff like this article would bug me but I was stymied as to how to explain exactly why it was so fucked up.  Cis makes visible that which was invisible and unquestioned.  It also helps me see the Disableism that would otherwise have been a minor issue for me.  But no... because I can understand things thru a trans vs cis lens, I can see the use of disableism to reinforce cissexism for what it is.

I'm so grossed out that a trans woman is apparently on board with this disableist and cissexist study.  But trans people certainly aren't immune to buying into the paradigms of the dominant classes. 

Anyway.. UGH. 

It's stuff like this that also makes me realize that maybe I really must have a much stronger trans identity than I thought...  Because whenever me or my people are under attack from the medical gatekeepers like this, I come out swinging!  >:|