No Place for Transsexuals: A Manifesto

This pride month, I’ve decided to throw hands.

Of course, the inevitable disclaimer.

Before we begin, I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear - this will be another very, very long, opinionated rant about social groups that you may or may not be a part of/have friends who are a part of. Before you wave your hand and decide to label me one of your "bad terms" (transmedicalist, sex essentialist, transmisoginist, etc.), please read everything I've written. If you are a part of the social groups I'm discussing in this piece, and you are uncomfortable with the things I've written or feel it somehow applies negatively to you, I strongly encourage you to do some self-reflection about your situation and the people you choose to associate with and the behaviors you display to others.

Additional disclaimer - I am very much a leftist, but I’m pretty far to the left. I believe in things like gun ownership being a normal and important part of queer life, and that we should all be helping each other out of the darkness. Regardless of your impressions of me after reading this, please keep that forefront in your mind.

There will be no names or personally identifiable features in this document, beyond the impressions of the person(s) in question and their (perceived) actions. Fair warning that I will be using verbiage related to sex and sexual abuse frequently.

The Who, What, Where and When.

There's a pervasive attitude amongst trans people (trans women in particular) that there needs to be universal acceptance of everyone, no matter their behaviors, into the trans community. I agree, for the most part. I think that it's very important for everyone to have members of the community that they can discuss important aspects of transitioning with, and to feel supported by the trans women around them. I would not be in the place I'm in now without the trans people in my life and their support, and I'm eternally grateful for those friends. However, I believe that this “open door policy” around the trans community has been actively harming our public image for years, despite their insistence of the opposite.

I grew up SURROUNDED by cis women. They were my best friends, confidants, and support structure for most of my upbringing. They were also a source of a bitter truth, an important aspect of all this that I fully intend on touching on later. Without the women in my life, I would not be the woman I am today. Without them, I would not have the fuel that drives me to betterment, both socially and interpersonally. My mannerisms were patterned largely on the women I spent time with, especially as many believed I was gay (which, technically, was correct - I preferred men to women despite my long-term dating choices, and am now happily straight!). Some women even went so far as to help affirm my gender when I began discussing it a year or two after meeting my first trans person, helping me with makeup and clothing, and most importantly, teaching me some feminine mannerisms and behaviors very early on.

The first trans person I met was a trans man, who was navigating the difficulties and challenges of being trans in summer camp. He showed me that there was a way to handle being trans and addressing it with groups of people who might not know much about it in an approachable, comfortable manner. I will always credit him as the man who "woke me up", so to speak, that helped burst my "I don't know who I am" bubble. He also provided the blueprint for my inevitable preference for trans men, in large part due to how they treat people and especially women around them. At the time, he was forced to sleep in the girls' bunks for "safety", which at the time seemed fair to us, but absolutely was not. He was the only out trans person I ever met at that summer camp. He taught me how to deal with challenges like that with grace and confidence, and to overcome those barriers with kindness and self-confidence. From what I remember (I was VERY young, probably 13 or so), everyone loved him, and showed him the same kindness they would show anyone else in our camp groups. He was also notably autistic, and had difficulties with inferred and contextual logic in a manner very similar to the autistic friends I know and love today.

My closest friends are mostly autistic, transgender, and more than willing and happy to support each other. I'll refrain from providing details about the people I'm close with, but suffice to say I love each and every one of them so incredibly much.

These are, of course, not the people I'm talking about today.

The people I'm talking about are very easy to describe and meet a few specific criteria.

The Criteria.

1. Owns a Blåhaj, and is somehow obsessed with it or points it out specifically/constantly.
2. Visible and overt hypersexuality, especially regarding specific fetishes or fetishization of being transgender at large.
3. Typically a NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training [though I prefer Trade]). Note that some that I have met are in college, so that doesn't always apply.
4. Painfully, terminally online, and engages in social spaces such as Twitter, BlueSky, Lex, and niche Discord micro-communities.
5. Learned helplessness, despite socioeconomic situation or level of familial support, and verbalized pessimism to the nth degree.
6. Highly competitive, especially in comparison to other trans women and their transition progress. This includes comparing doses in a competitive way, believing that transitioning in a short amount of time somehow equals good, and generally negative reflections of the trans women around them.
7. EXTREME avoidance and visible disgust of cisgender women, no connections to cisgender women outside of queer groups. This one is crucial to understanding the kind of person I’m talking about.
8. Bonus (optional) round 1: spends most of their time in community Team Fortress 2 servers, typically being very strange in text chat (notably, never in-game voice chat, though I do have it off nowadays for obvious reasons).
9. Bonus (somewhat-optional) round 2: heavy drug abuser, typically of drugs stronger than marijuana (acid in large quantities, non-perscribed adderall, painkillers and ketamine, ecstacy and other “party drugs”), and often strongly pushes for others to “try” the stronger substances they partake in.
10. Bonus (optional) round 3: Heavy usage of “internet terms” to describe oneself or others, such as: “gatekeeping” and “gaslighting” (especially when used in reference to someone setting a hard boundary), john40, ngmi, ywnbaw, hon, (insertnegativething)maxxer, and other various /r/traaaaans and 4chan words popularized by the surge of new members in those communities.

Note that just associating with one or two of these bullet points on its own is typically NOT indicative of the exact group of people that I am talking about - instead, generally MOST or ALL of the above criteria must be met. This is important to keep in your mind going forward, as I believe many of these things are interconnected, and that we as a community have a requirement to address these subjects and tackle these nuances for the betterment of our community (and our collective image).

I want you to keep the image of the people who meet this criteria in your mind, especially the contrast between them and the other types of trans people I have discussed. It will be very important going forward.

The Elephant in the Room.

Of course, we have to start by tackling the mental health aspect of all this. There's two topics I'd like to touch on specifically - autism and dissociative identities. Note that bipolar and schizophrenia are not included in this article. If you are struggling with any of these issues, I strongly encourage you to seek out a medical professional for further assistance, as they can have long-term impacts on your cognitive ability. There are also programs (in some states and countries) that help those without means to access that kind of support, including ones specifically for trans people, many of which are simple DuckDuckGo search away.

In this case, we’ll be discussing Level 1 autism, which is described by the DSM-5 as:

“Without support in place, deficits in social communication cause noticeable impairments. Difficulty initiating social interactions, and clear examples of atypical or unsuccessful responses to social overtures of others. May appear to have decreased interest in social interactions. For example, a person who is able to speak in full sentences and engages in communication but whose to-and-fro conversation with others fails, and whose attempts to make friends are odd and typically unsuccessful.”

This is typically what people are referring to when they say “oh, I have autism” when addressing their behavior. Levels 2 and 3 are significantly more impactful on ability, and are not referenced in this article nor often claimed by the specific groups of people I am discussing.

I struggle with, and have many friends who struggle with, mental health issues. I won’t get into specifics regarding our specific cases, but it would be accurate to say we have a wide spectrum of representation in my immediate social circles. Many of my close friends are diagnosable/diagnosed with autism, and it’s been that way for years.

There’s this strange concept linking the previously listed criteria specifically to autism, typically in a very hand-wave-y “I have autism so it’s okay” way. Accepting and supporting such behaviors has done so much damage to our community and it must be addressed. Doing this is no different than when the Muskrat did a Nazi on stage then blamed it on autism.

That’s simply not how autism works, and it's not how autistic people work, both on paper and in practice. The autistic people I know are quite capable of setting boundaries and communicating, oftentimes more than people I would consider “neurotypical”. Many require additional explanations and support for the logic and reasoning behind these boundaries and communication techniques, which is something that is very in-line with the clinical definition and observations of the autism spectrum. These additional explanations and reasoning are CRUCIAL to growth cycles, and show without a doubt that autistic people can grow and change, but require accommodations and support to do so. 

A key part of the above criteria is that the people exhibiting these behaviors do NOT require the additional explanations or reasoning, and in fact, often avoid it as much as possible. When provided with a reasonable explanation for why their behavior is not okay, they will do anything and everything to divert responsibility or blame it on a mental health issue. This applies to issues of consent in particular, which will be relevant in a bit.

Here’s an example: 

I used to run a small Discord community for a group of “friends”, mostly to play Minecraft together. One of the people in said group gave me immediate red flags when they joined, and sure enough, we had a run-in with them. 

The issue specifically arose because they wanted to post their NSFW/bordering on NSFW furry content in a server that had minors in it. We explicitly told them they were not allowed to do this, and they immediately began questioning our decision, demanding to know why we would not allow them to do so. When we provided a valid answer (“there are minors in this server”), instead of accepting said answer for its logic and reasoning, they continued to agitate people until I simply decided to ban them. That is not how an autistic person works, and asserting so further stigmatizes an otherwise serious disability.

Typically when provided an answer like “don’t post furry porn in a server with minors”, the response I’ve had from EVERY SINGLE OTHER AUTISTIC person in that server is some form of “yeah that makes sense”, not “I don’t know why you guys won’t let me, in spite of the explanation you’ve provided”.

Regardless of what mental illness you have, what disability you have, there is no excuse for encroaching on the boundaries of others. Attempting to use those disabilities as a workaround or excuse to detract from someone’s visible or audible discomfort is quite simply not okay. It is our responsibility to hold each other accountable, regardless of the kind of resistance you meet in doing so.

In the same vein, people who struggle with disassociate identities are absolutely responsible for the actions of any said identity that they may share space with. Many people who struggle with dissociative identities often have this issue in large part due to something AWFUL that happens to them as a child. See below for the specific DSM-5 criteria: 

“Interpersonal physical and sexual abuse is associated with an increased risk of dissociative identity disorder. Prevalence of childhood abuse and neglect in the United States, Canada, and Europe among those with the disorder is about 90%. Other forms of traumatizing experiences, including childhood medical and surgical procedures, war, childhood prostitution, and terrorism, have been reported. Ongoing abuse, later-life retraumatization, comorbidity with mental disorders, severe medical illness, and delay in appropriate treatment are associated with poorer prognosis.”

This can, and does, lead to hypersexuality in adulthood. However, once again, regardless of if the hypersexuality is performed by an alter/goblin/whatever term your system prefers, you are ultimately responsible for your actions as a person, and it’s your responsibility to adjust your behavior accordingly, rather than looking for excuses for it. It is not an impossible task; it is something you must do to grow and change as a person, and it requires friends that are willing to hold you accountable.

FRIENDS. (How many of us have them? A show of hands.)

My belief is that, in large part, much of this is occurring due to a lack of true friendships within the queer community. It’s sort of an ouroboros in a way - their weirdness stops them from making true friends, but in kind, it allows them to become “friends” with people who are also like them (overtly hypersexual, disrespectful of boundaries, unable to hold others accountable and being extremely toxic). By being friends with those people, it further reinforces the already poor behaviors they exhibit, and indicates that not only are you willing to enable their behavior, but that you are nearly complicit in it.

It’s the damn phones.

Let me level with you for a second. I grew up with older people always telling me that my phone was a source of extreme negativity, and that it only detracted from my ability to enjoy life. Of course, being a literal child with no real thought processes, I thought they were insane.

They were right. After COVID, we have started to see the long-term implications of allowing people to be constantly, terminally online, in spaces that are actively harmful to their mental health. So many people now exhibit symptoms of completely stunted development, paired with an outright refusal and general disinterest in actually growing as a person. Many people assume that growth is something that “just happens” to people, especially if you already struggle with that concept. It’s not. The people who show the most growth and indicate that to others are typically giving 110% of their effort to doing that specifically. Oftentimes, this amount of effort can seem impossible or incredibly daunting, while it seems simple to others.

I will tell you this now, explicitly: every single person who is putting in effort to grow and change is facing the same, impossible, daunting cliff that you are.

It’s a natural part of being human and progressing as a person.

Touching Grass and Letting Go.

Obviously the solution is to “go outside”. This doesn’t really help though, as if you’re “going outside” and still spending time with people who do not want to grow and change, it will stunt your development in kind. For example, you could be the kind of person who constantly has friends over and has a big social circle AND very much be someone whose growth has completely stunted at the same time. Having a lot of friends =! Being a stable person. It simply means there are enough likeminded people around you that are willing to either put up with or encourage your bad behavior.

Sometimes, growing as a person means letting people go. I’ve done this a LOT throughout my life. It’s very hard to do, and requires a lot of bravery to simply stop being in someone’s life. Sometimes, it even requires active effort to separate yourself from those kinds of people, especially those who struggle with The Criteria. I have separated myself from many of these kinds of people, and have seen them almost unanimously spiral further after doing so, while I’m actively putting in effort to try and be a better person.

You cannot help someone who does not want to help themselves. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. So many people struggle with self reflection, and even more with coming face to face with their own behaviors.

The Bitter Truth.

I included bullet point #7 for a very specific reason. To me, this point indicates that at their core, some of these people do not want to be women (or men - but I’ve seen significantly more transgender women exhibit these behaviors). This behavior can be classified as the typical misogyny shown to women, and absolutely is used and weaponized in the same manner.

Cue the jeers and tomatoes, but hear me out.

Face to Face with the Truth.

The hardest instinct to cut out of any transition is comparing yourself to others in a competitive way. See Criteria 6 and 7. I believe that, in a lot of ways, these two points are directly intertwined with each other. It’s incredibly normal for women to compare themselves to other women. That does not make it okay, and in these instances (The Criteria), it’s generally tied in with a distinct and deep hatred of cis women. I believe that in large part, this hatred stems from a deep insecurity - the giveaway is that it does NOT appear to go away during a transition.

The biggest part of my transition was finally being happy in my body and feeling like I was attractive and feminine enough to go out in femme cut outfits and to interact with cis women the way other cis women do. Engaging with these things from the angle of “I am approaching this scenario as a woman” instead of “I am approaching this as a trans woman” has changed the way I am not only treated in public, but how I interact with other trans people in public.

Part of what drove me to improve that aspect of myself was coming face to face with the truth. One evening, during one of my very bad behavior incidents, I was hanging out with a good friend of mine (whom I am still friends with). I was telling her about how comfortable I was approaching women as if I was also a woman. Keep in mind, this was very early on in my transition.

After a small argument, she made it clear that part of why she struggles with accepting that was because I still looked like a man.

And she was right.

And she was right to say it, and to tell me that.

I needed that honesty, and only a cisgender woman could provide that to me. Cis women have an instinct, a radar if you will, for safe people and unsafe people. Regardless of how you want to come across, this instinct is always active. If your physical appearance does not match how you want to present yourself, it’s no surprise that cis women will struggle with interacting with you. You also gain this instinct as your transition progresses, particularly in years 3 and 4.

But something I’ve noticed particularly amongst the people mentioned in the criteria is that, in general, they’re really bad at transitioning.

Unpacking the Truth.

Now that’s a big pill to swallow. I understand. However, it doesn’t come from nowhere. Part of this revelation came, largely, from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Transitioning (for me, anyway) essentially translated into a younger version of my mother. I have seen this repeated in many different instances, across many trans people, including trans men who end up looking like their father.

Understanding the fact that this is your likely outcome is crucial to being able to articulate your goals and needs for a transition. Because again - it’s not something that “just happens” to people, you can take the E all you want, but it won’t make the facial hair go away. You have to put in the work, money, time and effort to transition into someone that passes fully as a woman. There’s no way around it, no shortcuts, no “easy path” - ALL of it is hard.

Shinji represents (again, to me!) someone who is struggling fundamentally with the concept of quite literally being suspended inside a homunculus version of his mother. At the end of the show, he does break through his emotional barriers and insecurities, and becomes happy to be himself. He did not do this out of a need to cover or otherwise diminish his insecurities - he worked through them to become the person he wants to be.

I believe many people who meet The Criteria have never had a moment like this, where they truly break through and unpack what is making them so insecure and bothers them. Instead, they turn to being trans as a means of getting away from that version of yourself, expecting it to solve their problems, when that’s not how transitioning works at all.

For many, transitioning is a means of running away from a version of you that you do not like. That’s not how I see it, or how I believe it should be. Transitioning should be running toward who you should be, and by virtue moving away from your old self, not running away from a version of you that you hate. This is also why it’s so dangerous to “crack someone’s egg” - if someone is truly transgender, they’ll come out when they’re ready. 

In social circles filled with people that meet The Criteria, you will find many instances of people being essentially forced out of the closet and encouraged to try transitioning at any mention of insecurity. That’s because, at their core, these communities are founded by people with deep seated insecurities. The victims (and perpetrators) begin taking life-altering hormones and simply expecting them to “just work”, which is just not the case. Then they feel worse about themselves, simply because they believe they’re not transitioned enough to compete with others in their social circle. It’s a serious oroboros cycle that’s almost impossible to miss. 

Coping with the Truth.

At the end of the day, I truly believe that many people’s transitions are largely fueled by insecurity, whether it be dysphoria or otherwise. I also believe that’s the reason there was such a push by the “you don’t need dysphoria to be trans” crowd - fundamentally, that’s part of changing your gender. Being unhappy with your assigned gender at birth and wanting to switch to the other side of the binary is the base definition of transsexuality. Stating so is now often considered taboo, which I strongly believe has harmed the framework and security of our communities.

Being insecure is a beast, of course. It will never stop being one nor am I trying to say it isn’t. What I am saying is that sometimes, transitioning isn’t the right move, and that many appear to be making the choice to transition without realizing how much work you have to put in to actually accomplish your goals. It’s the same with any kind of sex work - people go in to it thinking they can just post a picture of their tits and gain six figures magically. It doesn’t happen like that, it’s a ton of work! Image is everything, regardless of whether you agree with it on a societal level or not, and that reminder needs to be repeated more often in our communities. 

Trans women may not owe anyone femininity - but if you want to be seen as a woman by anyone that’s not trans, you have to put in the work. Is it fair? No. Is it fun? FUCK no. Is it achievable with enough effort? Yes. Has it been done by many people, both past and present? Absolutely.

Understanding the Rot.

Now, let me be clear and very frank - there was a time in my life where I exhibited some of the behaviors contained herein, especially prior to my transition. I’m not afraid to admit that, and in fact, I’m quite proud of the progress I’ve made to move away from being that kind of person to become a kinder, more understanding and self-aware person. It takes guts to know who you are, and even more to change it. 

The trans community has a sex pest problem. Part of it is inherent in the community, but a large part of it comes simply from the “open door policy” of the trans community. This occurs in gay and lesbian communities as well, but it’s very prevalent especially amongst transgender women that spend a significant amount of time on the internet. The root of this problem stems largely from people’s inherent inability to respect the boundaries of others, paired with lack of training on how to properly set boundaries with others.

Now, of course, the knee jerk reaction is to say “but Luna, autistic people struggle with boundaries”, but unsurprisingly you’d be dead wrong about that (and you should really review how you are supporting the autistic people in your life). Most of the autistic people I know are quite good at setting and respecting boundaries, in some cases simply because they have to in order to interact with people socially. This is something that a lot of people on the spectrum like to and want to do, and need additional support to be able to acomplish. Much of their ability to communicate comes from training, and watching others in their friend group do the same. Boundaries do not come naturally to autistic people - but they absolutely can be learned and reinforced.

That’s why speaking up and learning about these things is so important, and why honesty and truth must outweigh insecurities and personal interest every time. You will never be able to bridge the gap between yourself and others without learning how to do so first, and you will not learn that from the communities that unanimously behave like sex pests.

Securing our Communities.

And yes, I’m aware I titled this how a Fed would title an internal memo about spying on people.

The truth is that it’s on us to ensure that our communities are safe places, where things like intimacy and sex can be discussed without trampling on the boundaries of others. This means specifically excluding those that trample on sexual boundaries, regardless of why or how that behavior is being exhibited. We must make it clear that the trans community is not a safe place for, and does not harbor, sex pests and those that enable them. 

Now, obviously, in a lot of minds this would clash with the “body positive pro-sex” core belief that I hold so dear. However, I think that these ideals should exist in TANDEM, and do not negate each other. 

Part of being pro-sex is also being pro-boundaries. Making it exceptionally clear that you’re uncomfortable with someone talking about sexual occurrences in detail, or being overtly sexual around others, is part of setting boundaries. At the end of the day, all of this comes down to one very simple notion.

Masters of Bypassing Consent.

Network of Consent.

Social media (and the internet as a whole) has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of consent. The message of "everyone should be allowed to be themselves" online has led to the notion that people should be allowed to post or say whatever they want with no criticism. This belief clouds the true nature of consent, and creates problems both in real life and online, as consent becomes optional for most interactions. Additionally, some individuals believe that having their consent violated in some way gives them the right to act outside of other's boundaries and consent. 

I, too, am guilty of this. I often enjoy joining a Team Fortress 2 lobby or Discord server and starting trouble, then stirring the pot. Nobody in those servers consented to me doing that, and honestly, it was a failure on my part that I’m learning from. Examples like that are why it’s important to speak honestly and clearly with the people around you, because I would never be able to take responsibility for those actions if I did not have people around me willing to keep me accountable.

I've heard many arguments for posting along the lines of, "If I post something on the internet it's the other persons 'right' to choose to look or not," or “you can just log out!”. It’s largely the same argument those who engage in lolicon content use to avoid persecution: “It’s the internet, it’s not real. You can choose not to look,” and my personal [least] favorite, “It’s just pixels, bro”. As with all things, these statements are not inherently true. I'm sure everyone reading this has seen something on the internet they did not want to see - the internet is not private, the content will almost always be seen by people outside the intended audience. Scrolling for a few minutes on any social media website can lead to seeing something you did not consent to, regardless of content warnings, spoilers, and filters. 

Even when those safeguards are in place, the option to consent is often missing. A prime example is Discord servers that have “vent channels”. For the uninitiated, these are essentially channels where users can trauma-dump ad-hoc and without any warning. These spaces give people the ability to bypass boundaries and consent because they feel it is the only way they can communicate. Many see venting channels as a necessity and something that is helpful; but the truth is they are a sign of how much the internet has skewed communication, and generally results in more negativity than anything. There is a distinct difference between genuine communication and support, which requires the other party to consent to the act of providing said support while maintaining respect for the boundaries of others, and simply trauma-dumping with no warning or request for help.

The difference is nuanced, so allow me to illustrate my point. Venting in those spaces is similar to your friend making you a cake and handing it to you with a sticky note of every ingredient inside and then saying, "I spent a lot of time on this cake for you, you don't have to try it though." Of course you're going to try the cake, even if you don't like some of the ingredients, because you want to be a good friend and show support and kindness. So even though you don't want to consent to eating the cake, you will out of obligation. Simple communication could have saved this situation and respected everyone's wants and needs. 

What if, instead, your friend came to you and said "I've been into baking recently and would love to make you a cake if you were ok with it. Is there anything you don't like or are allergic to?" Now, you actually have the option to consent and communicate your preferences (boundaries), giving you the ability to truly appreciate and support your friend in their new interest or what’s troubling them. Obviously this is a much more positive example, but the same process can be applied to trauma-dumping and venting. 

Only you have the ability to get the support you want and need. Yes, asking for it can be hard, but it is so much more rewarding and helpful than vying for sympathy.

Delusions of Safety.

Almost all of the people I am talking about in this article struggle with consent.

It’s a plague, and allowing it to fester in the trans community does far more harm than good. Enabling others to be hypersexual around people who are deeply uncomfortable with it (and have explicitly said so) is part of the problem, but the big problem is that at their core a lot of these people have either no concept of or no working model for consent. These spaces, intended to be a safe place for people to express themselves, have become unsafe in large part because of people described in this article.

You cannot transition into a woman and have no concept of consent. It will get you drugged, raped and killed, simple as. If you are unable to navigate the complicated boundaries of consent, you will simply be eaten alive. I learned how this applies to trans women very early on when someone who I considered to be a close friend tried to get me drunk and sleep with me. It was the first time someone had treated me like a woman, and it was someone attempting to prey on my inability to consent. These things are intrinsically linked.

If you are surrounded by people who are constantly talking about sex, flirting with you, or performing some form of auditory or written e-sex, you are in a bad situation and need to get out. This happened to me as well - and the person in question was a fellow trans woman, whose first interaction was attempting to flirt with me, despite me being four years older than her.

I am not someone that likes being fetishized. It makes me deeply uncomfortable when people do that and constantly flirt with me or with people in general, simply because I know their interest is entirely self-centered and malicious.

The girl in question got what she wanted, by the way. She learned the hard way that fetishizing someone gets you one night in an expensive hotel room and then cut off entirely. It was the only way to ensure that link was cut, to make sure that she emotionally no longer wanted me, so that she’d stop engaging with me sexually and making me and my friends deeply uncomfortable.

This obviously did not play out entirely the way I wanted - but it was the only way to get her off my back, and I believe it significantly improved my life to be away from someone like that and to have learned that lesson accordingly.

These are the exact people I’m talking about, and the people who struggle with consent. You are not allowed to just post anything you want, you aren’t allowed to just say anything you want. There are real people behind the computer screen you stare at, and it’s poisoning your mind to treat them as objects to be fetishized and compared to instead of a full human being.

I believe part of why this occurred is largely because of how I approach being trans and carry myself in public and on the internet.

Transgender vs. Transsexual.

This discourse has been done to death, obviously, but unfortunately I have to revive its rotting corpse for one last jolt. I think the “official” explanation for the terms being interchangeable is simply untrue. I firmly believe that transgender people and transsexual people are two different groups, and I’ll explain why. 

In large part, a lot of people who describe themself as transsexuals are, as the name suggests, very intent on changing their ASAB to match how they feel internally. This seems to run counter to what self described transgender people prescribe to, which is that gender is “fuckery” and can be anything. Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing - they’re right! Gender is weird and can be anything.

However, I didn’t transition to be transgender. I have no interest in doing “fuckery” with my gender. I am a woman, through and through, and I transitioned to be a woman. The term to describe this, of course, is transsexual, and I believe it’s why I have been fetishized by other transgender women. In doing so, we’ve fishhooked hard into people like me being villainized, simply for not wanting to be associated with people like that and attempting to use a new term.

This does NOT exempt transsexual people from persecution by hate groups and right-wingers, but it DOES amplify the resulting trauma that can come from not being accepted, as neither the right wingers nor the transgender community will fully accept you as you are.

Wanting to be anything but your birth gender is bad, actually.

Something I’ve seen frequently in “trans-women-inclusive” spaces is that cis women in particular are not welcome. Interestingly (and conversely), this occurs in male dominated spaces as well, wherein trans mascs/men are excluded from male-centric groups and only included in more “women” focused groups. This works in tandem with the concept that almost all of this is rooted in deep seated misogyny.  We discussed this earlier in the “Masters of Bypassing Consent” section, where I alluded to the fact that this fact alone indicates to me that some trans women do not, in fact, want to be women. I believe it goes deeper than that, and very much has its ties rooted in not just misogyny, but insecurity.

When I tell trans women that meet The Criteria that I transitioned to be a woman, and not to be trans, I often get a weird look at best or called a transmedicalist at worst. This is beyond frustrating, as it feels like I have no place in the community as a result, outside of my immediate close friends. This has led me to outright ignore trans people in public, acting as a cis woman and approaching all conversations and people in public as such, simply because I fear that I’ll be somehow ostracized for indicating how or why I transitioned, or even that I transitioned at all.

To feel this way about a community I wish to support fully and absolutely should be a part of, and to watch sex pests be welcomed with open arms in my stead, is a hell I would wish upon no woman. I do not relate to people who meet The Criteria, and the implication (especially on the internet) is if you don’t relate to them, you aren’t welcome in the trans community. If a trans woman wants to be or acts like a cis woman, you’re “one of them” and a traitor, and don’t deserve the same protections as those who claim the title of transgender. Behavior belongs to the individual - and there are many individuals who behave like this.

Image is Everything. 

At the end of the day, we must accept that allowing the kinds of people discussed in this article to become the names and faces of our community has irreparably harmed the trans movement as a whole. In an effort to try and be more inclusive, we have invited the very thing that will be used to ensure our downfall. Those who fundamentally misunderstand and are incapable of respecting consent are a parasite on the community, and should be held accountable.

I call myself a transsexual not out of some weird shallow need to be #NOTLIKETHEOTHERGIRLS, but because I genuinely do not want to be associated with the term “transgender”. This is largely BECAUSE of the vile shit I have seen happening in this community. If you saw that stuff all day, every day, wouldn’t you? If sex and drugs are already your triggers, wouldn’t being in a community that encourages drug use and hypersexuality be a bad thing? Yes, you, the person who is reading this now. If you saw all this happening, and you were in my situation, wouldn’t you feel the same way? Wouldn’t you want to try and distance yourself from that group of people? Wouldn’t you not want to be like those girls?

The Death of Empathy.

At its core, this issue highlights the truly repulsive decay at the core of our society. We are faced with an ever growing crisis of young people. People in their early 20s, that have never been exposed to or trained in the concept of empathy, and their compatriots; who simply want to include everyone that feels excluded under the false pretense of empathy in some conquest for moral aptitude. The cycle is simple to understand and quite visible for those outside of it. Empathy is not a sin - engaging in that notion allows you to compromise your morality and “make hard decisions” without “sacrificing your sanity” (even though it is slowly driving you insane). This is not how we should run a society, let alone approach interpersonal relationships.

We need to talk to each other. We need to have discussions like that and talk about hard topics that can’t be waved away easily, with people who need it the most.

Something that’s repeated often is that “autistic people can’t feel empathy”. That’s just not true, and it once again reflects something that is already hyper-stigmatized due to misuse of a disorder that’s ALREADY widely misunderstood. Autistic people feel empathy better than most neurotypicals I’ve met. You simply need to explain it to them in a way they’ll understand, which requires effort AND empathy for their misunderstanding that many are unwilling to provide.

These people, who struggle with both consent and image, whose hypersexuality bleeds into the social aspects of their lives, need support and help. They need people who are willing to either put in the effort to show them how their actions affect others, as well as people who are willing to cut them off should they trample one too many times. Growth does not occur without that, and many of these people are simply choosing not to grow, so the issue perpetuates itself. 

Sometimes, showing love and empathy first comes by showing yourself love and empathy. Unless you turn inward and really deal with the core issues that you’re struggling with, you will always be trapped in a cycle of your own design. You will never be truly free from your insecurities - you will simply be an insecure trans person who struggles with the same things they struggled with before transitioning.

I am happy. 

I feel ostracized from the transgender community, and struggle with connection to those who call themselves transgender. It feels like there is no room for a transsexual like me, who’s not trans to be trans, but trans because she’s a woman.

And yet, I live my life with gusto and pride, and I smile at strangers in public. I talk to people on the plane, I laugh with people on the train. My friends and loved ones make it clear how different I am, and how much progress I’ve made. All of this happens because I have put in the work, time, and effort to become a fuller version of myself. I connect with others because I can empathise, not in spite of it or in fear of it. To lose my shallow shackles and really, truly live my life, I had to take a deep look into a very dark mirror.

I suggest you do the same.

published 6/4/2025 looona.io