"Let trans men be fem" what does this mean?

Agree with Fraggling. My DH has MS which means he can't work, can barely walk some days and is always in pain. As a result he gets disabled benefits, a motability car and we are lucky to have been allocated a suitable council property. Some of the comments weve had over the yrs some people actually consider us lucky! DH had a promising engineering career cut short in his 20s and can vary leave the house on his own. Our life is just peachy🙄

It is common for ASD to be diagnosed before the age of 5.

ADHD is harder to diagnose before 5 as it is harder to differentiate the behaviours at that age.

"I had a job years ago around hiv. The initiatives were aimed at men who had sex with men, rather than gay men, as its not uncommon for men who sometimes have sex with men to identify as straight."

I agree totally here. Back then, the 'identify as' language was used to understand a very real phenomenon, and make sure that your message did not miss this group of men. Because the relevant fact was that they had sex with men, however they identified or did not identify. So, the biology and the facts trumped whatever they thought about it themselves. But now we seem to have overturned this completely, and the way people feel about a thing /themselves trumps the actual facts, even to the extent of harming people. Hence all the chestfeeding, and people with uteruses nonsense, even if the change of language damages the actual majority group you were aiming your message at. So, for example, some women don't get smear tests, because they found the description of themselves as people with uteruses confusing. Total opposite of why the language was introduced in the first place. I recall how earnest we were in the day, we knew that how you presented the messages meant that if some people didn't get the message they were directly at higher risk of contracting HIV. And we have gone from that and the courageous way the lesbian and gay community responded to the Aids Crisis, to the current Stonewall nonsense. Makes me feel quite cross.

Goosefoot interesting points, ime it's not necessarily linked to state benefits, if that was the thing you were thinking. Lots of people are id'ing into groups not seemingly with the intention of gaining anything from the state.
And of course the funding etc for eg people with disabilites was always pretty shit and hard to get state support etc.

I think this is to do with perception to an extent. I've got a moderate physical disability from birth. I've worked in lots of tall buildings and if there's an emergency evac i go in the lift. I have genuinely had, over the years, quite a lot of colleagues say how lucky i am to go in the lift rather than get the stairs.

They don't seem to think past the immediate 'benefit' that they see, and consider whether they would really like to not be able to do sports, lots of surgery etc.

I really think this is a major driver. People who have not really experienced difficulty, or subtle or overt discrimination, only see the 'perks', the stuff put in to help, and feel, well, jealous. Put out. Why are they getting this stuff?

The people who have said it have all been white able bodied men who ime really do have quiet simmerimg resentment about a lot of equality type stuff.

So it's not about the state but wider than that, accessing all of this stuff they see as perks. When they really aren't.

Sorry if not coherent, been pub !

The point about identifying as disabled is interesting. I completely accept it as a valid form of the question as people may not want to label themselves as disabled but would a company or organisation have to accommodate someone who identified as disabled by making the legally required reasonable adjustments even if they were in reality not actually disabled? I'm assuming not.

I think there are a lot of people wanting labels now, and yes, that includes all kinds of medical diagnosis that they may or may not have.

It's a feature of a society where making claims against the state requires that you do so on an idenitarian basis. You have to show that you are disadvantaged or oppressed, but not as an individual, on the basis of an identity, and then the state has an obligation to help you, to correct the problem.

Of course then everyone needs to claim an identity and we learn to think of ourselves in those terms. We all feel, are, oppressed sometimes, less well off than the "norm" we are meant to be comparing ourselves to (is that a person or group with no identity? The middle-class white straight person with perfect health and no problems?) So people grasp at those identities that are recognised as conferring help or benefit, or that at the least will give them a sense of visibility, an existence, in a society that only recognises you on that basis. I think this is where the language of denying identity means denying existence comes from.

Well, no.

The problem here, or part of it, is that language that evolved to be useful has been bastardised.

I had a job years ago around hiv. The initiatives were aimed at men who had sex with men, rather than gay men, as its not uncommon for men who sometimes have sex with men to identify as straight.

It's also useful (or used to be) when thinking about disability, not all people with a disability identify as disabled, so that impacts on how you ask questions.

There are other examples.

Issue comes when people id into the minority group, when the language developed it was because people didn't, when maybe they should, and they were not captured in stats.

The idea that people who were not disabled, or gay, or whatever, would want to identify into those groups was never even thought of.

It's really interesting in a way, but of course, distracts from those who are genuinely in those groups. Whether they id that way or not. And the people iding in have not actually experienced the issues, often seem v loud, and mop up attention and funding.

This reminds me of the individual I read about ages ago who identified as straight. Surely that literally is actually the same as being straight. 🤔

Plenty of children are diagnosed with autism before the age of 5 by the way.

The only possible way to 'live as a man' or 'identify as a man' if you are female, is to rely entirely on stereotypes.

If you take away stereotypes then the only way to live as a man is to be of the sex class which has a penis and testicles and produces sperm. No female has ever been of this sex class.

You cannot be a 'femme' trans man. To be a trans man, you have to fit with male stereotypes, otherwise you are just.... a woman (the horror!)

They don't diagnose ASD in children under five generally. I was told that by someone who works specifically with a charity that offers autism post diagnosis support.

That's not strictly true, I know plenty of people diagnosed at age two or three. Like I said, more "severe obvious" autism can be diagnosed long before five.
And what charity was that? Because if it was the NAS I'd take anything they say with a pinch of salt. In their "awareness training" they use the phrase "everyone is on the spectrum somewhere."

Why do people declare their identities at all ? I’m not telling you mine and, in the nicest possible way, I don’t give a hoot about any Of yours.

It's crazy the amount of people who are "awaiting diagnosis" for their children's ADHD, ASD etc when their children are completely ordinary, if slightly challenging children.
Someone recently told me their 2 year old had ASD.

And, are you qualified to decide those children don't have ASD? What the hell does "completely ordinary, but slightly challenging mean?"
You have no fucking idea what those children do or don't have. Interesting that you admit the children are "slightly challenging" but refuse to even consider the idea they could actually be autistic. Or do you think all autistic children are badly behaved little terrors and if a child behaves well then it means they're "normal."
And yes, a two year old can be diagnosed with autism. What the hell is your problem with that?
If it was diagnosed that young it must be very obvious then.
Oh and it's not a label, it's a diagnosis. Early diagnosis can mean more intervention, support and being better prepared for the child starting school.
Tell me, is it only autism you have a problem being diagnosed with in a two year old? If the child had cerebral palsy instead would you be scoffing at it?

Any idea why?

I have a friend who identifies as a queer femme, even though she has been in a long term relationship with a man for several years.

Re the tag line 'let trans men be fem' - I'd really want to ask who the heck is stopping them?

Was kinda with you up until this point. - yeah me to. A lot of neurodiverse conditions are masked but causing massive stress underneath.

I remember a thread on Twitter where someone asked trans people what they would do if all the "cis" people blinked out of existence for 1 day. Pretty much all the transmen said they would take off their binder and wear a skirt. It was really sad. And it's obvious that the reason they feel this way is because if they did that, and acted in a feminine way, they would be judged as being not really trans after all.

I think a lot of trans and non-binary xx people are actually only a hair's breadth from agreeing wholeheartedly with feminism. What they desperately want is to not be categorised and labeled with traits and expectations which are associated with stereotypes based on genitalia. But society and culture is massively sexist and is judgemental all the time, and its horrible. Feminists have been trying to change society to become less sexist for decades and it's not working. Sexism is still rife and I can't see any massive improvements on the horizon.

So opting out of the constant judgement and criticism that every woman has to live with, by identifying out of being a woman, does have an appeal. I expect that the price for that status, of having to then reject absolutely everything associated with femininity, can feel a bit painfully steep for some.

Being trans is about your inner essence. Your gender identity is an internal sense or feeling. It is unrelated to your gender expression, which is how you present your gender to the world.

You can feel like a man, or a woman, or neither or both, or unending combinations of all of these, and this gender identity may be reflected in the way you dress in ways coded by your culture as masculine or feminine, or non binary. But it also may be hidden within you, and the way you appear, for various reasons, as culturally coded, doesn't reflect anything about it.

This is the justification for telling everyone not to 'assume gender', and it's also the reason why hulking great bear men can demands the right to wander into a female space without censure because the inner essence is entirely unrelated to the totally masculine body and thick facial hair and masculine coded clothes.

This particular instance could possibly be a useful starting point to discuss why a woman would reject the physical fact of her womanhood, and claim to not be one, while embracing every trapping of feminine coded presentation enforced by a patriarchal society.

It's almost like the most perfect example of rejecting the idea of slavery while cheerfully being enslaved and insisting you are much better than those slaves over there because you've chosen to be enslaved and they are still fighting against it.

The idea of fighting against gendered stereotypes by saying you don't have to be a woman to be feminine, and vice versa, and then celebrating the femininity rather than the actual diversity of being a woman.

Non-binary female in LTR with man = closet ordinary heterosexual woman.

Fem transmen = closet ordinary woman, sexuality unspecified.

It's such a shame these people feel they can't just be themselves.