Feel very angry about being called transphobic

[HumousWhereTheHeartIs]

I am sorry if I use any incorrect language here. I don't believe myself to be transphobic at all. I believe that everyone should live their lives, be themselves and be called what they prefer in order to be happy.
I am the member of a make-up group on Facebook which discusses a particular technique. Lately, a number of transwomen have joined the group. One of these new members posts lots of pictures of herself wearing makeup and reclining on a bed. Her knickers are often showing in at least one picture. (nightdress/dress hiked up slightly. No genitalia can be seen) I commented something like 'love the colour of your eyeshadow but could do without seeing your underwear!'. I was called transphobic, a terf and a bigot. The things is, I don't want to see anyone's knickers on a make-up group. And I have never seen a single biological woman post pictures like this. I was reported and kicked out the group. I feel really angry about this. Can we no longer call out sleazy behaviour?!

No, of course you aren't transphobic for calling out a sleazy man getting his kicks from living out his kink on Facebook.

Sadly your nice group is now ruined, like so many other things. You can stay and fight or decide it isn't worth it. I'd probably do the latter, life is too short for fighting the mini battles like that one.

If it's any consolation OP there were probably some women in the group who saw the kink, then saw you being punished for pointing it out, and they will now be also realising that there's something wrong happening, and this wrong thing isn't transphobia.

I was reported and kicked out the group

Women are not support humans to the kink and fetishes of males. Kicking you out of the group is social conditioning of this low level abuse. See Datuns post on this thread to understand what drives these people and what you were expected to participate in

Break it down for me?
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

Every one of us that speaks up in even a tiny way has an impact on other people.

I believe they used to say on here 'i'm posting for the lurkers'.

People watch and read and little by little they work it out.

I despair at the female administrators of the facebook make up group who participated in this abuse. They need to understand feminist (real feminism ) take on their internal misogyny

YANBU, pushing boundaries fir creepy thrills.

On the positive side you won't be there to watch them push those boundaries further when people are afraid to challenge them.

Anybody who upsets any trans person is a transphobe and a bigot. It is the go-to, mindless insult used for anyone who hurts their* feelings.

• I don't know what the plural pronoun is for a group of people who each have different pronouns for themselves, so I am also a transphobe and a bigot.

Having been dumped from a networking gorup I helped set up I know how that feels.

All you can do is walk away knowing that the women who remain have no idea how much the group has now changed. You, at least, won't have to spend any time at all rebuilding your personal boundaries and sense of self esteem after the inevitable onslaught of similar challenges they will get.

You aren't a transphobe. The accusation has almost zero meaning now, anyway, except "doesn't immediately centre a trans person above all people in every interaction", so it's lost almost all of its sting for me.

Could you start your own group, in a smaller way, and be open to welcoming anyone else who doesn't want to see pics of someone else's kink?

It must be gutting to be kicked out the group. Is there an admin you can appeal to? Although its probably ruined for you now.

If there is an admin, just say what you said here that you would have made the same comment to any of the members posing in that way. Its a safeguarding issue really and the trans person deserves safeguarding as much as anyone else especially as they are such a vulnerable group. If it becomes known as a group were people show their knickers, it will attract preditors.
Thats before you get to whether or not anyone else consented to seeing knickers not makeup.

@FindTheTruth

I despair at the female administrators of the facebook make up group who participated in this abuse. They need to understand feminist (real feminism ) take on their internal misogyny

This.

The facebook admin should have updated their guidelines to say it's not a group for flashing knickers. Not kicked you out.

YANBU - far too many sites are too quick to pander to the men (it’s one of the reasons I’ll never buy Snag tights again, for example).

Sympathies, OP. You did nothing wrong and we all know it.
Make sure your Facebook privacy settings are turned up high, just in case you're targetted for more nastiness.

There's no way you're the only person who didn't want to see his pants. Gross.

The TW wearing makeup and reclining on a bed with knickers showing, has a fetish 'that shall not be named' (Mumsnet guidelines)'. It's not a neutral act and the facebook members are victims, even the admins who don't understand what they are enabling.

The TW wearing makeup and reclining on a bed with knickers showing in your make up FB group was playing out an "erotic preference" of male people who achieve sexual satisfaction from envisioning themselves with female bodies or performing culturally prescribed female clothing habits/beauty practices. I think it's up to 3% of males? Some males are harmless. But some cause harm.

If the TW had simply joined your makeup group and shown make up then that's simply validation

The TW was lying on the bed with knickers showing was engaging members in an erotic kink where the FB members have become objects You as a member saying 'NO' caused RAGE. This is common. Not all males with this fetish take it to this extreme but enough do that there's no space left (even breastfeeding classes) where an extreme fetishist won't rock up to obliterate boundaries and objectify the women there.

Unfortunately the 'experts' who really understand this fetish, such a sexologist Ray Blanchard, fail to see things from a women's point of view. Blanchard suggested women should "compromise" with men who exhibit this erotic preference.

Some great posts on this thread, I sympathise OP as have seen it play out multiple times

Sorry you've been upset, OP. It's their loss. Eventually all the women who were interested in make-up, not posing on a bed in their lingerie, will leave or be kicked out.
Would a group be allowed to exist that asks for 'facial pictures only'?

If the person who you criticised was responding just to the comment you quoted and you had made no mention of the person's trans status then I would say the person who called you names and complained about you is transphobic, and very likely so is whoever made the official decision to remove you from the group.

To imply that a trans person should not be criticised for inappropriate behavior when other members of the group are not protected in the same way assumes that trans people as a group are especially fragile, and perhaps mentally unstable or unresiliant - which is an inaccurate generalisation and especially damaging as trans status is closely associated with sex dysphoria (which until very recently has been stigmatised as a mental illness).

To imply that gratuitously showing one's underwear in a group where that's not the norm is somehow automatically associated with being trans - as if this is typical behaviour of trans people as a group and/or that a trans person cannot help doing this and therefore it is transphobic to comment negatively even without mentioning the trans status - also fosters widespread negative myths and stereotypes about trans people.

Can you make a counter-complaint about the person who complained about you, and about the decision-maker who removed you from the group? Also please consider reporting their transphobia to the FaceBook moderation team; I'm sure it's not allowed on the platform.

It's just extraordinary that at the same time women are learning about Boundaries and 'just say no' we have a social contagion across society, facebook groups, women's groups, girls groups and social groups of women being PUNISHED FOR SAYING NO.

It's not ok. It's a human rights violation. Women and girls should be punished for saying no to being exposed to male fetishes.

You did nothing wrong. I would message the admins saying exactly what you have here. But I would rejoin the group. The group is ruined now.

This needs to be covered by the Online Harms Bill. there are threads on this

To imply that gratuitously showing one's underwear in a group where that's not the norm is somehow automatically associated with being trans - as if this is typical behaviour of trans people as a group and/or that a trans person cannot help doing this and therefore it is transphobic to comment negatively even without mentioning the trans status - also fosters widespread negative myths and stereotypes about trans people.

It does. It reminds me of Owen Jones and the NSPCC criticising the guy who filmed himself wanking in his leather suit at his work there as "homophobia".