Hi. Here we go. CW for rape, transmisogyny, cissexism, discussion of violence against trans* people.
Defining factors of AFAB privilege as have been explained to me:
Gender Heirarchy by autumn-and-eve
“This is not an illustration of the spectrum of gender identity, but rather this is an illustration of how society values gender.
Since CAMAB people are assumed to be male, when they are trans, they move from the top position on the gender hierarchy to a lower position (it can be looked at as capital, a CAMAB trans person is losing “gender capital” by being trans). The CAMAB trans person degrades themselves.
CAFAB people, however, start out on the lowest position of the gender hierarchy. And being trans, they advance their place on the gender hierarchy (thus gaining this “gender capital”). While that does not eliminate cissexism - which is present on every wrung of the hierarchy in relation to trans people - CAFAB trans people are seen as more valid than CAMAB people.
This is also mostly equivalent for masculinity versus femininity: It’s okay for CAFAB people (specifically women) to be masculine because they are ascending, but for a CAMAB person to be feminine, they are descending.”
I disagree. Let’s break this down.
“This is not an illustration of the spectrum of gender identity, but rather this is an illustration of how society values gender.”
The problem with this is that nonbinary is in the middle of the pyramid. Nonbinary people are valued more than women? I see no evidence to support this claim.
- Do we have any statistics on violence, sexual or otherwise, against nonbinary people?
- Do we have depictions of nonbinary people in the media? (Note: NOT people who have gender presentation different from their AXAB status, but actual stated nonbinary identities)
- Is there any chance of most of society respecting nonbinary identity or pronouns?
The answers to these questions are no, none that I know of (feel free to bring some up), and nope.
If we adjust the pyramid to look like this:
The rest of this is true.
“Since CAMAB people are assumed to be male, when they are trans, they move from the top position on the gender hierarchy to a lower position (it can be looked at as capital, a CAMAB trans person is losing “gender capital” by being trans). The CAMAB trans person degrades themselves.
CAFAB people, however, start out on the lowest position of the gender hierarchy. And being trans, they advance their place on the gender hierarchy (thus gaining this “gender capital”). While that does not eliminate cissexism - which is present on every wrung of the hierarchy in relation to trans people - CAFAB trans people are seen as more valid than CAMAB people.”
So basically - male privilege is valid for trans men. This is an important part of interacting with the trans* community that everyone should be aware of. However, does this mean that AFAB trans* people are privileged over AMAB trans* people? No. Are trans men privileged over trans women? Yes.
“This is also mostly equivalent for masculinity versus femininity: It’s okay for CAFAB people (specifically women) to be masculine because they are ascending, but for a CAMAB person to be feminine, they are descending.”
I feel hesitant to even address this, as it is complex, but I’m going to do it anyway because that’s kind of the point. Looking at the original pyramid, there is a very binary assumption: AFAB nonbinary people are going to be trans masculine, and AMAB people are going to be more feminine. This is point-blank erasure and gender-expression policing. There are nonbinary people who present in any number of “masculine” or “feminine” ways, regardless of their AXAB status.
It’d be really cool if we could stop gendering every characteristic as “masculine” or “feminine”. We define what is masculine or feminine - when are we as a community going to stop doing this pink and blue shit?
Other arguments I’ve heard for AFAB privilege:
AFAB people have access to women’s spaces, and therefore have more accessability than AMAB people. - This is a horrible argument. I might as well say that AMAB people who are incorrectly gendered as male have male privilege. Society’s cissexism is not something that trans* people revel in taking advantage of, ask any trans woman who was treated like she was male or any trans man who was treated as a woman, even for “positive” benefits. Or how about asking a nonbinary person, whose chances of getting gendered correctly by society are about 0% and live in a constant state of erasure.
The AFAB trans* community has way more visiblity and empowerment than the AMAB trans* community. - Trans men have male privilege and therefore more power in the trans* community. But this is so oversimplified as far as AXAB goes — am I, a fat, disabled nonbinary person supposed to feel included and empowered by the predominantly thin, able-bodied spaces that nonbinary people have? How about nonbinary people of color, are we going to ignore this space is as prevalent with white supremacy as any? How about nonbinary people that are trans masculine and AMAB, or trans feminine and AFAB? Are the spaces that insist that to be nonbinary enough you have to do the “opposite” of your AXAB status supposed to make them feel welcome and included? And how about people like me, who aren’t trans masculine or trans feminine but identify strongly as genderQUEER, my gender is queer, my characteristics are queer, and how about you stop fucking telling me the things I do are masculine and feminine because I get to define those things because this is my gender identity and my gender expression?
So: to recap and extrapolate -
The concept of AFAB privilege is binarist and oversimplified to avoid addressing its flaws.
Male privilege in the trans* community is a very, very real thing that should be combatted against in full force, this is NOT an argument about that. Trans women are constantly shit on, overriden, given no safe space, fetishized, and killed. We don’t even have numbers for what happens to nonbinary people as nonbinary people are basically invisible. This world is fucked up, hate-filled, and dangerous for trans* people. We know this, some way more keenly than others. So why express the desire for more division?
Please don’t mistake my call for solidarity of the trans* community as a free pass for any shitty behavior. This isn’t a “let’s-suck-it-up-and-all-get-along” thing. Fuck that. This is about recognizing binarism and cissexism wherever it is, even if it does come from a member of our community.
Here’s a base concept: if someone cannot place someone in the gender binary with their preconcieved, cissexist, binarist notions (whether they are nonbinary) they are going to face discrimination no matter what gender they were assigned at birth.
I didn’t write this in a furious, AFAB privileged rage 5 minutes after hearing about the concept. I’ve been thinking about this and discussing it with trans* people (binary and not, of various AXAB status) for a few months. I would really appreciate feedback and further discussion, but I do reserve the right to take a long ass time to reply as I’ve never done anything like this and it’s really scary.
Thanks for reading and I really hope this promotes hella discussion.