lately i’ve been really concerned with whether or not the way i celebrate my period and feel a spiritual connection to it is internalized transmisogyny and i really want some transwomen to weigh in on that. On the one hand, i don’t think it’s wrong to gain empowerment or confidence from a biological function of my female body that has historically been something that women were discriminated against and ridiculed for, but on the other hand I know a lot of menstrual celebration rhetoric can be trans-exclusive (ex “all women do it” “all women are linked by their ability to menstruate,” shit like that). It’s really something that’s very private for me, and it sort of tied into my own personal rituals and spirituality, and in a way I think represents my femininity and I like the way I feel when i’m menstruating, but at the same time i want to make sure that i’m not engaging in any oppressive behavior
personally i am deeply alienated by attempts to assign esoteric significance to gender, attempts to assign esoteric significance to sexed characteristics of bodies, attempts to assign gendered meaning to sexed characteristics of bodies, et cetera.
you refer to menstruation as a biological function of your female body, which is casually cissexist and i think saying it represents femininity is cissexist. when i went to your blog because you asked me to look at this post, i saw a cissexist joke that you had reblogged shortly after you posted this (“Q: what do you call the useless piece of skin on the end of a penis? A: a man”).
it is important and necessary to challenge the suppression of certain types of bodies promoted by patriarchy and this is something that in no way needs to be at the expense of trans women (a certain type of body which is suppressed by patriarchy).
moreover, if you are not a trans woman you do not experience “internalized transmisogyny”, you participate in regular transmisogyny. transmisogyny is primarily a method of creating an underclass of women based on their bodily characteristics to benefit men and is an aspect of patriarchy and the exploitation of women as a whole. however, people who are not men but also not trans women are able to participate in transmisogyny and benefit from transmisogyny.
colluding with men in excluding trans women from public spaces in general and womens spaces especially is one of the primary mechanisms by which women participate in transmisogyny to the effect of gaining material and social resources (physical space, labor value, capital, political power et cetera) at the expense of trans women.
cissexism (including the notions that menstruation is feminine, or that the bodies attached to penises are men’s bodies, or that cis womens bodies are essentially female in some metaphysical way) is the ideological superstructure that allows this exclusion and exploitation to operate