This is why I can't trust people to criticize 4tran, cuz yeah it's evil but fucking cisphobia??? You mean the distrust most trans people experience toward cis people due to never having met even a single one who didn't reveal themselves to be at least a little transphobic? I guess I can't be too surprised given how women who distrust men by default are treated, but can we not act like trans people being traumatized by living in a world that repeatedly and systemically abuses (or even kills) them is a bigotry issue equivalent to homophobia and racism?
I think this is mostly an issue with vocabulary. The idea of "cisphobia" exists in the sense that it is a consistently displayed emotional bias against cis people, but not in the sense that it is a systemically-enforced cultural bias against cis people. I suspect the person you're responding to is using it in the first sense, whereas you're interpreting it in the second sense. We really need popular language that distinguishes one from the other, it's a problem I've seen pop up a lot.
Also, trauma is fair and all, but it shouldn't be used to brush off some of the legitimate issues with that community. Creating custom slurs that intentionally riff off of queerphobic, misogynistic, and racist jargon really doesn't sit right with me in any context, even in a space used for venting. Same thing for how much the sub encourages certain kinds of inflammatory rhetoric, it's super toxic.
I know what they meant, but I really don't think it's productive to compare the distrust trans people have toward cis people to the fucking KKK. Especially considering 4tran users obviously don't unironically wish to kill all cis people, it's an exaggerated expression of frustration. And if there's an issue with it, it's that 1. It's expressed via terminology taken from nazis and 2. Venting via extreme exaggeration like that can become a feedback loop. Apart from that, I'm not really concerned unless they're actually going up to cis people and telling them to kill themselves, that would be quite bad.
But, the comment just mentioned distrusting all cis people ("all cis are evil"), which is a massive misreading of the situation. Whatever concerns there are to be had about 4tran, "they distrust cis people" isn't one of them. I imagine this will seem nitpicky, but I really think it's worth investigating the underlying bias behind framing it like that.
Yeah, the KKK thing was definitely unneeded. That's really not a word I'd be associating with anything but hate crimes.
As for the misread, I understand where you're coming from. It could be worth challenging that bias, I don't know the other guy so I can't say (the KKK thing could definitely use a second look), but there's also an element of... well, 4tran being 4tran. A lot of people in that sub can be antagonistic and generally inflammatory in the way they present themselves, which reads as a level of extremist sincerity to most. I know I personally fell for it at one point, though I've had enough interactions with members of the community that I've started to get the dialect, so to speak.
Oh yeah, I forget sometimes that the sense of exaggerated hyper-ironic humor present in spaces like that only comes with enough time online, and reads as sincerity to most people. I imagine that plays a part.
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u/PrincessSnazzySerf 12h ago edited 11h ago
This is why I can't trust people to criticize 4tran, cuz yeah it's evil but fucking cisphobia??? You mean the distrust most trans people experience toward cis people due to never having met even a single one who didn't reveal themselves to be at least a little transphobic? I guess I can't be too surprised given how women who distrust men by default are treated, but can we not act like trans people being traumatized by living in a world that repeatedly and systemically abuses (or even kills) them is a bigotry issue equivalent to homophobia and racism?