In a post late last year, I outlined a framework through which we can view the constant performance that’s required of trans women and transfeminine people in queer social spaces.
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In a post late last year, I outlined a framework through which we can view the constant performance that’s required of trans women and transfeminine people in queer social spaces. That framework proposes that there exists two basic categories of transfems: Good Trans Girls, who willingly perform transfeminized labor to the best of our ability; and Bad Trannies, those of us who either fall short of the mark, or who refuse to perform transfeminized labor entirely. Today, I’d like to revisit that post and discuss what it means to perform the labor required of Good Trans Girls as a non-negotiable condition of our belonging.
On a basic level, the Good Trans Girl believes in essentialist assumptions about her sex assigned at birth. In other words, she believes that she was a man pre-transition. She therefore feels that she needs to atone post-transition for the “male privilege” that she received while in the closet. Additionally, she sees transfeminine hypervisibility as a “privilege,” theoretically bound up with our being “former men hogging all the spotlight.” The Good Trans Girl therefore arrives in new spaces duty-bound to labor on behalf of others, and she eagerly takes that duty on without asking for compensation or even acknowledgement for her work.
In her performance, the Good Trans Girl is polite, soft-spoken, and mild-mannered. She fawns and dotes on others at a whim, seeing doing so as a necessary overcorrection for the “male socialization” that she internalized while she “was a man.” In certain cases, usually when engaged in showing up for others, she is permitted some leeway to be outspoken, but never too much. Otherwise, she risks becoming a community liability for letting her cloaked “male socialization” show.
In contrast to their status as “former men,” Good Trans Girls see trans people who were assigned female at birth as having endured gender-based oppression their whole lives. As a result, they sincerely believe that AFAB trans people, especially trans men and transmasculine people, have it “worse” than them, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. If a Good Trans Girl dares to suggest otherwise, she’s told - either explicitly or through implied group pressure - to keep her “male privilege” in check and show up primarily for the “AFABs” who have no such privilege. If she fails to do so, she quickly falls from grace in the community’s eyes and becomes a Bad Tranny.
The Good Trans Girl always shows up for others, even at her own great expense, and always with the most altruistic eye. She expects no compensation for her efforts, holding not the slightest assumption that the people she supports will support her in turn. She also actively shouts down others like her who engage in self-advocacy on the basis of their transfemininity, readily piling on to campaigns aimed at rendering Bad Trannies social pariahs. On the occasion that she does advocate for trans women and transfems, it’s cloaked in overly abstracted and/or academic language that rhetorically excuses everyone around her from responsibility in fostering her oppression.
Good Trans Girls handle conflict with unflinching grace and tact. They are quick to relent, quick to admit “guilt”, and quick to forgive those who have hurt them. Another community member could be yelling slurs inches from the Good Trans Girl’s face, and she will still be expected to maintain her poise, reserving her tears for a more private venue. Good Trans Girls involved in conflicts are never messy, emotional, or assertive, because “messy,” “emotional,” and “assertive” are all traits endemic to Bad Trannies.
Good Trans Girls are implicitly forbidden from excluding most anyone from their periphery, no matter how abusive or hurtful they may be. Men in particular use this unspoken taboo to abuse them in private, without repercussion. Good Trans Girls are also forbidden from refusing to associate with minors, to whom our labor is always assumed to be available. In fact, the only people who Good Trans Girls are categorically permitted to exclude from their personal space are Bad Trannies, toward whom exclusion is a moral imperative.
Good Trans Girls recognize that their “former manhood” makes them latecomers to femininity. Thus, they must prove their bona fides through performing hyperfemininity in both appearance and behavior. In in-person spaces, a Good Trans Girl proves that she’s Sufficiently Feminine through showing up in full feminine presentation wherever possible. In online spaces, pictures of her in full femme getup must be readily available, preferably as her avatar. (Avatars such as anime characters - or, say, a grey cat in a horned helmet - inevitably garner her suspicion of being either a Bad Tranny, or a cis male troll.)
[cont.]
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In a post late last year, I outlined a framework through which we can view the constant performance that’s required of trans women and transfeminine people in queer social spaces. That framework proposes that there exists two basic categories of transfems: Good Trans Girls, who willingly perform transfeminized labor to the best of our ability; and Bad Trannies, those of us who either fall short of the mark, or who refuse to perform transfeminized labor entirely. Today, I’d like to revisit that post and discuss what it means to perform the labor required of Good Trans Girls as a non-negotiable condition of our belonging.
On a basic level, the Good Trans Girl believes in essentialist assumptions about her sex assigned at birth. In other words, she believes that she was a man pre-transition. She therefore feels that she needs to atone post-transition for the “male privilege” that she received while in the closet. Additionally, she sees transfeminine hypervisibility as a “privilege,” theoretically bound up with our being “former men hogging all the spotlight.” The Good Trans Girl therefore arrives in new spaces duty-bound to labor on behalf of others, and she eagerly takes that duty on without asking for compensation or even acknowledgement for her work.
In her performance, the Good Trans Girl is polite, soft-spoken, and mild-mannered. She fawns and dotes on others at a whim, seeing doing so as a necessary overcorrection for the “male socialization” that she internalized while she “was a man.” In certain cases, usually when engaged in showing up for others, she is permitted some leeway to be outspoken, but never too much. Otherwise, she risks becoming a community liability for letting her cloaked “male socialization” show.
In contrast to their status as “former men,” Good Trans Girls see trans people who were assigned female at birth as having endured gender-based oppression their whole lives. As a result, they sincerely believe that AFAB trans people, especially trans men and transmasculine people, have it “worse” than them, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. If a Good Trans Girl dares to suggest otherwise, she’s told - either explicitly or through implied group pressure - to keep her “male privilege” in check and show up primarily for the “AFABs” who have no such privilege. If she fails to do so, she quickly falls from grace in the community’s eyes and becomes a Bad Tranny.
The Good Trans Girl always shows up for others, even at her own great expense, and always with the most altruistic eye. She expects no compensation for her efforts, holding not the slightest assumption that the people she supports will support her in turn. She also actively shouts down others like her who engage in self-advocacy on the basis of their transfemininity, readily piling on to campaigns aimed at rendering Bad Trannies social pariahs. On the occasion that she does advocate for trans women and transfems, it’s cloaked in overly abstracted and/or academic language that rhetorically excuses everyone around her from responsibility in fostering her oppression.
Good Trans Girls handle conflict with unflinching grace and tact. They are quick to relent, quick to admit “guilt”, and quick to forgive those who have hurt them. Another community member could be yelling slurs inches from the Good Trans Girl’s face, and she will still be expected to maintain her poise, reserving her tears for a more private venue. Good Trans Girls involved in conflicts are never messy, emotional, or assertive, because “messy,” “emotional,” and “assertive” are all traits endemic to Bad Trannies.
Good Trans Girls are implicitly forbidden from excluding most anyone from their periphery, no matter how abusive or hurtful they may be. Men in particular use this unspoken taboo to abuse them in private, without repercussion. Good Trans Girls are also forbidden from refusing to associate with minors, to whom our labor is always assumed to be available. In fact, the only people who Good Trans Girls are categorically permitted to exclude from their personal space are Bad Trannies, toward whom exclusion is a moral imperative.
Good Trans Girls recognize that their “former manhood” makes them latecomers to femininity. Thus, they must prove their bona fides through performing hyperfemininity in both appearance and behavior. In in-person spaces, a Good Trans Girl proves that she’s Sufficiently Feminine through showing up in full feminine presentation wherever possible. In online spaces, pictures of her in full femme getup must be readily available, preferably as her avatar. (Avatars such as anime characters - or, say, a grey cat in a horned helmet - inevitably garner her suspicion of being either a Bad Tranny, or a cis male troll.)
[cont.]
When it comes to sexual and romantic availability, the Good Trans Girl must be either the Madonna or the whore. When they’re available, Good Trans Girls are polyamorous, but not in the sense that polyamory allows us autonomy over who we share our sexual and romantic labor with. Rather, Good Trans Girls are always available for others’ consumption. They acquiesce to anyone who pressures them enough, and they readily share media with others - the more lewd the better - featuring their faces and bodies. They’re quick to accept and reciprocate invitations for flirting, sex, or romantic partnerships, and they always blame themselves when those relationships leave them feeling used and wounded and unfulfilled. Sometimes they’re sex workers, in which case their open lewdness is viewed not as part of a transactional relationship necessary to their survival, but as an expected baseline service to the community.
In the Madonna’s case, Good Trans Girls are excused from sexual and romantic labor so long as they can sufficiently prove that they’re monogamous, “taken,” or “off the market” - or, that is to say, that their labor is tied up in maintaining a relationship with a single person. In such cases, Good Trans Girls must prove themselves through performing impeccable chasteness while still lending other sorts of transfeminized labor to the community. If a Good Trans Girl tries to say that she isn’t available due to being polysaturated, or not desiring the specific other’s partnership, or being asexual, aromantic, and/or sex-repulsed, then she is primed to fall into Bad Trannyhood as soon as a rejected party starts in on a rumor mill about how she was a Bad Tranny all along.
Regardless of her relationship status, no Good Trans Girl is allowed agency over her own sexuality. She is ideally sexually available, of course, but she’s only allowed to advertise herself as such if she’s a sex worker. Either way, partners must come to her first and initiate, and the Good Trans Girl is greatly encouraged to accept as proof of her demure femininity. Good Trans Girls don’t initiate intimacy - that’s a behavior that only aggressive, predatory Bad Trannies, those who haven’t reined in their “male socialization,” engage in.
Overall, the Good Trans Girl knows and internalizes that her membership in queer spaces is contingent upon a sufficient performance of Good Trans Girlhood. She knows that her AGAB renders her default state as “male aggressor-in-waiting,” and she necessarily overcorrects in order to not be that. She willingly and eagerly treats the community as a constant proving ground, and she accepts the panopticon of scrutiny that those communities thrust upon her with a smile and a, “how can I help?”. She never challenges the social order of those communities except to remove a Bad Tranny from a position of power or authority. She is, in the eyes of the community, the best thing that a trans woman or transfeminine person can possibly be: a quiet, fawning, readily disposable and ever-interchangeable laborer, who asks for nothing in return for working herself to the point of burnout.
Unless a community has done the work to root out transmisogyny in their midst, performing Good Trans Girlhood is the only way that trans women and transfems can garner any semblance of stability in that space. However, no transfem can put on this performance forever. Good Trans Girlhood is a paradigm designed around inevitable failure, one constructed such that it burns through transfems on a regular and rotating basis. In the next post in this series, we’ll discuss what happens when a Good Trans Girl fails in her performance - thus becoming the dreaded Bad Tranny.
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When it comes to sexual and romantic availability, the Good Trans Girl must be either the Madonna or the whore. When they’re available, Good Trans Girls are polyamorous, but not in the sense that polyamory allows us autonomy over who we share our sexual and romantic labor with. Rather, Good Trans Girls are always available for others’ consumption. They acquiesce to anyone who pressures them enough, and they readily share media with others - the more lewd the better - featuring their faces and bodies. They’re quick to accept and reciprocate invitations for flirting, sex, or romantic partnerships, and they always blame themselves when those relationships leave them feeling used and wounded and unfulfilled. Sometimes they’re sex workers, in which case their open lewdness is viewed not as part of a transactional relationship necessary to their survival, but as an expected baseline service to the community.
In the Madonna’s case, Good Trans Girls are excused from sexual and romantic labor so long as they can sufficiently prove that they’re monogamous, “taken,” or “off the market” - or, that is to say, that their labor is tied up in maintaining a relationship with a single person. In such cases, Good Trans Girls must prove themselves through performing impeccable chasteness while still lending other sorts of transfeminized labor to the community. If a Good Trans Girl tries to say that she isn’t available due to being polysaturated, or not desiring the specific other’s partnership, or being asexual, aromantic, and/or sex-repulsed, then she is primed to fall into Bad Trannyhood as soon as a rejected party starts in on a rumor mill about how she was a Bad Tranny all along.
Regardless of her relationship status, no Good Trans Girl is allowed agency over her own sexuality. She is ideally sexually available, of course, but she’s only allowed to advertise herself as such if she’s a sex worker. Either way, partners must come to her first and initiate, and the Good Trans Girl is greatly encouraged to accept as proof of her demure femininity. Good Trans Girls don’t initiate intimacy - that’s a behavior that only aggressive, predatory Bad Trannies, those who haven’t reined in their “male socialization,” engage in.
Overall, the Good Trans Girl knows and internalizes that her membership in queer spaces is contingent upon a sufficient performance of Good Trans Girlhood. She knows that her AGAB renders her default state as “male aggressor-in-waiting,” and she necessarily overcorrects in order to not be that. She willingly and eagerly treats the community as a constant proving ground, and she accepts the panopticon of scrutiny that those communities thrust upon her with a smile and a, “how can I help?”. She never challenges the social order of those communities except to remove a Bad Tranny from a position of power or authority. She is, in the eyes of the community, the best thing that a trans woman or transfeminine person can possibly be: a quiet, fawning, readily disposable and ever-interchangeable laborer, who asks for nothing in return for working herself to the point of burnout.
Unless a community has done the work to root out transmisogyny in their midst, performing Good Trans Girlhood is the only way that trans women and transfems can garner any semblance of stability in that space. However, no transfem can put on this performance forever. Good Trans Girlhood is a paradigm designed around inevitable failure, one constructed such that it burns through transfems on a regular and rotating basis. In the next post in this series, we’ll discuss what happens when a Good Trans Girl fails in her performance - thus becoming the dreaded Bad Tranny.
@YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems it always comes back to Eve and Lilith
(I am very proud of the video essay I made reading Wicked through this lens lol)
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@YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems it always comes back to Eve and Lilith
(I am very proud of the video essay I made reading Wicked through this lens lol)
@TransTina I still have that on my watch list! [sets a reminder]
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@TransTina I still have that on my watch list! [sets a reminder]
@YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems aww I hope you enjoy it <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://social.translunar.academy/emoji/neobot/neobot_heart_cyan.png" title=":neobot_heart_cyan:" />
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When it comes to sexual and romantic availability, the Good Trans Girl must be either the Madonna or the whore. When they’re available, Good Trans Girls are polyamorous, but not in the sense that polyamory allows us autonomy over who we share our sexual and romantic labor with. Rather, Good Trans Girls are always available for others’ consumption. They acquiesce to anyone who pressures them enough, and they readily share media with others - the more lewd the better - featuring their faces and bodies. They’re quick to accept and reciprocate invitations for flirting, sex, or romantic partnerships, and they always blame themselves when those relationships leave them feeling used and wounded and unfulfilled. Sometimes they’re sex workers, in which case their open lewdness is viewed not as part of a transactional relationship necessary to their survival, but as an expected baseline service to the community.
In the Madonna’s case, Good Trans Girls are excused from sexual and romantic labor so long as they can sufficiently prove that they’re monogamous, “taken,” or “off the market” - or, that is to say, that their labor is tied up in maintaining a relationship with a single person. In such cases, Good Trans Girls must prove themselves through performing impeccable chasteness while still lending other sorts of transfeminized labor to the community. If a Good Trans Girl tries to say that she isn’t available due to being polysaturated, or not desiring the specific other’s partnership, or being asexual, aromantic, and/or sex-repulsed, then she is primed to fall into Bad Trannyhood as soon as a rejected party starts in on a rumor mill about how she was a Bad Tranny all along.
Regardless of her relationship status, no Good Trans Girl is allowed agency over her own sexuality. She is ideally sexually available, of course, but she’s only allowed to advertise herself as such if she’s a sex worker. Either way, partners must come to her first and initiate, and the Good Trans Girl is greatly encouraged to accept as proof of her demure femininity. Good Trans Girls don’t initiate intimacy - that’s a behavior that only aggressive, predatory Bad Trannies, those who haven’t reined in their “male socialization,” engage in.
Overall, the Good Trans Girl knows and internalizes that her membership in queer spaces is contingent upon a sufficient performance of Good Trans Girlhood. She knows that her AGAB renders her default state as “male aggressor-in-waiting,” and she necessarily overcorrects in order to not be that. She willingly and eagerly treats the community as a constant proving ground, and she accepts the panopticon of scrutiny that those communities thrust upon her with a smile and a, “how can I help?”. She never challenges the social order of those communities except to remove a Bad Tranny from a position of power or authority. She is, in the eyes of the community, the best thing that a trans woman or transfeminine person can possibly be: a quiet, fawning, readily disposable and ever-interchangeable laborer, who asks for nothing in return for working herself to the point of burnout.
Unless a community has done the work to root out transmisogyny in their midst, performing Good Trans Girlhood is the only way that trans women and transfems can garner any semblance of stability in that space. However, no transfem can put on this performance forever. Good Trans Girlhood is a paradigm designed around inevitable failure, one constructed such that it burns through transfems on a regular and rotating basis. In the next post in this series, we’ll discuss what happens when a Good Trans Girl fails in her performance - thus becoming the dreaded Bad Tranny.
@YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems I think we're all both good and bad trans girls to some degree. Part of what makes a 'good trans girl' is the desire or need to perform a specific kind of patriarchal femininity. One which is quite, subservient, and deferential. Any of us who have really grappled with our own intersections of feminity and masculinity have had to confront this. The problem, or issue, with these impulses of feminity occurs when they become exploited or weaponized both within and outside of the queer community. When we're told we're not feminine enough because we occasionality voice our opinions, or are loud, or we're told that real women wouldn't hesitate to do the domestic labor asked of them. Of course, this is part-and-parcel of transmisogyny. This can sting a great deal within the queer community, particularly when it comes from trans masculine folks - as they are regularly viewed as the authorities on examined socialization.
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@YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems it always comes back to Eve and Lilith
(I am very proud of the video essay I made reading Wicked through this lens lol)
@TransTina@translunar.academy @YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems Tina, please share the link with me. I love to see this!
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@TransTina@translunar.academy @YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems Tina, please share the link with me. I love to see this!
@steff@soc.femme.cat @YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Nkzk_yJnk I hope you like it <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://social.translunar.academy/emoji/neobot/neobot_heart_cyan.png" title=":neobot_heart_cyan:" />
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@steff@soc.femme.cat @YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Nkzk_yJnk I hope you like it <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://social.translunar.academy/emoji/neobot/neobot_heart_cyan.png" title=":neobot_heart_cyan:" />
@TransTina@translunar.academy @YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems Thank You - I rarely venture into YT anymore, due to nazis and ads, but will watch now!
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
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@TransTina@translunar.academy @YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems Thank You - I rarely venture into YT anymore, due to nazis and ads, but will watch now!
@steff@soc.femme.cat @YKantRachelRead@social.treehouse.systems aww thank you that’s so sweet of you <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://social.translunar.academy/emoji/bunhd/bunhdheart.png" title=":bunhdheart:" />
