Post B14eWS7pyvAaaM8ZJw by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
(DIR) More posts by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
(DIR) Post #B14eWP1LWbC8xM4qHo by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T10:58:28Z
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I've said this before (in a sort of poemy thing) but I really want to say it again: the 20th century theory that was used to drastically reduce the number of trans women allowed to medically transition says less about trans people and far more about medical patriarchy and its relationship to women generally. It is pure, chilling, misogyny.
(DIR) Post #B14eWQcxYEsNwIgOYK by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T10:59:43Z
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To those lucky enough not to have encountered it: it divided us into two groups. The group allowed hormones were said to be motivated by the desire to be fuckable by men. Sorry for the crudeness, but that really was the size of it. We were assumed to be transitioning in order to "land a man". We would have to turn up in pretty dresses and flutter our eyelashes and say how much we wanted to be secretaries or some shit like that. Just the grossest Stepford Wife shit.
(DIR) Post #B14eWRTQPAqMZ1EIKW by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T11:00:59Z
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And then the other group were hypothesised to have "autogynephilia"-- men with a fetish for perceiving ourselves as women. This is the theory that motivated the most transphobic character in cinema history-- Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. If you've seen it you probably remember the scene. I won't repeat it.(Yes, defenders of the film will tell you it's based on a real serial killer. Maybe, but an almost entirely speculative interpretation of his motives.)
(DIR) Post #B14eWS7pyvAaaM8ZJw by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T11:01:39Z
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Anyway, the choice they put to us was either you're a woman who wants to be desired by a man, or you're a man who wants to desire yourself as a woman. This is an absolute codification by male, cishet doctors of woman as passive sexual object, man as subject.(Actually they didn't even truly acknowledge us as women, but that's another kettle of fish.)
(DIR) Post #B14eWSth6zS0ymWmum by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T11:02:22Z
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Simone de Beauvoir, who wrote most influentially on the objectification of women, described how a woman, looking in the mirror, sees herself "doubled". She sees the person she understands herself to be, but also a stranger; the woman that men perceive her as. Herself as object.
(DIR) Post #B14eWTqBbWEruBtV5M by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T11:02:32Z
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What the medical gatekeepers asked of us is that we see ourselves purely as the object. Women's own perceptions of themselves are invalid, pathological even. A woman is allowed to look in the mirror and see that she is attractive*, but not that she is beautiful, in and of herself.* To men
(DIR) Post #B14eWUj8JEBuebbNjM by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T12:14:00Z
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Ech, this toot is not quite it, I'm still workshopping this. It's like... imagine a woman is told by her boyfriend that he prefers her in longer skirts and less makeup. She replies "but I like how I dress; I like to feel sexy".According to these fucking doctors, there's only two possible explanations for her motivations:She is dissatisfied with her current boyfriend and wants to attract a different oneShe's actually a manThe latter is something that's not generally imagined for cis women, which leads to the former interpretation. A woman who wants to "feel sexy" is looking to land a man. This really does show how these doctors' theories are pure misogyny of the worst kind.
(DIR) Post #B14eWfSsO0itxN53Q0 by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T11:08:06Z
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The women who went thru these clinics describe being sexually abused at the hands of these doctors, and is it a wonder? They were telling us in their own words that they saw women as sexual objects and nothing else. This ought to be a scandal but you know they'll never face justice.
(DIR) Post #B14eWoBpwjRP18B4bo by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T11:12:43Z
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Instead, the old theories are regularly rediscovered by current transphobes and quoted to invalidate us.The misogyny baked into these theories doesn't bother them-- in fact to them it's more of a feature than a bug. Transphobia is, by and large, misogyny.
(DIR) Post #B14eWwgcMAofMudlhI by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T11:33:20Z
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When I look in the mirror I experience exactly what de Beauvoir described-- a doubling. I see the me that lives in this world, a creature that breathes and eats, talks and laughs, farts and burps. And I see the object as well, woman as constructed thru a cultural, sexualised gaze. And that is kinda thrilling, kinda sexy. (I don't really construct the latter as "how men see me" because I'm a lesbian, lol. But distinguishing a concept of a "female gaze" from the one men have constructed is a challenge for all lesbians, I imagine.)
(DIR) Post #B14eX5ngTGofdR12Se by Tattie@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-09T12:01:06Z
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Anyway I don't know how to end this.Male doctors are the fucking worst, and should never have been allowed to define what a woman is or how she's allowed to see herselfWomen seeing themselves as sexual objects is an absolutely normal consequence to living in the society we do and doesn't imply that they only see themselves that way. It doesn't mean that's their one and only identify fergodssake. It doesn't mean we either live for, or as, men.Yeah, male doctors are the fucking worst