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Don't forget about trans men when you are making action plans to combat gendered abuse in comics!
CW: transphobia & assault
We have suffered the same way women do, but end up floundering on the margins (webcomics, commissions-only income) because no one is seeking us out.
CW: transphobia & assault
We have suffered the same way women do, but end up floundering on the margins (webcomics, commissions-only income) because no one is seeking us out.
A lot of transmasc people in comics don't have access to affirming care like HRT or surgery. (no insurance + low income will do that.) That means that many of us are evaluated as and treated like women any time we are out in public.
Even for trans dudes who do read as cis, they likely spent years being treated as a woman, and will have their own harrowing stories of abuse by the hands of cis men that formed their foundational understanding of themselves, the world, and their industry.
Furthermore, trans men who are in the middle of their transition (or whose goals are not constrained by the binary), trans panic opens them up to both surprise and pre-meditated ridicule & violence...for looking not feminine enough. (Sometimes this includes sexual abuse as well.)
These things happen in our industry. When men at a show insist on calling me Helen- I have to leave my table, losing sales. When a guy at barcon leans over and says "I know how you identify, but you're just so, so sexy" I lose the ability to hold & take charge of conversations.
Leaving us out of the conversation ignores the misogyny we experience as trans men. It ignores the complex ways in which it fucks with our sense of self, our innate understanding of our gender.
It makes it hard to get jobs and then keep those jobs.
It makes it hard to get jobs and then keep those jobs.
So what can you do to make sure transmasc people are included?
Just...say so. We can be collapsed under the non-cis-men or "marginalized genders" umbrella.
Or, make sure your calls are open to "Gender non-conforming people, women, and transgender men."
Just...say so. We can be collapsed under the non-cis-men or "marginalized genders" umbrella.
Or, make sure your calls are open to "Gender non-conforming people, women, and transgender men."
For what it's worth, throughout all this, I'm speaking to leaders and cis men who feel a genuine desire to reshape things.
Women who share their experiences and demand justice for women are speaking about what affects them, and that is OKAY, and not my space to take up.
Women who share their experiences and demand justice for women are speaking about what affects them, and that is OKAY, and not my space to take up.
We literally will not apply to your call for women and non-binaries unless we are also non-binary. 
Bc we aren't women.
Bc we aren't women.
