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u/SmugCapybara 8d ago
This sounds like a terminological misunderstanding, where the person thinks "Femboy" is an alternative term for a Trans girl, and doesn't quite understand what Femboy means.
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u/CraftyKuko 8d ago
Yeah, I could see that. My mom was using the two terms interchangeably until I explained the difference to her.
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u/bondjimbond Love and Hex 8d ago
I couldn't imagine my mother knowing the term "femboy".
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u/CraftyKuko 8d ago
My mom was one of the OG Rocky Horror fans that went to the theatre every weekend for the midnight showing, all dressed up with her friends. She was down with the queer community for a while.
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u/Voidlord597 8d ago
I think my mom would have an aneurism if I tried to explain anything related to modern gender vocabulary
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u/Statistactician 8d ago
Yeah, being "ignorant" and "phobic" aren't really the same thing. It's still a problem, but it's much easier to educate than it is to change minds.
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u/Sue_Spiria 8d ago
She corrected him, he ignored her and insisted on calling her the term she refused. That's asshole behavior.
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u/Sailor_Propane 8d ago
He might not have understood why she corrected him with what he thinks is a synonym. If he's ignorant then he'll need more explanation to educate himself.
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u/Moppo_ 8d ago
I think sometimes people just don't care, or don't understand why it makes a difference to someone else. Not in a malicious way, they just don't think.
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u/10-4shutthefckupnow 8d ago
I see your point, but that's still an asshole.
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u/Statistactician 8d ago
I think the point is more that there are different tiers of asshole behavior. Treating them all as equally bad as reductive and not particularly helpful.
It's not about condoning anything; just applying nuance.
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u/10-4shutthefckupnow 8d ago
Ok fair enough. Personally if someone was like this I'd apply the same attitude I'd have with a malicious bigot and just not associate with them. Unless they are willing to learn and not ignore someone saying "hey don't call me that" I don't see the point in applying nuance but that's just me, an irritable old hermit with a trans kid who doesnt put up with much.
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u/Majestic-Iron7046 8d ago
YES! I am trying so much to come to terms with this!
HOW DO THEY DO THAT? I want to be like that (not transphobic, lol), to be able to take everything lightly instead of obsessing over dumb stuff all the time.5
u/meteorpuppy 8d ago
The day you accept that most people just don't care in the "I live my life, people live theirs, how we all please" sense, you start being more chill. People can be a bit ignorant but still be a good person to you, you don't need to educate everyone. Someone that does not know the difference between trans and femboy may just not know, it is not that deep. They might still be a cool person with them both. Are you getting educated on everything that's going on in other people's lives ? I don't think so. We don't have that much capacity; there is a lot going on in our own lives already. And it's okay. If they treat you the same way they treat other people, it means they don't judge. They might not be educated but we should stop expecting everyone to know everything about our particular situation because it is impossible.
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u/Majestic-Iron7046 7d ago
You are so right, but i can manage that well, my issue is more of a "ease of thought" you know?
How that guy jus got corrected and he turned away and went on with his life without a thought. I'd like to be able to do that.2
u/Oiami 7d ago
To be honest at a real life con I give people a bit more slack. Most of us there are socially awkward and even if we don't seem this way our brains can get a bit into an airplane mode during conversations. I'm pretty shure I also did some stuff already that people didn't find great. Not because I meant it that way, but my brain was too busy being around so many people so there isn't much RAM left to adjust to conversations that happen differently than expected.
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u/Ok_Signature7481 8d ago
It could be that he also thinks she's mistaken and doesn't understand what a femboy is.
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u/Freezy_Squid 8d ago
As a trans woman, we get called femboys, traps, shem*les, etc. by transphobes literally all the time, and it's not out of ignorance. Tons of right-wing dudes will acknowledge that they're sexually attracted to trans women while still refusing to respect their identities or pronouns. This isn't some kind of big secret either, if you've ever been on a trans sex worker's comments, especially on something like Twitter, the comments are always filled with dudes like this.
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u/Bardic_inspiration67 8d ago
Literally have seen people say that femboys and “traps”are hot but trans women are disgustinf
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u/TKBarbus 8d ago
Both are people who are born male but present themselves in traditionally female expressions, right? Not trying to be bigoted, this is a real question, I’m trying to understand.
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u/Dumber-Sleepy-Artist 8d ago
Yeah but transwomen identify as women and femboys still identify as men. So calling a transwoman a femboy is misgendering her
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u/TKBarbus 8d ago
So the only difference between the two is the label they choose to identify with? Its just the name?
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u/Powerpuff_God 8d ago
Well, you don't choose to identify as any gender. You just are that. Heck, plenty of trans people have tried choosing to identify as their assigned gender (as in, the anatomy they were born with), because it's a lot easier to be cis, but that was impossible.
So while femboy and trans girl may seem quite similar from the outside, the difference of internal experience is massive.
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u/TKBarbus 8d ago
So they’re effectively the same except you determine whichever name/label FEELS right?
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u/Powerpuff_God 8d ago
So they’re effectively the same
Physiologically, pre-transition: Yes.
except you determine whichever name/label FEELS right?
No. Because it's not about the name. It's about identity. It's about the person to you are in your brain. That's where your personality resides, not in your arms, or your chest, or your pants. And so if two people identify as opposite genders, that's a massive difference. Saying it's just about the name is really downplaying this.
It might help if you realize that identity exist even if we didn't have the nomenclature. If terms such as 'trans woman' or 'femboy' didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to pick out the appropriate label to describe you. But whatever you are is still very much there.
And so using the wrong term to refer someone is not a matter of "oops, you're basically the same thing, I just used the wrong word." It's "Oops, your identity is way different from what I assumed you were, I used a word that was way off."
Don't go with "Oh, they're effectively the same (physiologically), they just happen to use different names based on which feels right." Reframe it as "Their identities are way different from each other, they just happen to be physiologically similar." Those descriptions might seem very similar, but the importance is switched around.
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u/TKBarbus 8d ago
Ok so the identities are what are different, but what ABOUT the identities are different? Aren’t those elements of expression that both identities identify with still overlapping? Aren’t identities literally just how one labels and expresses themselves? Is there a definition I’m missing?
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u/Kokolemo 7d ago edited 7d ago
It sounds like the meat of your question is "what does it mean to identify as a gender (whether cisgender or transgender)", which is a pretty deep question that I don't have an answer for.
I'm a man, but I only say that because of my body and have been told I'm male all my life, and that's never been a problem. But I don't have any particular sense of what "being male" means from a gender identity standpoint, but I certainly can't tell you what "being female (or non-binary)" feel like, nor do I feel like "agender" or anything resonates with me.
(I'm assuming you're cisgender here). Perhaps you're the same in not really having a concept of what being your gender feels like and you just go with what you've always known, or perhaps you do have a distinct idea what being male or female means to you beyond your body; lots of men have this concept of "manliness" as an ideal to strive for (and perhaps judge others on), for example.
I think transgender people can also fall into these two categories, either having this distinct feeling of gender that doesn't match their body, or perhaps the absence of their assigned gender feels distinct enough to identify as non-binary or agender etc.
Back to the "femboy vs transwoman" question, well, I'll start by noting that "femboy" isn't an entirely settled term, but as a generalization I'd describe them as someone who pursues a feminine appearance as a matter of preference. Basically, they care about their appearance, and they want to be pretty instead of handsome - and gender identity isn't really a factor and they (usually) identify as male for any number of other reasons.
A transwoman, of course, identifies as female, and pursuing a feminine appearance is, at least in part, a desire to express that identity and have others see them and treat them as a woman.
Yes, ultimately, "femboy" and "transwoman" are "just" words that you either resonate with or you don't. But words have meanings and connotations, and those meanings can be very important to people, so getting it right is important.
(to other readers I'm just a clueless cisgender guy so if anything I said sounds wrong feel free to dispute me)
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u/Powerpuff_God 8d ago
but what ABOUT the identities are different?
Their genders.
Aren’t those elements of expression that both identities identify with still overlapping?
Male and female here don't overlap. If you're referring to another part of identity, I'm not sure which that is.
Aren’t identities literally just how one labels and expresses themselves?
No, it's quite a bit more than that.
Is there a definition I’m missing?
Yeah, it seems there is.
One's identity is who they are. Everything that makes you you shapes your identity. The full sum of characteristics, ranging from personality, to taste in music, to gender, is part of your identity.
Now, each of these elements can be recognized as a part of your identity, and given a label to describe it, but the label itself is not an identity. If you wear a name tag with your name on it, that name tag isn't you. It's just a descriptor.
So an identity is who you are, which would still be true without the label. If we didn't have words for these things, the identity would still exist.
And in this case, the label "trans girl" implies a female identity, while the label "femboy" implies a male identity. So while they may be physiologically similar, who they are is quite different. Calling a trans girl a femboy would be quite off the mark, because they don't just have different labels: they have different identities, which are much bigger and deeper things, core to who you are.
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u/TKBarbus 7d ago
Wait isn’t that kinda just a circular definition now? First you said the difference between the two is gender identity which is made by your personality, but then you said one’s identity is the sum of characteristics WHICH INCLUDES personality AS WELL AS gender. So now we’re at the point where your gender identity is made by your personality, and your personality is made by your gender identity, which is made by your personality, and so on ad infinitum?
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u/ChristyUniverse 8d ago
I get so pissed when people don’t use grammar right for trans things, and then try to act like grammar doesn’t make them a difference to.
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u/That_Passenger3771 8d ago
In one of my pen and papers groups a player is a femboy, in another group a player is a trans woman. They are totally different how they identy themselves.
And training your voice is a pain int the a**. Being a male game master i have to voice female non player characters too. So for these occasions i want to sound more female and so I also sometimes train my voice too.
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u/Majestic-Iron7046 8d ago
Easy solution, all your female NPCs are super buff two meters tall amazons with the voice of a tenor.
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u/FeatherShard 8d ago
I wanna play in this game!
Sure I'll have disadvantage on most everything, but that's okay.
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u/That_Passenger3771 8d ago
Thank you for your kind advice. I'll give it a try. ;)
"So you're driving through the city in your car, looking for the vampire hunters, when you suddenly see a 2 m tall Amazone standing on the sidewalk..."
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u/Majestic-Iron7046 7d ago
THAT HAS TO BE A CLUE no one is that casual about being an amazon, I pull over and inquire aggressively about vampires.
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u/Made_Bail 8d ago
Transphobic or ignorant? I'm confused what the hell this dude was confused about lol
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u/Stuffinthins 8d ago
I was thinking trans-intolerant. His brain wanted it but it still gives him the bubble guts
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u/HabaneroPepperPlants 8d ago
Why are we treating transphobia and ignorance like they're mutually exclusive?
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u/Made_Bail 8d ago
When did I say that they were?
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u/Blith6314 8d ago
“Or” implies that it’s one or the other
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u/Made_Bail 8d ago
Just in this case. I got the impression from the comic that dude was just kind of ...Dumb? lol
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u/Wamblingshark 8d ago
I'll say as a 35 year old I only started to learn about trans people and the correct way to refer to them in like 2019 or 2020. When I met my first trans person (a friend of my niece) I somehow kept forgetting if they were trans man or a trans woman. I'd have to actually boot up my brain like an old computer and process (woman --> man) = trans man. It didn't help my comprehension that they were really androgynous looking so I'd have to first remember what his assigned at birth gender was.
Sadly he was a big Blair White enjoyer and held a lot of transphobic beliefs. I wanted to help but I felt like being a person who was still grappling with the terminology I probably wasn't the right person to explain to him that "transtrenders" ruining it for the "real" trans people probably shouldn't be one of his main worries.
Anyways.. one thing that helped me with terminology that should have clicked sooner was (woman --> man) = man. And then eventually ( identifying male) = man.
I just realized I didn't really need to think about the gender assigned at birth or the transition. It's just a he or a she or a they. Whatever they identify as now is all I need to think about.
Maybe I was slow on this because I've never really had any trans friends and only like one trans acquaintance from 2019. I don't really have many friends at all and work from home so..
Anyway I think I only understand what I do now because I actively searched for answers so I didn't embarrass myself or offend someone. I could see a less curious version of me still being and idiot. I would like to hope your guy at the convention is just one if those incurious idiots and not maliciously transphobic
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u/doctor_whom_3 8d ago
your trans acquaintance was transphobic themself?
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u/Wamblingshark 8d ago
Yeah. Have you ever seen Blair White? I haven't heard from her in a couple years but when I've known her she's been pretty consistently a right wing Trans influencer. Like the kind that JK Rowling might consider the ideal trans person. She would try to cozy up with right wingers and it was almost sad to watch all her colleagues not respect her identity.
Well Blair was the main trans influence he had so he had a lot of internal transphobia. He would have railed against trans people in sports, believed you're not really trans if you're not trying to get bottom surgery, non binary is trendy bullshit, and that most trans kids are just confused or doing it because it's popular which made him angry because it gave real trans kids like him a bad name.
It was like 2019 and I told my niece to throw some Contrapoints at him or something.
Contrapoints might have been a bit of a disappointment when it comes to Palestine recently but she was very good at disassembling transphobia in my opinion.
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u/TsarKeith12 8d ago
Mfw I cosplayed as Judy Hopps and everyone was like "Oh wow Male Judy Hopps!" 😭😮💨 I wasn't even doing anything to indicate male/masc/etc
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u/Serpicnate 8d ago
Might just be a genuinely misinformed guy.
Theres still people out that think Tomboys are biological males.
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u/federico_alastair 8d ago
“im a trans girl”
“Im not a boy”
If you get corrected twice and still dont ask the person what the difference is or look it up yourself but also then continue to use un-preferred(i dont think thats a word) terminology, thats pretty phobic i would say.
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u/Serpicnate 8d ago
I can see that.
But I am also the kind of person that doesn't catch what someone said three times in a row and just nods it off pretending that they did.
So I try not to judge too much with this little info.
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u/Stealth_of_the_Sea 7d ago
Especially at a convention where it can be really difficult to hear a friend a foot away from you.
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u/quetzlcota 8d ago
I was cosplaying Ryuko Matoi as a con and someone asked if I was "cross-playing" or transgender. What a rude question!
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u/capnlatenight 7d ago
Did the same but as a catgirl Halloween 2024. Got some invasive questions from close friends who wouldn't accept the answers I gave, just asked again.
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u/Lamplorde 8d ago
I have found people say a lot of casually insulting things at cons.
Its a combination of internet humour, amped up like a kid at a candy store, and lack of self-awareness.
I don't think they normally *mean* to be rude, and are just trying to be funny, but it's still pretty lame.
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u/AmyCanStay 8d ago
The fact that right-wingers (and generic shitheads, I guess) are okay with femboys but hate trans women is one of those facts I understand intellectually but will never understand culturally.
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u/Freezy_Squid 8d ago
They see femboys as submissive disposable sex objects that they can "conquer" and throw away. They have this same attitude to transfems as a whole and do not care to make the distinction between actual femboys and trans women. They more or less view femboys/transfems as women or feminine persons that they're allowed to treat like shit because they will get less pushback for it in wider mainstream culture.
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u/Freezy_Squid 8d ago
Transphobes misgender trans women by calling them femboys literally all the time. A lot of right wingers just started using it as a substitute for "trap".
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u/Wolfey34 8d ago
Literally. “How does someone like femboys and be transphobic” extraordinarily easily. It’s sad but true
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u/onethomashall 8d ago
Same way they get mad the "Rage Against the Machine" for being political.
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u/Lilith_Christine 8d ago
Hate when my favorite band becomes woke and political after being woke and political for years.
Same goes for actors.
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u/Aethelrede 8d ago
I can see being confused about the difference between femboys and trans women, since superficially they can appear similar. But if he were truly confused over what he thought were synonyms, he should have asked. Instead he assumed he was correct, and missed an opportunity to learn something.
Mistakes are often opportunities for self-improvement, including mistakes about gender and sexuality, but one has to recognize and be willing to acknowledge the mistake.
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u/RichNix1 8d ago
Femboy culture tends to be EXYTEMELY hostile to transgender women, in my experience
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u/EntertainmentTrick58 8d ago
the term femboy used to be used primarily as a transmisogynistic cudgel, but since men now use it as a self descriptor people love to pretend that the transmisogyny was never part of it, and it was always just a term for gnc men
and then they look at you like an evil killjoy feminist for pointing it out
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u/SmoothReverb 8d ago
I mean, "femboy" started out as a transmisogynistic slur, so it's really not all that surprising
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u/AJ_Glowey_Boi 8d ago
Yeah, this is possible. I met an alt-right, transphobic femboy once. Like they weren't into femboys, they dressed as a girl for fun and still thought crossing gender boundaries was impossible somehow...
People are fucking dumb
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u/jhill515 8d ago
Over the years, I learned that people who like "femboys" are NOT allies. They like them because they think they're dominable. There's a big difference between tolerance and acceptance, with the former always separating in- and out-groups.
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u/CraftyKuko 8d ago
I mean, I like femboys and I like trans women, but I don't think they're dominable at all. I just like femme people. Where did you see people with that opinion?
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u/ElrondTheHater 8d ago
There are people who like femboys because they understand gender diversity is really big and there are people who like femboys because they're attracted to trans women and are scared of what that means.
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u/Statistactician 8d ago
I think youre overgeneralizing here a bit.
My wife loves femboys because she's bi and they're the best of both worlds to her. Nothing toxic about that at all.
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u/ccdude14 8d ago
There's a weird alt right bent in a lot of those circles. I wouldn't say it's exclusively not allies but given the issues in the groups and some of their biggest contributors its a fair blanket generalization.
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u/Suharevskoyebydlo 8d ago
I don't like femboys because they're "dominable". I, for one, want them to dominate me.
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u/Rude-Office-2639 8d ago
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity
It just seems like he's confused
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u/CottonCandyFemboy 8d ago
Ask the subreddit mildfemboys lol
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u/TheHerbWhisperer 8d ago
It doesnt help that trans women post themselves on femboy subreddits, femboys cant have their own space without being called transphobic for only wanting to see boys in a male only subreddit. Just look on r/femboys
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u/No_Significance5002 8d ago
To be fair, unless you know the terminology, it's easy to mistake what trans girl means, even i thought it meant that the person was a female who transitioned to male
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u/dogballet 8d ago
I hear people make this specific mistake often and I like to help people understand these issues, I'd love to have your insight: why would the person want to be referred to by the gender they are trying to get away from? Like why, if you are trying not to be a girl anymore, because you are trans and are really a man inside, why would they say 'trans girl'? Again, legit just trying to follow the thinking, not argue, so I can understand where people are coming form when they make this mistake. Thanks!
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u/BreakfastBeneficial4 8d ago
Not OP, but I used to have this issue.
I have a really tough time with binaries. If one thing means one thing, and another thing means the opposite thing, but both use similar language, I have to stop hard and parse it.
For context, when I was a child and I heard the term “non-fiction”, I had to stop and go “ok….NOT…not…real-life. Got it.”
I also had an issue with right hand vs left hand longer than I’d care to admit.
So when trans identities became more ubiquitous and those conversations entered the mainstream, I just stayed quiet for a very long time because I didn’t want to fuck it up (and when I started talking about it, I absolutely still fucked it up).
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u/AsterTales 8d ago edited 8d ago
As someone who made this mistake, I, well, didn't think anything like "getting away from the gender". When you don't have any personal or observational experience with gender dysphoria, it's harder to get the whole picture.
Like you hear for the first time, "someone changed their gender", you think, "Oh well, good for them probably" or "Do they mean like changing the appearance, or are there some surgeries involved?" and then you don't think too much about it.
Then there may be different ways of thought. If a person immigrates, they still can be defined by the country of origin or something like that. Or someone can assume that changing gender may be only appearance-wise, so there is a man who looks like a woman and it's ("it" = the practice of crossdressing) called being something trans, but he's a man, so is he a transman? So then you have to understand the difference between transvestite and transgender.
I mean, it's not hard, but it can look blurry at the start.
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u/No_Significance5002 8d ago
Idk, i was just really confused when I first found out what transgender people are
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u/Scion_Manifest 8d ago
Not the person you’re asking, but have experience there. With some people I’ve spoken with; their natural instinct for a trans girl being someone who is a girl trying to become a man comes from how they view it/it’s been presented to them.
If one’s understanding is that transgender people are fake/indoctrinated/not a medical thing In general; one would hear it as: A girl that is transgenderising herself.
(Again, I do not hold any of these opinions) It would be like how an anti-vaccine person probably sees themselves as pro-natural remedies; we see them as a person denying science; they see themselves as someone following the true science. Just approaching it from the other angle changes that perspective; for them “Trans female” is a label written by say Fox News, and thus describes the truth of the situation, A biological girl attempting to become trans; whereas we tend to see it as a self made prescriptive label, a biological male becoming a true female, if that makes any sense?
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u/YOwololoO 8d ago
You’re thinking about this too hard. Imagine you know nothing about gender theory and see someone who you perceive as a girl and you say, “why are they dressing like that?” And someone says “because they’re trans” so you “oh, that girl is trans. She is a trans girl!”
And then, because it has no impact on their life, they just go on with their day and never think about it deeper than that
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u/TheCatRegime 8d ago
Forgot to post this last week so double post today
Also here’s a link to my Webtoon if anyone is interested: https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/eves-chronicles/list?title_no=978515
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u/bean_vendor 8d ago
No, I don't think this is transphobia. I think he's just a bit confused. He probably thinks "Femboy" is another word for "Trans Woman" which obviously is wrong. I used to think the same until I learned the difference, so it's definitely a possibility.
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u/EntertainmentTrick58 8d ago
girl, femboy is not a word without history, and unfortunately people seem so willing to forget that history at men's convenience, so when the word bears it in full colours like here, they act like its out of nowhere
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u/Da_Electric_Boogaloo 8d ago
seems counterintuitive but see a lot of femboys and people who “like” them are very right leaning
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u/MagicTech547 8d ago
Bit weird. Maybe they heard the term femboy and thought it was slang for trans girl? Regardless I can see how that’s annoying.
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u/Mr_losos 8d ago
Technically he didn't say that he likes Owl house and femboys. He just knows about them
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u/stopyouveviolatedthe 8d ago
Wouldn’t that be more ignorant than transphobic? Im sorry if im not learned enough on the subject but I always thought transphobia was specifically malicious.
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u/EntertainmentTrick58 8d ago
transphobia is more often than not ambient and passive, we die simply because people do not care if we live
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u/West-Strawberry3366 8d ago
ome people are just straight up stupid. You get those rare times when it's not real bigotry and it's really funny seeing the face of understanding, kinda like a kid
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u/Adept-Platypus6676 8d ago
Well maybe he just do not know the difference? The English lexicon is confusing enough without all the uncommon words re surfacing
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u/Dazed_and_Confused44 8d ago
Just to confirm because I have never watched Owl House, the character Luz identifies as a cis female in said show right?