On Forced-Masculinization

A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of “forced-masculinization” memes were going around: first on Tumblr, then on Twitter and who knows where else. Ostensibly based on sissy hypno, the forced-feminization porn genre, many of these memes were nowhere near pornographic— and barely coercive. I called this out on Twitter, in response to a particularly egregious display of consent.

I only meant to condemn this specific meme’s lack of luster. But a few commenters went further, questioning whether force-masculinization could work as kink at all. Since men are socially dominant, why would it feel degrading to be turned into a man? Where's the abjection?

I am a known appreciator of both the male and the abject. And I've been known to dabble in forced-masculinization kink, alongside other genres of genderplay. So I know firsthand that it does work—but why?

Gender is a fundamental part of most people's identities, so having your gender taken from you is a deep act of submission. At the most basic level, it's disorienting to be turned into something you're not—doubly so if that's something you secretly want to be. This is true for forcedmasc and forcedfem alike. So I don't think the gendered outcome has to be abject for this kink to work. But the way I practice it, forcemasc kink absolutely treats maleness as an abject state. 

I've done this kink a lot with other former radfems. We've all spent years in circles in which “man” is not just treated as oppressive or evil, but as a degraded, sex-obsessed lowlife, ontologically incapable of full interiority or humanity. Similarly, we’ve been told that we have a moral duty to be women, a duty transitioning would betray. Forced-masculinization doesn't say “you can transition if you want to, it'll be good for you”. Forced-masculinization says “I know you're a disgusting, perverted man. This T injection is going to make you even hornier, a rapacious monster of the flesh. You'll never be able to convince those women you're one of them ever again”.

Our sex lives are not overdetermined by the structures of our social world: we have agency, and specific traumas, and idiosyncratic tastes that a structural analysis can't wholly account for. While forcedfem vs. forcedmasc is an intracommunity convo amongst kinky trans people, I see echoes of anti-BDSM feminist assumptions about why we do what we do.

When this post went around, I and a lot of my mutuals QRTed it with “what if my boyfriend is a cnc [consensual non-consent] bottom?” There’s layers of assumptions woven into the OP: that the reader is female, that the reader is in a heterosexual pairing, that the reader’s BDSM is exclusively mdom. The individual variation that we normally understand to exist in human sexuality disappears beneath vulgar structuralism.

(When you point out to anti-BDSM feminists that femdom exists, they will usually say that male submissives can be misogynist too—often pointing to forced feminization as an example of this misogyny. Needless to say, anyone can be misogynist, sexual proclivities aside. Vanilla sex is not less prone to this.)

Everyone I’ve done this kind of forcedmasc play with was gay before transition, and had already experienced more than their share of transphobia. Some of us even caught strays, were called “fags” while still living as dykes. Many of us felt shame for our attraction to men even when we were living as women. All of this contributes to the erotic power of being targeted in a new way, one that degrades you for precisely who you are.

When I, as a man, force-masculinize another man, I don’t then send him off to seduce a woman—I fuck him. So what do you call a man you’re fucking, who you’ve “forced” to be a man and maybe also “forced” to like men? I call him a faggot.

Maybe this part is a little more “abject”; as I write, I’m resisting the urge to defend myself against an argument none of you are making. I want to prove I’m not some deluded straight girl, fetishizing gay men’s oppression. But I don’t think that about trans women who are into forcedfem, so I won’t let myself think it about me.

There’s a lot of vulnerability in writing about my actual kinks. This is the first time I’ve done it in any kind of longform. I could have written in the third person conditional, but I have no sources to cite other than my own. I know this kink works because I get off to it; how else am I supposed to prove that?

I get why these “forcedmasc” memes don’t want to actually go there. It’s obvious their appeal isn't a sexual one; they’re about as desexualized as you can get without abandoning the premise entirely. But like actual forced-masculinization—or forced-feminization—they serve the important social function of granting permission to do what you want to do anyway. With or without the sexual draw, this is an important function of trans social reproduction, no less important than telling someone where they can go to get hormones.

Social reproduction refers to the everyday labor, paid or unpaid, that reproduces the working class. Trans social reproduction refers to the labor trans people perform to reproduce ourselves and each other; the way this relates to capitalism is more complicated than I can theorize here. (I’m working on it). You can read more about trans social reproduction in the Transgender Marxism anthology, conveniently available as a free PDF.

Obviously I had to tie forced-masculinization back to Marxism. It wouldn’t be Communotes if I didn’t.

I'm Reading

My friend and I are reading Let The Record Show, the Sarah Schulman ACT UP oral history. I was really looking for something that captured the strategy and internal dynamics that built this movement, and so far this book really delivers. (I only just now finished Part I). One thing I found interesting was how ACT UP really prioritized treatment—drugs into bodies—over prevention, as a way to center people already living with HIV/AIDS.

Some COVID activists make a lot of comparisons to HIV and ACT UP, invoking condom campaigns and educational efforts, but I haven’t seen as much focus on demanding treatments for Long COVID and ME/CFS. I would love to hear about some of these efforts (and how to support them).

On My Mind

I posted a poll on Twitter yesterday asking whether drag queens can be cis, inspired by this Mimi Zima tweet:

Personally, when I do drag, I am a cis male drag queen ;) But I’m skeptical as to whether actual cis men can truly say the same. I don’t subscribe to a hard distinction between gender identity and gender expression—insofar as gender is produced and reproduced by our actions in this world, it seems clear that the gender being put forth by drag queens is not a cis male one!

I’m not saying that every drag performer is trans, though many are. As my friend Sandra put it, I’m really asking “can cis be drag?”; that is, does the conceptual frame of cisness leave room for drag? I think it mostly doesn’t, but I’m still figuring out why not.

As it stands, I don’t think “they’re cis because they say they are” is a satisfying answer. A lot of people say they’re cis, or straight, but are identifiably not. Congrats to F1NN5TER on coming out by the way.

Secret Third Thing

ICYMI, I made a playlist of every song from Born to Die paired with a thematically similar country song. I’m really proud of it.