With some migrations underway it’s natural to use well established community names for discoverability, but it got me thinking how I’ve always disliked MtF as a community name since it feels dated and “medicalizing”.
Not trying to start anything here, just wondering out loud if a “Transfem” community would cater to the same needs but with less emphasis on where you supposedly came from and more focused on what we want.
I prefer the term “MtF” myself. It was really helpful when I was questioning, and made it easier to engage with the community from the outside. I still like it now since it represents transition, and it can still be useful when searching for transition related information online.
The term “transfemme” also feels a bit exclusionary of trans women on the more butch side of presentation. All trans women are female, but not all of us are feminine. Though I do understand “transfemme” is more inclusionary of non-binary identities, so I don’t think there’s a good way to be 100% inclusive of all of us.
Keeping the Reddit name of MtF would also make it easier for people to make the move to Lemmy in the future too. It certainly was a factor in me attempting the move here as well.
OP suggested transfem, not transfemme. I think the former is more inclusive than the latter as “fem” can be short for both “female” and “feminine”. But that’s my personal take on it, and no clue if other people see it that way or use it that way.
Personally, I liked MtF when I was clueless to trans terminology because even if you don’t think trans people are their actual gender, its unambiguous what it means. Meanwhile, someone who doesn’t see trans women as women or trans men as men can easily be confused about whether a trans woman is someone who was AFAB and trans or a woman who happens to be trans. Hence all the accidental ally memes of transphobes telling trans women they’ll never be real men or trans men they’ll never be real women. But I think the concerns of the people actually part of the community should matter more than worrying about how ignorant people will display their ignorance in funny ways.
Anyways, I consider myself transfem (even if I don’t really like using the label), but not mtf. Given the sub description specifies its not just for mtfs, I don’t really care either way.