“Why are incels turning themselves into girls?” asks a headline on Unherd.com. A blog post on Pirate Wires posits a veritable “Incel-To-Transwoman Pipeline.” Finally, an article on Breitbart, illustrated with a stock photo of a mustachioed man wearing lipstick and nail polish, declares that “a look into a sizable online community reveals the shocking motive behind some men’s desire to identify as women: involuntary celibacy.”
The supposed trend under discussion? Something called “transmaxxing” — the belief, apparently birthed in the incel world, that lonely young men can dramatically improve their lives by “becoming” women. The idea has floated around incel message boards for years, with depressed young incels idly fantasizing that they could make their lives easier and get themselves laid in a hurry if they could magically transform themselves from undesirable losers into hot young Stacies. Now some steeped in incel ideology — who may or may not self-identify as incels — are trying to turn this fantasy into reality.
It’s not clear how much of a trend this really is, how many incels and incel–lites have gone beyond the fantasy to actually transition. But the number is more than zero. And those who have transitioned are making a lot of noise about it. The movement, such as it is, has its own Discord server with 1200 members and comes with its own 76-page manifesto, an exceedingly strange document that features undigested incel complaints alongside glowing “testimonials” on the joys of transitioning that sometimes border on the pornographic.
The central, er, logic of transmaxxing is frankly misogynistic, based on the notion, popular in incel and manosphere circles, that life is simply much easier for women. A list of “potential benefits from transitioning from male to female” that starts off the manifesto includes “being able to extract resources from males,” “people will treat you better if they think you are female,” and “cheaper car insurance.”
Much of the appeal is frankly fetishistic, with the manifesto writer emphasizing the supposed sexual benefits of transitioning–from multiple full-body orgasms to “sexual excitement from having a feminine body.” These benefits are said to accrue regardless of one’s sexuality; the manifesto teases the possibilities of “access to the transbian dating pool,” “being able to attract cis lesbians (if you become attractive enough),” and “being able to attract high-quality males for sex.”
Much of the manifesto reads like cut-and-pasted complaints from an incel message board. “Since females have the upper hand on the dating market, transitioning from male to female will usually improve your options when it comes to getting sex,” the manifesto explains. “Trans-women will benefit from the increasing female privilege.” The manifesto adopts some of the jargon of the Men’s Rights crowd as well, referring to “hypergamy” and “gynocentrism.”
There is, as is always the case with incels, an unhealthy dollop of self-loathing as well. Widespread transmaxxing would be good for society because fewer “incels trying to force females to waste themselves on losers is a good thing,” the manifesto asserts.
Transmaxxers seem to think you can convince yourself to be trans. “If you do not currently feel like living as a female, you might have to work on fixing that,” the manifesto suggests. “Identifying as male or being emotionally attached to a male body is bad for you if being male results in you living a bad life.” The manifesto suggests watching lots of anime with trans content or resorting to “sissy hypno porn” with the supposed power to convert cis straight men into gender-bending “sissies” or trans women. (Transmaxxing is all about trans women; trans men are denigrated or ignored.)
To transmaxxing’s critics on the right, the supposed trend is an example of confused and unhappy young men being seduced into the trans lifestyle. These young men, Breitbart warns, are now “resorting to self-destructive gender transition attempts” so they can “cease being a man altogether.” Apparently agreeing with the transmaxxers that men can hypnotize themselves into becoming women, Breitbart suggests that the existence of the trend “seemingly, if inadvertently, discredit[s] leftist arguments that gender dysphoria cannot be induced, successfully encouraged, or groomed into.”
Over on Mumsnet, an online forum popular with TERFs, some are suggesting that transmaxxing proves that some men are trying to “become women” for frivolous and self-aggrandizing reasons. Transmaxxing, to one commenter there, is
a phenomenon in which young men transition because they can, not because they have dysphoria but in some vague hope of having sex with sympathetic women.
It’s reminded me of Ollie London, who assumed that just because you can do something (in his case have surgery to make him look Korean) it’s okay. No ideological awareness, no ethics, just a why not? kind of attitude.
Another suggested that transitioning had become “just another lifestyle choice like buying a new car or trainers.”
Still another wrote:
Unattractive but entitled young men have every incentive to make themselves seem more interesting and more open to the sympathetic attention of young women who feel sorry for them by pretending to be “trans”.
Unfortunately, the broadly toxic transmaxxing ideology reinforces myths and stereotypes that might convince some to conclude just that. It seems to confirm so many half-baked right-wing and TERFy critiques of so-called transgenderism that it might as well have been invented for that purpose. But no, it appears to be real, another unfortunate product of incel ideology.
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I banned seagull for, you know.
I don’t know, I laughed at everything that dude said because of the ridiculousness of it all and his choices of words that sounded like he took 5 minutes for every sentence since he had to look half the words up in a dictionary before posting. It was kinda hilarious. Still glad he is gone.
On topic, I first read unheard.com and was like “fitting site name, never heard of that bs before”. What utter nonsense. And potentially highly damaging to already vulnerable people. Also, aren’t incels self-proclaimed ugly dudes? If they are so ugly, why the heck would they ever think they would make gorgeous women? That makes no sense, unless they conaider all women ugly, which I can totally see with those shits. Or so incompetent at even the one thing they proclaim to be their only strenght that they could do it better kust by being men. Yeah, that’s probably it… even more inherent misogyny.
@KMB, agreed, he was really funny. unintentionally, of course.
But thanks, David!
From what little I know of Unherd, they’re part of that whole IDW school of thought; they see themselves as brave free speechy types fighting against woke tyranny, yada yada heard it all before…
Seeing that kind of seagull squawking reminded me of That Scene from the Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion. If you’ve seen it, you probably remember which one I’m talking about.
I remember stumbling on a Transmaxx reddit group like two years ago and it was page after page of one guy who had obviously never spoken to a woman, trans or cis, spouting off about his fetish. I didn’t realize it became an actual thing with incels since.
Also this is all so utterly on-the-nose just a bunch of lies GCs say about trans women that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out ti be some kind of mumsnet/ovarit fetish roleplay group.
Doesn’t pass the sniff test, if you ask me. The whole thing reads like a GC’s idea of what trans women want and how we think; the bit about “sissy hypno porn” in particular is a weird Extremely Online Transphobe shibboleth. GCs have long tried to associate trans women with MRAs; associating us with incels is the obvious next step.
I could credit that a few self-identified incels are trans women in denial, and that some of their hatred for women comes from deeply submerged feelings of “Why can’t I be like that? It’s not fair!” But I don’t buy this as any kind of real and consequential fraction of incels generally. Incels hate themselves, but they hate women even more, and I can’t believe significant numbers of them would “become” women just because they believe women have better lives.
so as a trans woman i do often make jokes about my liberation from the strictures of performative masculinity and embracing a slightly exaggerated feminine sexuality as part of my own transition. i thought transmaxxing was just a joke in that vein and didn’t really examine it closely.
yuck.
@Love is All We Need
That’s a good point, and it’s happened before – usually it’s been 4chan and company tho, not more organized far right groups. Last time they called it “clovergender” and it was basically pedophilia presented as a gender. The trans community didn’t buy it, and neither did mainstream media.
Re: incels actually transitioning. I’m sure there are some closet cases in their little Internet sewers, and they will be in for a very rude surprise if they start hormones before abandoning the ideology. Sexual predation and harassment by cis men starts instantly – I was getting catcalled in my first month on HRT. I had a guy pull up next to me and try to get me to ride with him literally the first time I wore makeup in public. There is a reason our politics tend to swing hard left so fast. MtF transitioning is a fucking scary experience, even in solidly liberal areas.
@David
Yaaaaaaay, and there was much rejoicing. Gods above that guy was pompous.
If you listen to the interview with the creator of the Transmaxx discord and manifesto he himself says he doesn’t think many incels will go for it because they are so transphobic.
That being the case I wonder why he bothered with it. I think he’s a hoaxer. Nevertheless there’s a young woman on Youtube FREAKING out over it and yelling, “I called it! I called it! I told you all this would happen! This is sick! This is evil! Why didn’t conservatives talk about this before?! I warned you!”
Expect the panic to start doing the social media rounds like, today. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jedidiah Bila covers it by the end of the week and blames it on “the matrix”.
Yeaaaaaaaaah, this seems as legit as when a bunch of 4channers made up a pedo pride flag and claimed that pedos were now part of the LGBTQ community. Trolls being trolls and enjoying the fact that what they’re doing will cause harm.
Every time you think incels have reached the height of absurdity, they put on flight suits and climb to whole new levels of ridiculousness.
1. this is one of my least-favorite TERF conspiracy theories/talking points (that trans women are actually just incels/MRAs), and it’s weird to see it spread beyond them
2. honestly, let these guys live as women for a bit, if they think it’s so easy and fun
Is seagull back to tell us more about his sexual fantasizes again….
@m k
Yeah I hate to break it to them that if they are truely unattractive as men, then they will also be unattractive as women. Cis or trans doesn’t equal beautiful.
It amazes me that people think men will transition into women just to be “beautiful” as if any trans woman is really worried about that instead of getting to be her true self.
“Identifying as male or being emotionally attached to a male body is bad for you if being male results in you living a bad life.”
Um…one could try living a better life, without transitioning…?
The manifesto suggests watching lots of anime with trans content or resorting to “sissy hypno porn” with the supposed power to convert cis straight men into gender-bending “sissies” or trans women.
Yeah, watch something that’s obviously pure fantasy to make you think it would work just as well in real life. What could possibly go wrong? Oh well, at least they’re admitting the whole idea is largely based and reliant on fantasy.
…the broadly toxic transmaxxing ideology … seems to confirm so many half-baked right-wing and TERFy critiques of so-called transgenderism that it might as well have been invented for that purpose.
Maybe it was.
@Elaine
So the interplay between transition, transness, beauty, and straight society is complicated actually, and not something I really want to delve into right now because hoo boy does that come with a bucketload of trauma. But let’s just say for now that most of us do care about being beautiful, and don’t get a choice, for basically the same reasons as y’all. A lot of our maneuvering space within patriarchy comes at the price of making ourselves attractive to straight men.
Part of why we like to transition early – and why transphobes want to keep us from doing so – is because passing and heteronormative attractiveness get a lot less likely past late 20s/early 30s transition.
So like IDK how to explain this to cis folks, but a lot of us go into transition with wrong and fucked up expectations, and come out of it okay anyway. Some of us start our social transitions as “a temporary experiment” which then sticks because it turns out living that way is easier.
Trying to separate real from fake trans people is like… actually very difficult, and basically always a thing that empowers transphobes. We shouldn’t have to be perfect, beautiful, fun to be around, even good people in order to be seen as real trans people.
Edit: not saying the OP isn’t a hoax (honestly the more details I read the more I think it is one), just… some of the comments make me think people Aren’t Getting It.
@David Futrelle:
Thanks for that, sir. The smell of seagull guano was becoming overpowering, quite frankly, and I don’t have nearly enough white sage on hand to tackle the stench.
@Alan Robertshaw: Happy belated birthday 🎂, and I hope it was a good one. Also, thank you for posting that link to your comments on the Vikings’ presence in the British Isles. Havn’t had a chance to view it yet, my strength isn’t quite back to what it was before surgery.
I just keep looking at the meme at the top of this page, and seeing the “Trans Stacy” there labeled as authentically happy, able to express her personality, able to dress in “the fun stuff”, and otherwise clearly living her best life… and I really, really, reallllly wonder if the dude that made the meme needs to have a very hard conversation with himself regarding his gender identity. He kinda sounds legitimately closeted to me. Not in the “hurr hurr, everyone who says they’re anti-LGBT is just in the closet” sort of way. More in the “if you actually keep longingly thinking of how much happier you’d be if you were a woman then you might actually be a woman” sort of way.
Is there actually evidence a that a single incel transitioned? I’m guessing transmaxxers are actually cis men who have no intention of taking their supposed advice.
@vintologi
And we should care about your maddened rambling why?
@David Futrelle, feel free to indulge him in what he thinks is a debate. Or not. Honestly, anyone who uses the term “cuckservative” has nothing worth saying if you ask me but it’s up to you.
Lose one troll, gain another, I guess.
The person(s) who came up with that meme is either doing a BIG 4chan troll, or indeed, they need to really look inside themselves. Somewhere, there may be a few incels who haven’t admitted they’re really women inside — but most of them hate women so much that they aren’t even contemplating becoming outwardly one. A very very few might have a very specific fetish/fantasy, which … you do you, but don’t get everyone else involved.
I don’t know if it would help their shitty personalities, but maybe a little estrogen would calm these boys down a smidge. That and taking away their internet access. Confiscate their computers, issue them a flip phone, send them outside once in a while. Teach them how to buy their own Hot Pockets. Which I think is what I’m gonna eat now.
@ObSidJag: Take it as slow as you need to. Pushing yourself never leads to a good long-term outcome. One-sided hugs.
I’m predicting,
1)No actual cis incels will medically transition in any way.
2)Some of them will SAY they medically transitioned that then hated it and that’s proof trans people are bad.
@bcb
That second one is the most likely result for anyone who actually tried it. A cis guy taking HRT would just be giving himself a hormone imbalance and feel like complete shit, their brains aren’t wired for it. Hopefully they’d stop immediately.
@hammerofglass
That happened recently when a (in)famous transition specialist doc noticed the reverse aging effect on his trans fem client’s faces,and tried to DIY his own (extremely low dose) estrogen facial cream. He miscalculated the dosage, and the experience was… profoundly unpleasant for him.
Trans reddit was laughing at him for quite a while. Didn’t help that this fellow was known for being an arrogant shmuck with a very experimental approach to HRT.