I've been thinking lots lately about how weird it is to theorize small spaces. (That is, both to apply theory to a build theory from small communities).
Like, theory is about generalization and it's (more or less) always in a tension between the specific and the abstract (or universal). Especially when we talk about Oppression, we're talking big picture. State level, or "The West" even more broadly.
There's a common perspective that we don't need to / can't apply these lenses to radical communities, trans communities, etc. But, especially if those communities are most of your social life and they routinely fuck you over, you really want to have some theory and analysis about it. Looking at (for example) how transmisogyny plays out in rad scenes is extremely relevant to lots.of us.
But these scenes are small. A city's scene likely centers around a few dozen ppl (maybe getting up to a few hundred if you draw the lines more broadly, or are dealing with an exceptionally high city).
This means 1) more random variability and 2) more potential for change over time. At this scale, it's even more likely that you can have pronounced patterns in some ppls experiences that just don't apply in another city, or a decade later.
I've seen a bunch of claims lately about the demographics and social dynamics of either trans support groups, or trans scenes more broadly (mostly about whether they tend to skew towards trans fems or trans mascs).
And like....there's absolutely a ton we can say about transmisogyny as a consistent force acting in these groups. And there's a ton we can say about hyper visibility producing the impression that trans fems are generally centered even when groups are mostly cafab nb's.
But there's just so fucking much room for variation. Like the state of transmisogyny discourse (and your various transmisogynist counter discourses) are all over the place. Some places do just have stronger communities of trans men or trans women, of your old-school transsexuals or of ~nb neo-pronoun types~.
The state of terfs is also all over the place (are they actually radfems or just right wingers? Are they ID-ing as nb or going hard on womanhood? How are they relating to trans mascs? Are they mostly irrelevant or a prominent force).
I don't have a huge conclusion to this, and but I think a lot of best practices from theory generally are just extra important:
-don't cling to the theory over counter examples if you run into them
-don't expect the world to strictly work by theoretical principles unless there's a really good reason that it would
-be mindful of when you're generalizing
-recognize the world as fundamentally dynamic. When you talk about it you've already started to change it.
-theory is useful but it can't do everything, "The Right Theory" doesn't exist and can't save you.
-patterns aren't inevitable but some are pronounced and lots are worth talking and thinking about.
Idk that's what I've got rn and what I've been trying to remind myself of lately. Lmk if y'all have any thoughts <3