Activist spaces and the opinions of people perceived as male
Prior to transition, I was hesitant to be involved in activist/"anti-O" spaces as people would *tell* me what my gender experience was. I "obviously" was safe to walk alone at night. I was "obviously" welcome in technical spaces. The jobs I wanted were "obviously" available to me. And so on.
This behaviour was framed as acceptable as I was assumed to be on the privileged side of gender. If I had a contradictory opinion, or contradictory-yet-obvious interpretation of a personal experience or that of a friend, these spaces perceived them to be wrong, because of 'my ignorance born out of privilege.' This held even when those opinions were questioning the binary models on which this privilege was allegedly assigned. I half came to believe these voices, and half came to avoid them.
So in transition, I figured that I was going to hit a wall of sexism. But it never materialized. People in technical spaces valued my opinions more, at night, people perceived me as less of a threat and threatened me less, and I could work with children so much more freely. When it came to moving in the world perceived as a somewhat gender-variant cissexed man, versus moving the world while perceived as a *highly* gender-variant FAAB person (of varying genders) the latter proved to be much better.
This is to say that I was already experiencing sexism on account of my gender expression. I still do, just less.
While being perceived as male is usually a privilege, it is not always such. In fact, it can exacerbate some forms of oppression. My androgyny is often tolerated, even welcomed on a woman. But on a man, it was grounds for exclusion. In many people's lives, due to lines of race, ability, class and even simple chance, individual guys, or people who are perceived as such, have gender experiences that are anywhere from obstructive to dangerous to dehumanizing - repeatedly. Such a matrix of repeated, socially-targeted, awful gendered experiences would, were the person in question not perceived as male, be labelled "oppression on the grounds of gender."
A lot of anti-oppression assumptions around gender are still modelled on a non-intersectional (and thus highly privileged) second-wave framework of womanhood versus manhood. There are a lot of times where being perceived as CAMAB/male (these two being same thing in cis-society's eyes) can be very dangerous, not just occasionally but repeatedly.
If, as activists, we do not engage with the nuances of gender, we will lose the people who live within these nuances. And they will be right to have left. Just as anyone whose oppression is excluded from a dialogue around the sorts of oppression that affect them will be justified in avoiding it.
We need to change this. I see it happening. In some places. I would like to see more.