[controversial] on transmisogyny and male privilege

[aaskew]

(apologies in advance because this possibly comes across as a 'what about the menz? :(' post. I've tried my best not to make it so, but this is a topic I'd like to discuss further

Comments

[cykotyks]

Misogyny eventually affects everyone, not just women. My boyfriend tells me he's seen trans women try to accuse trans men of not knowing what misogyny is because we're men, which completely invalidates the fact that most trans men were brought up as women. Yes, we understand misogyny, and yes, we have been (and sometimes still are) affected by it.

I think what bothers me most is the notion that because we are trans men, we must think like cis men, and that's just not true. It's an idea that invalidates the environment most of us grew up in, the things we were taught, and yes, the misogyny we experienced. Just because we figured out, "Hey, I'm not actually a girl," that doesn't magically make those experiences go away.

Honestly, I think both sides have their unique issues. I would never claim to know what it's like to be a trans woman, and I would hope trans women would never claim to know what it's like to be a trans man. Yes, our society tends to be more hostile towards trans women, and I respect that, but our society also tends to be dismissive of trans men, which is also painful. Just because the other side has sometimes life-threatening issues, that doesn't mean that we have no issues at all. Hell, I've had to educate several people that yes, it's okay for them to be trans men - a concept they've never actually been able to consider because we're such an invisible group. I think we can all agree that life can be pretty painful and frustrating when you don't fit in and don't know why :/

[aaskew]

I think there needs to be a lot more dialogue about intersectionality, because most forms of privilege/oppression aren't a matter of someone either having them or not having them; while some might exist independently, sometimes there are degrees of each privilege that vary depending on that person's other group identities.

Looking back on my life I realise that I did experience male privilege as a child despite not yet figuring out I was trans (I saw myself as someone who "wanted to be a boy", but had no other words for it). For instance, I had no shortage of male role models and fictional characters to look up to and try to emulate, or pretend to be as a form of escapism. For a brief period in my pre-teen years (which I now deeply regret) I tried to deal with my dysphoria by distancing myself from girls, telling myself that they sucked and I wasn't like them, eschewing and deriding anything feminine or associated with femaleness, and misogynistic society by and large agreed with me and supported my views.
A cis or trans girl wouldn't have had that same freedom and would have experienced a different struggle. On the other hand, a cis boy who did the same would not have been constantly and painfully pulled back to earth by the reality of his body and how other people perceived him, and it would have also resulted in a different experience.

Society's differing attitudes towards trans men and women are basically also the result of misogyny and transphobia: they see trans women as sexual deviants - because the sexualisation of women is such that they find it hard to conceive of why anyone would want to be female if not out of some sexual motivation - who willingly degrade themselves to the 'inferior' sex, resulting in contempt and repulsion and all that stuff that leads to hate crimes; and they see trans men as annoying women who don't know their place and are trying to rise up and overthrow men, which threatens their own sense of masculinity and authority, leading sometimes to things like 'corrective rape' (as used to be given to lesbians).

Most transphobia directed at trans men I've seen tends to rely heavily on the 'poor little girl is deluded and thinks she's a man' cliche; it has less of the panicked, personal hostility that is usually directed at trans women, but a lot more condescension and dismissal, which while less likely to erupt in physical violence, is hurtful in other ways. Basically they treat trans women as men, to be dealt with through violence, and treat trans men as women, to be dealt with through dismissal and mockery.

[aaskew]

"But would we say gay cis men are also affected by misogyny?"

It would probably be effective to have clearer definitions of the terms; if misogyny extends to hatred of femininity, rather than just women, then fem men could likewise be victims of it. Discussions of misogyny seem to be moving towards that direction, but I'm not sure how universally that definition is accepted.

[the_physicist]

At men are not affected by misogyny as I see it. They are affected by homophobia. Fem gay men more because people recognise them as gay more so they are a bigger target.

[the_physicist]

i guess that could work? i really don't know, lol.