Non-transmasc. Before You Is A Transmasc Person Talking About Their Experiences With Being Transmasculine

^^^^

If your argument is that transmascs had no place in trans culture in its beginning stages...

you should be WAY more concerned about what was happening to your transmasc siblings during those stages, than any kind of 'gotcha'

(Credit to @zaebeecee)

What an absolutely strange and deranged thing to comment under a reel about a lesbian couple getting married dude.....

Man I've been seeing a certain flavour of post recently in transmasc circles and like. We absolutely can and should talk about how transmasc interests are vehemently belittled. But it sometimes comes with the implication that this is unique to us, and like. I understand lateral aggression fucking sucks but it's super fucking not unique to us and ignoring that transfemmes and unaligned enbies are also mocked to hell and back is. Ridiculous and counter productive.

"It's all support trans people until it's a trans guy" no one supports any of us actually and we need to support each other. None of us should be playing this game.

i am a child.

i am forced into a dress. makeup is smeared onto my face. i kick and cry and beg, but they will not stop.

i am forced to pose in front of the camera with my thighs together and hope that the makeup hides my tearstains. i must be the perfect picture of femininity; innocent, untouched.

i already have a thousand hand prints on me.

'all men are evil rapists', i am told.

i think about my friends, who are men. the men who called me every day while i was in a psychiatric hospital. the men who walked me home when i was afraid. the men who protected and cared for me, without ever expecting my body in return.

it can't be the body that makes someone evil. it can't be the presence of a penis that makes someone evil. but it can't be the identity of 'man' that makes you evil, either.

i ponder the difference between the men who raped me and the men who protected me. i decide that it depends on who the person is inside, and not on their identity.

'sit down and shut up,' they spit at me. 'the men are talking. learn your place. don't speak over us.'

'you throw like a girl.'

'you run like a girl.'

'girls can't do this. they're not smart enough.'

'girls aren't strong enough to do this.'

over and over, such sentiments are tossed at me. i bite down my anger, because women aren't supposed to yell or get angry. if i get angry, that makes me a hysterical bitch.

'women are meant to be mothers,' i am told. they beat it into me that my worth lies not in my personhood, but in the womb between my hips. it makes me feel sick and violated, just like every sexual assault has.

i am groped. i am raped. i am assaulted.

it's my fault, i'm told. i'm a temptress. my body is a vile weapon, a weapon created to tempt men into sin, a weapon that makes me a subhuman toy.

i am treated like a toy. as i am molested during my childhood, i learn that i am a toy. the anatomy between my hips has marked me as public property. i am less than human.

they keep forcing me into dresses. they keep forcing me into makeup. no amount of protesting makes it end. i grow to loathe femininity and the violation that always seems to come with it.

i come out as a trans man at fifteen.

'can't you just be nonbinary?'

'can't you just be a tomboy?'

'i don't want you to regret this.'

'i don't want you to ruin your perfect body.'

'men are disgusting. why do you want to be one of them?'

'are you sure you don't just want to be a man because you were sexually assaulted?'

i continue to be a man. my parents intentionally delay my ability to go on testosterone. by the time i am able to go on testosterone, i have already finished puberty. my body is irreversibly feminine.

people throw food at me. they call me a faggot, a tranny, a dyke. they kick me and shove me to the ground. they cyberstalk me. they post pictures of me online so that they can mock me.

a girl says to me, 'you need to learn your place,' as she calls me a faggot over the internet. she kicks me when she sees me the next day.

my boyfriend when i am fifteen is a cis man who says he is pansexual. he dismisses me when i talk about being trans, because he uses he/they pronouns and 'understands it'.

he sexually assaults me repeatedly. i am in constant distress. my distress is used as proof that i am a snowflake hysterical tranny. i am a hysterical woman who only THINKS she's a man, and i need to be put in my place. trans 'men' are all hysterical and overreactive, and my behaviour is used as proof.

my boyfriend exclusively refers to me with they/them pronouns. i tell him to use he/him. he waves his hand, dismissing my words, and says, 'they're basically the same thing'.

he tells me that he wants children. i try to ignore the sick feeling in my gut.

he only uses he/him pronouns for me after we have broken up, when he is trying to paint me as abusive. i lose my entire friend group because of it.

people keep talking down to me. when i go on testosterone, cis men try to explain that it's toxic for me, using cis man bodybuilders as an example. i try to explain how that isn't the case. they insist that 'female bodies aren't built to handle testosterone'. i try to explain to them how hormones work, and they laugh and roll their eyes.

silly girl. stupid girl. she doesn't know what she's talking about.

people continue to make fun of trans men online. our music, our art, our interests, our fashion sense, our names. i cannot help but feel dejected. all i want is to be a man, and to fit in among everyone else, but even in doing so, i stand out as a target for mockery. misogyny is inescapable, even for men.

i am seventeen years old. my worst fear comes true. i am raped and forcibly impregnated, with the intention of forcing me to detransition.

that sense of violation is impossible to truly describe.

my reproductive system was designed to become pregnant. my body will do its best to become pregnant, no matter what i want. pregnancy is an inescapable function of my body, and it makes me feel trapped and sick.

the man who raped me has turned my own body into a weapon against me. even in my body, my own flesh and sinew, i am not safe.

i miscarry. i am in agony. my womb cramps and i try not to pass out.

i enter feminist spaces. i try to talk about my experiences with misogyny.

'sit down and shut up,' they spit at me. 'the women are talking. learn your place. don't speak over us.'

all trans men have male privilege, you see, without exception. by the mere act of wanting to become a man, i have become a traitor, and i am thrown to the cis men.

the cis men, who see me as a woman that they're finally allowed to abuse. finally, they can hurt and rape and impregnate a woman, because she's one of those snowflake trannies and she needs to be put in her place.

i bite down my anger, because trans men aren't supposed to yell or get angry. if i get angry, it's proof that i'm not a man, that i'm a hysterical bitch, and that i'm a dangerous snowflake tranny seeking to mutilate children.

the sentiment is bitterly familiar.

headline hall of fame for sure

So I kind of want to unpack this because it's phrased like the literary equivilant of barbed wire and people keep getting caught on snags. And what is being said here is heinous enough that I think it should be presented plainly

(A solid post on the topic here by @velvetvexations, who got into the psychology of it. I wanted to expand from a logic/phrasing perspective)

Lets tackle that second paragraph piece by piece

First, this sentence which is objectively true. Cisgender perisex* women have systematic cisgender privilege, so, for example they aren't affected by things like restrictions on access to HRT/Transition Surgery or being forcibly outed to transphobic individuals or institutions. While they can still experience individual transphobia(see gnc presenting individuals), they still have access to that systemic cisgender privilege. I just want to put a pin in the fact that this is true of all cis people over all trans people. Trans people of any kind do not have cis privilege, because they are not cis. Including closeted and stealth trans individuals. To use my own example, both of them would be affected by restrictions to HRT access, even if they are "percieved" as cis.

So when I say cis privilege later on keep all that in mind

Statement A: Cis women have privilege over trans women

*I am not intersex, it is just my understanding from reading intersex individuals experiences that while intersex people can be cis, they do not have access to the cisgender privilege outlined here. Please correct me if I am wrong

She says this to deflect from the fact that that is the conclusion she is directly going to build to. It's about the same as saying "I'm not saying men of color are uniquely violent, I'm just pointing out that statistically they commit most crime"

Now lets unpack the less straightforward part

A reminder: this isn't about closeted trans men. It would still be reductive if it were, but look back at the original ask. This is about all non-passing trans men

(Though both the asker and answerer seem to use "passing" as a synonym for "stealth". you can pass but not be stealth, plenty of trans people are out publically)

(An aside: The language the asker uses here seems pretty suspect, treating "non-passing" as identical to being percieved as cis. While we could argue that they meant closeted, the answerer does not contest this point and instead uses it as the base to opine on trans men as a whole, so I am going to make the assumption that she is in agreement with the base premise)

Statement B: All non-passing trans men are percieved and treated identically to cis women.

As noted re:the askers uncontested language, this group seems to include trans men at any stage of transition. Either they pass as men or they are considered cis women, with no inbetween.

Statement C: This is a privilege

Statement C is one of the snags here, because the answerer uses "male privilege" here, which when combined with Statement B can be read as "cis women have male privilege", which is absurd. But thats a snag, the meat of the statement is different. She's calling it male privilege but goes on to define it as a privilege specifically and exclusively trans women don't have, which isn't what male privilege is(see: cis women). Why she is using the phrase wrong I don't know, but lets just simplify it down to what Statement C says: it is a privilege of some form. We will get into the form

Statement D: Trans women do not have this privilege because they are seen as trans

So the privilege is conferred based on being cis(or the appearance of), and non-passing trans men have it because they are "only" seen as functionally identical to cis women.

So, trans women lack this privilege because they are discriminated against on the basis of being seen as trans specifically, while trans men have it because they are seen as cis. Discrimination based on being trans is transphobia.

Statement E: Trans men do not experience transphobia because they are seen as cis

Consider in the context of the first statement. Cis women have privilege over trans women. Trans men have privilege over trans women because cis women have privilege over trans women. Cis women have this privilege because they are cis, so calling it male privilege was an obfuscation

And this part puts to bed the whole "maybe they meant closeted" arguement. The answerer identifies that the privilege specifically stems from transmasculinity.

Thus,

Statement F: All trans men, regardless of the stage of transition, are seen as cis because they are transmasculine.

Conclusion: Trans men have cis privilege

Do we see how this arguement has become completely disconnected from reality yet?

And this isn't part of the original exchange, but I wanted to quickly discuss this bit

"May have been traumatic and horrible for you"

"You still get to be one"

Look at the phrasing here. You still "get" to be one. Womenhood is the ideal state which confers privilege and is inherently desirable. If you don't want it, there is something wrong with you specifically. Womanhood cannot be traumatizing on its own merits, it can only be traumatizing because you are broken in some way and can't appreciate how good it is.

In a quick two sentences, it makes clear the incredibly cruel statement "misgendering is a privilege. you should be grateful they are doing this to you"

I used to push against the idea and I still do to an extent but the anti-transmasculine crowd has gotten to the point where I really do feel like it's beginning to get on par with how prevelant and awful the aphobic crowd was back in the mid-late 2010s

Master List of Trans Male/Transmasc Privileges:

The privilege to be forcibly married off

The privilege of being raped and impregnated to "correct" their gender

The privilege of not being treated like a rational human being that knows their body by doctors

The privilege of having your existence erased

The privilege to have little to no studies about trans people involve your voice

The privilege to not have access to domestic violence shelters due to being a man (and not allowed in women's shelters) and not having many, if any shelters for men

The privilege of having your transition treated like you're becoming a violent, disgusting, monster

The privilege of having any sort of hormonal transition impossible to be done DIY due to heavy restrictions on testosterone.

The privilege of increased risk of cervical cancer due to reduced access to pap smears

The privilege of having abortion rights not apply to you

The privilege of being over twice as likely to be raped, compared to cis women (51%/21.3%)

The privilege of having almost 5x the chance of being sexually abused as a child, compared to cis women (50%:11.1%)

The privilege that when you are assaulted, to not have access to rape kits

The privilege of not being able to report a hate crime due to barriers

The privilege of experiencing isolation, rejection and distrust due to now presenting masculine

The privilege to have your pregnancy treated as some sort of sick joke

The privilege of a lack of credible research about how to provide adequate healthcare to transgender men undergoing medical transition

The privilege of not being invited for ovarian cancer screenings due to your gender being listed as M

The privilege of doctors not knowing how to check for breast cancer if you've had top surgery

The privilege of an increased risk of AIDS due to the most common PrEP meds such as Descovy not working on AFAB individuals

Others feel free to chime in! The list is ever growing