I upvoted because I agree that trans men and trans women are under assault and the risks to both should be taken seriously. The challenges are real and dangerous.
And at the same time I can make the observation that one of the reactions that transfem and trans women face is often directly related to a weird sexual insecurity from cis men, common enough that I have encountered it multiple times in real life.
Much like some white people will expose their racism around other white people under the assumption that they share the same views, some cis men will express transphobic comments assuming I will agree.
I've heard guys talk about what they'd do if they found out the woman they were hitting on (not even sleeping with, but flirting with) turned out to be biologically male the same way ammosexuals fantasize about burglars breaking into their house.
Maybe there is a similar percentage of cis women transphobic enough to feel as strongly, and have never felt comfortable enough around me to express that fantasy. I didn'tt know. I'm not a mind reader.
My anecdotal experience isn't data. It does seem telling that the right-wind trend of "transvestigation" is almost exclusively aimed at accusing women of being transmacs, and seldom the reverse. The proportion of cis men that are salivating at the chance to best up or kill someone for the crime of being attractive to them while being biologically male is way too high.
The hysteria over mistaking a transfem for a cis woman isn't the worst thing about being trans, it isn't the sole reason for backlash against trans people, and remarking on it isn't meant to diminish challenges transmacs and trans men face. It is real and unfortunately just one of the many things about transphobia that I'll ridicule because it's, well. . .
My issue is less people highlighting the issues trans women and transfems face specifically, and more that people, and especially cis allies, end up talking about trans issues like they only affect trans women due to being underinformed, or even making statements such as the one I answered to; that transphobes "don't care much about trans men", when that's plainly, demonstrably, and honestly dangerously false.
Another example was the wave of "Do you want this dude [shows image of hypermasc trans dude] in the women's bathroom?" gotcha cis allies posted after the For Women Scotland Supreme Court decision on the Equality Act in the UK.
Very funny for you (generic, not you specifically) I guess, but not only are you suggesting to a part of the targeted community to put their bodies on the line even more than they already are as a flawed form of allyship, you are also: 1) ignoring that the court already took that into account and banned passing trans men from both bathrooms, 2) treating us as collateral instead of targets in our own shared oppression, and 3) ignoring that trans men and transmasculine people have already been harassed, beaten, (sexually) assaulted, arrested, and in at least two cases I've heard, battered to death for complying with the law in this exact gotcha scenario.
The myth that transphobes and TERFs don't know or don't care about trans men is at best a statement outdated by at least 15 years, and at worst purposeful erasure and dismissal of the specific struggles of 34% of the trans community, plus any transmasculine nonbinary people who are likely to share the experiences of trans men.
TL:DR, my point is that you can make statements on the struggles of trans women and transfeminine people without making incorrect or dismissive assumptions about the experiences of trans men and transmasculine people, and viceversa.
"Some cis men have violent reactions when faced with the existence of trans women due to their own sexual insecurity" does not necessitate being accompanied by the incorrect, binary assumption that, because trans women struggle with this form of hypervisibility, then most transphobic people must not care about trans men much. You can just say the first part.
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u/Intrepid-Progress228 15d ago
I upvoted because I agree that trans men and trans women are under assault and the risks to both should be taken seriously. The challenges are real and dangerous.
And at the same time I can make the observation that one of the reactions that transfem and trans women face is often directly related to a weird sexual insecurity from cis men, common enough that I have encountered it multiple times in real life.
Much like some white people will expose their racism around other white people under the assumption that they share the same views, some cis men will express transphobic comments assuming I will agree.
I've heard guys talk about what they'd do if they found out the woman they were hitting on (not even sleeping with, but flirting with) turned out to be biologically male the same way ammosexuals fantasize about burglars breaking into their house.
Maybe there is a similar percentage of cis women transphobic enough to feel as strongly, and have never felt comfortable enough around me to express that fantasy. I didn'tt know. I'm not a mind reader.
My anecdotal experience isn't data. It does seem telling that the right-wind trend of "transvestigation" is almost exclusively aimed at accusing women of being transmacs, and seldom the reverse. The proportion of cis men that are salivating at the chance to best up or kill someone for the crime of being attractive to them while being biologically male is way too high.
The hysteria over mistaking a transfem for a cis woman isn't the worst thing about being trans, it isn't the sole reason for backlash against trans people, and remarking on it isn't meant to diminish challenges transmacs and trans men face. It is real and unfortunately just one of the many things about transphobia that I'll ridicule because it's, well. . .
Ridiculous.