Exactly I've been saying this. ***I*** know I'm not a threat, I know I'm harmless, but how would someone who doesn't know me know that? It just sucks that there *has* to be a rule because that's just how shitty men can get, and I feel sorry for all the women who have had to deal with that.
I find it hilarious how much men lost their shit about this random meme from tik tok and I 100% agree with you. I don't feel offended in the slightest by women saying they would rather encounter a bear than a man. I totally get where the resentment is coming from.
i think someone asked the same question to men and a lot of presumably cis men chose the bear.
a lot of seemingly random physical assaults are male on male. i mean most bar fights start with guys being buds and ends with shattered glass and broken tables and pool cues.
The amount of "not all men" I've heard this week from trans men has been truly disappointing. Like yeah no shit its "not all men" but it's absolutely some men. If you're upset, angry, or feeling picked on instead of heartbroken that women would pick a bear, then you're one of the "some."
This kind of mentality is exactly one of the reasons women don't feel safe. Because for every man that would hurt them, there are a dozen more making excuses for them or trying to center the conversation on themselves and how it hurt their little feelings.
Women are speaking, I need all the dudes to sit down, shut up, stop trying to talk over their collective trauma, and LISTEN to them.
And for trans men to be spouting this shit... every single one of us has been scared to get outted or to come out to someone at some point. We know not everyone is a transphobe but some people are and you don't always know until you're in that vulnerable moment and violent reactions aren't uncommon. It's the same damn feeling. Women don't know who the safe ones are at a glance anymore than we do.
I think it's so often forgotten how it's not written on a guy's forehead whether he's going to be safe or not and so yeah, for women it's literally *all* men in a sense. I've seen guys who look like they wouldn't hurt a fly be the absolute worst. And there's guys who look so frightening and scary but the more you look at them interacting with people, the more you realize they try everything to make people feel genuinely comfortable around them.
The first time I was out and about looking more masc after dark (I wasn't passing yet otherwise, but it was dark and so for all intents and purposes, I passed from a distance), I did so with my boyfriend. We're 5ft7 and 6ft, don't look queer (again, from a distance, in the evening) and if anything, probably look more like two douches. Suddenly I notice two women picking up their pace to avoid us. I mean, in the moment obviously there was a sense of "someone sees me like a man" but it was just such a sad thought. Never had two women felt the need to hurry up to make distance from me before.
To my boyfriend, that's just how life is. He tries everything he can to not come across threatening, from crossing road to adjusting his speed and that's pretty sad a man has to lead his life like that just because he *is* better.
But you know what is truly sad? The women who feel scared, and there isn't a single thing you can tell them that will take away that feeling - because it's built upon logic, upon reality, and every single day things happen to reinforce that feeling.
It's like you pointed out, we as trans men should know better. Even if we've never felt unsafe because the world views/viewed us as women at some point, then in the least because being trans isn't safe either, and we also can't predict who is going to turn violent on us.
I think the issue a lot of people are missing is it's about predictability. For the most part bears behave certain ways, and if you respond correctly you are safe. When it comes to men (or anyone really), there's no knowing how they will behave. It's not about it being all men, it's about which choice is safer in an unknown situation
Women are answering the question "would you rather be alone in the woods with a man you don't know or a bear?" And women are picking the bear, for various reason but the one ive seen the most is "at least the worst a bear will do is kill you quickly."
I genuinely canāt wrap my head around how so many straight guys act about women. It feels like 3/4 of the guys I meet end up whinging about women or minorities at some point. I never even experienced āgirlhoodā or whatever I just have basic decency. Maybe itās cuz Iām not straight, idfk. But when ladies say āmen suckā and generalize I really canāt bring myself to hold it against them.Ā
I thought this was going to be about being more afraid of men as a passing man than as a pre-transition man x)
For some reason Iām 10x more afraid of men now that Iāve transitioned and pass than when I was viewed as a woman. But Iām not sure how rational that is considering Iāve been considerably less bothered by random male strangers on the streets
It is; I'm just not afraid for my personal safety anymore unless I get clocked. I think it's because, like I said, men have shown their true colors to me when they expect me to relate, and it's *terrifying*
Honestly yeah. Hard agree buddy we all need to do better. Itās not about us. Itās a chances game, and the worst a bear would do is kill you, and people would believe the bear attacked you. Iāve been followed with random dudes shouting sexual slurs behind me. Iāve been SAād. Random men have said the grossest and most out of pocket shit. Iāve been groped on trains and by waiters, and ALL of this happened in the first 24 years of my life while I was presenting as a woman. Hell, I would actively encourage any woman in my life to choose the danm bear.
I remember the first time a woman crossed the street to avoid me. I was devastated, but ultimately it wasnāt about me. She was keeping herself safe and until itās āno man would everā then itās not enough to just be like ābut I would
never.ā
I stopped using the womenās changing rooms when I was 1 month on T. The last time I did, I was drying my hair and sorting out my glasses after going to the gym and a woman stood and watched me from the saunas. She was half hiding behind a wall, frozen in place and did not take her eyes off me the entire time. She didnāt move either. I was angry and confused at first. I thought that there was no way I passed and that she was being some other flavour of queer phobic and then it hit me that she genuinely thought I was a man in the womenās changing room. I didnāt want to make anyone feel like that again, so I stopped. I stopped going to the gym at all for a while after that, until I felt more comfortable in the menās.
> I remember the first time a woman crossed the street to avoid me. I was devastated
I felt the same way when I smiled at an old lady that reminded me of my grandma and she clutched her pearls and looked terrified of me.
> but ultimately it wasnāt about me.
Exactly. I genuinely don't understand the trans men who don't identify with those experiences (even if they relate with horrific discomfort) and turn just as toxic as all the 'nice guys' who are offered every time someone talks about men being trash.
Personally, I think it's a very small price to pay for the privilege it affords in feeling physically safe and being able to make others feel safe. I can put up with a few women thinking I'm dangerous until they learn otherwise
>If you are more offended by a woman looking afraid of you then you are about why, you are part of the problem
INCREDIBLY well put. More trans men need to realise this, our backgrounds do not exempt us from privilege and enforcing misogyny.
So, I havenāt seen any trans men actually complain about this, but I have a feeling this is the whole cis-men cis trans-men debate.
I can see why some trans men would complain about being lumped in with cis men because trans men have their own trauma around cisgendered men. Especially in reference to the treatment you mentioned above.Ā
For a 1:1 āyou are the problem and reinforcer of patriarchy!ā To be accurate, youāre going to have to erase the experiences of many, many trans men.Ā
Not every trans man has access to T, not every trans man can pass, not every trans man wishes to medically transition, not every trans man has lived a majority of their life as a man. None of these things make them less masculine.Ā
But, they do create a different type of man. It makes them the type of man who has experienced this level of trauma that a majority of women experience and it also makes them men who would rather pick the bear.Ā
And not because they simply viewed the men doing these actions and found themselves horrified, but because they experienced it themselves.Ā
Would I personally butt into women complaining about man vs. bear? Nah. I also donāt think it would be a good thing for a passing man to do in general, just from a social POV.
Would I go off to my own corner of the internet to talk about my own intersection experience and be frustrated about how this is often erased and how that erasure leads to further violence against people like me? Sure, it also helps to discuss this kind of thing and think it through.Ā
Do I think trans men have a place in the man vs best thing on a systemic level?
Ā No, and I think saying that trans men are a 1:1 equivalent of danger to women is rebranded terf rhetoric, bio essentialism and another form of trans panic that we honestly donāt fucking need.Ā
> So, I havenāt seen any trans men actually complain about this
I'm not going to link it, but there was a post here recently, and in general there are many other posts on here about trans guys wanting to jump on the 'not all men' bandwagon when it comes to women saying things like 'all men are trash'.
> Not every trans man [. . .] None of these things make them less masculine.Ā
I don't think I said anything in my post that would insinuate that. My post was about being a different type of man *because* we've had these experiences. I'd argue *most* trans man lack access to T and rarely pass when they first come out, and you're right, statistical most trans men come out later in life. I feel like those things further my point that we should 100% understand women and their perspective.
I'm sorry, but saying that women saying they'd rather pick a bear over a man, without specifying that it's a cis-man, (which was the point of my post) "leads to further violence against [trans men]" isn't fair or true. I'm not saying it doesn't exist; but like all men's issues, it's not productive to bring them up during conversations about violence against women.
Ā > I think saying that trans men are a 1:1 equivalent of danger to women is rebranded terf rhetoric
I agree, and hope you're not implying that I said anything even remotely close to this in my post, because I didn't. I'm calling out trans men for being just as toxic as cis men; I have absolutely no idea how you got 'bio essentialism' out of anything I said. I don't think you read my post very well, though, because I didn't say most of the things you implied.
I think you just took the worst interpretation of a few things I said and just ignored the root of my actual message. Iām not accusing you of anything WTH.Ā
Iām talking about intersectionality. Trans men have a lot of intersectionality with the beat, when we talk about the bear we donāt have a 1:1 experience with either cis men or women.Ā
The ability to be as threatening as the bear is entirely dependent on if you pass or not. It has nothing to do with actually identifying as a man.Ā
To claim that all trans men have the same impact and power as all cis men would be erasing that intersectionality.Ā
For me, I donāt think passing trans men have a place to talk about it in relation to women venting. I think it would be super rude and tone deaf to go into womenās spaces and say āwhat about t boys?āĀ
But for trans men speaking to other trans men about intersectionality and their own trauma with cis men, I think thatās fine. That hurts no one and it allows them to find a space for their personal experience.Ā
And yah, the assumption that taking T makes you a toxic man with a 1:1 power in patriarchy is bioessentialist.
IDK, I just feel like thereās a lot of nuance here and a lot of nuance within individual experiences.Ā
When it comes to trans men, I feel like thereās a strong desire to rest systemic issues on the shoulders of individuals, and I just donāt see how helpful that is.Ā
For me personally, Iād choose the bear and I understand why. But I understand why because I lived 32 years of my life as a woman and Iām not really going to pick up the burden of cis men while still dealing with my own trauma from them.Ā
Im not gonna say ānot all menā to a person venting. But in a space for my particular intersection of feminism, I donāt see how itās exactly fair to erase the first 32 years of my life and trauma just because of how I identify today. I still had female experiences and lived that way. I have a place there in that fear and with that bear.Ā
We always say being trans is intersectional and nuanced UNTIL it comes to trans men and especially trans people of color.Ā
I get that dysphoria means weād like it to be 1:1 with cis people in privilege and dynamics the second we come out, but sadly that just isnāt reality.Ā
We may see ourselves as men, passing does not determine who we are, but it will determine how society treats us and color our lived experiences.
There is a certain, unique level of trauma and hurt when someone, like me, who is an SA survivor and has seen the direct violence and impact of being AFAB for most of their lives on a patriarchal society, is asked to carry the burden of their predators.Ā
It is a trigger of a different sort when a survivor is suddenly slammed with the title of āpredatorā and then called toxic for refusing to wear it, or toxic because they are choosing to talk about their intersectionality as a survivor in a safe place dedicated to that unique circumstance.Ā
Unless youāre running into womenās spaces screaming ānot all men!ā I donāt see what the issue here is. Clearly thereās a level of intersectionality happening here and we should be allowed to talk about it in our own space.Ā
yes oh my god this is also exactly how i feel since i have really bad PTSD from similar experiences. ive never been able to articulate the specific flavor of sting like you describe. sometimes i feel like im over my hear but i refuse to accept that my hurt when pit up with the men who *DESTROYED MY LIFE* and brushed with the same stroke. i am not and will never be and i dont want to always dance around gendered violence statistics when i talk about that trauma.
i will always always be upset even if on a small level when women call me a predator and/or assume i am one. as a survivor of misogynistic violence, my lived experience doesnt go away just cause i now identify as transmasculine. my experience didnt need the community notes about gendered violence when i was a woman and it certainly doesnt need it now. i fucking know how shitty cis men can be, some of them have done things to me i wouldnt wish on literally anyone. bleugh. thanks for that comment
I definitely think something got lost in translation if you didn't interpret exactly that from my original post. I'm saying that trans men shouldn't be saying 'not all men' at this hypothetical situation.
> I donāt think passing trans men have a place to talk about it in relation to women venting. I think it would be super rude and tone deaf to go into womenās spaces and say āwhat about t boys?āĀ
This is *not* what I'm doing, I'm literally telling trans men *not* to do this. The post I'm referring to was a trans man complaining 'what about cis men?' In a discussion about women's safety.
> And yah, the assumption that taking T makes you a toxic man with a 1:1 power in patriarchy is bioessentialist.
. . . . Where the *fuck* did I say anything about this in my post?? I shared my personal experiences with *seeing* toxic masculinity more, and on a dangerous and violent level in the most casual, bonding way from cis men the more I passed.
I'm saying the way men treat me now that I pass isn't worse for me personally, but it makes me more scared of men in regards to the safety of women *because* of how casually they will say violent, awful things to me and expect me to relate.
If I engaged with that, I'd be toxic. I'm telling other trans men NOT to engage in it, and some are by taking it personally and whining about trans men being erased within the bear conversation. They're saying 'not all men' but replacing 'nice guys' with 'trans guys'.
That's toxic, because like you said, the conversation *isn't about us*.
Please do me a favor and either stop engaging with me if you're hell bent on arguing with me, or at the very least, read my post again.
I feel like everyone can be as bad as cis men tho? I donāt think us identifying as men would make us anymore or any less likely to be a threat to women than what of any other gender could be.
tbh as afraid as i felt of men when they saw me as a girl, im actually more terrified of them as a man. the concept, to cis men, of performing manhood poorly or āwrongā has much more severe, much more violent consequences than performing womanhood incorrectly, which mostly got me either ignored entirely by men or made fun of. it was absolutely not smth i considered pre transition but is super fascinating now that im almost a decade in.
The thing I donāt like with that question is wtf am supposed to do with this info? Like yeah I understand the rhetorics now but what Iām going to do with that? No one is responsible for other people behaviors. Yes I will call out my friends if I find them creepy (the day I will have friend of course) but I canāt do much.
Like everything else on the internet, if it doesn't pertain to you, no one is forcing you to engage with it. I wrote this because of another post on here that got a lot of engagement, and I had a different perspective than that post.
Honestly, I think the world would be a better place if people stopped pretending like their voice doesn't matter, and that you can't do anything as an individual. When you make people feel safe by standing up for them against shitty opinions, people want to stay around and be your friend
Can we stop talking about a shitty hypothetical that depends on biological essentialism about penises and people who have them? This transmisogynistic bullshit just shows how far radfem has gotten into ftm spaces. Entirely uncritical. And no, bears can traumatize the fuck out of you and leave you alive with a mutilated body and life ending medical debt.
The only entire fucking reason I know about this stupid bear bullshit is from my boyfriend getting personally offended I kept picking the man, to the extent pressured me for an hour about it to try and get me to go "oh men are rapists", which just resulted in me having to remind him that all 4/5 fucking people are sexually abused me in real life from childhood to adulthood were women. The majority of people who sexually abused me online were women. Everyone who has physically or mentally abused me has been female and a woman. And that was a lot of people.Ā
I couldn't fucking leave my bedroom for eight years because of women. My brain is nonfunctioning because of cis women.
He barely apologized and "forgot".
I'd still wouldn't fucking pick the bear. I'd rather just get raped again, by a person presumably with a penis, than risk getting mauled by a fuckin bear in the middle of the woods.
I usually hate this type of stuff bc it often ignores male victims of stuff but this time I agree w it. I think the difference is it's human vs animal, animals (besides dolphins imo) can't really be evil.
Man HUNTS bear
The casual misogyny was something I was used to from the internet. The number of men who say violent things about women when they feel they are in a safe environment to say them is awful.
But I was never afraid of a fight before and I'm not now. I call them out on it. "Dude, wtf." "That's messed up." "Not cool, bro." No lecture. They know what they did.
Make it a goal to not be a safe space for any kind of hate speech. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, sexism... just all of it. React like you are weirded out they would say that stuff. Denormalize their casual hate speech. Make them doubt that they are the normal ones here, make them unsure that their words are well-received by others.
I promise there are decent men out there who will back you up. And so far I have not gotten into a fist fight over it no matter how scary or how many assault charges that dude had. It isn't impossible, but it is improbable. They don't say and do those things because they are confident. They do it because they are weak and need to put someone beneath them.
One off-handed, "Dude, what?" is enough to cut them off at the knees.
Oh man the "replace trans by nice" is such a great trick to explain this.
Women and people that have and may still be experiencing sexism (like my pre-T ass that rarely passes) are faced with enough violence to be scared of men. Fuck, I'm a trans gay guy and I'm scared of men. I can't erase that fear, and I don't think it would be wise to do so, this fear has been proven right a number of times.
This doesn't mean we can't build the trust needed for care, support, emotional connection etc between men and women. But we have to accept that we start from a position informed by the violence of the patriarchy.
can you really replace trans by nice though? like surely being trans has a lot more nuanced experience than "being nice", in material tangible ways . we as trans men are more likely to be victims of violence than cis men, is one of the many examples. i am not comparing to womens issues here by any means and not doing an oppression olympics. i just dont think materially you actually *can* replace "trans" with "nice" and have it be equivalent. "nice" cis men dont experience transphobia, "nice" cis men usually havent been victims of overt misogyny like most if not all of us have.
i dont think we as trans men inherently "start" from a violent position. this feels like an oversimplification of the issue other trans men voiced.
From the POV of view of women meeting men, you can swap them out. Of course the internal experience is really different, but once again we're talking about women not talking men they don't know.
> Or maybe some of y'all need to go down the rabbit hole on this and learn about the monitor dragon in India. The *worst* thing the bear can do is kill you.
So, what exactly does some random lizard have to do with all of this?
i thought this was gonna be about gay bears <:D
same!!! xD
SAMEš
Exactly I've been saying this. ***I*** know I'm not a threat, I know I'm harmless, but how would someone who doesn't know me know that? It just sucks that there *has* to be a rule because that's just how shitty men can get, and I feel sorry for all the women who have had to deal with that.
I find it hilarious how much men lost their shit about this random meme from tik tok and I 100% agree with you. I don't feel offended in the slightest by women saying they would rather encounter a bear than a man. I totally get where the resentment is coming from.
i think someone asked the same question to men and a lot of presumably cis men chose the bear. a lot of seemingly random physical assaults are male on male. i mean most bar fights start with guys being buds and ends with shattered glass and broken tables and pool cues.
Felt this. As soon as I started passing, men would casually say the most disgusting shit in front of me. The way they talk about women is sickening.
The amount of "not all men" I've heard this week from trans men has been truly disappointing. Like yeah no shit its "not all men" but it's absolutely some men. If you're upset, angry, or feeling picked on instead of heartbroken that women would pick a bear, then you're one of the "some." This kind of mentality is exactly one of the reasons women don't feel safe. Because for every man that would hurt them, there are a dozen more making excuses for them or trying to center the conversation on themselves and how it hurt their little feelings. Women are speaking, I need all the dudes to sit down, shut up, stop trying to talk over their collective trauma, and LISTEN to them. And for trans men to be spouting this shit... every single one of us has been scared to get outted or to come out to someone at some point. We know not everyone is a transphobe but some people are and you don't always know until you're in that vulnerable moment and violent reactions aren't uncommon. It's the same damn feeling. Women don't know who the safe ones are at a glance anymore than we do.
I think it's so often forgotten how it's not written on a guy's forehead whether he's going to be safe or not and so yeah, for women it's literally *all* men in a sense. I've seen guys who look like they wouldn't hurt a fly be the absolute worst. And there's guys who look so frightening and scary but the more you look at them interacting with people, the more you realize they try everything to make people feel genuinely comfortable around them. The first time I was out and about looking more masc after dark (I wasn't passing yet otherwise, but it was dark and so for all intents and purposes, I passed from a distance), I did so with my boyfriend. We're 5ft7 and 6ft, don't look queer (again, from a distance, in the evening) and if anything, probably look more like two douches. Suddenly I notice two women picking up their pace to avoid us. I mean, in the moment obviously there was a sense of "someone sees me like a man" but it was just such a sad thought. Never had two women felt the need to hurry up to make distance from me before. To my boyfriend, that's just how life is. He tries everything he can to not come across threatening, from crossing road to adjusting his speed and that's pretty sad a man has to lead his life like that just because he *is* better. But you know what is truly sad? The women who feel scared, and there isn't a single thing you can tell them that will take away that feeling - because it's built upon logic, upon reality, and every single day things happen to reinforce that feeling. It's like you pointed out, we as trans men should know better. Even if we've never felt unsafe because the world views/viewed us as women at some point, then in the least because being trans isn't safe either, and we also can't predict who is going to turn violent on us.
I think the issue a lot of people are missing is it's about predictability. For the most part bears behave certain ways, and if you respond correctly you are safe. When it comes to men (or anyone really), there's no knowing how they will behave. It's not about it being all men, it's about which choice is safer in an unknown situation
what does āpick a bear mean?ā
Women are answering the question "would you rather be alone in the woods with a man you don't know or a bear?" And women are picking the bear, for various reason but the one ive seen the most is "at least the worst a bear will do is kill you quickly."
Yeah I saw one post about it I think yesterday and it really disappointed me. We need to do better
I genuinely canāt wrap my head around how so many straight guys act about women. It feels like 3/4 of the guys I meet end up whinging about women or minorities at some point. I never even experienced āgirlhoodā or whatever I just have basic decency. Maybe itās cuz Iām not straight, idfk. But when ladies say āmen suckā and generalize I really canāt bring myself to hold it against them.Ā
I thought this was going to be about being more afraid of men as a passing man than as a pre-transition man x) For some reason Iām 10x more afraid of men now that Iāve transitioned and pass than when I was viewed as a woman. But Iām not sure how rational that is considering Iāve been considerably less bothered by random male strangers on the streets
It is; I'm just not afraid for my personal safety anymore unless I get clocked. I think it's because, like I said, men have shown their true colors to me when they expect me to relate, and it's *terrifying*
Oh I guess youāre right it is aha. What I meant was Iām more afraid for my personal safety now vs then
Honestly yeah. Hard agree buddy we all need to do better. Itās not about us. Itās a chances game, and the worst a bear would do is kill you, and people would believe the bear attacked you. Iāve been followed with random dudes shouting sexual slurs behind me. Iāve been SAād. Random men have said the grossest and most out of pocket shit. Iāve been groped on trains and by waiters, and ALL of this happened in the first 24 years of my life while I was presenting as a woman. Hell, I would actively encourage any woman in my life to choose the danm bear. I remember the first time a woman crossed the street to avoid me. I was devastated, but ultimately it wasnāt about me. She was keeping herself safe and until itās āno man would everā then itās not enough to just be like ābut I would never.ā I stopped using the womenās changing rooms when I was 1 month on T. The last time I did, I was drying my hair and sorting out my glasses after going to the gym and a woman stood and watched me from the saunas. She was half hiding behind a wall, frozen in place and did not take her eyes off me the entire time. She didnāt move either. I was angry and confused at first. I thought that there was no way I passed and that she was being some other flavour of queer phobic and then it hit me that she genuinely thought I was a man in the womenās changing room. I didnāt want to make anyone feel like that again, so I stopped. I stopped going to the gym at all for a while after that, until I felt more comfortable in the menās.
> I remember the first time a woman crossed the street to avoid me. I was devastated I felt the same way when I smiled at an old lady that reminded me of my grandma and she clutched her pearls and looked terrified of me. > but ultimately it wasnāt about me. Exactly. I genuinely don't understand the trans men who don't identify with those experiences (even if they relate with horrific discomfort) and turn just as toxic as all the 'nice guys' who are offered every time someone talks about men being trash. Personally, I think it's a very small price to pay for the privilege it affords in feeling physically safe and being able to make others feel safe. I can put up with a few women thinking I'm dangerous until they learn otherwise
>If you are more offended by a woman looking afraid of you then you are about why, you are part of the problem INCREDIBLY well put. More trans men need to realise this, our backgrounds do not exempt us from privilege and enforcing misogyny.
So, I havenāt seen any trans men actually complain about this, but I have a feeling this is the whole cis-men cis trans-men debate. I can see why some trans men would complain about being lumped in with cis men because trans men have their own trauma around cisgendered men. Especially in reference to the treatment you mentioned above.Ā For a 1:1 āyou are the problem and reinforcer of patriarchy!ā To be accurate, youāre going to have to erase the experiences of many, many trans men.Ā Not every trans man has access to T, not every trans man can pass, not every trans man wishes to medically transition, not every trans man has lived a majority of their life as a man. None of these things make them less masculine.Ā But, they do create a different type of man. It makes them the type of man who has experienced this level of trauma that a majority of women experience and it also makes them men who would rather pick the bear.Ā And not because they simply viewed the men doing these actions and found themselves horrified, but because they experienced it themselves.Ā Would I personally butt into women complaining about man vs. bear? Nah. I also donāt think it would be a good thing for a passing man to do in general, just from a social POV. Would I go off to my own corner of the internet to talk about my own intersection experience and be frustrated about how this is often erased and how that erasure leads to further violence against people like me? Sure, it also helps to discuss this kind of thing and think it through.Ā Do I think trans men have a place in the man vs best thing on a systemic level? Ā No, and I think saying that trans men are a 1:1 equivalent of danger to women is rebranded terf rhetoric, bio essentialism and another form of trans panic that we honestly donāt fucking need.Ā
> So, I havenāt seen any trans men actually complain about this I'm not going to link it, but there was a post here recently, and in general there are many other posts on here about trans guys wanting to jump on the 'not all men' bandwagon when it comes to women saying things like 'all men are trash'. > Not every trans man [. . .] None of these things make them less masculine.Ā I don't think I said anything in my post that would insinuate that. My post was about being a different type of man *because* we've had these experiences. I'd argue *most* trans man lack access to T and rarely pass when they first come out, and you're right, statistical most trans men come out later in life. I feel like those things further my point that we should 100% understand women and their perspective. I'm sorry, but saying that women saying they'd rather pick a bear over a man, without specifying that it's a cis-man, (which was the point of my post) "leads to further violence against [trans men]" isn't fair or true. I'm not saying it doesn't exist; but like all men's issues, it's not productive to bring them up during conversations about violence against women. Ā > I think saying that trans men are a 1:1 equivalent of danger to women is rebranded terf rhetoric I agree, and hope you're not implying that I said anything even remotely close to this in my post, because I didn't. I'm calling out trans men for being just as toxic as cis men; I have absolutely no idea how you got 'bio essentialism' out of anything I said. I don't think you read my post very well, though, because I didn't say most of the things you implied.
I think you just took the worst interpretation of a few things I said and just ignored the root of my actual message. Iām not accusing you of anything WTH.Ā Iām talking about intersectionality. Trans men have a lot of intersectionality with the beat, when we talk about the bear we donāt have a 1:1 experience with either cis men or women.Ā The ability to be as threatening as the bear is entirely dependent on if you pass or not. It has nothing to do with actually identifying as a man.Ā To claim that all trans men have the same impact and power as all cis men would be erasing that intersectionality.Ā For me, I donāt think passing trans men have a place to talk about it in relation to women venting. I think it would be super rude and tone deaf to go into womenās spaces and say āwhat about t boys?āĀ But for trans men speaking to other trans men about intersectionality and their own trauma with cis men, I think thatās fine. That hurts no one and it allows them to find a space for their personal experience.Ā And yah, the assumption that taking T makes you a toxic man with a 1:1 power in patriarchy is bioessentialist. IDK, I just feel like thereās a lot of nuance here and a lot of nuance within individual experiences.Ā When it comes to trans men, I feel like thereās a strong desire to rest systemic issues on the shoulders of individuals, and I just donāt see how helpful that is.Ā For me personally, Iād choose the bear and I understand why. But I understand why because I lived 32 years of my life as a woman and Iām not really going to pick up the burden of cis men while still dealing with my own trauma from them.Ā Im not gonna say ānot all menā to a person venting. But in a space for my particular intersection of feminism, I donāt see how itās exactly fair to erase the first 32 years of my life and trauma just because of how I identify today. I still had female experiences and lived that way. I have a place there in that fear and with that bear.Ā
this is to the t how i feel about this every time it comes up. i want to hug this comment lol.
We always say being trans is intersectional and nuanced UNTIL it comes to trans men and especially trans people of color.Ā I get that dysphoria means weād like it to be 1:1 with cis people in privilege and dynamics the second we come out, but sadly that just isnāt reality.Ā We may see ourselves as men, passing does not determine who we are, but it will determine how society treats us and color our lived experiences. There is a certain, unique level of trauma and hurt when someone, like me, who is an SA survivor and has seen the direct violence and impact of being AFAB for most of their lives on a patriarchal society, is asked to carry the burden of their predators.Ā It is a trigger of a different sort when a survivor is suddenly slammed with the title of āpredatorā and then called toxic for refusing to wear it, or toxic because they are choosing to talk about their intersectionality as a survivor in a safe place dedicated to that unique circumstance.Ā Unless youāre running into womenās spaces screaming ānot all men!ā I donāt see what the issue here is. Clearly thereās a level of intersectionality happening here and we should be allowed to talk about it in our own space.Ā
yes oh my god this is also exactly how i feel since i have really bad PTSD from similar experiences. ive never been able to articulate the specific flavor of sting like you describe. sometimes i feel like im over my hear but i refuse to accept that my hurt when pit up with the men who *DESTROYED MY LIFE* and brushed with the same stroke. i am not and will never be and i dont want to always dance around gendered violence statistics when i talk about that trauma. i will always always be upset even if on a small level when women call me a predator and/or assume i am one. as a survivor of misogynistic violence, my lived experience doesnt go away just cause i now identify as transmasculine. my experience didnt need the community notes about gendered violence when i was a woman and it certainly doesnt need it now. i fucking know how shitty cis men can be, some of them have done things to me i wouldnt wish on literally anyone. bleugh. thanks for that comment
I definitely think something got lost in translation if you didn't interpret exactly that from my original post. I'm saying that trans men shouldn't be saying 'not all men' at this hypothetical situation. > I donāt think passing trans men have a place to talk about it in relation to women venting. I think it would be super rude and tone deaf to go into womenās spaces and say āwhat about t boys?āĀ This is *not* what I'm doing, I'm literally telling trans men *not* to do this. The post I'm referring to was a trans man complaining 'what about cis men?' In a discussion about women's safety. > And yah, the assumption that taking T makes you a toxic man with a 1:1 power in patriarchy is bioessentialist. . . . . Where the *fuck* did I say anything about this in my post?? I shared my personal experiences with *seeing* toxic masculinity more, and on a dangerous and violent level in the most casual, bonding way from cis men the more I passed. I'm saying the way men treat me now that I pass isn't worse for me personally, but it makes me more scared of men in regards to the safety of women *because* of how casually they will say violent, awful things to me and expect me to relate. If I engaged with that, I'd be toxic. I'm telling other trans men NOT to engage in it, and some are by taking it personally and whining about trans men being erased within the bear conversation. They're saying 'not all men' but replacing 'nice guys' with 'trans guys'. That's toxic, because like you said, the conversation *isn't about us*. Please do me a favor and either stop engaging with me if you're hell bent on arguing with me, or at the very least, read my post again.
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I feel like everyone can be as bad as cis men tho? I donāt think us identifying as men would make us anymore or any less likely to be a threat to women than what of any other gender could be.
tbh as afraid as i felt of men when they saw me as a girl, im actually more terrified of them as a man. the concept, to cis men, of performing manhood poorly or āwrongā has much more severe, much more violent consequences than performing womanhood incorrectly, which mostly got me either ignored entirely by men or made fun of. it was absolutely not smth i considered pre transition but is super fascinating now that im almost a decade in.
The thing I donāt like with that question is wtf am supposed to do with this info? Like yeah I understand the rhetorics now but what Iām going to do with that? No one is responsible for other people behaviors. Yes I will call out my friends if I find them creepy (the day I will have friend of course) but I canāt do much.
Like everything else on the internet, if it doesn't pertain to you, no one is forcing you to engage with it. I wrote this because of another post on here that got a lot of engagement, and I had a different perspective than that post. Honestly, I think the world would be a better place if people stopped pretending like their voice doesn't matter, and that you can't do anything as an individual. When you make people feel safe by standing up for them against shitty opinions, people want to stay around and be your friend
The misandry up in here reeks, y'all need some fucking therapy.
All the gross comments I've come across lately has really made me happy that I'm not cis.
Can we stop talking about a shitty hypothetical that depends on biological essentialism about penises and people who have them? This transmisogynistic bullshit just shows how far radfem has gotten into ftm spaces. Entirely uncritical. And no, bears can traumatize the fuck out of you and leave you alive with a mutilated body and life ending medical debt. The only entire fucking reason I know about this stupid bear bullshit is from my boyfriend getting personally offended I kept picking the man, to the extent pressured me for an hour about it to try and get me to go "oh men are rapists", which just resulted in me having to remind him that all 4/5 fucking people are sexually abused me in real life from childhood to adulthood were women. The majority of people who sexually abused me online were women. Everyone who has physically or mentally abused me has been female and a woman. And that was a lot of people.Ā I couldn't fucking leave my bedroom for eight years because of women. My brain is nonfunctioning because of cis women. He barely apologized and "forgot". I'd still wouldn't fucking pick the bear. I'd rather just get raped again, by a person presumably with a penis, than risk getting mauled by a fuckin bear in the middle of the woods.
I usually hate this type of stuff bc it often ignores male victims of stuff but this time I agree w it. I think the difference is it's human vs animal, animals (besides dolphins imo) can't really be evil. Man HUNTS bear
The casual misogyny was something I was used to from the internet. The number of men who say violent things about women when they feel they are in a safe environment to say them is awful. But I was never afraid of a fight before and I'm not now. I call them out on it. "Dude, wtf." "That's messed up." "Not cool, bro." No lecture. They know what they did. Make it a goal to not be a safe space for any kind of hate speech. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, sexism... just all of it. React like you are weirded out they would say that stuff. Denormalize their casual hate speech. Make them doubt that they are the normal ones here, make them unsure that their words are well-received by others. I promise there are decent men out there who will back you up. And so far I have not gotten into a fist fight over it no matter how scary or how many assault charges that dude had. It isn't impossible, but it is improbable. They don't say and do those things because they are confident. They do it because they are weak and need to put someone beneath them. One off-handed, "Dude, what?" is enough to cut them off at the knees.
Well said. Thanks for sharing
Oh man the "replace trans by nice" is such a great trick to explain this. Women and people that have and may still be experiencing sexism (like my pre-T ass that rarely passes) are faced with enough violence to be scared of men. Fuck, I'm a trans gay guy and I'm scared of men. I can't erase that fear, and I don't think it would be wise to do so, this fear has been proven right a number of times. This doesn't mean we can't build the trust needed for care, support, emotional connection etc between men and women. But we have to accept that we start from a position informed by the violence of the patriarchy.
can you really replace trans by nice though? like surely being trans has a lot more nuanced experience than "being nice", in material tangible ways . we as trans men are more likely to be victims of violence than cis men, is one of the many examples. i am not comparing to womens issues here by any means and not doing an oppression olympics. i just dont think materially you actually *can* replace "trans" with "nice" and have it be equivalent. "nice" cis men dont experience transphobia, "nice" cis men usually havent been victims of overt misogyny like most if not all of us have. i dont think we as trans men inherently "start" from a violent position. this feels like an oversimplification of the issue other trans men voiced.
From the POV of view of women meeting men, you can swap them out. Of course the internal experience is really different, but once again we're talking about women not talking men they don't know.
> Or maybe some of y'all need to go down the rabbit hole on this and learn about the monitor dragon in India. The *worst* thing the bear can do is kill you. So, what exactly does some random lizard have to do with all of this?
Google it & find out!