Idk How To Explain It, But Sometimes Being A Traumatized Trans Man Being Told That I'm Privileged Kinda

Idk how to explain it, but sometimes being a traumatized trans man being told that I'm privileged kinda feel like when I was crying as a child because I was hurt and my dad would hit me, saying "NOW you have a reason to cry".

can we like…get rid of the so-called leather and rubber “pride flags” ? it’s honestly ridiculous and offensive to the lgbtq community. those aren’t pride flags. 

Personally, we're really not bothered by the occasional quip of "men are trash" or "I hate men" or whatever. We recognize that they come from a place of trauma and genuine expression of frustration. We fully believe people are allowed to express their pain in imperfect ways.

What we take issue with is repeated patterns of behavior in which men are treated as inherently more dangerous or untrustworthy than any other gender. Keep in mind, that this is different than pointing out common behaviors of misogyny from men, that stems from being raised in a patriarchal society.

I'm talking specifically about the rhetoric that posits that men are innately and irrevocably more violent or bigoted. This is gender esssntialism. This is what we are talking about when we bring up people who treat men badly on the basis of their gender. Treating real human beings as if their gender is just some curse that poisons their entire being.

This phenomenon overlaps very strongly with other forms of bigotry. Black men being treated as dangerous thugs - yes, because they're Black, but also specifically because they're Black men. Their masculinity is seen as violent and unsafe, and gender essentialism is weaponized against them more violently because of how it overlaps with racism.

When trans men come out, and are told that taking testosterone will make us angry, aggressive, and most importantly - ugly and infertile. When we experience corrective rape, have our life saving medications taken away from us. This is gender essentialism, overlapping with transphobia and misogyny. It's not just that we're transitioning, it's specifically that our masculinity is treated as more unsafe, more untrustworthy, more vile, because we're trans men.

And this does absolutely start with the way we treat cis men. Dehumanizing cis men on the basis of their gender, will inevitably lead to you dehumanizing marginalized men. You will contribute to the marginalization of men of color and trans men. You will actively contribute to racism and transphobia, because the oppression that we experience is intertwined with that same gender essentialism.

This is what intersectionality is. You cannot perpetuate gender essentialism and expect it not to have broader impacts on other marginalized groups. Because these forms of oppression intersect! They can't be separated from each other. You can't seperate the harm that Black men experience from the idea that men are inherently dangerous. You can't seperate the harm that trans men experience from the idea that testosterone makes you violent. Your ideas about men do not exist in a vacuum.

saw a post about how feminists, usually terfs and radfems but also other feminists, act like being a transman is anti feminist and "betraying" womanhood and just the rampant hatred of masculinity in feminist spaces and i didn't wanna speak over all the transmen there so i'm saying it here:

Realising you're a transman does not make you against femininity or feminism. It means that being a woman wasn't for you. And i think that's beautiful. And anyone that fails to realise how beautiful and joyous being your authentic self is is a piece of shit. And it's your right to yourself freely and without hate.

"They (suspiciously leaving out that 'they' are transmascs) are saying men are oppressed, and that misandry is real!", is such a bad faith oversimplification of what transmascs are trying to say, that I'd categorize it into 'lie' territory, but technically, on a purely semantic level, trans men are perhaps the only group who are specifically oppressed FOR being men lol. Like, if I wasn't a man I wouldn't experience transphobia, because I wouldn't be trans if I wasn't a man. Transgender man. FtM. What's not clicking.

the misandry within the queer community is wild because tell me why i was made to feel bad about being trans (FTM)... by other trans people... sometimes i get the feeling that some queer people would rather FTMs stay in the closet because of their sweeping generalized hatred for men. trans men aren't "betraying" the community by transitioning, or somehow defecting to the "Other, Bad Side". stop vilifying masculinity, i am fucking begging you.