discoursebrick

[discoursebrick]

YOUR MUTUAL'S NEW UGLY GUY PHASE

Round 1

[RED ALERT]

incoming spam

WAVE 1/52

OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE

[discoursebrick]

I had never heard of it. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Can the "trans men are oppressors" crowd do me a favor and try to find mental health resources for trans men in their area? And I mean real resources not just videos and articles. Any support groups for trans men? Any therapy groups? Are local queer centers reaching out for specific resources to trans men? Does the local sexual health center have information about birth control, abortions, fertility? Is there a shelter for trans men that they can be safe in without misgendering themselves? Are there any social groups for trans men?

If they're so privileged, where the fuck is it?

[discoursebrick]

Sure. First I think it's worthwhile to consider what exactly a "resource" is. The resources you've listed in your OP, which trans men lack:

mental health resources (not just videos and articles): support groups, therapy groups

information about birth control, abortions, fertility at local sexual health center*

well-equipped local queer center

shelter(s)

social groups

These are specialized resources... But, really, these are - besides medical care - social welfare and networking programs. These are distinctly different from other kinds of resources, for example: property, food; labor, capital; mineral rights.

Men hold the vast majority of these other kinds of concrete resources in the world. They own most of the land, control most of the labor, hold most of the mineral, fishing, farming rights, and so on. These kinds of resources have actual power. They grant you security. They can used to extract wealth from others or the land (or are themselves a form of wealth). They often grant you legal defense or privilege.

Social welfare programs exist, by contrast, to fill gaps for groups which do not have power. Women often do not own property, so if they are forced to leave their home, they may have nowhere else to go besides a shelter. LGBT centers exist precisely because we are often forgotten from or otherwise excluded from existing community centers. Social clubs usually form when a community is too scattered to be found organically. (Every hobby-based social club is like this too.)

However, while this is generally true, whether or not these programs exist locally is subject to a bunch of additional factors that can be hard to quantify. Just to demonstrate how varied access to social programs can be, I took a look at what is available for me, locally. I found plenty quite quickly - feel free to skip this paragraph if you don't care about the details: The local queer center has a Transgender Advisory Board - and this board is diverse, with multiple transmasculine people holding a chair. They host a monthly masculinity group as well as a weekly all-gender trans support group. They also run a shelter which is explicitly open to transgender people. They help fund a gender confirmation surgery grant, which was started by two transmasculine people. The LGBT center for the big city about a half-hour from my small city has transmasc, transfem, nonbinary, and "everyone transgender" support groups, as well as trans groups oriented towards youth and older adults. Most of these are both in-person and online. Recently, they screened When Men Were Men, a film about a transgender man in Dublin, Ireland. Their transgender history preservation program is named in honor of a trans man. They provide free therapy to LGBT adults. They have grants to cover the legal fees of a name change, and regularly host name-change clinics for help with paperwork and fingerprinting. Another queer center has free binders, packers, STPs, clothing, menstrual products, and more trans support groups, again including a trans masc specific one (in fact this center doesn't seem to have a transfem group, only a transmasc one). I also know, off the top of my head, that the largest hospital system in the city has a very good LGBT health program, including mental health services, primary care, and gender confirmation surgery (so does the second-largest).

And this is just what I could find from a like 30 minute search. I didn't even look at local churches/temples, universities, non-LGBT-specific community centers, etc. (Although I could tell you, off the top of my head, that multiple local gyms have LGBT nights.) I haven't had much experience utilizing any of these resources, personally; but there is clearly no desert here of social welfare programs available to me or other trans men.

For what it's worth, the city I grew up in - a deep red state on Erin In The Morning's risk maps - also has a center offering transgender support groups, including for trans men specifically, and a free binders program.

And, to be clear, I don't object to the idea that trans masculine people ought to have specialized resources, and I'm not trying to brag or something. This post is not to prove that trans men face no problems, do not require specialized consideration, or that you're making your experiences up. It is just a demonstration of how anecdotal/hyperlocal social programs are. Your OP tries to use a lack of social welfare programs in your area as evidence that trans men also lack privilege, not recognizing that social welfare programs typically exist in response to disprivilege in the first place, and also that their existence isn't, like, a natural consequence of privilege/disprivilege. They don't just come into existence on their own. They are community efforts primarily, and if there is no community or insufficient charitable people around, then they can't sustain themselves.

Ultimately, the quantity of social programs just isn't reliable evidence of privilege or disprivilege. They don't exist in response to "resources" nebulously - my city, for example, has a free program for small business owners, who are not an unresourced group - and they don't naturally pop into or out of existence as demand for them grows or fades. A lack of social programs might be because the state disallows them (either de jure or de facto)... or it might be because nobody needs them. It is shaky proof, at best, of disprivilege.

(*) Medical services are kind of unique. I don't have a super coherent response to this one, but I am hesitant to call a lack of birth control/abortion access or information at health clinics a transmasculine problem; a lack of access to health care is indeed a trans problem, but this is not unique to sexual health.

Can the "trans men are oppressors" crowd do me a favor and try to find mental health resources for trans men in their area? And I mean real resources not just videos and articles. Any support groups for trans men? Any therapy groups? Are local queer centers reaching out for specific resources to trans men? Does the local sexual health center have information about birth control, abortions, fertility? Is there a shelter for trans men that they can be safe in without misgendering themselves? Are there any social groups for trans men?

If they're so privileged, where the fuck is it?

[discoursebrick]

"That's not my position, because that would be nonsense. But that IS my position."

Can the "trans men are oppressors" crowd do me a favor and try to find mental health resources for trans men in their area? And I mean real resources not just videos and articles. Any support groups for trans men? Any therapy groups? Are local queer centers reaching out for specific resources to trans men? Does the local sexual health center have information about birth control, abortions, fertility? Is there a shelter for trans men that they can be safe in without misgendering themselves? Are there any social groups for trans men?

If they're so privileged, where the fuck is it?

[discoursebrick]

No, what I am saying is that the existence of specialized resources is not indicative of privilege, and the lack of specialized resources is not indicative of disprivilege. Because that's a nonsense position.

Can the "trans men are oppressors" crowd do me a favor and try to find mental health resources for trans men in their area? And I mean real resources not just videos and articles. Any support groups for trans men? Any therapy groups? Are local queer centers reaching out for specific resources to trans men? Does the local sexual health center have information about birth control, abortions, fertility? Is there a shelter for trans men that they can be safe in without misgendering themselves? Are there any social groups for trans men?

If they're so privileged, where the fuck is it?

[discoursebrick]

"If men are so privileged, show me the men's support groups and battered men's homes. I'm waiting!"

Quick question: Do you think the existence of gynecology as a field but not "androcology" is a sign that women receive preferential medical care?

Can the "trans men are oppressors" crowd do me a favor and try to find mental health resources for trans men in their area? And I mean real resources not just videos and articles. Any support groups for trans men? Any therapy groups? Are local queer centers reaching out for specific resources to trans men? Does the local sexual health center have information about birth control, abortions, fertility? Is there a shelter for trans men that they can be safe in without misgendering themselves? Are there any social groups for trans men?

If they're so privileged, where the fuck is it?

[discoursebrick]

"male socialization unites cis men and trans women against the AFABs" do you hear yourselves

Before starting, I'm not the original author of the following top 9, however i wanted to repost this text because it names and describes the issues within the transgender movement regarding the way trans men/transmasculine people are (mis)treated, issues that are still present and widespread today. You can find another archive/repost of the text here:

1) shutting down trans men talking about their anatomy and their dysphoria

like shutting down trans men complaining about periods by trans women who complain that it makes them dysphoric or that trans men don’t appreciate what they have; it only works this one way - I never saw a trans man scream over a trans woman who was complaining about say random erections that she should appreciate what she has and stop talking about it this way.

2) speaking over trans men on issues related to their biology and socialisation and in extreme forms even completely denying them a voice on those issues

telling trans men that they do not know what’s it like to be socialised as a girl or treated as a girl and should shut up about it, often simultaneously telling them they also don’t know what’s it like to live as men/be a gnc man, removing trans men from talks about feminism, misogyny, abortion or rape.

3) devictimising trans men

being misogynistic towards them (portraying them as hysterical bitches or mocking their anatomy, for one), or transphobic towards them (calling them shrimpdicks, cuntboys, manlets), and justifying it with them being men and either not being able to be victimised or deserving the harassment; it’s also present as “venting about men” but singling out trans men and never cis men.

4) erasing trans men’s oppression

one element of it is claiming trans men shouldn’t reclaim tranny despite it very well targetting them, or replacing “transphobia” with “transmisogyny” in general discourse, in such ways as to erase trans men as targets of transphobia in order to frame them as oppressors of trans women more.

5) limiting trans men’s freedom and means of describing their oppression

to serve trans women’s interests are always prioritised; it’s “trans men shouldn’t say they were female socialised because it implies trans women were male socialised”, never “trans women shouldn’t say they were female socialised because it erases trans men’s trauma with misogyny".

6) constant guilting of trans men who dare speak up against those things, and guilting of trans men into taking a subserviant role in activism

trans men are constantly reminded that they are potentially predatory, potential rapists, just like cis men etc, and that is applied twice as heavily to trans men who disagree or talk back to trans women; the rhetoric is always that they are oppressors of trans women and are victimising them further by “not listening to trans women”.

7) bias in judgement of trans men’s actual societal power and position and spreading misinformation about it

in such a way trans-men will constantly be told trans women get sexually harassed and raped more often, earn less, etc, etc.. despite statistics proving otherwise. bringing up those statistics results in: see point 6. in places with equal numbers of trans men and trans women in power (rare), the trans women will typically still claim there’s more trans men in power and their power is greater.

8) piting up trans men against eachother

urging trans men to “defend trans women” from wrongthinking trans men. demanding that trans men who speak up are ostracised, including from their own circles.

9) undermining the soldiarity trans men may find with lesbians, gnc women or any other AFAB group

that can take form of literally explaining to butches with whom they should and with whom they shouldn’t have solidarity, or speaking aganst “AFAB solidarity”, or arguing that “AFAB people” don’t have any common experiences.

“Those are my experiences from 8 years of being around other trans people. I met cool trans women, but I must admit those things are, unfortunately, a tendency. for clarity, I don’t believe in some crazy mtf conspiracy and hidden agenda. I believe in male born people often sticking with each other against female born people due to misogyny, and in them acting on their socialisation a lot of the time, leading to perserving patriarchal dynamics with opposite pronouns”