#and the selective transphobia (basically against ppl who dont pass and trans ppl who dont fit into the binary)

[catinasink]

oh my god i hate my irls sm

[nothorses]

I swear I get a headache trying to figure out what "Male privilege" actually is and what specific "privileges" trans men get besides the whole passing as cis/being stealth thing (which is uncommon and hard to obtain since there's no/pre hrt/surgery trans men, also bipoc/poor/disabled/gnc etc trans men) every non trans men throws at us. literally no where have I seen someone put out a list of privileges we have regarding *gender only*, I would really love see it tbh a whole ass list

even examining myself of what "male privileges" I have is basically 0, I'm androgynous and present masc, pre everything and even when I dont talk everyone sees me as a cis woman who's masculine, I never get a sir or he/him by strangers or family and comparing that to my CIS brother, he has 1,000x more privileges than me even when we're the same gender! so, would love to be informed on which magical "privileges" I'm actually getting 🙄 (sorry for the rant btw, I'm tired of ppls stupid transphobia against trans men everywhere)

Yeah, absolutely! The whole concept is just entirely removed from reality.

Like, I spent 22 years being seen as and treated as a woman by everyone in my life. There are skills I’ve never learned, opportunities I’ve been denied, life paths I have been pushed toward, interests and hobbies I have been gatekept from, all because of this.

I have to wonder what I’d be studying right now if I’d been cis; would I still be going into childcare and education, if people hadn’t thought I was a girl for so long?

Those things don’t go away just because I realized I wasn’t a woman after all. They don’t go away once I transition; really, I get more shit for it, because now I’m in an awkward stage where I’m obviously not cis at all to everyone except, like, strangers who I never speak to again.

So, what, I get “male privilege” once I fully transition and can pass? What about my family, my friends, professors and bosses and coworkers (references!) who knew me pre-transition? What about 23+ years of distinctly not passing? What about if I don’t want to go stealth? Because I don’t! I’m going to be a high school teacher; I want my students to know who I am and that I’m proud of it.

And that’s just me. I’ve decided that I don’t want to live my life in another closet because that’s the right choice for me, and I know that’s going to come at a cost. Nearly everyone who knows me will know I’m trans, and many will struggle to think of me as a man- if they try at all.

People who do decide to go stealth- an incredibly valid decision- are in constant danger of being outed, and facing backlash for every cis person who feels “lied to” and takes it out on them. If you have to stay closeted and keep your identity a secret from everyone in your life in order to gain access to a kind of privilege, that’s not privilege.

I get the counterargument; trans women experience misogyny, so trans men must not, otherwise the TERFs win. But why are we letting TERFs make the rules for this argument? Why do we just accept that TERFs know more about how the patriarchy works than trans people, who spend their lives crossing boundaries and existing in spaces within it that cis people will never understand?

The patriarchy oppresses as many people as it possibly can, because that leaves more power for the select few at the top. It punishes all gender role deviance, and all acts of rebellion to its systems.

It doesn’t really see trans women as men, and it sure as hell doesn’t see trans men as men, because “man” is a special social class reserved only for those the patriarchy approves of. There’s a reason even cis men are pressured to conform to such incredibly high standards in order to be acknowledged as “real men”.

It’s an argument based entirely in theory, completely uprooted from the reality that, if people listened, transmascs could shed some really interesting light on.