Saw a couple people misunderstanding in the notes, so let me clarify:
Op is not saying “trans women are generally aggressive/impulsive!” What they are actually saying is that if one trans woman were to find herself struggling with aggressive/impulsive instincts, it might be helpful for her to examine the relationship between her own behavior and the way she was socialized as a child, and that to suggest such a thing is fundamentally different from TERF rhetoric because it’s about acknowledging the potential impact of the way you were raised instead of defining yourself and other people by it.
We all experience socialization. That’s literally just the word for how we learn about society and, like, internalize our “place” in it (if you take a political science course, you’ll probably learn about political socialization, which is pretty much the same thing but specifically through the lens of political views). And the way we are socialized does affect the people we become. Like, when we talk about “gifted kid syndrome,” that’s socialization playing out. We grew up being told that we were “smarter” or “better,” as well as being isolated from our more “normal” peers, and that’s affected the way we see ourselves, the way we interact with society, etc. It gets a lot more complicated than that, but this is probably as much as I’m qualified to explain.
Obviously, your agab doesn’t determine your actual gender, your personality, or anything else, really, but it does affect the way you’re socialized because of how society treats you based on your perceived gender. Not all trans women are socialized as if they were men, much less affected in the same way by that socialization, but it’s not transphobic to suggest that some of the ones who were treated as men while growing up might pick up some of the traits that treatment tends to bring out. Just like ending up in the “gifted” classes, even by mistake, would probably give anyone some of the symptoms of gifted kid syndrome, regardless of whether or not they were actually “gifted.”
Op is also not generalizing trans experiences or assuming that theirs are universal. They literally said that “some people react to things differently,” and they made it pretty clear that while socialization affects everyone, it does not affect everyone the same way. Somebody was harping on the “your culture” thing, but that’s literally just? to acknowledge??? that gender norms are different in different cultures?? and therefore the gendered aspect of your socialization depends in part upon the culture in which you were raised? Honestly idk what else y'all want from them.
Anyway, I love that these people are eager to defend trans women but like. maybe work on your critical thinking skills before you go around calling people “morons” or “practically terfs” or whatever
