Oh, absolutely. There’s a strangely competitive edge to a lot of trans interactions. It happens with cis queer people too...sometimes? But with trans stuff, it’s hard, cause literally being around each other can cause feelings of secondhand dysphoria.
And yeah, that’s real, but you want to know what causes me secondhand dysphoria?
Yes. A cis man from a cartoon for 7 year old girls makes me cringe.
(Sidenote while I was getting an image for this post I found this gif of him dramatically removing a cumberbund and his formal shirt was also a bellyshirt like his casual/armor look? That was funny.)
I want to make it clear that it’s actually fine I feel this way. And it’s fine if i don’t want to watch She-Ra because for whatever reason Bow’s design pushes my buttons. But when it comes to She-Ra I think the whole internet got together and agreed that the animators should not alter their style in order to avoid making men in their late 20s uncomfortable.
Something can make you uncomfortable without it being something wrong.
Here, have another thing that makes my soul want to die!
"I’m cutting my hair short but I don’t want to look like Amanda Bynes in She’s the Man.”
“I’d like to wear a suit but I don’t want to look like Amanda Bynes in She’s the Man.”
“I want to transition but I don’t want to look like Amanda Bynes in She’s the Man.”
I think the amount of secondhand dysphoria/internalized shame/competition and latent aggression has to do with how there’s almost no popular image of us to...”aspire” to I guess? Especially trans men, which is the topic of this post (and which seems to have an incredibly nasty strain of infighting at least on tumblr but I know this is a whole community problem). So you know what you don’t wanna be, but what do you want to look like, and be perceived as? Your only model for that is a cis guy.
But I know what I don’t want to look like. I very, very definitely do not want to look like Amanda Bynes in She’s the Man.
I think a lot of trans people are afraid of looking freakish and silly cause that’s the only image that exists.
And...the thing most likely to remind you of what you don’t want to look like is other trans people who don’t pass. I mean, that just makes sense. But it seems like a lot of people get this weird idea in their head of like...I’m the only “real trans tm”? I’m the way I see myself in my head (cis or cis-passing, etc), and these other trans people I see around me not passing, they’re clearly looking that way on purpose.
So yeah we individually and as a community need better strategies for dealing with secondhand dysphoria.