A friend and I were having a long conversation today about how trans guys are pretty much not allowed to talk about our experiences in any forum, and how that’s especially hard because we already suffer from a problem of having minimal visibility.
Trans men who can pass tend to fly under the radar as much as possible, because it makes life a lot easier. Trans men are also less appealing to the gross fetishistic sensationalist media than trans women, so we get less (good AND bad) representation.
But another element of it is definitely that trans men, by and large, are socialized as women. Society treats us the way they treat cis women at least until (and sometimes long after) we come out (IF we come out). We’re taught literally from birth, just like cis girls, that the appropriate reaction to conflict is to retreat, to hide, to avoid. Just like it does for cis women, society tells us to keep our mouths shut.
And as a result… that’s what a lot of us do.
So when trans men remain invisible on purpose, that’s often a direct reaction to being taught that being invisible is safer, that hiding is safer, that retreating is safer.
Because on most levels it is.
We’re told to keep our mouths shut, and since we’re told that for our entire childhoods, we internalize it. So we keep our mouths shut. We learn to perceive our voices as less important, and less valid. So whenever we speak up, it’s perceived as speaking OVER all the cis men around us, because we’re perceived as girls, and that’s how society perceives girls.
Now enter the culture of online intersectional social justice forums and discourse. We want to contribute, to talk about our experiences, and to commiserate with other people who’ve experienced similar oppression. It’s hard to talk about this stuff sometimes, especially after being conditioned to think that any talking is too much talking.
So we’re here, we’re queer, we’re ready to contribute, and… we’re told to keep our mouths shut.
I’ve seen a lot of discourse about how safe spaces for women should include ONLY women, which is mostly valid. Without even touching on the openings this leaves for TERF ideology, it still gets complicated when you start recognizing that not all trans men ever come out or are visible or present as masculine, and that nonbinary people exist, and that anyone who is dfab and femme is targeted similarly regardless of their actual gender, but still. Woman only spaces have a place and a purpose. The need for them has been stated by the people who need them and I understand and respect that, as should everyone else.
But I’ve seen a lot of it extend to either stating or implying that trans men have no place in conversations about the ramifications of sexism, on the basis that contributing to the conversation equates to speaking over people. Specifically with the implication that we’re speaking over people who have had more VALID experiences of misogyny solely because they are women, regardless of whether the people perpetrating misogyny on trans men knew, believed, or cared that we were men.
And that doesn’t make sense.
Yes, we’re not women, but we sure as shit suffered at the hands of men who thought we were, and society who raised us as though we were. That wasn’t accidental, and it doesn’t go away as soon as we transition (IF we transition). It’s not like cis gay drag queens being subjected to transphobia. We didn’t choose to be assigned female at birth, we couldn’t opt out of it, and it wasn’t accidental. We suffer in many/most/in some cases ALL of the ways that cis women do as kids and teens, and that is completely intentional because society doesn’t care that we’re men. Society only cares about the anatomy we were born with.
The message we get is that conversations about misogyny are irrelevant to us, when the reality is that they are deeply relevant to us because they affect us deeply.
I’ve seen so many times the statement or implication that trans men need to keep our mouths shut about women’s experiences.
And I get it, conceptually, but when I’ve seen it it’s usually attached to the sentiment that our experiences are irrelevant to the overarching subject of feminism, and also lacks any alternative platform for us to talk on. Because we’re also told to keep our mouths shut, of course, about male experiences by cis men (of course). So we can’t talk about what it’s like to be guys, and we can’t talk about what it’s like to be treated like girls.
And all the trans men I know respond to this overarching silencing message by thinking “Oh, well, okay I guess. I mean, I don’t want to speak over anyone.”
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