so many of the Bad Takes on gender that i see on this hellsite seem to stem from the assumption that trans women's and trans men's experiences are exact opposites of each other, and that if one of those groups experiences something, the other must not. but there's no reason to assume that! spend enough time talking to trans people in good faith and you'll see that our experiences overlap a ton!
like, a while ago i saw a trans guy on here post something about the ways that being socialized as a girl still impacted him and shaped the way he moved through the world even now that he was living as a man. the notes were full of people accusing him of transmisogyny, on the grounds that he was implying that trans women must therefore be "male socialized" and experience male privilege. but he never said anything of the sort! he just made a factual statement about his own experience and how it's affected him, and it's one i have no reason to doubt him on. plenty of other transmasc folks i've known have described similar experiences.
and here's the thing: everything he described as an example of female socialization is something that i, as a trans woman, have directly experienced. some people might read that and assume that i'm saying trans men don't experience those things, but that's not what i'm saying at all. i'm saying we both do, and that there's no contradiction in acknowledging it! our experiences of gender are complex and can't be boiled down to "trans men experience x, trans women experience y". and i think we as a community would get a lot farther if we were more willing to acknowledge this complexity and the fact that we have so much in common.












