AND ANOTHER THING that bothers me about discussions of transandrophobia - I've seen it happen so many times that a transmasc will talk about their experiences of being socialised 'as a woman', which will make someone go 'oh so you think transfemmes are socialised as men??? TERF TALKING POINT'.
Which it would be, if that was what they said! But it wasn't! What you say about one group does not imply that the same - or the opposite! - is true of the other!
In all honesty, I think these common experiences may actually be closer than many admit - we're just using different sorts of langauge to express ourselves.
I personally very much fit the mould as being 'socialised as a girl' - forced to do all the chores, expected to take care of the house and provide endless emotional labour on top of the expectation that I would provide income; told to sit down and shut up and not have any opinions of my own. I was subject to rampant misogyny, sexualisation, and misogynistic sexual abuse from complete strangers from a young age. The fact that I very much was not a girl didn't take away from any of these experiences! It was in no way a shield! In fact, it meant all of this WAS IN FACT ENFORCED UPON ME WITH MORE BRUTALITY. Any variance from being 'a woman' meant you were seen as a third, nongendered, nonhuman thing that was due only corrective hurt and brutality. I was socialised as a 'girl' AND I was subject to third gendering and othering because I was also a 'failed girl'.
I know several amazing transfemmes who have described about how they very much were not socialised 'as a boy' - because they had the experience of not being a boy, but having boyhood forced upon them. This brutal corrective 'socialisation' did not confer any sort of 'privilege'; it actually just inflicted trauma and harm. These ladies ALSO were subject to third gendering and othering, because they were seen as something distinct from 'a boy'! To say they have 'male socialisation' would be grossly transmisogynistic in every way - and just simply talk over their voices!
You can listen to them and believe their experiences, AND you can listen to transmascs who say 'hey I find it easier to say that I was 'socialised as a woman' but in fact I was actually subject to even more brutal socialisation to be 'a woman' than many cis women are, and this has profoundly affected me in ways I deserve to be able to discuss'. Uplifting one voice is not putting down another! And these common transfemme and transmasc experiences actually contain a lot of crossover, which should be embraced rather than seen as devaluing each other.
Disclaimer: A minority of trans women will of course feel they were socialised as men, and some trans men will feel they were not forcibly socialised as women + othered. Everyone's experiences are different, and we are not a monolith. I'm just talking about general trends I've seen.
To be clear: I can fully see the argument that transmascs shouldn't use 'socialised as a girl' because it is too tarnished by terfs. I think that's a fair point to make. This is just to explain why the concept resonates with many transmascs, and how, when it is used by transmascs to selfdescribe, the usage differs from how terfs use it. If anyone can come up with better language to express that particular pre-coming-out transmasc experience of 'raised to be A Woman with all the horrific misogyny that entails, but it's enforced upon you even more heavily on top of othering and degendering', I'd welcome it!
