One thing that I have also found myself so perplexed about, in a way of "Okay? And? What's the big deal?" are people who swear up and down that every single trans man, regardless of transition or lack thereof, has male privilege.
And let's just say. LET'S JUST SAY! This is true to reality. That as soon as someone accepts themself as a trans man, or transmasc, they have all the equal amounts of male privilege as cis men.
No, actually. So fucking what if we do?
So what if every single trans man and transmasc in the WHOLE WORLD (including countries and cultures where women and people AFAB) has equal male privilege as cis men?
That doesn't mean jack shit. That doesn't make them evil. That doesn't mean they're a horrible person. It doesn't determine how or when they're going to start assaulting and abusing and ripping the rights away from anyone in the women and femme social class.
If I have male privilege, then that's just fucking stupid. I don't want it, and I'm not going to use it. If I ever find that I am granted it, I'm throwing that shit out the window!!
Because guess what, that is something you can do with privilege. You can just scoot it back across the table and say "Oh no, no-no, I'm not taking this."
I really feel like the people who constantly are pressing on trans men and transmascs HAVING male privilege really treat it as some inherent sin of manhood. That it taints and stains our souls and our hearts. That it discredits us and puts us in these positions of untrustworthiness. And it's like. No, actually, it really doesn't!!
Because there is still the VERY highly likely life story before that possible male privilege of being the victim to other people's male privilege.
I think it's very similar to how we need to adopt the idea of "Having a penis doesn't inherently make you a dangerous person" and "Having she/her in your bio doesn't inherently mean you're a safe person to be around"
"Having male privilege doesn't inherently make you a raging oppressor who is always hungering for their next female victim"
Having male privilege just means you are granted special privileges and social exceptions based on your perceived birth sex/gender
It doesn't mean you have to take it, or accept it
It doesn't mean you have to feed into toxic masculinity or any shit like that
And honestly, like I said, for some of us trans men and transmascs, we probably know how it feels to be on the short end of someone wielding male privilege over us!!! So why would we then turn around and use it against other oppressed groups? Why would we just stand there and allow that shit to happen??
Well, either because we are doing it out of survival, because if we get found out to be trans, we could end up hurt or dead. Or, we do it because we've fallen for the toxic cis masculinity so many people try to force on us to make us into "real men", because a real man would want to hurt women, and if you don't want to hurt women, then why are you even a man in the first place??
It's just. It's so frustrating. It's so annoying to see people say over and over again how we all have this male privilege that we MUST acknowledge, but then seemingly have no real follow-through or next step for the ones who do say that
No "Admit you have male privilege, and then do the work to deconstruct the male privilege in those around you"
It's just usually more so "Admit you have male privilege and then shut the fuck up, sit down, and wait until we can use you like a good little meat shield" which is just
No!!! That's not how feminism works!!
