Male socialization is real.
Cancellable, I know. But it is. Demonstrably. Materially. Boys are treated differently from girls, in a way that makes them on average, more competitive, less respectful, less empathetic, and more aggressive. This affects men and women for the entirety of their lives. It changes women's muscle and bone structure, due to being disallowed from intense exercise as children. given worse medical care and education. not being listened to. treated as ornamental. it can affect people for a lifetime. this has been a primary feminist complaint for hundreds of years. women were not just making that up. they were not hysterical.
To deny that male socialization exists, is to deny material reality.
But to be clear, socialization is a process, which begins in infanthood and continues for a person's entire life. It is and must be constantly reinforced. And individuals will be affected by it differently. Not every woman ends up a submissive tradwife just because that is what's forced on her and not every man ends up a violent abuser, even though that is encouraged.
And for trans people, this creates an interesting phenomenon.
Once you are recognized as the opposite gender, a process I call Resocialization begins. This is similar to adjusting to a new culture when moving abroad. I travel to french-speaking countries regularly and it's hard not to say "bonjour" every time I walk into a shop for a few days. Suddenly you are being socialized as the gender you are. people argue no, they were always socialized as that gender, but that is demonstrably false. all the things described in rebuttals - emasculation, homophobia, abuse - are parts of the male socialization process. They reinforce patriarchal control. It's just some people are affected differently by them due to individual difference.
But now, you are being socialized as a woman, with all the same corrective abuses that happen to women and girls, but turned up to 11 because transition escalates the process of socialization from years over the course of a childhood to maybe six months or a couple of years at most. You experience all the same horrors of female socialization in a much shorter period of time, and are effectively resocialized as a woman. But in a much faster and often more directly violent way. and it's not only men participating, and the violence isn't always done by transphobic women either. because other women often think they are helping you, by correcting you because they view performing proper hegemonic femininity as a safety issue, and feel that violence will be enacted up on them - and you - if you fail to enact womanhood "correctly" because violence was done to them to force them to embody the "proper" feminine virtues of submissiveness, silence, and servitude, and they are afraid it will happen to you. A fear that is not unwarranted. But in that process, thinking they are protecting you, they are enacting some of that same abuse on you.
for trans men, many of them have to fight against aggressive attempts to resocialize them into misogynists, and many men talk about this at length, the ways they are being resocialized and taught to engage in casual misogyny and patriarchy. As I said before, this does not mean every single man will be an evil misogynist nor does it mean everyone is doomed to remain tainted by their previous gendered experience forever. Every individual reacts to socialization differently. My stepmon grew up with the exact same socialization environment as my mom. But my mom never beat my dad's ass when he tried to lay a hand on her. Because they're two very different people. these are still systemic realities.
