If you have to do or participate in something in order to survive, it's not a privilege, right?

[tattie@eldritch.cafe]

@low yeah, quite a large chunk of what is written on privilege takes a framing of either comparing white men to white women, or white men to black men.

There's a huge amount of unexplored territory wrt the experiences of other minorities, and intersectional identities.
@doppelgrau @faithisleaping @revoluciana

[kats@chaosfem.tw]

@revoluciana Addressing the question as phrased: if only some people are granted the ability to do that thing, then being able to do it is a privilege, Whether you do it is a separate issue.
As was pointed out elsewhere in the replies, privilege is something given to you (or not), not something you do.
Even if it's the result of something you do, that privilege is a separate thing (and a different kind of thing) from those actions.

Addressing the actual question: you're trying to reduce at least two different things into a single thing.
Did I have male privilege? Absolutely.
Did that life also damage me so badly that I may never again be able to work a job like that? Also yes.
These things aren't fungible, nor do they cancel out. They're both true.

That privilege was conferred on me as a function of being perceived as a white man by those around me. It was not something I requested, or something I did. I learned to maintain that position by performing some approximation of the right kind of masculinity, sure - and now I'm trying to recover from what that did to me, on top of the rest.

Coming back to the original question, let me throw you a related question: is it morally right to deceive people (possibly including yourself) in the course of obtaining a privilege that's necessary for survival?

[asuyuia@toot.cat]

@revoluciana I will be honest I didn't read all the replies (or even most of them there are a lot) and it is a complex topic but there are protections that come with just being born male. You are less likely to get certain actions against you and even your voice carries more weight. That would be considered privileges.

Then we have the aspects of we can't even be ourselves, we live in the deepest pits of despair hating everything about ourselves when to some we have the winning lottery ticket.

This is a major problem of our world and lack of equality. People don't see that the "winning" ticket is actually one that wins us depression, self hatred and so much wrong with ourselves because it prevents us being happy. So we have the wrong kind of privilege. The privilege of power not the privilege of happiness which you can easily argue is not really privilege. Just like so many men are crushed by the weight of the world because they are men.

Man or woman, boy or girl, both are a blessing and a curse but the biggest curse is not matching the one you were assigned. Everyone is hurt by the system but I do think there is protection and thus privilege in being born a certain way. You are safer, you have more power as a default and you don't have to fight as much but even in that system if you are a cis male it comes with great cost. You have to be strong, you can't show emotions as much (except anger which is a major problem), you can't talk about your feelings, you can't truly build a support network. You have all the strengths and weaknesses even if you won the dice role.

There is even privilege in being straight instead of gay, straight instead of ace, straight instead of anything else. The lessening of burdens. Is that not what privilege is?

If I was born in a very rich family I would be seen as highly privileged I might never have to work in my life and have a life of luxury, is that not privilege? But even in that I could be isolated, have no one I could truly trust, have people that would happily murder me for the money I carry. So is it not also a curse too?

Privilege is a vague concept. There are benefits to being born in certain ways or with certain things but that doesn't mean it is right for you. A poor farmer who knows nothing can be happier and more fulfilled than someone with the world at their finger tips. They have the privilege of being able to have happiness they can hold born of ignorance and yet also simplicity. They don't have to worry about the wider world.

I guess yes, there is privilege, and there is burden from it too. Is it privilege if the negatives outweight the positives? That's the idea here. I think in some cases someone with vasts amount of money is always going to be privileged because they can throw resources at their problems even if their problems are moeny itself. Does a trans woman have male privilege before coming out? I could easily argue yes but I could also see the argument for no.

What price turns privilege into surival? What turns privilege into a curse. Going by my teenage years I would argue it kepts me safe in ways but also broke me. I wouldn't say I felt the privilege but just interactions went better because of it. I gained enough bonuses even if it was what was destroying me.

It isn't some scale that can be balanced. It isn't some grand equation. Privilege is the wrong word here because there is more to it than what we gain and at what price but yes, unfortunately we gained benefits even if we were basically "blessed with suck"...

[kats@chaosfem.tw]

@revoluciana Something about the way you phrased this kept tugging at my mind.

Are you feeling guilt over it, and looking for absolution? IMO, it's an Original Sin deal: we didn't ask for it, and we weren't given a choice.

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

@bri7 I feel the same way. And yet people in this thread are telling me that's somehow different and I still only see the same as you see here.

[sous_mon_masque@eldritch.cafe]

@revoluciana

For me, it is a lot of big or small things.
All grouped under "male privilege".

Nobody told me to not do science studies.

My salary was a in-between, bad for a man, good for a woman. (Now it is woman-range, even when I'm not out at work).

I was sexually assaulted. But only once ?

When I'm at ease, I still talk too much, cutting other women more than they cut me.

So, I don't see all that as a "big single package".

BUT nearly everytime somebody tell me about my supposed "male privilege", it is oppressive AND it is false according to my personnal life..

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

@JoscelynTransient @faithisleaping

You're wonderful (as are you, too Faith). All of what I'm saying is in good faith (no pun intended), and I know yours is, too.

I can see how it would seem like I'm concerned with oppression olympics given the topic, but I assure you that's not my point of concern. My point of concern, oddly enough since you brought it up, is similar to the "male socialization" issue.

The arguments that we have/had male privilege and "male socialization" (which I also am not a proponent of this view), is that these are the basis of the same points that are used by TERFs to deny us our womanhood, to deny us our spaces. It's the same reason why a queer organization won't hire trans women and only hire trans mascs and other AFAB queer people.

These same arguments are all of the reasons why even in so many queer spaces, let alone in the wider world, we are separated and blocked.

Like, it's not about oppression olympics, but again, I can see why it would look that way. It's the practical matter of using the language of original sin in order to lord over us that we'll never be real women (and perhaps more significantly, that we will always be men) because of our privilege and so-called socialization.

I think Julia Serrano explains so many of the effects better in the why are we denied the closet piece: https://juliaserano.medium.com/why-are-amab-trans-people-denied-the-closet-7fd5c740ce30

This is more to the heart of my point.

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

@DuchessOfSnork ill think on that. My gut tells me it's still a problem, but I do think there's something there for me to consider, especially as I did not pass well and it absolutely had consequences.

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

@natasha thank you! I appreciate the discussion, too. I'm worried I'm coming off as combative to some, but I'm truly trying to explore this in good faith. Thank you for this!

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

@KatS Not trying to ignore the rest of what you wrote, but trying to juggle at the moment. The reason it's of concern to me isn't about guilt, but yes, it is about the same original sin that TERFs use to deny us our humanity and our womanhood. The idea that we will always be men because of our male privilege and so-called male socialization. It has practical effects even in queer spaces because we're often not treated not for who we are, but for our perceived original sin.

Julia Serrano has a piece that touches on much of this and the effects:
https://juliaserano.medium.com/why-are-amab-trans-people-denied-the-closet-7fd5c740ce30

[thatfrisiangirlish@blahaj.zone]

@revoluciana@chaosfem.tw Privilege is a hugely nuanced thing to discuss. Pre coming out, I was definitely privileged by being recognized as typical man. When I said something, it was definitely heard; it was assumed I had certain competences. But since I was not a cis man, even if I did not know, keeping up that appearance came at a price that for a long time I wasn't even aware I was paying.
That applies to late diagnosis of neurodivergence, as well, in the form of neurodivergent burnout, when at some point your nervous system simply breaks down under the strain of an internalized mask that you made at the cost of knowing who you are, what you are, and your needs.
It even applies to discovering asexuality - I am not repulsed, but I do not feel any of the things that are assumed to come with sex. So while I can perform the rituals of allosexuality, there was always the sneaking feeling that something was deeply wrong, which did ruin at least one relationship for me.

Being assumed to be part of a privileged group while not being part of that group is ownership of a white elephant: you enjoy the standing that comes with it, but there's a good chance that the upkeep will ruin you sooner or later.

That comes on top of "having privilege" not meaning "being absolutely impervious to certain detriments". Being listened to doesn't mean not being dismissed, just someone taking a moment to dismiss you explicitely. Being seen as functional doesn't mean you are. Being able to have a normal sex life doesn't mean it is.

In the same vein, discrimination doesn't mean someone being explicitely, personally awful to you - your doctor can be personally the most awesome person to you and move mountains, but if they simply don't know aspects of trans specific healthcare because they are not studied, the transphobia in their healthcare is still evident. Inability to spot melanoma in a black person doesn't mean the doctor is racist, but the system that didn't teach them the difference from presentation in white skin is.

[natasha@lgbtqia.space]

@revoluciana there's nothing wrong in being combative. If you want of course.

[thatfrisiangirlish@blahaj.zone]

@revoluciana@chaosfem.tw What I'm getting at is, systems behave differently from individuals. Being privileged doesn't translate cleanly to personal advantages.

[deirdre@corteximplant.com]

@revoluciana it’s both, all of the above

like i get what you mean, and in particular it’s a tough thing to address because 99% of the conversations around it are either bad-faith or ignorant. and i think calling it “male privilege” is a deep misrepresentation, we desperately need a better term. because yeah, i don’t think a lot of pre-transition transfems actually have access to what we typically think of as “male privilege”—at the very least not to the same degree as average cis men.

BUT, for 37 years i never had to worry about walking alone at night. never had to worry about ordering food delivery and getting a creep delivery guy. didn’t think about people putting things in my drinks. didn’t text my friends to let them know my date didn’t murder me. never got catcalled. never got grabbed. never owned pepper spray or thought about self-defense training. and i didn’t have to start thinking about any of this as a literal child the way a lot of cis women are forced to.

are our pre-transition lives, on the whole, privileged as a result of our presumed gender? no, i don’t think so. but do we have access to specific privilege in specific contexts as a result of our perceived gender? well, yeah, and i don’t really see any other way to view it. like, all the pain and trauma and shit that we go through as a result of growing up in cisnormativity, yeah that’s demonstrably extremely harmful…but i just don’t buy that the violence we are exempted from is a form of violence against us.

and despite that our pre-transition lives are generally not marked by a net positive of privilege, i think it’s *really* important to acknowledge and examine and critique the specific ways we do access privilege during that part of our lives. failure to do so leaves us ill-equipped to examine other kinds of privilege and oppression.

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

@deirdre Thank you for this. This is probably the best explanation to at least get me much closer to seeing this perspective in a much clearer light, even if I'm still trying to sort through it.

Part of me is wondering if Mulan was experiencing male privilege when she went off to war.

Or, because of the work I've been a part of, I often come back to this: if the Afghan girls who pose as boys, in all aspects of life, so that the women in their family have an escort in public just so they can go to the market without being murdered by the Taliban (it's illegal to do so without a male chaperone, even if that chaperone is a child), if these girls are experiencing male privilege. They're forced into posing for survival, but if they're found out, it's dangerous. Is it male privilege for a cis girl to pretend to be a boy, to "live as a boy", to survive under the threat of the Taliban, and to also worry about getting caught? I can't with a straight face call this privilege (let alone male privilege), only survival.

[deirdre@corteximplant.com]

@revoluciana @JoscelynTransient @faithisleaping see, this feels like a totally separate topic—related but separate. because this feels less about whether or not we actually experience pre-transition gender privilege (tricky and nuanced!) and a lot more about how the perception of male privilege is weaponized against us by bigots (simple and straightforward!) and the tactics we might use to mitigate.

also, i would need to reread that particular article to comment more specifically on it, but to be perfectly honest i don’t think serrano has very good takes on this general area of trans discourse.

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

@deirdre @JoscelynTransient @faithisleaping

I think all of that is fair, including about Serrano (I also don't agree with everything in this particular piece of hers, but I think that she makes a lot of really good points that are germane to this discussion).

And maybe I need to see if I can separate these things, like you say. It's possible that they're separate, but it's difficult because the *only* time I have ever seen the so-called male privilege of trans women brought up is to weaponizen it against us in order to call us men and deny our womanhood or even proximity to it. I don't think there's any other situation I've ever seen where it's ever been relevant to anything except as a cudgel against us.

I'll see what I can do to parse it out because you do have a point. I am not sure if it can be parsed or not. It's tangly if nothing else.

[revoluciana@chaosfem.tw]

Do Bacha Posh have male privilege?

Bacha Posh are Afghan girls who are *forced* to act and "live as" boys for the sake of her family, to act as an escort for the women in her family, to access education, to keep her family from starving, and other variety of reasons.

If she is forced to do this against her will in order to access the privilege only given to men, or even for survival, then does that automatically mean she has male privilege?

[elight@tenforward.social]

@revoluciana @pathfinder to be clear, not a negation. Forming a second theory by leveraging your first.

I read this and I can see substituting "autistics" for "trans women" and "unmasking" for "coming out" and it reads just as true. Many of us have similarly struggled to live in this world that was not built for us.

[cordiallychloe@tech.lgbt]

@revoluciana @KatS

Reading the first couple paragraphs of this article, I realized I actually saw that happen.

On the newest season of The Traitors, one of the guys tells another guy he's a "really good actor" (in a snide way). The other guy actually had just gone through a whole scandal bc he was engaged to a woman and then cheated on her with a man before eventually publicly coming out as gay.

The man had been in the closet his whole life. And he shot right back about it to shut the first guy down.

Everyone in that moment recognized what an awful thing the suggestion was; that he was "acting" and "privileged" for being able to "pretend" for so long.

Fascinating to see on TV.