If you have to do or participate in something in order to survive, it's not a privilege, right?
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I'm going to go to sleep now and mull over this some more tomorrow.
Thank you to everyone trying to help me see what I don't see and/or engaging with what I do see.
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..
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@revoluciana @faithisleaping there is actually a really nuanced exploration of this topic I’ve wanted to do, but been wary to put in public writing because of how heated people get around this, and how quickly people assume the worst about a person allowing for any room to talk about “male socialization” or “male privilege” in trans women’s lives.
If I’m honest about myself, there are ways I am very confident male privilege and being “socialized male” shaped me and my life in important ways, some mostly beneficial (though some deeply costly). But it also didn’t operate the way that many people probably assume, and it often wasn’t a cost/benefit proposition, but rather a thing that shapes behavior and life patterns.
Anyway, I should go to bed rather than disk horsing. Sorry for probably being messy and careless with some words here@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.
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@revoluciana Is calling it "male passing privilege" better? I passed as a guy for a long time. Long enough and well enough that I still struggle with imposter syndrome as a trans woman.
Because I passed, I didn't get bullied in high school, was able to pursue a male-coded career without harassment, and live a relatively comfortable life. I think the extent of these things are because I have "male-passing privilege".
Is there a price? Oh yes. But I see it as separate from the benefits.
@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.
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@revoluciana I see your point and I think I agree.
Another thing that proves the point is that trans persons are ready to give up on their socially acquired priviledges to be themselves.
As I use to say - I'd never take an hypotetetic pill that could transform me in a cis men, that could help me have all the cis priviledges. It's not about privileges.
And thanks for this discussion, I liked to be a part of it
@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!
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@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.
@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 -
If you have to do or participate in something in order to survive, it's not a privilege, right? It can't possibly be? I feel like we've already established this. Am I wrong?
@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 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 there's nothing wrong in being combative. If you want of course.
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@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.@revoluciana@chaosfem.tw What I'm getting at is, systems behave differently from individuals. Being privileged doesn't translate cleanly to personal advantages.
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I know people are trying to explain something to me with nuance, and I'm truly not trying to be a jerk, but all I keep hearing is that the violence we experience as trans women is actually privilege. But not just any privilege, but specifically male privilege. Because we are men. Or at least because people think we are. Which is its own privilege. And we should be so privileged to live through this violence in order to get *benefits* that make our lives easier (at this point we disregard the violence).
I'm just not buying it. Having the effects of our literal torture, self sacrifice, and violence called privilege is just not making its way to me.
@revoluciana
it’s both, all of the abovelike 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.
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@revoluciana
it’s both, all of the abovelike 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.
@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.
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@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 @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.
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@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.
@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.
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In reply to the question of privilege:
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?
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Here's what I'm getting at.
Trans women don't experience male privilege before coming out. It's not a privilege if you have to sacrifice everything you are in order to obtain it. And in the case of trans women, we don't even sacrifice who we are in order to obtain male privilege, we do it just to survive. I'm having such a difficult time believing it's privilege when it's bought and paid for, especially at such a high price.
@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.
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@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-7fd5c740ce30Reading 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.
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@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.
Goddamn. As an autistic girl, yes, I definitely agree.
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Goddamn. As an autistic girl, yes, I definitely agree.
@revoluciana @pathfinder I guess you read what I meant. "Unmasking" for "coming out".
ADHD error crept in.
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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.
@CordiallyChloe @KatS oh wow. That's. Oof. I don't watch the show but I'm interested in seeing the exchange. Do you remember which episode (and maybe what platform?)
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@revoluciana @pathfinder I guess you read what I meant. "Unmasking" for "coming out".
ADHD error crept in.
️Haha, yes. I understood what you meant just glancing when I saw the words autistic and unmasking.
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@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.
@JoscelynTransient @faithisleaping
Btw, Joscelyn, I absolutely know you have far more grounding in social theory than me and I hope you don't feel invalidated or concerned about my feelings or exploration. All the above from my end I want to be sure to acknowledge to you is out of respect for the fact that this is not my background. Mine is more related to power dynamics in other sorts of contexts, so I apply an outside knowledge to this particular context, and it can get messy when I do. I absolutely appreciate you and your perspective, and I wouldn't have posted if I didn't want people with your insight and expertise to help educate me. Even if my ability to absorb it is a bit thick. But I'm posting specifically *because* I don't see what see, and I want to better understand.
I just wanted to say that because I think based on your language, you might feel like I might not be receptive to what you have to say or that I would be upset by it.
And honestly, the IRL conversation last night was not helped by inebriation, and it was very heated, and the IRL conversation very much made me feel invalidated, so some of what I was posting was trying to help sort out an IRL mess that I was dealing with because my mental and emotional load couldn't carry it.
All that is to say, I appreciate you, friend.
