If you have to do or participate in something in order to survive, it's not a privilege, right?
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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 I think it is necessary to separate out the male privilege from the lack of privilege from being transgender. It is not an either or - you can suffer greatly being "a man" but you can still have male privilege.
Will you suffer more misogyny as a man or a woman? You have privilege in not suffering that as a man - even if you are cosplaying the role. So being a man has a level of privilege.
Remember here we are talking about what society perceives you as not what you feel necessarily.
It doesn't matter that it makes you feel bad in other ways. We are the SUM of all our privileges.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@revoluciana If someone wanted to run a feminist space focusing solely on a specific perspective that would be an act of exclusivity that could produce productive conversations only if it then confers with and integrates other feminist views, and, does not gatekeep Feminism. Feminism includes a lot, is not its parts, it is its whole. That is what it means to be Holistic and Intersectional
@revoluciana What bothers me and many others is the tendency in feminist spaces to consider male / female or women / men along the binary dichotomy, that is Cisgender Privilege in the sense that to be able to only ever think in that binary one has to have never been challenged by it or have agreed to it despite its conditionality. And it is especially harmful to be denied consideration as male / female or women / men when someone has it as part of their experience. Spaces like these are inherently exclusionary and non-intersectional. They perpetuate harms that Feminism is meant to counter
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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 does anyone have privilege then, by that reasoning? The men trapped by the patriarchy, forced to play the role of a modern "alpha" male? Just like us, they too have to suppress part of who they are, just to a lesser extent.
I moved through the world, where presenting male (if only weakly) made doors open that I'm far less sure they would these days. That was a privilege, as far as I see it, now that I finally see it. Privilege, albeit at a wretched cost.
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@faithisleaping absolutely intersectional and agreed on all of this except for the part here where some aspect was improved because of supposed male privilege, but the point is that you aren't a man, you paid for that so-called privilege through sacrifice.
If a cis woman sacrificed in order to get the same thing, we wouldn't say that she was experiencing male privilege. We would say she sacrificed to get it. Trans women have to sacrifice who they are in order to get so called privilege. But we don't say that she sacrificed, we say that she had male privilege.
Because it's not afforded to her because she's male, it's afforded to her because of the sacrifices that she made in order to be perceived as male, to be acceptable within that context, even if only for survival.
@revoluciana @faithisleaping the way privilege is being talked about here…this might be blunt but it sounds like the way teenagers on tumblr talk about social theory. That privilege is this singular thing that a person possesses based upon identity. That’s not really how I approach thinking about this stuff as someone who has been a social scientist and an activist, I guess?
Okay, let me frame it this way: it feels like you’re still playing the game of oppression Olympics and hierarchies of privilege like someone gets +5 social points or something. That is, if we continue to argue with people arguing things about privilege from this framing and argue on their grounds. This is a disastrous and wrongheaded framing…it’s like so incorrect it’s not even wrong, kind of framing and I would want to take this to a different field of discourse if I was talking to someone insisting that trans women have or had male privilege and thus are more privileged than cis women or shouldn’t be given space in community gatherings or something.
Let me circle around in the morning when I’m better able to articulate some examples, but I would always suggest trying to situate social theories in something more concrete and think about something like privilege as a process or something that is done, where power flows through people and our social relations. And to understand identity as not something one has but something that exists in relation to others.
What happens if you are assigned male at birth but are constantly perceived as falling short or unable to perform the role expected? How is that actively challenged and punished by others? How does a child habituate themselves in order to navigate that?
We can line this up with outcomes in certain ways. Like, trans women have generally experienced sexual harassment or assault *before* transition at higher rates than their cis men peers. This is likely because we often aren’t actually fully seen as or treated as full men even before we realize it.
Other things can be more nuanced and complicated, like income. Many trans women have incomes similar to cis men peers before transition, but there are many who don’t. In fact, the psychological costs on trans women before transition means there are a lot of people who wind up disabled or unable to work normal jobs. Many of us also lag behind cis men peers in our careers for the same reasons. And after transition, we have steep declines in income and job security.
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@revoluciana @faithisleaping the way privilege is being talked about here…this might be blunt but it sounds like the way teenagers on tumblr talk about social theory. That privilege is this singular thing that a person possesses based upon identity. That’s not really how I approach thinking about this stuff as someone who has been a social scientist and an activist, I guess?
Okay, let me frame it this way: it feels like you’re still playing the game of oppression Olympics and hierarchies of privilege like someone gets +5 social points or something. That is, if we continue to argue with people arguing things about privilege from this framing and argue on their grounds. This is a disastrous and wrongheaded framing…it’s like so incorrect it’s not even wrong, kind of framing and I would want to take this to a different field of discourse if I was talking to someone insisting that trans women have or had male privilege and thus are more privileged than cis women or shouldn’t be given space in community gatherings or something.
Let me circle around in the morning when I’m better able to articulate some examples, but I would always suggest trying to situate social theories in something more concrete and think about something like privilege as a process or something that is done, where power flows through people and our social relations. And to understand identity as not something one has but something that exists in relation to others.
What happens if you are assigned male at birth but are constantly perceived as falling short or unable to perform the role expected? How is that actively challenged and punished by others? How does a child habituate themselves in order to navigate that?
We can line this up with outcomes in certain ways. Like, trans women have generally experienced sexual harassment or assault *before* transition at higher rates than their cis men peers. This is likely because we often aren’t actually fully seen as or treated as full men even before we realize it.
Other things can be more nuanced and complicated, like income. Many trans women have incomes similar to cis men peers before transition, but there are many who don’t. In fact, the psychological costs on trans women before transition means there are a lot of people who wind up disabled or unable to work normal jobs. Many of us also lag behind cis men peers in our careers for the same reasons. And after transition, we have steep declines in income and job security.
@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 -
@revoluciana Broadly speaking, no, pre-transition trans women do not have male privilege, at least not in the way cis white men do.
But also, white privileged, male privilege, passing privilege and things of that nature are instantaneous and situational. You may have some boost in one context in one moment and be abused for who you are in the next. Are there aspects of my life which were improved by a couple decades of people taking me more seriously because they thought I was a white dude? Yes. Am I now spending all that money on therapy because I’m so fucked up from what playing that role cost me? Also yes.
I don’t really think it’s a binary thing that you have or don’t. It’s intersectional.
@faithisleaping came here to say, well, basically exactly what you did.
I feel I had some privileges that the cis women around me didn't, in certain situations. They also had privileges that I, a closeted trans woman, didn't.Similarly, since coming out and transitioning I've noticed a complex shift of privileges. On the whole tho I feel that the primary privilege I gained— of living as my authentic self— is more fundamental and valuable to me than all the ones I've lost by moving thru life as a woman.
@revoluciana -
@faithisleaping came here to say, well, basically exactly what you did.
I feel I had some privileges that the cis women around me didn't, in certain situations. They also had privileges that I, a closeted trans woman, didn't.Similarly, since coming out and transitioning I've noticed a complex shift of privileges. On the whole tho I feel that the primary privilege I gained— of living as my authentic self— is more fundamental and valuable to me than all the ones I've lost by moving thru life as a woman.
@revoluciana@Tattie
> They also had privileges that I, a closeted trans woman, didn't.I'm curious, can you give an example?
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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 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.
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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.
@revoluciana Let me clear, though. I am only talking about my own self and my own life. I'm not trying to argue one way or the other.
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@natasha (to be clear, none of what I have been saying is meant as oppositional to the experience of trans men or to invalidate their experiences in any way)
To your point, regardless of enjoyment, you kind of make my own point: it was made easier by *presenting* male. It's only through the sacrifice of self that made it possible. These things aren't afforded to trans women because of who they are, but because of the pain and punishment they have endured in order to survive. How can it be privilege if it's paid for through sacrifice of self?
Which is not to say that other forms of intersectional privilege don't exist. A white trans woman still has white privilege that's afforded to her because of her whiteness.
But a trans woman has male privilege because of what? Her male-ness? That doesn't sit right.
If a person of color has to code switch to get work among white people, I have a hard time believing that they're experiencing white privilege. They're not white-- they're being forced to perform whiteness.
Likewise, trans women who perform the part of a man for survival are not experiencing male privilege. They're not male-- they're performing maleness.
@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
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@Tattie
> They also had privileges that I, a closeted trans woman, didn't.I'm curious, can you give an example?
@low Not sure if it's the same as @Tattie had in her mind, but being able to form "normal" friendship with women would immediately come to my mind and not landing in such an awkward social spot for decades.
@faithisleaping @revoluciana -
@Tattie
> They also had privileges that I, a closeted trans woman, didn't.I'm curious, can you give an example?
@low ok, an example: I was very much a slob; untidy and poorly dressed. It wasn't a choice, but an outcome of my deep shame at how I was going thru life.
This wasn't conducive to a good social or romantic life.
@faithisleaping @revoluciana -
@low Not sure if it's the same as @Tattie had in her mind, but being able to form "normal" friendship with women would immediately come to my mind and not landing in such an awkward social spot for decades.
@faithisleaping @revoluciana@doppelgrau thank you @Tattie and @doppelgrau for your answers.
I think I need to rethink the privileges topic.
For me it was always "you look like/are i.e. white male => you have certain privileges", even if they come with downsides.Which is, at least how I understand it, what
@faithisleaping has written. -
@low ok, an example: I was very much a slob; untidy and poorly dressed. It wasn't a choice, but an outcome of my deep shame at how I was going thru life.
This wasn't conducive to a good social or romantic life.
@faithisleaping @revoluciana@Tattie eh, I wanted to answer here instead of there: https://lgbtqia.space/@low/116526654882298885
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@low ok, an example: I was very much a slob; untidy and poorly dressed. It wasn't a choice, but an outcome of my deep shame at how I was going thru life.
This wasn't conducive to a good social or romantic life.
@faithisleaping @revoluciana@Tattie
Quite common sympthom I'd say (yes I surrender, my most horrible lazy men clothes were the norm) and I dress a lot better today. -
@doppelgrau thank you @Tattie and @doppelgrau for your answers.
I think I need to rethink the privileges topic.
For me it was always "you look like/are i.e. white male => you have certain privileges", even if they come with downsides.Which is, at least how I understand it, what
@faithisleaping has written.@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 -
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 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?
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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 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"...
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@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?
@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.
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@revoluciana i just feel like it’s the final word: do people go around asking gay people how great all that straight passing privilege was?
@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.
