trans-androgyne:
To any trans man who needs to hear this: When they say they “hate all men” or want to “kill all men,” you don’t have to just accept that. It’s okay to feel hurt, it’s okay to feel unsafe. It’s okay to recognize that they are either othering your manhood or demonizing you for it, and to call them out for it if you’re in a position to. If they have trauma around men, they can work on that in private instead of expressing harmful sentiments around their marginalized male friends. You deserve love and safety. I love you and I hope I can help you feel safe.
Hey, I’m one of the people on the other side who struggles with these feelings thanks to trauma. I don’t think I’ve ever actually gone far enough with my speech in public or private spaces to make anyone feel bad for being or identifying as masculine, but if I have then I’m sorry.
I just caught a post saying that transandrophobia is a real thing, and the same post was calling out my fear of men in other ways, so I decided to click on the transandrophobia tag to educate myself and I have definitely seen a lot of real examples of a very real thing. Stuff like being wrongly perceived as more angry because of T, or being perceived as dangerous. The biggest one for me was the tendency for queer spaces and friends to disconnect from or even ostracize transmascs that they used to welcome because they’re perceived more as predators the more comfortable they get in their masculinity. That one, I hadn’t really thought about, but it is so extremely easy for me to believe at face value because I have gotten weird and I have drifted so extremely close to becoming one of the people who perpetuate that exact problem. And that breaks my heart.
It’s hard sometimes, because I’m so used to being treated poorly by masculinity. The men I’ve gotten to know so far in my life have had a habit of dehumanizing me, whether they saw me, a transfem, as a pleasure drone to manipulate and control or as a fellow man to bully and be rowdy with, and at this point both of those forms of treatment send me straight to a very dark place where I want one of us to die.
But in some ways I’ve allowed that trauma to narrow and crystallize my views on masculinity, including trans men. And that’s not OK of me. That’s weird of me. I got jarred by that post calling me out because I’ve literally said to another transfem (who is probably reading this reblog, hi) in conversation that transmisandry isn’t really a thing. And now that kinda makes me cringe to hear from my past self. That was not OK of me.
So I’m gonna think harder about all this before I say anything about masculinity again in a way that could hurt someone or ripple out negatively. I’m sorry if I’ve already made a mistake in that way that’s done any damage, though I hope I haven’t.
The issue of men and masculinity being ostracized out of queer and feminine spaces, or just not let in in the first place, is something I really want to help work on, because it hurts women too.
It’s why I had to teach myself my first lessons in femininity from scratch for most of my life in order to finally become equivalent in gender maturity to a 10 year old and hatch as transfem at age 27. Because for a very long time, literally zero feminine or queer people had given me the tiniest chance to be let into their world and taught their ways. To be let into my own world and taught my own ways. I had to observe from a distance and teach myself enough to speak the secret codes that convince only the most open minded of women and queer folks that I’m one of us and not a predator, when the burden of proof should never have been placed on me in the first place because I was a child. To this day there is so much trauma and behavior that I completely don’t want that I’m having to manually unlearn that I would’ve never had if I’d been let in back when I was physically a child.
All of the same things that will protect future generations of transfems from the pain and trauma I suffered will also protect transmascs from this ostracization as they become their authentic selves. It’s divine work for all trans people. I’ve already been practicing it in my own life just by continuing to push myself to be open, but it’s time to preach it now.
It’s time to welcome men who have not specifically and individually proven themselves to be abusive into queer and feminine spaces so that they can be in community with us and learn more about themselves. Stop the ostracization!
You have no idea what it means to me that you’re working on your relationship to masculinity and masculine people. Many folks are blinded by their pain and put it all on people who may look like those who have hurt them, and don’t realize how many people they’re hurting in turn. I hope your story is able to resonate with people. Thank you so much.
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