Trans-Masc Tuesday is a new column by activist and Twitch streamer Alex Maguire. Follow him on Twitch and Twitter.
Trans Masculine people have been largely overlooked by both the Gender Critical (GC) and Trans Activism communities. For the GCs we’re largely inconvenient because our existence challenges their biases. For Trans Activists and Allies, we’re just not as frequently targeted or represented.
Transfemmes get painted as predators, and we all know this. We’ve seen it. Trans-Mascs however, don’t. We get something altogether different. Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier discusses it from a GC perspective (ew). It uses all the anti-trans tropes including “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”, which isn’t actually a thing that exists, but supposedly targets teenage Trans-Mascs that aren’t out yet or have yet to realise they’re trans.
Shrier et-al hypothesise that the only reason a Teenage “Girl” would want to start the transition process, is to escape Misogyny. Though, with enough thought and examination into their arguments, that’s clearly bullshit. Why would we try to “escape” misogyny in favour of toxic masculinity, the difficulty of male puberty, and many other issues?
Well, we wouldn’t. There’s no utility. Being a short dude, like most Trans Mascs are, is from my experience, just as likely to have us infantalised as cis-women, especially when you take the “Soft Trans Boy UwU” stereotype into account.
Additionally, the GC movement argues that any Trans-Masculine person who transitions does so due to social pressure because we’re all actually lesbians who are heavily shamed for being gay!
My existence debunks this argument in and of itself. Dude, I’m fucking gay. I like dick. I only like dick. Before Testosterone, I actually identified as Bi/Pan. I only stopped being attracted to women after my hormone level change.
I bet by now, you’re all wondering where I’m going with this. Let me tell you. It’s not just the GCs we struggle with. Our cis friends who are allies will almost perpetually refer to us as “cute” (again, soft boy stereotype), our physical capabilities are constantly called into question (a hold over of the Misogyny), our cis-male colleagues will push their own version of masculinity on us, and our sexualities are constantly in doubt. You’ll even find some trans-medicalist and trans-med adjacent people claim that we don’t count because we don’t feel or receive the same levels of discrimination as Trans-Femmes.
We are here. We are affected too. We struggle too. We get just as much shit, it’s just framed differently. Please, stop excluding us from the conversation. We’re having our rights taken too.
Reach out to us on Twitter if you have ideas for any future episode focuses and if you are a Trans-Masc with a particular you struggle that you think you can’t possibly be alone in, please, reach out with that too!
