I’ve
a friend, he has the soul of a poet, the heart of a soldier, the eyes of a journalist,
the mind of a pragmatist and unfortunately in his case the body of a woman. Under
the skin, and in his head, he knows he’s a man, no matter what his chromosomes
have to say about it.
When
he first confided in me that he was, in fact, a man, and he asked me for my
advice and what to expect (Mostly about man-things rather than trans-things as
you will all have to appreciate I have no experience of the latter). I thought
for a few moments about what would be the most important thing and then I said “get
ready to learn that nobody cares about you, or your problems.”)(1) Cynical I know,
but our conversation moved onto other things and life continued.
A
few months later and we’re still in touch, we meet up every now and then for
coffee (0) and discuss comics, role-play, geekdom, cosplay, life in general,
gender politics and trans issues. He
will often express his frustration that
in their trans community, Transmen are often ignored, marginalized, or outright
dismissed when they raise their voices and he found it teeth-grindingly frustrating,
that invariably with the constant lack of community and support many often end
up suffering alone. I just wearily sighed
and reminded him of the conversation we had the very first time he asked about
being a man, but I considered this phenomenon, and decide to expand on it a
little.
Here’s
a nice fact for you: parents will respond slower, and spend less time
comforting, a crying baby boy, then they would a crying baby girl. It’s not out
of malice or even casual cruelty; it’s simply the way things are. Little boys
are raised with the unwritten rule of “Suck it up” whereas little girls of
course have all their feelings validated (Bar one (2)). As little boys grow up
they are fed a steady stream of information to prepare them to be stoic, independent,
quiet and productive. “Women and Children First” is not just in lifeboats. Of course with these expectations come
rewards, people often comment that men are assumed to be competent, whereas
women often feel they must somehow “prove it”, men are assumed to be “collected”
whereas women are “emotional” and so on. Shallow thinkers will just assume this
is sexism and the boogyman of “the patriarchy” and undoubtedly sexism does play
a role (especially in older generations) but essentially it boils down to this.
Society knows men have been training their entire lives to know that their
self-worth is tied to how well they can produce, provide and perform. In an
evolutionary sense, to have value a woman simply has to be, a man must provide.
As so while that may be a brutal burden to bear, the upside of this gender role
is that people assume that they can
produce, provide and perform, until demonstrated otherwise. When Transmen enter the meat-and-two-veg side
of the gender binary(3) they suddenly discover that nobody cares about their
problems any more like they did when they were women, they expect them to be stoic,
dependable, productive and of course, put women and children first. If they
refuse, or they argue that they need to put themselves first in this very
difficult time in their lives then they
are told they are not “real” (a real “what” depends on how much of a jerk the
person is being, real man, real trans, real human etc…)
If
you’ll forgive the sweeping generalizations this is often the by-product of a
casual distain of men in trans communities. Words like “Toxic Masculinity” and “Patriarchy”
and “Male Gaze” and of course, my favourite “Cis white Male”(4) are tossed
around like they are the answer to very complex and varied social problems. And
while “I’m not sexist! I have a lot of boyfriends/guy friends!” will of course
be the safety net of many, that’s gonna hold water about as well as I do after
my fifth coffee. Of course, you can’t get around the fact that physical persecution
for Trans folk often comes wearing a male face, so it’s easy to hate it right
back and empower yourself with that hatred. But this often ignores that women classically don’t get violent when they want to hurt somebody, but that isn’t to say they
aren’t aggressive, passive workplace bullying, online abuse, anonymous letters,
theft or destruction of property, or good old fashioned malicious gossip are
the weapons of choice in this case, but of course nobody dies from that, they
mostly just kill themselves instead. Nobody chalks that one up to “Toxic femininity”
because that would make you a blatant misogynist.
So evolutionarily,
socially and gender-politically, this leaves trans men out in the cold. They’ve
“sold out” their female privilege only to discover that the best parts about
being a man may be denied to them (Depending on how well they pass) but the
worst parts are still there. When they speak out, they’re seen as either “failed
men” or “whiney losers” depending (again) on who knows if they are trans or not
and how much of a callous dick-blister they are.
At
best, they may be told hey need to “man up”… which is sad and ironic when you
think about it.
(0)A source of endless frustration for him I am sure, as
they like a beer or two and I don’t drink.
(1)Actually I said “Nobody gives a fuck about you.” But I
try not to needlessly swear on my blog.
(2) Anger: Little girls are not allowed to be angry, but unfortunately
these days neither are boys. In a school system primarily run by women there is
no room for competitiveness, horseplay, or ways to productively channel
aggression. Boys are the new “defective” girls, and people wonder why they
constantly underperform.
(3) I’m aware I have just triggered half of tumbler by
saying those two words. My advice to those people is: “Deal with it.”
(4) Must be said as a normal person might say “Serial
Child Rapist”
