A great piece by Julia Serano on āmale socializationā, and misunderstandings about transmisogyny.
A quick and simple check for a lot of these things is ādoes this happen to trans people of the other gender anywhere near the same quantity or problem?ā
The answer is often no or in an obviously lesser way.
Because more often than not the problem isnāt whatever issue is being raised, but actually the issue of āmenā giving up their male privilege in society, and that being perceived as a threat to patriarchy. Itās the same reason gay men received more pushback than gay women (not saying thereās none at all for gay women but itās quite different). Itās simply viewed as less problematic for a woman to seek more power (being a man) vs for someone to go the other direction. It receives quite different behaviour.
Trans women get targeted disproportionately with disingenuous arguments like āmale socialisationā, among other things, for this reason.
Probably preaching to the choir saying this in this sub but potential lurkers etc.
does this happen to trans people of the other gender
What āother genderā? Youāre aware that us nonbinary people exist and that we make up roughly half of the populations youāre talking about here, right?
Of course I do but explicitly talking about them doesnāt change much materially here. Theyāre treated as not existing under patriarchy so if you exchange femme-presenting or masc-presenting for gender vs birth assignment it all fits fine.
I get that you canāt talk about a binary normative system without recognizing that thereās a reification of a binary happening that materially affects people, but idk, i just really fucking hate the term āopposite sexā or āopposite genderā. Iām sorry to get argumentative about that, i know that people here are more or less on the same page, but i really think itās good if we just phase that term out of use and be mindful of not re-introducing binary reasonings when we discuss trans issues. Like you said, itās probably worth typing some things out just for the people who are only reading along.
So letās say that yes, ofc patriarchy doesnāt give a fuck if people are nonbinary. Because clearly, it doesnāt. Even then, trans and nonbinary gender presentation still subverts and breaks these distinctions down in practice because it means we so often do not neatly fit into these two boxes anymore, whether thatās intentional or not. What about people who are genderfluid or about pluralities who include personalities of different genders in the same body and reflect that in their presentation? What about people who do not want to be either femme or masc presenting at all because they are agender or greygender or xenogender? Even for nonbinary people like me who are clearly and consistently aligned towards one of the binary genders, i donāt think it really works in all cases. Some people clock me as trans, to some i pass as a butch cis woman, some are absolutely convinced to see me as a gay man, some just get a stack overflow error when they try to read my gender. Idk how i do that, but these are things that happen to me regularly, theyāre just part of my life. Less often now as i progress in my transition, but itās still not always a clear picture and probably never will be, because the better i pass, the more liberties i take with queering femininity, being more butch and enjoying androgynity. And this uncertainty that we give people affects how we experience gender-based discrimination - when people read me as feminine, they are more likely to violate my boundaries and touch me without asking, they are less likely to take me seriously, they are more likely to start making unsolicited sexual advances. When they read me as trans, they act extra weird in ways they donāt when they read me as cis. When they read me as a queer man, iām subjected to an entirely different set of prejudices and get completely different kinds of stares (iāve come to tell apart a very large number of unique stares from āi want to punch himā to āshe canāt wear thatā to āomg i canāt make up my mind if i would fuck themā). And that goes for a lot of trans people, because passing isnāt this reliable either-or thing for many people, but highly dependent on whoās looking. Like, the entire TME/TMA discourse, that doesnāt work for a large number of the AFAB trans people i know because theyāre usually or at least frequently read as and misgendered as women and are regularly subjected to the full gamut of mysogyny, and when they say they are trans, that quickly shifts into transmysogyny because people have this ātrans = trans womanā assumption. At the same time, they are also confronted with the host of transmisandrist stereotypes like āyou just want male privilegeā, āare you sure this isnāt a phase, iāve also really struggled with being a girl when i was youngerā, ādonāt you want to have kids at some point, is it really necessary that you medically transition when you can just live as a masculine womanā, āyouāre so pretty, do you really want to ruin that with hormones and surgeryā and so on. Thereās often no either / or of what kind of transphobia AFAB trans people receive. To me, it seems to generally be a pretty big part of the trans experience that we confuse and overwhelm people just by existing, that the way we live our lives make the gender binary ache under its internal contradictions and that is reflected in the weird and unpredictable ways in which we are treated.
And honestly, what is āopposite genderā even supposed to mean in my case? Iām a nonbinary trans woman, according to your line of thought the opposite of that is a nonbinary trans man. And that works in a lot of ways - when i talk about dysphoria with nonbinary trans men, their triggers tend to be the polar opposites of mine, for example. And a lot of their other experiences are like mirror images of mine, too. But then, we also share that weāre both trans, that weāre both nonbinary, that we are both trans and nonbinary and in spite of being nonbinary claim a term for a binary gender for ourselves, and that means that a lot of our experiences are not the opposite, but the exact same. We face the same transmedical ideas about not actually being our gender before bottom surgery, we both get impostor syndrome and ask ourselves if weāre even allowed to call ourselves nonbinary and so on. So under that perspective, when i try to find the opposite gender for ALL of my mentioned labels, that polar opposite of my gender would be binary cis man. And yeah, i can get behind that, thatās very unlike me in all the ways possible. But it also is supposed to be the opposite gender of binary cis woman, and then we have the inverse of all the things i just got into, that binary cis men and binary cis women take up opposite ends of the binary cisnormative spectrum, but have all these aspects of binary and cis privilege in common. And you could argue that binary trans woman is in some ways an opposite gender to mine, or that binary cis woman is, or that these two are opposite genders to each other and so on and so forth. Framing things in a way were genders have just one opposite just doesnāt strike me as particularly productive when i get into the day to day experiences in the communities iām active in.
I get that you canāt talk about a binary normative system without recognizing that thereās a reification of a binary happening that materially affects people, but idk, i just really fucking hate the term āopposite sexā or āopposite genderā. Iām sorry to get argumentative about that, i know that people here are more or less on the same page, but i really think itās good if we just phase that term out of use and be mindful of not re-introducing binary reasonings when we discuss trans issues. Like you said, itās probably worth typing some things out just for the people who are only reading along.
Fair. I agree.
I also donāt really disagree with the rest either, the problem is that itās not very conversational to write too much, and that necessitates generalisations with the expectation that people reading will understand theyāre only generalisations to make communication easier. I could individually go through each and every single difference on the spectrum of gender for inclusivity but what Iād end up with is an absolutely enormous wall of text that ends up communicating less effectively because fewer people engage with it. On the offchance this is misinterpreted I want to emphasise this is not a dig, I do not mind reading large amounts of text, Iām just explaining why I try not do it.
Whipping girl is also a great read!
I still need to read this articleā¦ Itās good to see Serano posted here
I just found it last night when I realized iām not following her on any media.
Also found out thereās a new edition of Whipping Girl coming out.
oh neat!
Interesting read, one thing id like to address is toxic masculinity in relation to term āmale socializationā though my own exp and friends. Iād often find myself gravitating to stereotypical toxic masculine behaviors and actions I saw in movies, TV, friends and family in an attempt to blend in and adhear to gender stereotypes. Most of the time when I would do a toxic masc behavior id be met by praise from my male friends and relatives creating a really fucked up feedback loop. Idk if Id say it was solely fear pushing me in that direction like the author describes it, imo it was part of it but definitely multifaceted.
Eventually after a lot of reading and self crit I attempted to socially transition and had to confront a lot of learned behaviors, some of them being almost subconscious displays of toxic masculinity. I was called out by my friends about how X or Z was due to my āmale socializationā it always rubbed me the wrong way and I would often dismiss them. It took even more introspection, discussions and reading to identify what they where referring to and more often then not it was toxic masc shit I brought with me after social transition. All of this took years to figure out and come to terms with but I donāt think I truly grasped how fucked all this was until I saw this same behavior again and again in some of our trans peers.
I do agree that the term āmale socializationā is used by our critics as a way to dismiss who we are thorough this concept of poisoning the well. I donāt agree the terms āmale socialization or energy,ā serve only one purpose when used by our friends or family. Personally I see nothing wrong with male/female/non binary/ etc socialization or energy as I try my best to not assign any form of gender as inherently bad or good.
why use the terms āmale socializationā or āmale energyā (second one seems extremely invalidating, too) when you can just say āleftovers of ingrained toxic masculinityā or ātoxic masculinityā and have it be more specific
Why did I use them? As a direct quote of friends and family and to directly quote the article.
No, i mean in general. Why would you use it in everyday conversation? I understand using it here, because itāsā¦ the subject of the post
I donāt use either term in everyday conversations. In general, I am more forgiving with my friends and familyās terms or lack of understanding.
Yeah, thatās a big part of this that terfs have completely refused to acknowledge for several decades now: Gender is performative. As in, you have to actively uphold it through your behavior and you subconsciously do that because you want to be seen in a certain way. Toxic masculinity is maintained by the feedback loops youāre describing, men keep acting that way because they want to be seen as men by others and transfem eggs keep acting that way because theyāve been led to believe they want to be seen that way by others. For the eggs, this has one big advantage that makes it a lot easier than for men to stop engaging in toxic masculinity: At some point during our cracking, we realize that we do not want to be seen as men anymore, that in fact this is something we want to avoid at all costs. And that just pulls the rug from under these behaviors in a way that is not accessible to men. A dude that wants to stop engaging in toxic masculinity not only has to create a non-toxic understanding of a male gender role, he also has to find ways to make others perceive himself as a man when he acts that way. We donāt.
I guess to me itās not clear what she means by Male Socialization. I havenāt heard transphobic talking points about male socialization. Tbh my āmale socializationā kinda totally fucked my brain up and made me suppress a lot of natural feminine affectations. I mean I guess the alternative explanation is that I have some natural tendency towards male coded body languageā¦ but I kinda find this doubtful because throughout my life I was ALWAYS very aware of my feminine affectation and actively beat those out of me due to male socialization. So yeah I donāt really get what sheās saying about that
Male socialization rhetoric is just a way for terfs to call you āstill a manā but not outright say it. Maybe you havenāt seen bigots say that, but I have.
Oh interesting. Yeah Iām sure it makes sense in context. But to me my socialization was outside of my control, but clearly socialization may explain certain behaviors, mannerisms, etc, but obviously socialization doesnāt determine gender anyway. An AFAB person could be socialized as a male for one reason or another and end up still a cis woman, but have more āāmasculineāā mannerisms or behaviors or something.
socialization as a concept is a real enough thing. āmale socializationā and āfemale socializationā as immutable constructs applying broadly and equally across humanity is crackpot terf shit.
Yeah 100%
Same, talk about flattening an entire life experience. And these freaks couldnāt define what male and female socialization even means.
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Why would you write out that entire wall of text about half a sentence that has zero relevance to the actual substance of the article and then not even tell us the tiniest bit with how sheās supposedly wrong about Skinner when youāre in the middle of reading one of his works?
btw Julia Serranoās pronouns are she / her, wouldāve taken you like 10 seconds of googling. Thatās besides the point here, but consistently misgendering her over and over again on top of all this weird beating around the bush that you do, all this complaining about āmost disenfranchised folksā and our āpseudoscientific dismissalā of ancient and methodically dubious pre-replication crisis psychology, that realy rubs me the wrong way when you canāt even be bothered to get your actual point across. If youāre such a fucking brain genius, you should be able to come up with a more substantive criticism than āher arguments are flat out awfulā, at least she even has an argument to begin with, which i canāt say about anything of the vagueposting word salad youāve written.
Iām really sorry, youāre completely right about finding her pronouns. I doubt youād believe it as Iāve already soured myself with the mistakes I made. I was nervous and afraid and thought I would mess up anyways. I donāt believe you would understand unless you were willing to empathize with me, which is a big ask after what I did wrong. Iāll do my best to properly gender folks.
I think the tone you used is completely appropriate. Stating it is awful without, to your perception, giving an argument or substance is indeed inappropriate and disrespectful of Juliaās work.
I very much donāt appreciate the terms you used. I donāt think itās my place to ask you to take it back or apologize. I do want to make it known so hopefully other people reading it can be more sensitive to me. I really hate having to identify myself with a laundry list of conditions to be taken seriously or spoken to with respect. I use vague language because I am questioning. This paragraph was only written because I donāt know how else you might care about the content of what I write; you can see I post in POC and I have mentioned being in the area of neurodiverse (I am questioning there to). Do not make me elaborate further please.
I donāt like that you used āword saladā. I donāt know why you used it, if itās because I wrote a lot and there was no substance or the negative highly outweighed the positive, I accept it and I still do not appreciate that. I donāt think itās a word salad at all. My entire life Iāve been told I speak or write too much. Maybe everyone except my wife and therapist and psychologist and psychiatrist is right? No, I no longer accept that, I can validate myself and insist that there was good content there and you were unable to understand it. I must not have communicated it well or in a way amenable to you and others who have commented. I already made a severe mistake in misgendering (I wanted to say; I was not referring to Julia with the subjects I used in my sentences; another example of myself not communicating clearly and you misunderstanding as a result, again I apologize, I wonāt invalidate your experience and say that what you felt was wrong or incorrect, I can be dialectical and accept both) the author of the piece as you and I think one other commenter pointed out.
I donāt appreciate the label āf****** brain geniusā and reject it. If you want to engage further I request you do not use that term or similar terms with me and give me a modicum of respect now that I have had a chance to explain myself. Not vindicate, or ālet-myself-off-the-hookā, I accept your criticisms and I will not do that thing HR does "we hear your concerns and accept them " and proceed to do nothing of the sort. I will now be better with properly gendering people and searching for a personās appropriate pronouns and when I donāt know or use the wrong ones, to refrain from misgendering so many times. As well to make it clear when I changed the subject from an individual to a broader and more abstract (and still valid) subject.
I want to engage with the content of what you said that doesnāt have to do with my mistakes and grievances. I do not know if it is worth your time. I have to sleep soon as itās past midnight. If you wonāt treat me with respect and wonāt refrain from hurtful language then I would kindly ask you to disengage, or I can if you like, since I made the initial transgression. Iām pretty sure Iāve poisoned the well for any further discussion of my initial points & thesis. Or, you can report me to a mod; as my behaviour here was inappropriate and I am unwelcome. Or in the case you continue and do not disengage, I can report you to prevent more hurtful language.
You have every right to feel the way you do. I do not have to have a continued (i.e. further discussion with several responses and a long thread) hurtful and harmful labelling after I have indicated explicitly I do not like it and I request you do not use the aforementioned labels.
Look, i get what youāre trying to say and iām sorry for being standoffish. Just to put this in perspective and understand why iām coming off like that recently, most of the last weeks have been rough for me, i had to deal with a covid infection that ruined a lot of plans i had, i felt super isolated and depressed because i could not meet up with my gal pal and my support network due to being ill, iāve had trouble with my employment situation and my landlord, so all in all i was just in a really foul mood and honestly iāve been kind of mean online because of that. Thatās not to say this makes it ok to engage in a discussion in the way i often do atm, but i hope this takes some of the weight out of my post and makes it seem less like me coming after you personally. Honestly, that goes for a lot of what iāve been posting recently.
Anyway, my main point is this: You shouldnāt have to worry about saying inappropriate things just by engaging with Serranoās text. If you think sheās making mistakes in regards to Skinnerās work, youāre free to point them out and give your own perspective on how he viewed human socialization, that may add something to the discussion. I donāt think she has a problem with Skinner per se, i donāt think she was trying to say that he was being transphobic in his work or whatever, i think she just used a household name like his as a jumping off point to say that weāve largely moved away from earlier āblank slateā models of socialization. And if you think that it misrepresents Skinners work to frame it like that, it would give some perspective if you elaborate on that if you feel like it.
If not, i donāt mind if we just agree that we met each other on a wrong foot and disengage here, thatās really up to you.
Oh I also wanted to add that it was really validating when you said you got what I was trying to say. I appreciate it and your apology (which I donāt find necessary and will accept as I concede you have a better idea of what you are apologizing for) and want to say it made my good day which became bad near the end decent. Yeah, not good, still better than before.
Thanks for the response. Iām sorry you had a rough week, Iād think it would make having to engage with someone who was ignorant and made the errors I made even more unpleasant. I donāt care if I didnāt know or couldnāt know.
If I couldnāt know I still think I can act in a way that doesnāt misgender or otherwise be vague and antagonistic. And if I canāt do that Iād really rather just not say anything if I can. I donāt think what I said has any value anymore.
I mean I learned from it and I donāt know what it meant to other people. Other people did let me know how what I did was wrong and can be easily avoided. From what others said though, which is what I use because I genuinely donāt know how they feel or think, what I wrote wasnāt helpful and the comment did not need to be made which I, like right now not before, also think was inappropriate and unnecessary.
Thanks again for your response, sharing a bit about yourself, and being willing to try again. I donāt have anything else to say besides thanks. Honestly Iām now afraid of saying anything or like giving details of what I alluded to in my initial and rightly removed comment.
Iām so afraid that Iāll say something to hurt people who are among the last Iād like to hurt. Iām obviously a bit afraid of something hurtful being said to me, I canāt say I can take it, only that Iāve suffered enough to feel comfortable thatās something I am able to experience. What is more suffering really? If I welcome it, nothing changes. If I do my best to get rid of it, it gets worse. It doesnāt make sense to me and I canāt figure it out. Or at least I havenāt been able to for at least more than some 18 odd years.
I did not know who Julia was, I read several popular pieces by her. Didnāt engage with her books, but skimmed her PhD thesis at University of Kansas (which deadnames her). It was the kind of work that wouldnāt be appreciated I think by those outside the field (biology is my subject of choice and background) and is not glamorous, but it is of the kind of work that enables others to get the flashy stuff done. Itās the in-between āplumbingā that people might look down on, but use all the same. Thereās good respect there, itās the equivalent of public service for 'omic work in the model organism which was her target.
I did my homework, Iām still trying to learn, itās only; I donāt want to keep hurting people while Iām doing it.
Sorry for the essay. I do hope I can engage positively with you in the future. You seem to be considerate and thoughtful.
Hi, I was writing an email to The New Inquiry to ask a question about submitting a piece. I read this piece (linked somewhere on hexbearā¦) and really liked it and sorta skimmed through other stuff.
Iām trying to say that, while I was writing the email I misgendered the author while mentioning what I liked about his piece. I only thought to double check because I remembered what you (and other commenters) said with your comments. Itās a real bad habit, and a hurtful one. I think I may have it under control, if not now, then soon.
If you wanted an āexplanationā, Iāll put it below in spoilers. I am not writing it to not accept responsibility and be liable for what I did, just, to like correct others like me maybe.
why i keep using 'they' by default
I donāt actually interact with people. I have a partner, and pets. I am usually talking in my head about groups of people or abstract representations of people, not actual people. That still doesnāt make misgendering appropriate obviously.
I also did my best to use it because I wanted it to sound natural which I think I could do only if I used it and it became like other pronouns and words I use that I donāt think about.
I had a teacher in high school who was pretty cool. One time when reading a handout, she said, every time there was a āheā (the thing we read was really unnecessarily gendered) she would say āhe or sheā.
I thought it was kinda clunky and it sounded off. I thought, āIāve seen people say āhe/sheā, why does she need to say āorā? She already said it a few times, I feel like she could use āhe/sheā and it would still get the message across and itās like less sounds so itās more efficient! (remember, I was in high school and I am a cishet man; I thought saying things as quickly as possible was better) Or why doesnāt she use āsheā? That would be better too. Oh, why not just use they?ā
Eventually I started using they, I didnāt want to have to deal with using the wrong pronouns and figured I would get corrected (I didnāt think I could ask the person for their pronouns or name, and refer in a way which doesnāt use pronouns to be sure I donāt use the wrong one) by the person. I just didnāt want trouble, I donāt mean like not for me, I didnāt want to bother anyone for something I could change I think pretty easily (over like some period of time). Of course that was self-centered, and you can kinda notice I really just write my thoughts and donāt always think before.
Eventually I started to use other words to be comfortable with changing the word I use in reference to a person or persons: āoneā, āpersonā, āfolkā, āpersonsā, āpeopleā, āpeoplesā, āindividualā (<- my fav probably), āindividualsā, āgroupā, āpartyā, āagentā, āactorā, āsuch-and-suchā, āhumanā, āhumanityā, āhumansā (donāt like peoplekind cuz a politician used it, obv Iād use it if others wished or asked), āonesā, and I think thatās nearly all of them. I feel like there is one or two more but I canāt really remember.
You might say these arenāt pronouns and not what people want, and thatās completely true. And I think thatās why I keep messing up. I basically did something without someone (<- this was one I forgot!!) or some people asking, āfor themā when really I could only be sure that it was for me.
Thanks for coming to my ted-talk.
Now Iām working on being much better with asking and not misgendering.
first thing i would stress is that trans people should be separated as two words, not transcomrades or transwomen or whatever. I only stress it because the academic transphobe contingent prefers the conflation of transwoman or transperson into a wholly new type of being rather than trans being a descriptive term, like brunette woman or tall person.
for the rest, Julia is a fairly prolific writer and you could have your questions answered by actually reading the entirety of her work. I do think itās weird to come to the trans comm and talk for an hour about how burrhus frederic skinner is being unfairly maligned by julia serano.
What is the problem with most disenfranchised folks say in the last 5 years on articles or discussion boards engaging in pseudoscientific dismissal?
i mean that doesnāt seem very good faith
Yeah you are completely write. That was severely inappropriate and irresponsible, not only in itself, also in the comm I am in with the audience I am in who always are subject to more abuse than those who are not like them. I see it was not in good faith, it was loaded, and it poisoned the well. I had believed in error I was creating a bound of time and keeping the subject sufficiently abstract while referring ti what I believed to be a real phenomena (one which I experienced and recall; which others may not or will not have and respecting their experiences would entail not making such sweeping bad-faith statements) to preclude the subject and focus on the object. I see now that it was wrong and I apologize. Iām really sorry I hope I didnāt cause harm or too much harm at the very least.
I will use trans comrades from now on now that you have told me. I have seen:
trigger warning, unseparated label
ātransfolkā and believed it to be similar to ākinfolkā which to my understanding is a broader or analogous capsulation of the term āotherkinā which would include systems and alters
I do not think you understood the point I brought up. It was miscommunicated. If you believe you did understand and I donāt know or have not successfully argued my own point, Iām afraid I cannot accept that wholly on faith and would appreciate an argument or points that indicate what you say is true. From my understanding of my point, unless I have little to no clue, it stands on its own though poorly and erroneously argued. If you insistent that is not the case, I think I might accuse you of invalidation and would say I hope you could try to accept that when I say I gave a point I really did, and that you do not know better than me what is in my own head and what points have been fashioned by my personal experience.
You are right, it is weird, Iād say from otherās comments itās disrespectful and I did not do the bare minimum and I am actually being tolerated rather well given my mistakes and errors.
I do not appreciate you using the phrase ātalk for an hourā. I already mentioned why this is particularly hurtful in the comment I responded to before this on in this thread, and really do not want to repeat or have to explain myself again why this is hurtful specifically to me.
I do not think you fairly represented my point, you are of course well within your right to disagree. I wonāt elaborate because I have already indicated that I cannot communicate effectively and do not feel comfortable writing more when ai have not fully digested criticisms and advice. Itās exhausting having to code myself. For this topic it would be too much for me at the moment. Then I simply wonāt write anything to prevent the likely chance I will again misgender, write too much, miscommunicate, use a harmful label, and whatever else I did wrong or mistakenly.
The only thing the article says about Skinner is that people no longer believe in the human mind being a blank slate, which is objectively true. Iām not sure what rock youād have to look under to find a mainstream orthodox behavioralist in 2024.
What even is this thread???
Iām sorry I very much do not agree and respect your points and do not accept invocation of āobjectively trueā to stand in for an argument or evidence which would indicate what you stated is or approaches being objective. You can see the long comments I wrote right before this. I will be sleeping soon and will not respond to the content of what you wrote. Iām sorry for that, I will let what you said marinate and consider it while I finish reading Skinnerās work.
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