Where are all the trans men?

[cheeseismydownfall]

I'm feeling so fucking angry with it all today, and the FT / Munroe Bergdorf shit show has really tipped me over the edge (with a final push from the Esty fuckwhittery).

As I was ruminating on MB it occurred to me - where are all the fucking trans men being fawned over and lauded to the skies for their bravery and stunningness? Google 'transgender icons' and the results are overwhelmingly dominated by trans women. Why is this? When women choose this route to try to escape their gender, why are they still fucking being pushed to the back by men?

Raging.

I found Petite Fille on BBC4 last night very sad and troubling.

@yourhairiswinterfire

Trans women are often even the focus of push back against initiatives that actually aren’t anything to do with them. For example, I’ve seen a lot of negativity directed at trans women in respect of initiatives to make language around breast / chest feeding, childbirth, gynaecological health etc more inclusive of trans people, when it’s actually trans men these initiatives are designed to include.

But it's not transmen threatening women with extreme violence when we object to the degrading language, is it? Why is that?

Did you see the response to JKR's ''there used to be a name for these people'' tweet? The majority of responses were ''trans women are women'', even from Daniel Radcliffe who forgot to mention transmen, which is strange being as periods, the subject of JKR tweet, have nothing at all to do with transwomen 🤔

It’s not the overwhelming majority of trans women, either. I think it’s important to remember that the perpetrators of threatening language continues overwhelmingly to be cisgender men, many of whom co-opt trans rights discussions as an opportunity to behave abusively towards women (both cis and trans) without having any actual interest in equality for trans people.

Your JKR example is a good one. She was complaining about language intended to be inclusive of trans men, so why was the response so overwhelmingly about trans women? Why do both sides of this debate (people who oppose trans rights and self identification, and people who support them) place so much focus on trans women, to the point that people like the OP aren’t even aware of prominent trans men?

I expect it’s lots of complicated factors - misogyny, ability or otherwise to effectively ‘pass’, fear of femininity, co-option by bad faith groups (on both sides), etc. But I don’t think it’s helpful. Lots of trans men are doing great activism which clearly isn’t being appreciated, and lots of trans women are taking flak for initiatives and attempts at inclusivity which aren’t actually anything to do with them.

I work with some transmen. They are very busy posting blogs about how to address people and to remember their pronouns, while earnestly explaining that the rest of us are c*s.

Sounds like a lot of boring 'wife work' to me while the males transwomen are out there doing the usual important / fun stuff like winning awards and medals.

Some things don't change with gender identity.

I've heard it said men usually transition to gain attention while women transition to avoid attention. Seems to match the pattern I've seen.
I disagree. Perhaps some do, but surely, surely, most transition because they have ‘gender dysphoria’ (quotes because I do not believe in ‘gender’).
There are many transwomen who just get on with their lives. Also, some that have a very high profile, such as Blaire White. Blaire loves a bit of attention, obviously, as she has a YouTube channel, but her reason for transitioning was gender dysphoria.
Transwoman does not equal TRA.

The entire conversation seems to be dominated by former white men, now white "trans women," who are belligerent, entitled, aggressive, and even incite violence in some cases. Most still have penises, apparently, and some still want to have sex with women, but now as "lesbians." I shared bathrooms with trans people on occasion for years in California, and my friend's son is such a happy adolescent trans he was cast as a trans character on an episode of an American teen show (he's so convincing he simply reads "girl"). But this "punch a terf" end to dialogue, and aggressive takeovers of women's spaces, is a whole new ball game. When will people point out that the emperor has no clothes?

Aren't young men at more risk of violence than women? They used to be but I don't know current stats.

Yes, men are at greater risk of violence, but overwhelmingly from other men and often in contexts such as gangs, pub fights, sports matches and general male group situations.

Men are at very little risk of violence from females. But men as a class pose a risk to women as a class - of course not every single man, but enough for separate spaces for women to have existed for a long time. There is also the fact that male violence against women is often sexual and there's also the risk of sexual harassment and pestering, voyeurism, flashing and all the other behaviours that may not be physically violent but are threatening and frightening.

Of course it would also be good if men could be protected from other men, but since women have a high risk of a number of specific threats from men, it's still right to have separate female spaces.

The OP of this thread was last October - not sure why old ones get resurrected like this but might explain why I don't know what the Etsy thing was!

Aren't young men at more risk of violence than women? They used to be but I don't know current stats.

Yes. However, of course, it depends on what is categorised as violence for this discussion.

Women and children are disproportionately at risk of domestic violence and and women for intimate partner violence. Once those categories of violence are included, it's a much murkier picture as to who are the greater victim categories for male violence and there's marked stratification by age.

Until the recent Observer femicide campaign - I'd no idea that beyond a certain age there was/is rannygazoo around what is included in some statistics as violence and what is/was written off as a 'safeguarding' issue once women reached 60 or 65 years of age.

For example, I’ve seen a lot of negativity directed at trans women in respect of initiatives to make language around breast / chest feeding, childbirth, gynaecological health etc more inclusive of trans people, when it’s actually trans men these initiatives are designed to include.

I don't see it as a way to include trans men but more as a way to exclude women, however, here the term breastfeeding is used - not 'chest feeding' - because the person doing it would like to have others consider them as female and therefore able to use drug induced fluid. 'breast' milk to feed their newborn child. 'Chest feeding' is for trans men, not trans women or women. What do we call fathers who idneofry as men and fathers, feeding their babies from bottles whilst they lie on their chests?

www.thestranger.com/queer-issue-2017/2017/06/21/25225867/my-first-time-breastfeeding-my-daughter

Ah thank you for explaining, so Etsy is off the hook for now.