#amplified if you have a religious upbringing which I can attest to

[dcmcboxers]

this sums up some thoughts I've been having pretty well. It's why I really don't like the conversation around gendered experiences growing up. this is something that I have to carry with me and have to examine.

Having a vagina means shame and secrecy is the baseline for any kind of sexual expression. You are trained to ignore or police sexual desire. you are not expected to have it or take pleasure in it. sex is demonized and it can be done so convincingly because the cost of pregnancy is your entire life falling apart.

bodily autonomy and agency is something you have to fight tooth and nail for at such a fundamental level.

I'm 26 and I still have scars and hangs ups about sex and sexuality. there is a deep set undercurrent of shame I have to jump through hoop after hoop after hoop to overcome. (ironically it's through the same kind of kink that others who are more repressed than I am are afraid of.)

I think it's related to the lesbian to trans masc pipeline. because there is an unfortunate fear of penises and pregnancy that becomes jumbled together. being a lesbian felt "safe" and because of that framework, it's easy to further complicate the relationships between trans mascs and trans femmes.

I stayed in the lesbian stage all through adolescence. it wasn't until I moved out in my twenties and I had more agency and autonomy that I felt safer to reexamine my gender and the genital biases I had before. for others and myself.

many other trans mascs just don't get here. they got locked into friend groups of people equally afraid and ashamed of sex, if not more so. purity (moral but also with it's obvious connotations to virginity) was the social currency.

Not helped that there's not really space for trans mascs in the cis gay community. probably the most sex positive space you could be in. it feels extremely insular and foreign and it hurts. it hurts to feel like there's no point in trying. (no one ever saw the aggressives either so forget the historical shared space between trans mascs and lesbians).

All this to say I do not condone anyone participating in callouts. But I recognize that I was relatively lucky in dodging social pressures, traumas, and narratives that made this culture extremely pervasive. I understand why they're wrapped up in what is a destructive culture for them as well.

I went through two incidents where my social circle blew up and I had rumors spread about me and my friends, was harassed or excluded online and in person, etc. it's an awful fucking thing to do and the methodology has become more and more precise in excising pain and ruining lives. trans mascs were doing it to themselves first. it's just sad.