#i made my way through a lot of trans rep recently and there hasn't been a single respectful depiction of trans men's lives I've found

[rabbitindisguise]

The above confuses actual privilege with conditional privilege. Bi, pan, ply, omni and other m-spec folks often can "pass" in public as "str8" but if as soon as they mention a previous partner they're suddenly dealing with monosexism, that's not privilege. Similarly, if a trans man is treated as a cis man, that's not privilege, because it's conditional on no one knowing that he's trans.

Further, many of the things people cite as privilege are things that should be afforded everyone. Not being disrespected in public is not a bad thing we should be avoiding or shaming people for experiencing. That's a good thing. Respect is what we're striving for with any gender based activism. In this case equality is more important than equity. That means giving respect to women, rather than taking something away from men to even things out.

The idea that feminism relies on destroying men, masculinity, or manhood because it's inherently violent is radfem rhetoric and the critical basis for TERFs and TIRFs. There is nothing to be gained from taking stuff from men as a punishment for systematic sexism, especially as that frequently targets marginalized men, as those are the only men within the reach of women's systemic power. Or people that aren't even men (trans women, nb people, intersex folks) in the name of "fighting the good fight against men" because otherwise they wouldn't be satisfied by getting to actually enact the full spectrum of violent oppression that happens against women against another person.

And dismantling radfem ideology is actually really important and illustrates the points of OP well, because many trans men exposed to feminism tend to feel like they take up too much space in many scenarios that have a primary underlying problem of women not feeling able to speak, rather than anything they've personally done. Rather, the kind of speaking is important- active listening, endorsing points that were used to make his own point, opening up the floor for women, pointing out women who got looked over, etc- rather than pressuring a trans man to simply speak less and less until he doesn't feel comfortable speaking in the space at all.

This has collectively led to many trans men, when confronted with the idea of transmisandry, to say it's "not that bad." They could be dealing with a lot of shit specific to being a trans man rather than just being trans that's impossible to understand through the lens of transphobia only, but it's not "what trans women go through" so it's not important. Nevermind that every marginalized group deserves its own community language to understand how oppression impacts them in particular.

And another important point: as a trans man in those situations, I generally choose against my own safety and shoot down those jokes at the expense of my social capital. It has frequently led to me being almost outed against my will again. I'm not honestly sure trans men are being sexist when they do these things, even if that's the ultimate effect (sexism as bigotry vs sexism as systematic oppression). I'd compare it more to a gay man panicking a harshly rejecting a woman, maybe even using sexist stereotypes to do so, out of fear of being outed. That's not to handwave the effect (sexism == bad, in all cases, obviously). But to point out the cause will continue to perpetuate the action, even if a trans man educates himself voluntarily and does feminist actions otherwise . . . when given the choice. "Choosing to be the man you want to be" is great and it helps, because gender roles are still imposed on society, but ultimately it doesn't dissipate the choices trans men have to make due to transmisandry.

Yeah you can unfollow me block me or whatever the fuck but im not with that "trans men have male privilege" shit