#it will end up all of our designs that we've been made are 100% rejected and also they just give us that lame ass design

[gxtzeizm]

don't get me wrong....i literally enjoy all the events that my course association in my uni had organized but somehow it's kinda forcing me and other students from my course as well

[molsno]

I want to preface this by saying that what you experienced was terrible. genuinely, I'm sorry all of that happened to you. being shamed, punished, and assaulted for expressing your gender is extremely painful - I really feel you there. and you're right that most trans people aren't socialized as the gender they were assigned at birth. I'm glad that my message was able to reach you and that we agree on that point.

that being said, there's something missing from my original post, which is context. I didn't just make this post to reflect on and vent about my upbringing. I made it because every day, transfems have accusations of "male socialization" weaponized against us to dismiss our lived experiences and deny us access to women's spaces.

when transfems talk about the misogyny we experience, we're dismissed as not really understanding misogyny due to supposedly not having experienced it all our lives. when we try to join lgbt groups, we're often met with cold reception, even from other trans people, because we're perceived as bringing "male energy" into a queer space. it's a common joke that white trans lesbians experience marginalization for the very first time only after coming out, the implication being that we all experienced male socialization and thus held the most privileged position in society as white cis straight men. transfem lesbians often aren't welcome in lesbian communities, even if we've medically transitioned and had bottom surgery, because of our "male socialization". similarly, we're regularly denied access to women's locker rooms, women's colleges, women's shelters, and most other spaces that are designated as being for women only - again, because no matter what we do, we are viewed as always being intrinsically male.

if transfems don't experience male socialization, then likewise, transmascs don't experience female socialization. yet, there are people in the transmasc community who reject this idea whenever it benefits them to lay claim to womanhood. that's why you see so many spaces listed as being for "women and nonbinary people", which is code for AFAB, since trans women and transfem nonbinary people are almost never granted access to these spaces. that's why transmasc lesbians are welcomed with open arms in many lesbian communities that transfem lesbians are not - that's not to say all lesbian communities welcome transmasc lesbians, there are definitely completely trans-exclusionary lesbian communities, but I and many other transfems have personally seen communities where they are welcome and we are not. there are plenty of "women's spaces" that purport to be trans-friendly, but only to those who they view as having been "female socialized", which is how you end up with women's colleges that allow trans men, who are notably not women, to enroll - but not trans women, who are women. julia serano said it best in her book, whipping girl:

This privileging of trans men over trans women is not merely a bias held by certain individuals, but rather one that is often institutionalized within queer women's culture and organizations. These days, it is not uncommon to see the word "trans" used to welcome trans men (but not trans women) on everything from lesbian events to sex surveys and play parties. And even at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, women are no longer defined based on their legal sex, appearance, or self-identification, but on whether or not they were born and raised as a girl. And while some performers who identify as transgender and answer to male pronouns are invited to take the festival stage each year, someone like myself - who identifies 100 percent as female - isn't even allowed to stand in the audience.

if you truly believe that transmascs weren't socialized as female, then you should see why this is a problem. arguments about trans people's "socialization" is never done in good faith - it's always done to deny transfems access to communities and spaces by refusing to recognize our genders as wholly authentic. when transmascs use this concept which is weaponized against us for their own benefit, it demonstrates a total lack of solidarity, and worse, a willingness to bludgeon us with it further. it's extremely harmful. reject the notion of gendered socialization based on birth sex entirely.

I think that the most annoying thing about the term "male socialization" being applied to transfems is that for most of us, we weren't actually socialized male. if any of us have "male traits", it's because we developed those as a survival mechanism.

I certainly would have liked to be a lot more feminine growing up, but when you're born with a penis, you're expected to be a perfect, shining beacon of masculinity every moment of your life. if you deviate from this standard by expressing any behaviors that are deemed even a little feminine, you will be severely punished. if you cross your legs with one knee over the other, or you sit down to pee, or you check your nails by straightening your fingers instead of curling them, or you watch disney channel at the age of 10, or you just simply exist, you're a pussy, you're a faggot. maybe your sister will mock you for being too girly, or maybe the guy at school who would one day become a cop threatens to rape you and settles for giving you a black eye instead.

like, are you surprised that some of us try to live up to masculinity in the years before coming out? it's either that, or continue facing an endless onslaught of transmisogyny until you can't take it anymore and either transition or kill yourself.

I wasn't socialized as male, I was socialized as a tranny. it's fucking insulting to have my "male upbringing" weaponized against me to dismiss my womanhood because I never had one. and guess what! the vast majority of the masculine behaviors I picked up as a survival mechanism evaporated almost immediately after I came out as trans and realized I no longer needed to make use of them for my own safety.

stop falling for the myth of male socialization.