#my friends are like hey dont cry. you're masc!

[deoidesign]

me when i make my bed and lie in it

[doberbutts]

i get *why* a lot of people think men dont face oppression for being men, cause i only just started learning about it myself but the insistence that trans men's oppression is not affected by us being men is so???? its confusing to me. also i started talking to my cis man friends about emotions lately and its like, my god how could people NOT know men have issues that r related to them being men? i know im telling you nothing new im just, very baffled and dont have anyone to express this to irl

Oh I was just talking to a friend about this.

I think what honestly happened is that a lot of trans mascs are and were feminists prior to transitioning. I think a lot of them continued to believe that male privilege meant that you had no problems caused by being men until, one day... they were viewed as men. And then suddenly they went 'hey... this sucks actually'.

Extreme isolation? Oh cis men have huge amounts of lonliness and touch starvation and isolation problems. Not being allowed to discuss their problems? Yeah because otherwise you're weak, feminine, female, not man enough. Not allowed to show their emotions? Everyone knows men are only allowed two emotions: horny and angry. Hideous body dysmorphia? Multiple, multiple studies have said that the majority of gym bros have serious untreated eating disorders.

There's more but what's weird is that there are still versions of feminism talking about this. Feminists who understood that the emotional abandonment of young boys and allowing patriarcal society to sink its claws into them is what creates the problem of men who behave abysmally. It was very important in some feminist circles to teach their sons it was okay to cry, it was okay to want to be touched and held, it was okay to struggle, it was okay to like pink and dolls and dresses and makeup and it didn't make you lesser just for not aligning yourself with the patriarchy.

I'm just kind of wondering... where that went. We did at some point recognize that men do experience a gendered suffering of their own, and that raising young boys to break free of this ritualized suffering would only aid the cause of having women seen as equals to men.

Why did we stop doing that? Why did we veer into what we are now? This hurts cis people of all genders. This hurts trans people of all genders. Did no one read that op-ed about how that trans woman refuses to come out of the closet specifically because of the way she has been spoken to and about, to her face, because she's being read as a man??? Does no one realize that this is hurting people??? The people they're claiming to want to protect???

Maybe I see it so much because I'm gay, so I occupy cis gay male spaces a *lot*, and I see these men suffering in ways they can't share with anyone else. Maybe I see it because I hang out with my black male relatives all the time, and I see them experience things and hurt and not be able to talk about it.