you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]RedditHatesLesbians 48 insightful - 1 fun48 insightful - 0 fun49 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Hot take but I'm beginning to hate this unconditional sympathy/empathy for trans men. They're not just poor confused women, many of them fetishise gay male relationships and clearly show signs of autoandrophillia. They also infect spaces for gay men like r/askgaybros and purposefully try and stir up so called transphobia to get the sub banned. There's malice there. Just because they're women doesn't make them any less shitty, even if they are just masculine women trying to opt out of womanhood, I don't feel like they should get a pass for that either if they're upholding TRA ideology anyway - it hurts all other women, it hurts lesbians, it hurts gay men. Maybe some of it is confusion but then again maybe some trans women are just confused, too.

[–][deleted] 33 insightful - 1 fun33 insightful - 0 fun34 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Y E S. Sometimes I feel like I'm being annoying by bringing up TiFs so often lol. But I'm right there with you. Maybe it's because I used to be a TiF, but they make my skin crawl so much. There's this high and mighty complex a lot of them have where they can write an essay on how essentially being "not like other girls" makes them men, yet if you ask them what's the difference between them and a gnc woman with dysphoria none of them can tell you without resorting to circular logic.

The straight ones are viciously homophobic to gay men and expect them to "unlearn their genital preference" so they can live out their yaoi fantasies. The lesbian TiFs are often truscums and the main ones spouting brain sex rhetoric and actually believe internalized lesbophobia means they were meant to be men.

It's mostly TiFs who want all references to "woman" and "female" removed from period products. Because despite the mental gymnastics they've done to convince themselves they're men, they can't seem to convince themselves that it's ok to be a man using a product with the venus symbol on it. Most of the time they're so close to getting it, they're so close to admitting they aren't men and will never be men (mentally or otherwise), but their willful ignorance to maintain the "I'm a real boy" facade pisses me off.

They'll scream until their faces are as blue as their hair that breaking gender roles is a great thing and that we should all strive toward it, but have a panic attack at the thought of wearing or doing something "too feminine" because they think they won't pass otherwise.

They'll say they care about women's rights and women's safety while actively working to sabotage those things. Being confused or unhappy is not a free pass to knowingly being a shitty person. I reserve my sympathy for a case by case basis because some TiFs transition out of trauma and try to live their lives quietly, but I don't feel bad for them generally. They can be just as bad as TiMs.

[–]luckystar 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You are detrans? Would you mind sharing what made you decide to transition/detransition? I've only recently learned how many detrans FTMTF women there are, seems more and more common...

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sure! This is gonna get long so bear with me. I'm a desister so no medical transition thankfully, but I was binding, packing, voice training, fluctuating pronouns, all that. I was also contemplating surgery to masculinize my face since I didn't want to go on hormones. Crazy shit.

I think for me it was a combination of internalized biphobia, internalized misogyny, unhelpful therapists, and autoandrophilia that made me question my gender identity. From the biphobia end, I didn't feel comfortable expressing my attraction to women unless I saw myself as a man. I still struggle with that to this day, but I'm still working on that. The internalized misogyny manifested very early when I was a small child. I hated people making assumptions about me just because I was a girl. I hated the fact that people would assume I had certain interests or liked certain toys just because I was a girl. I used to try and go out of my way to 'hide' my gender in my possessions, if that makes sense. Like if someone looked at my backpack or notebook I tried really hard not to make those things look 'girly' so no one would have a reason to make assumptions. I very much had a 'not like other girls' complex and saw very feminine girls as dumb and lesser.

It only got worse as I got older because I had zero interest in getting married or having kids. I was 'doing womanhood wrong' in the eyes of so many people. I was told I didn't know myself and that I would definitely change my mind about kids. Hearing that from people who knew nothing about me pissed me off. I knew they were only saying it because I was female. I grew to really resent being female. I resented my period because I inherited adenomyosis from my mom. Why was I suffering every month for fertility I didn't want?

My interests were 'masculine'. I liked violent shooter games. I was smart. I was good at math. I was good at programming. I was surrounded by males in almost every setting because of this. Although I thankfully made a handful of close female friends.

Regarding autoandrophilia, there's no telling where that came from. But I have some theories. It may have started as an outlet for my attraction to women. When I pictured myself having sex with a woman, I had a penis. It also probably had something to do with the fact that sex was painful for me, likely due to my menstrual issues. I could still enjoy sex very much, but I'd enjoy it more if I didn't have this undercurrent of pain throughout the whole experience. I never heard about men complaining about pain during sex. They seemed to orgasm so easily. I think I got jealous of that. When masturbating I ignored my genitals entirely and imagined myself jerking off, getting blowjobs, having PIV sex as a man, etc. To this day I have trouble staying in my female body if going at it solo. Working on that too. Strangely I didn't have this problem if I was actually having sex with a man, but that's another discussion. This is where I don't agree with Blanchard's take on AAP in women. According to him, it always manifests in junction with autohomoeroticism, and I have no interest in being a gay guy. Yeah, I wanted a dick (still do), but I wanted to use it with women.

It didn't help that I'd always looked and sounded a bit androgynous. I have a distinct memory in college of being really tired and trying to answer a question my friend asked, only to have her startle and tell me I sounded like a man in that moment. There were other instances like this. I was made fun of and called mannish for my body hair as well. For years I questioned my gender identity until I decided to finally see a therapist. She just told me I was 'valid' and didn't answer any of my questions or help me unpack my issues.

I started trying to look for 'proof' I was supposed to be a guy. I started talking to another TiF online where we started trauma bonding over being dysphoric. My whole family did the 23 and me test and mine came back and said I was likely exposed to high levels of fetal testosterone. They also correctly guessed that my ring/index finger ratio was seen more often in men. "See! I really do have a guy brain! I really am supposed to be a guy!" I thought. Ugh.

Anyway, even throughout this whole thing I never really believed in transgenderism. How can trans racial be bad but transgender isn't? How can I say I 'feel' like a guy when I'm not male? Doesn't being trans just reinforce stereotypes? I tried researching answers to these questions and was only able to find a handful of studies trying to prove that the brains of trans people more closely matched their desired gender. That would've been the end of it if I hadn't learned that those studies actually showed a similarity in arousal patterns of gay men and straight women, likewise with straight men and lesbians. So, they can prove homosexuality, but not transness. I did more digging and found that the fetal testosterone exposure and ring/index finger ratio in my case didn't correlate with being male brained, it correlated with me being bisexual. Which I am.

I learned that "cis" people don't have a gender identity, and that's where things really started to unravel. Every doubt I had about transgenderism as a concept bubbled over and no one from the trans cult was able to answer a simple question I had. Rather than ruin my own life and come out as a terf, I desisted. That was about a year ago, and I've slowly been reclaiming my womanhood after trying to avoid it for so long. It's been nice.

[–]fireweed 24 insightful - 1 fun24 insightful - 0 fun25 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't think TIFs are "poor, confused" women but if you look on the detrans sub, and read many of the stories we used to have on the old sub on Reddit, you would see just how common it was for TIFs to have been sexually abused as children. There are definitely some that are just as terrible as TIMs when it comes to having a fetish and whining about people having "genital fetishes" but I do have sympathy for the ones who were sexually abused as girls who felt relief at finding an escape from the pain of being female.

[–]BigMommyMilkers 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I agree. GC has this "women are always the victims, men are always the perpetrators" mentality and it's simply not the case

[–]jet199 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yep, overarching class power dynamics don't always play out among individuals with all their complexities.

[–]luckystar 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I feel like sometimes the fundamental concept (men are categorically physically stronger than women & capable of impregnating women, thus we need safe spaces for women during times of vulnerability), which is really important, is often forgotten by society. But then the caveat (not literally every man is going to rape literally every woman, women being categorically physically more vulnerable doesn't mean we have to always be victims) seems to be lost on GC.

[–]ANIKAHirsch 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You're right actually.

[–]threefingersam 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm sick of TIF misogyny.