Lemmy's Transmasculine Problem
Lemmy's Transmasculine Problem
Y'all, we have a problem.
These are some of the results of a survey done on our community concerning gender identity:
1.08% Binary Trans men (4).
1.08% Transmasculine people (4).
1.35% Cis women (5).
That's right, there are more CIS WOMEN on a TRANS community than binary trans men or transmasculine people alone.
We have a problem.
This isn't just a Blahaj problem. Another queer instance did a similar survey and found only 3% of their users were trans and use he/him pronouns.
Not having enough transmasc voices is going to be detrimental to our community. There are plenty of transmasc people on the internet. The problem is with Lemmy.
So what are we gonna do about it?
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Well, most of the transmen I know are barely online in the first place, so even less would be on Lemmy specifically
It sounds like that's specifically the trans men that you know, not a majority. I know plenty of trans men who are chronically online.
I don't think anyone is arguing transmasc presence shouldn't be encouraged, but it is also my perception that the ratio of chronically online transfems is significantly higher than transmascs. And furthermore, in trans spaces in general I also see this imbalanced ratio, for example at my local trans support group there might be one or two transmasc folks at most, transfems are more likely to show up to the support group and in much larger numbers (like 1 transmasc to 10 transfems).
I am not entirely sure why this is, either. It's especially puzzling because as I understand it there actually are equal numbers of trans men and trans women, so it seems that trans men are less present in trans spaces but not fewer in number overall.
I'm not sure my speculations as to why are going to be accurate or helpful, but I am wondering if you have any ideas as to why this disparity exists (on Lemmy or elsewhere)? Being a (trans) man can be quite lonely and I personally would like to see more transmasc presence in trans spaces.
Dang it...I accidentally deleted my comment. Anyway I was saying that I think age plays a role in irl queer spaces. I notice a lot of younger transmasculine folks in society and trans spaces than older (though part of that is a bias in the ones that are visibly trans and not, and older ones are less likely to be as visibly trans). Maybe there's more transmasculine gen zers or transmasculine gen zers feel able to be more open about their transness. I personally have met many more transmasc than transfem people irl, but every single one of them was gen z.
As somebody else mentioned, it's relatively easy to be stealth as a trans man especially once on T. Also I have heard a lot of transmasculine people, especially binary trans men who pass and especially straight binary trans men who pass say that many irl queer spaces are unwelcoming or outright hostile to them because of a general distrust of men and masculinity. Not sure if that would apply to online queer spaces, tho.
And you're right, there is the isolating aspect of being a trans man. Being treated as a man by society is lonely. You're expected to be stoic and tough stuff out. Friendships between men are a lot less focused on emotional support than between women. Obviously, this will not always be true but it's something I've noticed.
Hmm, the IRL trans spaces I am a part of like the support group tend to be more gen y than gen z, so if you're right about the age thing it's at least consistent with what I'm seeing. However, it doesn't explain why there seems to be such a dearth of transmasc folks online where you would think gen z would be more common. Maybe gen z are more likely to be on tiktok than reddit, and reddit happens to be where the trans community orbits right now?
One of my speculations was that being a trans man doesn't have the same challenges as for trans women, and those differences might explain the differences in approach to community. I don't in any way want to imply trans men have it easy, but it does seem like trans men might be able to integrate into cis society more easily for various reasons, and to that end they might be more likely to go stealth and not need to stick around in trans groups (which could expose their trans status, and is a risk probably not worth taking for many trans men). I think the same thing is true of trans women, btw - I don't see a lot of stealth trans women in the support groups IRL, though I do see many passing trans women online (at least photos of them, which I think are upvoted higher on reddit than less-passing photos).
Somewhat random, but I have personally met several trans men attorneys and seen on TV trans men attorneys, usually attorneys who are fighting for trans rights. Not sure what to make of that and it could be irrelevant or sampling bias (it's a small subset, maybe 3 - 4 people), but I certainly noticed.
If trans men transition and integrate more easily I would guess it relates to gender disparities among cis people, and the way gender markers are weighted in our society, e.g. a beard and a deep voice both come easily with T and they weigh more heavily when "gendering" someone (compared to feminine markers do on a trans woman). For trans women with a deep voice and a beard shadow it might be really hard to overcome the "weight" of those gender markers to appear as a woman to most people (even if they have large breasts, for example), and there is a greater fragility in their womanhood than there might be for trans men (not to imply trans men don't also experience similar struggles, uncertainty, etc.).
There is greater fragility in women's gender even for cis women compared to for men (though again, many cis men experience insecurity in their gender). The gender is more violently and strictly enforced for women than for men, and men who cross over into womanhood are more stigmatized.
Of course what is not getting talked about here are transmasc folks who don't take T, or of the many instances where trans men have struggled immensely and been killed for who they are. I don't think I can repeat enough that trans men are subject to similar struggles and violence as trans women even if the ways those manifest might look a little different.
That said, I don't feel confident in my speculation - I don't actually know enough and I'm going off of what I've seen and what I've read about gender from Julia Serano and others. I would prefer something more empirical and tested.
Either way, I wonder what pragmatic steps we can take to create a space that is more inviting to trans men and transmasc folks. We need them, online and IRL.
You bring some good points, and I agree with most everything but the fragility of womanhood. There is a much greater tolerance for gender variance in women than men. You don't have to worry about "looking gay" or "being a sissy" as much as you do as a dude. Now, given this is toxic masculinity and it's not healthy at all, but it is a common thing to come across in this day and age (at least where I'm from).
I had to fight tooth and nail just to be seen as a lesbian before I knew trans people existed and that I was one. I wanted people to acknowledge my queerness so badly and it felt like no one would take me seriously and would always say "it's just a phase." That is to say, while gender is often violently enforced for people coming into feminity, people trying to leave it are often infantalized and not taken seriously because of it. Part of it too is cultural. Here in the deep south, there's a lot of machismo and toxic masculinity and finding someone who deviates from that is much harder to find than for women. You're right that it's much more stigmatized for AMABs to be queer. My point is that I think there's equal fragility for each gender but in different ways.
Hm, I think I hard disagree that gender variance is tolerated more in women than men.
Even feminine looking women feel insecure in their gender, and rates of body dysmorphia are empirically higher in women than in men. Women often feel they have to "put on their face" using makeup and aren't themselves or recognizable without makeup, whereas men are not expected to do anything to be "themselves". Being a man is just a default, and as long as you have certain minimal gender traits (like a deep enough voice, a beard, etc.) you're easily granted manhood. I'm primarily looking at this in cis folks since I think binary trans folks during transition are by definition not stable in their gender or haven't "achieved" their desired gender yet (and non-binary presenting folks are forever ambiguous and left between genders).
Your experience of transitioning and the very real fragility you experienced (and many men both cis and trans experience) is not meant to be disregarded by discussing the severe insecurity and fragility of gender for women, in fact I know a lot of what you have experienced from being raised a boy and having a much delayed and relatively weak puberty. I wasn't recognized in my manhood and constantly felt insecure in my gender as people expected me to be a man.
I also live in the deep south and was raised here, so the masculinity here is as you mention of a certain intense quality. Men are more fragile here and more likely to police other men in their gender, it's true. Even as an adult living as a man it became a kind of sore point when interacting with certain kinds of men. I remember one time I was pleading with a line worker who was shutting off my internet to leave it on (I was in the middle of hosting a meeting and couldn't get disconnected). The line worker after ignoring me and disconnecting my internet referred to me as a boy, which I experienced as a kind of dehumanizing refusal to recognize me as a man, and a statement that created a stark hierarchy. It was not just that I wasn't a "man", he was also implying I wasn't an adult in his eyes, even though I had finished whatever male puberty I was going to have at that point and was adult by any other measure. I was a bit shaken by that experience, as those kinds of experiences were more common when I was younger, and for the most part adults were more mature and less likely to treat me that way. So I started growing out my beard as a safety measure (and as a form of self-neglect, and as a way to hide my face), and when city workers like that would show up I would crawl into overalls and boots and put on my best man-drag. I didn't get confused for a boy after that.
So I agree that the fragility is very much there for men, and that the way it works is different for men and women. Still, I think it's typical for cis women to work much harder for their gender than men, and it's just empirical that women experience more insecurity and fragility in the gendered expectations. I think this stems from the fact we live in a patriarchal society where men hold a privileged position.
Here is a source about the body insecurities in men vs women:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16801740/
It's hard to properly compare the ways gender are enforced, especially when they can be so different. So I will just reiterate what you have said: there is fragility and enforcement in both genders, even if I think it's well established that fragility is more stark for women in this society than for men. It's true in different subcultures the shape of gender enforcement is different, and this is also just ignoring the obvious difficulties faced by any trans person whether men or women.
I know trans men struggle, I just don't know why they don't show up to support groups and participate in trans culture online and IRL.
I'm actually thinking this may have to do with age group. In my experience there hasn't been a lack of transmasculine people in irl trans spaces. The thing is, I'm gen z. I'm willing to bet that younger trans spaces have many more transmasculine people than older. Of course, I don't know what age group you're in or hang out with. It's just a theory I have.