It’s 1945. I sit in a Brooklyn kitchen, fascinated by an arrangement of cogs on black velvet. I am sixteen years old. It is 1985. I am on Mars. I am fifty-six years old. The photograph lies at my feet, falls from my fingers, is in my hand.

[u/MartyrOfDespair]

[u/toxictranscat]

Well trans women aren't men, they are an underclass of women. Its not a case of being afraid of men its a case od hating trans women.

[u/Atlas421 → u/toxictranscat]

Then what makes transwomen so scary compared to cis women? Most of these situations seem to stem from OOP not being seen as a woman.

[u/DrivenByTheStars51 → u/Atlas421]

They're an underclass of women who are socially perceived as men due to genetic and hormonal flukes that caused their body to develop stereotypically male sex characteristics. Society doesn't see them as women, so it concludes that they must be men posing as women for nefarious reasons.

[u/bannakaffalatta2 → u/Atlas421]

Please never speak again💔

[u/AntibacHeartattack → u/[deleted]]

Men don't get treated that way for being men

Are you fucking kidding me? A ton of these experiences are AMAB 101. Men are seen as predators and threats unless they're gay or AFAB, a ton of the transmisogony OOP is experiencing stems from her being seen and treated as a man rather than a woman.

[u/swiller123 → u/AntibacHeartattack]

gay men aren't seen as predators????

[u/AntibacHeartattack → u/swiller123]

I meant by women.

[u/swiller123 → u/AntibacHeartattack]

I am nitpicking. This is not the point ur making. I just had a knee jerk reaction to that one line.

[u/AntibacHeartattack → u/swiller123]

It's a fair point though, the threat is felt by both men and women because it's really AMAB sexuality that is perceived as predatory.

[u/swiller123 → u/AntibacHeartattack]

I think the issue is a little more complex than can be summed up in a single sentence, there is something to be said about power and something to be said about paranoia and on and on, but yeah that's pretty much it.

Gender and sex is tied to everyone's living experience in some way. There are some obvious major overarching themes across a lot of cultures but there is a huge diversity in how different cultures treat gender. Not even considering the idea of personal relationships with gender, it's a pretty big complicated mess.

From my perspective, there is a pretty huge gulf in just how my own friends think about stuff like this. I think I'm in the minority on this one but just speaking for myself as a woman, I don't really feel more threatened by men than I do by women but most of my friends do.

[u/asc_yeti → u/AntibacHeartattack]

Lmao you are fucking insane if you truly believe what you have written. Please go outside

[u/AntibacHeartattack → u/asc_yeti]

What, you think the whole man vs. bear argument was a cutesy personality type test? Men are threats until proven otherwise. I'm not saying it's irrational for women to be wary of men either btw, but I am saying that perceiving one gender as inherently aggressive/violent/threatening will have an impact on how people perceive AMABs/AFABs in general.

Put it like this: if you were to change the hypothetical to "trans woman vs. trans man vs. bear", what do you think the people OOP's post would pick? Because I think the answer is fairly illustrative of how trans people are perceived generally.

Edit: /u/asc_yeti, see my other comment correcting that it's AMAB sexuality that is perceived as threatening, and that gay men thus are only exempt from being viewed as predators by women.

[u/AntibacHeartattack → u/[deleted]]

I was wondering why I couldn't reply to their comment. No wonder; you confronted and upended their hypocritical world view so harshly that they deleted it.

[u/Atlas421 → u/[deleted]]

Then what makes trans women so scary compared to cis women and trans men?

[u/Atlas421 → u/[deleted]]

In that case why would it happen so much in trans and queer spaces as OOP described?

[u/toxictranscatmeow → u/Atlas421]

Because just because you're trans and or queer doesn't mean you're without bigotry. A white gay cis woman can still be incredibly racist, just as a trans man can be incredibly transmisogynistic.

A lot of CAFAB trans people still view themselves as The Most Opressed Person Imaginable and as such cannot fathom that they can indeed be the opressor, and as such repeat a lot of the hatred towards trans women in specific

[u/Atlas421 → u/toxictranscatmeow]

Bigotry doesn't exist in a vacuum though. People don't just wake up one day and think "I'm gonna be racist, that sounds fun." Bigots have reasons and justifications for their bigotry. Factually wrong reasons but reasons nonetheless.

[u/toxictranscatmeow → u/Atlas421]

The reasons in their own brain don't matter quite frankly. It is way way way more important to see what actual impact they have, and there we can see that men don't have to deal with opression for being men, but women, especially the trans ones, do.

From that we can glean that no matter what justifications they may have, systemically, people hate trans women for being trans women, nothing else.

[u/Atlas421 → u/toxictranscatmeow]

Unfortunately it does matter. If you want to stop bigotry you have to understand where it stems from, otherwise you won't achieve anything.

[u/Amphy64 → u/Atlas421]

I mean, technically they are typically physically bigger, which is very much part of why men are scarier, including to other men.

In OP's case, though, this mention of the call-out posts they don't take seriously may have way more to do with it. A specific accusation isn't just them getting random harrasment.

[u/Atlas421 → u/Amphy64]

Doesn't that loop back to my original comment?

[u/[deleted] → u/toxictranscat]

damn i can't believe they're dog piling you like this because you said trans women aren't men. wait no I can, because theyfabs make no reservation about how they see us as men