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No Hard Feelings
Dec. 22nd, 2010 05:27 pmIt's not uncommon for me to hear some men expounding on how having been assigned female at birth (AFAB) makes them better than men who were assigned male at birth (AMAB). In a recent thread on a trans-related mailing list I'm on, various guys made claims like: "I bet we are all better men than the bio [sic] men. I wish women out there can give us credit for our genuineness"; "I don't believe that we treat woman the same as cis men due to having a better understanding" [in other words: trans men treat women better than cis men do]; and "We are so much more understanding than bio [sic] men."
I doubt that most trans men advance this sort of superiority complex -- indeed, in that mailing list thread, quite a few other posters pointed out that assigned sex at birth does not cause empathy or understanding -- but there's a vocal minority who do. They believe that "female socialization" (which they assume is uniform and experienced by every trans man in more or less the same way -- I guess) makes us more sensitive than cis men, makes us better men who are better at understanding women and more attuned to their struggles.
What's wrong with that? For one, it assumes that there is some sort of common base of experience that all trans men share other than having gotten an 'F' written on their birth certificate (and even then, people who identify both as intersex and as male may not have had that experience) and challenging that designation at some point in their life. Many trans men know they're boys from a very young age, and thus even if others treat them in ways typically associated with "female socialization", their subjective experience of that treatment is not at all the same as that of girls or women. Many trans men are recognized as -- if not boys -- then "not quite girls" from a young age, and sometimes, supportive family members affirm those boys' masculinity. Personally, I'm not in either of those categories. But, I didn't experience "female socialization" as I imagine most AFAB children raised in normative, Protestant, non-immigrant, affluent, suburban-dwelling, two-opposite-gender-cis-parent families experience it, either. I didn't attend elementary, middle, or high school; I was raised by a disabled single mother who was an immigrant and who was of an above-average age to be having a first child; I was an only child, so I didn't have siblings of either the same or opposite gender to compare myself to; and as a child, I was introverted and had intellectual strengths that would get me called a "gifted" child (not a term I like much, as it implies that some people's gifts are more valuable than others', but having adults perceive you as smarter than they are does affect your experience of being a kid). So what does it mean to say that trans men have a better understanding of women because they experience female socialization? Well, part of what it means is rendering me invisible, as well as lots of other trans men whose early lives didn't fit the typical-girl mold.
I've experienced sexist treatment, and I think that does make me attuned to sexism in a way that many cis men are not. But not every trans man has had the experience of being treated in a way he perceived as sexist, and even when they are, not every trans man has the same response as I did. For some trans men, sexist behavior on others' part is just more evidence for their personal belief that men and women are different and should be treated differently. Some trans men adopt a hard-core form of gender essentialism as a result of their experiences being perceived as female and as male, and as a result their ideologies can be hard to distinguish from those of the religious right. They correctly notice that their own innate gender identity has survived the onslaught of socialization unscathed, but then make an invalid logical deduction that innate gender identities are, and should be, tied to gender roles as defined by the particular culture in which they live. Such men are an example of why while many, perhaps most trans men have had life experiences that many, perhaps most cis men never do, having those experiences does not automatically give you the sensitivity and discernment to contextualize those experiences with respect to knowledge about social structures of oppression.
Likewise, any sort of assertion that trans men know "what women want" in some sort of squishier, less political way doesn't hold water, for the simple reason that trans men aren't women, and being treated like a woman doesn't make you think like one. (Of course, such an assertion also is contingent on there being a single thing that "women want". Yes, all women.)
Trans men aren't better men than cis men, or worse men than cis men. For the most part, we're just men, many of whom have experienced what it's like to be seen as a girl or woman, but none of whom know what it's like for a woman to be seen as a woman. When you say that trans men make better men, you're really just saying that trans men aren't really men.
Another way in which I sometimes hear trans masculine superiority get expressed is genital superiority. It seems to me like every single article in a publication that doesn't primarily have a trans audience quotes some trans guy -- almost invariably, one under the age of 25 -- saying how much they don't want a penis, how happy they are with the set of genitalia they were born with. While I have no doubt that this statement is true for many trans men, especially younger trans men, I hope I can be clear about questioning the motivation for cis journalists to give undue weight to these kinds of statements without questioning these guys' reporting of their own experience. I'm not suggesting they are wrong about their desires, only questioning why they get a disproportionate share of the airtime.
It's threatening, the idea that someone who was AFAB would want to have a penis. It's threatening to those who see the phallus as the key that unlocks the doors of power -- you mean anyone could show up at the hardware store and they won't honor that text that says "Do Not Duplicate"? And it's threatening as well to those who fear that the existence of trans men lends credence to the concept of "penis envy". (Memo: it doesn't. "Penis envy" is the idea that women want to have penises, and we're not women.) So maybe that's why trans men are less likely to be quoted as saying that they're frustrated by their inability to have sex in the most straightforward way that their brain is wired for, that they wish they could afford genital reconstructive surgery, or that they wish that more money and attention would get put into researching techniques to construct penises that get erect spontaneously and are of typical adult male size. But just because the truth hurts doesn't mean we should ignore it.
The silencing also comes from other trans men, some of whom say that the rest of us should just get over it, or that they've learned to be happy with the genitals they have, so why can't we? Often, this attitude seems to be intertwined with a broader sense of superiority. For some trans men (and again, probably a minority, but a vocal one), transcending the need to have a penis and testicles is part of a political agenda that makes one more noble if one is able to achieve it. Sometimes they tell you that if you just concentrated your mind enough and liberated yourself from oppressive gender roles, you'd be just as happy having a vagina and clitoris as you would be if you had a penis and testicles.
Obviously, I don't buy it. No amount of political enlightenment is going to reconfigure my neurons to get me as excited about using my vulva during sex as I would about using my penis during sex, if I had one. No amount of ideological re-training is going to make wielding a silicone dick feel as if it's connected to my central nervous system. I'm as much in favor of liberation from oppressive gender roles as anyone; there are myriad ways in which oppressive, gender-based social structures do limit my life, but the mental map inside my brain, the program that has native code for controlling a dick but can only control a vagina by means of painstaking emulation, isn't one of those. I was born that way. Is there any other explanation? Could someone, somewhere along the line have taught me that I ought not to have a connection between my genitals and my sex drive, that it would be better for me to instead have a sex drive that only kicked in if I imagined myself in a different kind of body? What reason would anybody have to do that?
The idea that trans men all have an amazing ability to transcend the need for a cock ties into the philosophy that trans men are better at being masculine than cis men are. But again, it's just another way of denying that we're men, since I think most cis men would be pretty upset and angry if they lost their penises in an accident or due to disease, and though many would probably find ways to get over it (just as many trans men find coping mechanisms), few would be cavalier about it. To suggest we're above that, that we're some sort of master race of super-masculinity, is insulting to everyone involved in the comparison. Personally, I don't plan to kill myself over not having a cock. I do want to be respected and affirmed if and when I choose to talk about the discomfort and frustration that not being able to experience sex the way most people get to experience it without ever appreciating that privilege causes me. I don't want to be told "you can be a real man without having a dick", because to me that sounds no different than "you can ride a bicycle without having a dick" or "you can learn to play trombone without having a dick", in that: of course I can. That's not why I need to have one. And yet many trans men who don't experience bodily dysphoria feel the need to convince everybody else that the experiences of trans men who do experience that are just the result of oppressive gender role brainwashing. Does that sound familiar to anyone? If it does, it's probably because that's the same argument that certain self-styled feminists have used against trans men transitioning -- being socially recognized as men -- in the first place.
I understand that some trans men are not content to just be regular guys, but rather, want to be magical unicorn cupcakes who get lots of attention. And hey, that doesn't sound so bad. But maybe you could try to seek attention for anything except either being better than other trans men, or being better than men in general. Perhaps you could exhibit your specialness in a way that doesn't reinforce existing hierarchies of oppression or create new ones. Putting trans men on a pedestal, even if you are one yourself, crosses the line into fetishization, objectification, and all-around othering very quickly. When you sneer at people who want to have a cock, at people who have hair on their necks or backs or ears or none on their heads, at people with beer bellies and flat asses, you're recapitulating a trope that masculinity is unattractive; in concert with heteronormativity, the logical formula becomes "women are attracted to masculinity, so there's something wrong with their sexual or aesthetic judgment." In other words? Misogyny. When you say that you're mostly into men but women are just so aesthetically pleasing, in a way men can never be? Misogyny as well, because it's a way of belittling the preferences of those who really do find men's bodies aesthetically pleasing, and people with that preference are often women.
There are those who might be surprised to find that trans men are probably as likely as anyone else to buy into and reinforce a set of misogynistic stereotypes. I probably was surprised too, at one point. I think the trans male superiority complex is harmful because elevating trans men as "better" men is just as othering as dismissing trans men as not-men, and in the particular case of pressure to claim that one doesn't want a cock, harmful because it creates an environment where people aren't motivated to work on developing surgeries that would bring more people a cock they would want.
In short, if you feel the need to convince other people their experience of their body isn't real, or if you feel like you need to be better than other people based on your ability to tolerate having a particular physical condition without medical intervention, why not ask yourself what it is within yourself that makes you want to play those kinds of power games? If what it means to understand women involves good listening skills and a willingness to respect and affirm experiences one hasn't had oneself, then the existence of the trans man superiority complex suggests that trans men are as regrettable in those domains as are cis men. And really, I'd be surprised if it was any other way.
I doubt that most trans men advance this sort of superiority complex -- indeed, in that mailing list thread, quite a few other posters pointed out that assigned sex at birth does not cause empathy or understanding -- but there's a vocal minority who do. They believe that "female socialization" (which they assume is uniform and experienced by every trans man in more or less the same way -- I guess) makes us more sensitive than cis men, makes us better men who are better at understanding women and more attuned to their struggles.
What's wrong with that? For one, it assumes that there is some sort of common base of experience that all trans men share other than having gotten an 'F' written on their birth certificate (and even then, people who identify both as intersex and as male may not have had that experience) and challenging that designation at some point in their life. Many trans men know they're boys from a very young age, and thus even if others treat them in ways typically associated with "female socialization", their subjective experience of that treatment is not at all the same as that of girls or women. Many trans men are recognized as -- if not boys -- then "not quite girls" from a young age, and sometimes, supportive family members affirm those boys' masculinity. Personally, I'm not in either of those categories. But, I didn't experience "female socialization" as I imagine most AFAB children raised in normative, Protestant, non-immigrant, affluent, suburban-dwelling, two-opposite-gender-cis-parent families experience it, either. I didn't attend elementary, middle, or high school; I was raised by a disabled single mother who was an immigrant and who was of an above-average age to be having a first child; I was an only child, so I didn't have siblings of either the same or opposite gender to compare myself to; and as a child, I was introverted and had intellectual strengths that would get me called a "gifted" child (not a term I like much, as it implies that some people's gifts are more valuable than others', but having adults perceive you as smarter than they are does affect your experience of being a kid). So what does it mean to say that trans men have a better understanding of women because they experience female socialization? Well, part of what it means is rendering me invisible, as well as lots of other trans men whose early lives didn't fit the typical-girl mold.
I've experienced sexist treatment, and I think that does make me attuned to sexism in a way that many cis men are not. But not every trans man has had the experience of being treated in a way he perceived as sexist, and even when they are, not every trans man has the same response as I did. For some trans men, sexist behavior on others' part is just more evidence for their personal belief that men and women are different and should be treated differently. Some trans men adopt a hard-core form of gender essentialism as a result of their experiences being perceived as female and as male, and as a result their ideologies can be hard to distinguish from those of the religious right. They correctly notice that their own innate gender identity has survived the onslaught of socialization unscathed, but then make an invalid logical deduction that innate gender identities are, and should be, tied to gender roles as defined by the particular culture in which they live. Such men are an example of why while many, perhaps most trans men have had life experiences that many, perhaps most cis men never do, having those experiences does not automatically give you the sensitivity and discernment to contextualize those experiences with respect to knowledge about social structures of oppression.
Likewise, any sort of assertion that trans men know "what women want" in some sort of squishier, less political way doesn't hold water, for the simple reason that trans men aren't women, and being treated like a woman doesn't make you think like one. (Of course, such an assertion also is contingent on there being a single thing that "women want". Yes, all women.)
Trans men aren't better men than cis men, or worse men than cis men. For the most part, we're just men, many of whom have experienced what it's like to be seen as a girl or woman, but none of whom know what it's like for a woman to be seen as a woman. When you say that trans men make better men, you're really just saying that trans men aren't really men.
Another way in which I sometimes hear trans masculine superiority get expressed is genital superiority. It seems to me like every single article in a publication that doesn't primarily have a trans audience quotes some trans guy -- almost invariably, one under the age of 25 -- saying how much they don't want a penis, how happy they are with the set of genitalia they were born with. While I have no doubt that this statement is true for many trans men, especially younger trans men, I hope I can be clear about questioning the motivation for cis journalists to give undue weight to these kinds of statements without questioning these guys' reporting of their own experience. I'm not suggesting they are wrong about their desires, only questioning why they get a disproportionate share of the airtime.
It's threatening, the idea that someone who was AFAB would want to have a penis. It's threatening to those who see the phallus as the key that unlocks the doors of power -- you mean anyone could show up at the hardware store and they won't honor that text that says "Do Not Duplicate"? And it's threatening as well to those who fear that the existence of trans men lends credence to the concept of "penis envy". (Memo: it doesn't. "Penis envy" is the idea that women want to have penises, and we're not women.) So maybe that's why trans men are less likely to be quoted as saying that they're frustrated by their inability to have sex in the most straightforward way that their brain is wired for, that they wish they could afford genital reconstructive surgery, or that they wish that more money and attention would get put into researching techniques to construct penises that get erect spontaneously and are of typical adult male size. But just because the truth hurts doesn't mean we should ignore it.
The silencing also comes from other trans men, some of whom say that the rest of us should just get over it, or that they've learned to be happy with the genitals they have, so why can't we? Often, this attitude seems to be intertwined with a broader sense of superiority. For some trans men (and again, probably a minority, but a vocal one), transcending the need to have a penis and testicles is part of a political agenda that makes one more noble if one is able to achieve it. Sometimes they tell you that if you just concentrated your mind enough and liberated yourself from oppressive gender roles, you'd be just as happy having a vagina and clitoris as you would be if you had a penis and testicles.
Obviously, I don't buy it. No amount of political enlightenment is going to reconfigure my neurons to get me as excited about using my vulva during sex as I would about using my penis during sex, if I had one. No amount of ideological re-training is going to make wielding a silicone dick feel as if it's connected to my central nervous system. I'm as much in favor of liberation from oppressive gender roles as anyone; there are myriad ways in which oppressive, gender-based social structures do limit my life, but the mental map inside my brain, the program that has native code for controlling a dick but can only control a vagina by means of painstaking emulation, isn't one of those. I was born that way. Is there any other explanation? Could someone, somewhere along the line have taught me that I ought not to have a connection between my genitals and my sex drive, that it would be better for me to instead have a sex drive that only kicked in if I imagined myself in a different kind of body? What reason would anybody have to do that?
The idea that trans men all have an amazing ability to transcend the need for a cock ties into the philosophy that trans men are better at being masculine than cis men are. But again, it's just another way of denying that we're men, since I think most cis men would be pretty upset and angry if they lost their penises in an accident or due to disease, and though many would probably find ways to get over it (just as many trans men find coping mechanisms), few would be cavalier about it. To suggest we're above that, that we're some sort of master race of super-masculinity, is insulting to everyone involved in the comparison. Personally, I don't plan to kill myself over not having a cock. I do want to be respected and affirmed if and when I choose to talk about the discomfort and frustration that not being able to experience sex the way most people get to experience it without ever appreciating that privilege causes me. I don't want to be told "you can be a real man without having a dick", because to me that sounds no different than "you can ride a bicycle without having a dick" or "you can learn to play trombone without having a dick", in that: of course I can. That's not why I need to have one. And yet many trans men who don't experience bodily dysphoria feel the need to convince everybody else that the experiences of trans men who do experience that are just the result of oppressive gender role brainwashing. Does that sound familiar to anyone? If it does, it's probably because that's the same argument that certain self-styled feminists have used against trans men transitioning -- being socially recognized as men -- in the first place.
I understand that some trans men are not content to just be regular guys, but rather, want to be magical unicorn cupcakes who get lots of attention. And hey, that doesn't sound so bad. But maybe you could try to seek attention for anything except either being better than other trans men, or being better than men in general. Perhaps you could exhibit your specialness in a way that doesn't reinforce existing hierarchies of oppression or create new ones. Putting trans men on a pedestal, even if you are one yourself, crosses the line into fetishization, objectification, and all-around othering very quickly. When you sneer at people who want to have a cock, at people who have hair on their necks or backs or ears or none on their heads, at people with beer bellies and flat asses, you're recapitulating a trope that masculinity is unattractive; in concert with heteronormativity, the logical formula becomes "women are attracted to masculinity, so there's something wrong with their sexual or aesthetic judgment." In other words? Misogyny. When you say that you're mostly into men but women are just so aesthetically pleasing, in a way men can never be? Misogyny as well, because it's a way of belittling the preferences of those who really do find men's bodies aesthetically pleasing, and people with that preference are often women.
There are those who might be surprised to find that trans men are probably as likely as anyone else to buy into and reinforce a set of misogynistic stereotypes. I probably was surprised too, at one point. I think the trans male superiority complex is harmful because elevating trans men as "better" men is just as othering as dismissing trans men as not-men, and in the particular case of pressure to claim that one doesn't want a cock, harmful because it creates an environment where people aren't motivated to work on developing surgeries that would bring more people a cock they would want.
In short, if you feel the need to convince other people their experience of their body isn't real, or if you feel like you need to be better than other people based on your ability to tolerate having a particular physical condition without medical intervention, why not ask yourself what it is within yourself that makes you want to play those kinds of power games? If what it means to understand women involves good listening skills and a willingness to respect and affirm experiences one hasn't had oneself, then the existence of the trans man superiority complex suggests that trans men are as regrettable in those domains as are cis men. And really, I'd be surprised if it was any other way.