(obvious statement : I guess their gender identity must matter a lot to them)
You’re reminding me of something my late grandmother, who was born before the Great Depression, had to say about gay people 20-30 years ago that I found pretty profound. Especially for her generation.
“I don’t know why all these angry people claim that being gay is a choice. People are so mean to them, and some of them get beaten half to death or worse. Why would anyone choose that?”
She followed that up with consternation that they had to go and choose the word “gay” as their label. “It used to just mean happy, why couldn’t they pick a different word!” Which I always found to be such a quaint gripe; she felt like a word she loved was appropriated from her. Man I miss that sweet woman.
Okay so… Gunna stop you there cuz I think you’re overthinking some things.
It’s useful to think of what trans people experience as just an automatic, unfilterable reaction to their phenotype characteristics of their birth sex - like all the talk of gender performativity is actually not super useful for understanding the basics here so put that to the side for the time being.
I am a trans person. My brain looks at my body and sees all these different sex characteristics. To the majority of cis people having these characteristics are kind of neutral - only having positive or negative values if they are attractive or unattractive. To me as a trans person though there is no neutral sex characteristic - regardless of how socially attractive or unattractive those characteristics are to other people. My brain weights all those collective bits of my body as either abhorrent or something amazingly positive.
When I am talking with people and they use the wrong pronoun they are transmitting to me in words that they have seen and judged my physical body based on an automatic assessment. Registered a characteristic that I find abhorrent and reported their findings back to me. That person through language is effectively becoming a mirror put in front of me through which my automatic internal process of reward and punishment can start picking over everything that I hate or love about my physical experience.
None of this really has to do with gender performance or roles. Like I can be a trans man and still be into girl coded stuff just like any cis guy could. What you like is informed about where you’ve been and what you’ve been exposed to. A LOT of trans people bemoan that they essentially need to over-perform a gender role so that other people have visual cues to know not to call them by the wrong pronoun.
When people transition they are just asking for help not reporting their own bodies back to them. We aren’t trying to spiritually embody some kind of true apex femininity or masculinity. If you got into your field of work or sphere of socializing by following socially enforced gender paths of least resistance then changing your physical presentation is a problem.
For many particularly there’s this stage where to avoid being anything but trying being openly trans one endeavours to be the best possible version of their birth gender. It’s why a lot of trans women end up in the military. They say “I’m going to just be a better man. One of the best! I will belong, I’ll be fit. People will treat me well” … And that doesn’t fix being miserable it in fact just throws gasoline on something that feels indescribably worse. You feel isolated from all other humans by dint of everyone flattering you about things that make you feel alien and awful. All those features in the mirror become more pronounced as you move deeper into the territory of things that male your brain ping abhorrent. Your relationships suffer because people are just trying to tell you you’re doing great in your role and it is making you miserable instead of better. Alone instead of supported.
What you have to realize is that being trans isn’t a choice, and our gender identity has historically been highly suppressed, so a lot of us end up living as our assigned gender for a large portion of our lives before realizing who we are and starting our transition. I didn’t realize who I was till I was 33, but some people don’t realize until their 50s, 60s, 70s, etc. So we are socialized as our assigned gender, and all that that entails. Many trans women end up in science, engineering, and technology roles because many of us are neurodivergent and neurodivergent people tend to be drawn to these fields. The gender based discrimination against women in these fields means trans men living as women pre transition are disinsentivized from these roles. I work in aerospace and it’s a major sausage fest. Since we often don’t transition until later in life you end up with a bunch of trans women in traditionally male dominated STEM positions and trans men in traditionally female dominated positions.
In general though all trans people suffer worse outcomes in the work place, whether they’re trans women, men, or nonbinary. The outcomes are partially related to how “passing” they are, but also yes misogyny and misandry have their impact depending on where a particular trans person finds themself. As a trans woman in a historically highly misogynistic industry (which I love for the technical aspects) it’s just something I’m going to have to deal with. It fucking sucks and I wish things were different, like I also want more women around at work like holy fuck it doesn’t have to be all white dudes, but like I said before being trans isn’t really a choice. I am trans, and I can either transition and deal with the consequences for a chance at being finally happy in my skin or I can kill myself. That sounds really dark and maybe a bit dramatic but for a lot of trans people that’s the reality.
I’ll also say it was a lot easier to get a job in the tech industry back when I looked like a man. After I transitioned, I had no choice but to switch careers.
AMAB people are more likely to be diagnosed with autism, by a significant amount. It’s something like 4:1. However, AFAB people with autism are significantly less likely to get diagnosed, due to this little thing called misogyny. Still, significantly more AMABs than AFABs have autism, it’s supposedly close to 3:1. So, trans women are more likely to end up with autism, autistics are more likely to end up talking about how their linux is the best linux on this tiny social media platform.
Lemmy is full of tech nerds. AMAB people are encouraged to go into tech, AFAB people are sexually harassed if they go into tech.
This whole thing is confusing. So the AFAB people transition , but in the same fields that AFAB people at birth usually go to, but transition to male.
AMAB people go into toxic male dominated fields where women are harrassed, and then transition to female, and have things get worse for them?
(obvious statement : I guess their gender identity must matter a lot to them)
But then, the transmen aren’t in the male dominated spaces… but they’re male?
You’re reminding me of something my late grandmother, who was born before the Great Depression, had to say about gay people 20-30 years ago that I found pretty profound. Especially for her generation.
“I don’t know why all these angry people claim that being gay is a choice. People are so mean to them, and some of them get beaten half to death or worse. Why would anyone choose that?”
She followed that up with consternation that they had to go and choose the word “gay” as their label. “It used to just mean happy, why couldn’t they pick a different word!” Which I always found to be such a quaint gripe; she felt like a word she loved was appropriated from her. Man I miss that sweet woman.
Okay so… Gunna stop you there cuz I think you’re overthinking some things.
It’s useful to think of what trans people experience as just an automatic, unfilterable reaction to their phenotype characteristics of their birth sex - like all the talk of gender performativity is actually not super useful for understanding the basics here so put that to the side for the time being.
I am a trans person. My brain looks at my body and sees all these different sex characteristics. To the majority of cis people having these characteristics are kind of neutral - only having positive or negative values if they are attractive or unattractive. To me as a trans person though there is no neutral sex characteristic - regardless of how socially attractive or unattractive those characteristics are to other people. My brain weights all those collective bits of my body as either abhorrent or something amazingly positive.
When I am talking with people and they use the wrong pronoun they are transmitting to me in words that they have seen and judged my physical body based on an automatic assessment. Registered a characteristic that I find abhorrent and reported their findings back to me. That person through language is effectively becoming a mirror put in front of me through which my automatic internal process of reward and punishment can start picking over everything that I hate or love about my physical experience.
None of this really has to do with gender performance or roles. Like I can be a trans man and still be into girl coded stuff just like any cis guy could. What you like is informed about where you’ve been and what you’ve been exposed to. A LOT of trans people bemoan that they essentially need to over-perform a gender role so that other people have visual cues to know not to call them by the wrong pronoun.
When people transition they are just asking for help not reporting their own bodies back to them. We aren’t trying to spiritually embody some kind of true apex femininity or masculinity. If you got into your field of work or sphere of socializing by following socially enforced gender paths of least resistance then changing your physical presentation is a problem.
For many particularly there’s this stage where to avoid being anything but trying being openly trans one endeavours to be the best possible version of their birth gender. It’s why a lot of trans women end up in the military. They say “I’m going to just be a better man. One of the best! I will belong, I’ll be fit. People will treat me well” … And that doesn’t fix being miserable it in fact just throws gasoline on something that feels indescribably worse. You feel isolated from all other humans by dint of everyone flattering you about things that make you feel alien and awful. All those features in the mirror become more pronounced as you move deeper into the territory of things that male your brain ping abhorrent. Your relationships suffer because people are just trying to tell you you’re doing great in your role and it is making you miserable instead of better. Alone instead of supported.
It can be quite the hole to dig oneself out of.
What you have to realize is that being trans isn’t a choice, and our gender identity has historically been highly suppressed, so a lot of us end up living as our assigned gender for a large portion of our lives before realizing who we are and starting our transition. I didn’t realize who I was till I was 33, but some people don’t realize until their 50s, 60s, 70s, etc. So we are socialized as our assigned gender, and all that that entails. Many trans women end up in science, engineering, and technology roles because many of us are neurodivergent and neurodivergent people tend to be drawn to these fields. The gender based discrimination against women in these fields means trans men living as women pre transition are disinsentivized from these roles. I work in aerospace and it’s a major sausage fest. Since we often don’t transition until later in life you end up with a bunch of trans women in traditionally male dominated STEM positions and trans men in traditionally female dominated positions.
In general though all trans people suffer worse outcomes in the work place, whether they’re trans women, men, or nonbinary. The outcomes are partially related to how “passing” they are, but also yes misogyny and misandry have their impact depending on where a particular trans person finds themself. As a trans woman in a historically highly misogynistic industry (which I love for the technical aspects) it’s just something I’m going to have to deal with. It fucking sucks and I wish things were different, like I also want more women around at work like holy fuck it doesn’t have to be all white dudes, but like I said before being trans isn’t really a choice. I am trans, and I can either transition and deal with the consequences for a chance at being finally happy in my skin or I can kill myself. That sounds really dark and maybe a bit dramatic but for a lot of trans people that’s the reality.
I’ll also say it was a lot easier to get a job in the tech industry back when I looked like a man. After I transitioned, I had no choice but to switch careers.
My hypothesis is that tech skews ND, and trans people also skew ND. It doesn’t explain the gender imbalance though, at least not by itself.
AMAB people are more likely to be diagnosed with autism, by a significant amount. It’s something like 4:1. However, AFAB people with autism are significantly less likely to get diagnosed, due to this little thing called misogyny. Still, significantly more AMABs than AFABs have autism, it’s supposedly close to 3:1. So, trans women are more likely to end up with autism, autistics are more likely to end up talking about how their linux is the best linux on this tiny social media platform.
Interesting. Yeah that makes sense considering the “masculine” bullshit associated with the tech space. Thanks for your reply.