A great piece by Julia Serano on 'male socialization', and misunderstandings about transmisogyny.

  • MechanizedPossum [she/her]
    ·
    5 months ago

    Yeah, that's a big part of this that terfs have completely refused to acknowledge for several decades now: Gender is performative. As in, you have to actively uphold it through your behavior and you subconsciously do that because you want to be seen in a certain way. Toxic masculinity is maintained by the feedback loops you're describing, men keep acting that way because they want to be seen as men by others and transfem eggs keep acting that way because they've been led to believe they want to be seen that way by others. For the eggs, this has one big advantage that makes it a lot easier than for men to stop engaging in toxic masculinity: At some point during our cracking, we realize that we do not want to be seen as men anymore, that in fact this is something we want to avoid at all costs. And that just pulls the rug from under these behaviors in a way that is not accessible to men. A dude that wants to stop engaging in toxic masculinity not only has to create a non-toxic understanding of a male gender role, he also has to find ways to make others perceive himself as a man when he acts that way. We don't.