We're at a bodybuilding group and a guy said he was against trans bans because itd make getting steroids harder and nearly all the dude bros there agreed

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Anecdote evidence: I made friends with some bigass wrestlers in high-school. Nobody fucked with me after that. I was already friends with some skinny skater punks who were down to fight.

      But those big wrestlers were total teddy bear types. Really sweet dudes. They played video games like final fantasy 7 to help cut weight while fasting. But you knew if push came to shove they'd wreck.

      The nerd dudes were weird about women. Some were okay. The others called them b****** behind their backs. A lot more toxicity going on in that scene.

      • build_a_bear_group [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        You have to get the dialectical synthesis for best results. In middle school, after LotR came out, several classmates and I got involved with some LARPer type local sword fighting group. Because of the popularity of LotR and being able to run fast gaving a huge advantage on larger battle fields, the track team and football running backs also got really into it. It created the synthesis of nerds getting into running to be better at LotR battle cosplay and the captain of the track team reading the Silmarillion to argue lore with the nerds. So we kind of had the opposite problem, being the "nerds that worked out" I had to experience extreme levels of cringe watching a goth girl very aggressively hit on a very socially inept nerd that was completely oblivious, somehow. But yeah, as a nerd, it really helped with not dealing with bullying when everyone knew you were close friends with the captain of the track team and the best fist-fighter in school. Also, occasionally did see the jocks kind of reigning in the nerds as well to be less weird around women.

    • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Not my experience. A pretty jockish acquaintance of mine has been posting the most awful "feminist" concern trolling transphobic bs, like a picture of a boxer who got badly injured during a fight with a trans woman contender, and commenting "my dear feminists, they're mocking you to your face". It's a shame because they used to be nice in other contexts, but I'm glad I no longer hang out with them.

      I got so angry I didn't even know what to say.

    • machiabelly [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'd imagine that Jocks that aren't involved in traditional team sports are generally pretty cool. Body builders, wrestlers, track and field, maybe like tennis and stuff too. I had a friend on the baseball team in college and he said that the icebreaker for freshman introducing themselves to the upper classmen was, whats your favorite pornstar. Genuinely a ton of just weird conservative dudes in most of the team sports. There were some cool football players though. I knew the star RB from middle school. He got expelled for beating up a kid everyone hated. Super sweet guy.

      • Ligma_Male [comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        nah wrestling culture is terrible, and tennis is full of of rich kids.

        sports culture in america is horrible and it's gutting to see people say jocks are good after what i went through.

        • machiabelly [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Huh, given the thread i was just trying to be charitable, since i dont have experience with athletes that arent team sports people.

          My experience has always matched yours. Jocks treated me like shit. I got bullied on my baseball teams and always felt uncomfy around athletes.

        • barrbaric [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yeah it's weird, all the "jocks" I know are borderline (or open!) fascists while the "nerds" tend to be lib at worst.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Most of the trans girls i know are massive nerds. I'm no exception. I think that back before the 4chan poison, nerd culture used to be a refuge for people who did not fit traditional gender roles, but where either not queer or not out yet. If you were a scrawny AMAB person who didn't enjoy getting into hands-on physical competition with boys, a TTRPG group was a safe space, whether that was because you were an egg like me, on the spectrum, or whatever else. And when i look at the cis girls on my RPG discord, they didn't care about most stereotypical girly stuff, they cared about starting an all-girl RPG group with their friends and claiming that whole acting and storytelling and worldbuilding thing for themselves. And now that we're grown up, we have to start our own safe space for nerdy girls and allies and queer and PoC roleplayers because the forums we used to frequent got overrun by manosphere-brainwashed STEMbros after the gamergate watershed.

      It's a pity, really. TTRPGs in particular have so much potential for things like gender exploration, queering established cultural narratives, or just goofing around and doing high camp. When my egg cracked and i realized i need to try living as a woman, one of the first things i did was finding a play by post group so that i could try out different gender roles without having to worry about passing. I constantly see trans people post memes about how they were known as the player who always rolls up characters of the "opposite" gender. That hobby is almost predestined to become a staple in LGBT+ communities, especially once you include story-focussed indie games that are also attractive to the parts of the community that grew up with fanfic.