Boo Boo The Fool

Married the love of my life at 50.

Got my Class A CDL at 59.

You've got time.

I got inspired by that one special PnF episode lol

See, if women aren't real people, then the things that gender-mark women are real gender markers that identify them as not-people, but the things that gender-mark men are just normal people things, not gendered. Because the male gender doesn't exist, it's just women and people.

So you can't be gender-euphoric about becoming a man; all you're doing is shedding gender and becoming a genderless "normal person", because normal person is male.

It is really really weird that misogyny against women ends up, through a circuitous route, as redefining men as genderless, but this is the effect of generations of men being "normal" and women being "gendered".

Trans men, of course, know better; they can clearly see the gender marked-ness of masculinity, and feel euphoria when they reach it, because they're specifically looking for it. But cis men don't see it because women are the gender-marked class, and trans women might not see it for that reason and because they've been trying to achieve gender-markedness. Maybe they haven't put enough thought into the construction of the gender they're trying to leave behind to recognize that in fact masculinity is marked. (Any enby could have told them that, but it can be genuinely hard to recognize how marked masculinity is because even feminism falls into the trap of "women are the gender marked class and everyone else is just a person".)

Given how hard people have to fight to be seen as "manly" you'd think we'd all understand how very gender-marked masculinity is... but the fight to be manly is often constructed as the fight to not be womanly. Like, this is how normal people behave, and this is how girls behave, and you don't want to be a girl, do you?

this is a knock-on effect

of misogyny.

if something wants to get at your blood, and they’re, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog, that’s where the problems start to arise. a really frog is not made for removing blood, and your blood knows this, which is why it is so vehement about wanting to stay IN your body instead of coming out. 

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

its so incredibly scary, it feels like your mind is constantly playing tricks on you and you start to doubt whats real and what isnt.