What

I find it inarguable that I have some access to male privilege. I do. I think those saying that I don't are being completely absurd and disingenuous when they deny it. I am, in fact, materially treated differently and at times even better than many of the women within my social sphere. It is plain as day when I no longer need to be spending my money on period products, when male clients defer to me despite being the newest on the team, when interacting with other men who do not know that I am transgender.

This, to me, is the white passing privilege argument. It is equally inarguable to me that my mother and my nephew who are completely white passing have some access to white privilege. They are treated materially differently than the rest of our family- including my nephew's own little sister who while being light skinned is clearly of color somehow, including my mother's somewhat darker brother who has since passed away. While the rest of us must deal with the more overt and violent racism that comes with being native and black, they are spared this experience, watching from the outside, knowing that if they speak up it will be their heads next on the chopping block.

However, like my mother and my nephew, I still am affected by laws that this conditional access to privilege do not protect me from. Any laws that is designed to hurt cis women will inevitably hurt me, someone with an "F" marker. Any laws designed to hurt intersex people with hurt me, someone with an intersex variation and extensive medical history of such. Any laws designed to hurt transgender people will hurt me, as I am someone that is transgender.

Often when we talk about male privilege, we talk about freedom from laws restricting reproductive rights, body autonomy, and social movement. This is why arguing if trans women have male privilege is also a moot point- as they are also not free from these laws and on fact are directly targeted by them much the same. Thus an "M" marker is not a guaranteer of privilege *either*, as more and more nations impose tighter restrictions on trans women specifically.

Often when trans men point out how we are affected by things, there is a sense that this implies that trans women intrinsically aren't affected- but they are. We are hardly mirror images of each other in anything except presentation goals, and even there we find common ground frequently outside of primary or secondary sex characteristics. This is what I mean when I say that I truly don't think there is anything that one type of trans people experience that other types of trans people don't in a similar manner- and what is there as a stark difference usually has an answering stark difference elsewhere.

As I begin to take steps towards bottom surgery and everything it implies, as I am accepted by those who don't know me and don't see my legal or medical documents more and more as a cis man, as I continue this walk through life as a cis-passing trans man, I do see more and more the social privileges I am afforded as a result of my transition.

It's just, as the leader of my country is poised to end all gender transition for all transgender people and specifically cites my presumed fertility as a reason to save me from myself, as I race against the clock to at least remove my uterus before he stops that from happening too, I realize that this privilege stops at "social". And that I have a very narrow window to be able to hold onto what transition I've already done, if I don't want a single signature to completely undo everything I've worked for over the past 20 years.

And yet, what is taken more seriously is the single cisgender girl who went up to speak about her discomfort with trans girls in the lockers & bathrooms. Not danger. Not harm. Not trauma. Discomfort.

🛸👽 photos printed? 👽🛸

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🦐 shrimps teto 🦐

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women's sports exist largely because of sexism. even very recently there have been cultural ideas and jokes about things like the WNBA essentially boiling down to "who would care about that." i want to look through the lens of esports for a moment because i think that shift in perspective crystallizes something traditional athletics might be able to obscure.

on the subject of the lack of women in extremely high-end professional world of warcraft, the leader of the current reigning champions (liquid max/maximum if you wanna look him up) said on his podcast that the reason there are not more (or currently really any, though there have been a couple notable players in the past) women competing in the game is men. men in the game treat women poorly, do not understand that they need to be respectful, etc. women get filtered out if they want to join because they just are not treated well, and over time this has created an actively exclusionary culture. and that's in this century on the internet.

there are actual women's esports teams. women's chess organizations. there is no fucking shot anyone can justify to me that there is any "biological advantage" in fucking chess. like, okay, hormonal composition does affect the way certain body systems function, but the most notable example i can call to mind is depth perception, not overall strength or whatever. the reason for women's esports and women's chess tournaments is because of systematic exclusion from the "main" stage.

going back to what max said, i think it shows us exactly why so many people can hold onto this myth that women (read: people running on primary-E endocrine systems) are "weaker" or "slower" or "more fragile" than men (read: primary-T etc) is because the money and resources and support are not there for women to reach the potential that men do. the badgers (a powerhouse NCAA women's hockey team) have existed since 1999. i am older than the wisconsin badgers women's hockey team. (ofc other sports, men's sports, etc have had wisconsin badgers teams a lot longer than that.)

this ties into salaries as well, which the pwhl anonymous player survey this year showed was the biggest issue players in the league are dealing with. marie-philip poulin, arguably the greatest player in the league, took a pay cut this year so that her team's budget had more room at the lower end for player pay. there are still players in the pwhl working second jobs during the off-season, according to commentary from that survey.

do you think ANY nhl players have to do that shit? fuck no! men's game players have all the best practice schedules for ice time at their rinks, they have all the best trainers, they make enough to never think about anything but hockey. across every sport, every game, and so on. men are "better" at what they do because as a society we want them to be, so we do not entertain the necessary mechanisms to raise women to that level. the difference between the men's game and the women's game isn't fucking. body chemistry or some shit. it's time and effort and MONEY. you cannot rise to your fullest potential on $36k/year.