it's all a bit difficult

I didn't have a lot of trans women in my life growing up, but I did have trans men/mascs. The first trans person I ever met was a trans man, he's my cousin. Trans men/mascs showed me that I don't have to live with the life that was assigned to me. My highschool sweetheart ended up being a trans man and so did my first husband. Dating a trans man is what first got me to question my gender (Thank you @gnomeskillet for dealing with my dumbass, I miss your face) and it was a trans masc nonbinary person who finally cracked my egg. For as long as I remember, it was trans men who were there for me and helped me discover who I really am. Not that trans women didn't help, they just weren't as much as a presence and the men were until recently.

So when I share my experiences and appreciation and another trans woman, a friend no less, responds with "Is this satire?" and tells me I'm throwing trans women under the bus and I "need to talk to more trans women" it pissed me off. We are literally fighting the same fight, why does it matter that men are who taught me what it means to be trans? And I know this isn't an isolated incident, I see so many trans men/masc talking about how they are treated like they somehow betrayed the community by finding their true selves or how a lot of the anti-men discourse hurts them as much as it does cis men (that's a whole other rant about how "All men are evil" is bioessentialism and that's terf talk) and all I can think is why? Those are our brothers and siblings. They deserve all the same care and compassion as we get, so why the fuck are we attacking them?

To my trans sisters who are participating in this hateful discourse, do better.