Posting from Your Local Pond

is as useless of a statement as,

"Lesbians aren't as oppressed as gay men! Look at all these laws targeting gay men but not lesbians!"

I'd be rightfully chastised for saying the latter, but apparently the former is just "transfeminism 101" to some people.

And to be clear, there are STILL places in the world where male homosexuality is punished but female homosexuality isn't. Would you say that queer women are privileged in these places? NO! You would recognise that the methods for oppressing queerness often differs based on the gender one is socially imposed upon birth.

The oppression of transmasculine people is often enacted in ways similar to that of cis women, especially cis queer women. These include tactics such as corrective rape/forced pregnancy and being dismissed as "confused" and "delusional," but also "predatory Evil Women who are going to Corrupt Your Daughters."

Unfortunately, this means a lot of trans men must be considered "not real men" in order to have their experiences validated. Transgender theory and mainstream transfeminism has failed in this regard. Since the idea of "a man being oppressed for being a man" is counterintuitive to decades of feminist thought, it is rejected outright.

Some say, "you're not oppressed for being a man, you're oppressed for being trans" as if those are distinct categories in this context.

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.