#cis privilege

its the crux of the transandrophobia thing - they dont want to recognise that cis men get so much privilege not just because they are men but because they are cis.

instead of looking at the differences between cis men and trans men as cis privilege, they have to shoehorn it into a weak as fuck cisfeminist conception of "misogyny"

instead of deconstructing misogyny and male privilege and differences between cis women and trans men from a trans lens (by applying the framework of cis privilege) they just want to either 1. expand the existing meanings of misogyny to no longer be about women or 2. call trans men women-lite.

How you sound right now:

Yes, having things you don't go through that other people do is a privilege dynamic. Privilege is often described as "obstacles one group of people face that you do not". I don't really care how you personally define privilege; the rest of the world disagrees with you. Privilege also makes it so you can't see the challenges other people face; their burdens are invisible to you. You see YOUR burden clearly, but you can't visualize anyone else suffering.

And yes, cis women are discriminated against in all those fields. I picked them on purpose. Yes, cis women face challenges in those situations - but trans people face ADDITIONAL challenges cis women do not, based on the fact that they are trans.

The same thing goes for black women vs white women, by the way. They're both women, but the white woman will have privileges the black woman does not.

And so yes, cis women have advantages trans people do not have.

Imagine a cis woman and a trans woman are going to the bathroom in Florida. The cis woman gets to pee; the trans woman is arrested. That is cis privilege. Imagine a cis woman and a trans woman are applying for an apartment. The trans woman is rejected specifically because she's trans, but the cis woman is not. That is cis privilege.

Imagine a trans man and a cis woman both go to the gynecologist. The cis woman goes into the waiting room, is gendered correctly by staff, is not dead named, is not stared at, and is not refused coverage by her insurance because her gender and her sex are congruent and pap smears are considered necessary for females.

The trans man walks in and is told he's in the wrong place. He corrects the staff quietly, informing them he is a trans man. The nurse at the desk looks at his id and his paperwork and deadnames him and misgenders him. He sits down and is given dirty looks while he waits. The nurse calls him back by his dead name a few minutes later. The doctor asks him intrusive and inappropriate questions while performing his pap smear. He finally leaves, relived the ordeal is over. But it's not - because a few weeks later he gets a letter from his insurance. They've denied to cover the procedure because pap smears are for females, and his paperwork says he's male.

we who don't look outwardly queer and/or have citizen privileges (holding the same passport as the country you reside in) take the right to defend ourselves for granted. i was raised to shout and defend myself to my fullest extent when attacked because all i had to do was follow this mantra:

i'm in the right, i'm in the right, this is my right and i'm defending myself

and i've definitely used that privilege over and over many times (since gaining the courage to, as an adult of course), and it's so fucking easy for me to become inflamed when my girlfriend, a transgender woman and immigrant, doesn't defend herself against people harassing her.

she tried to explain that it's not the same but i wouldn't listen, it was just so unthinkable to me that she could take hits lying down.

it's only now when i came across a tweet of another transgender woman who was assaulted by a mother in the ladies' bathroom at a rest stop (graph1c, warning) that i thought

but wait, why didn't you hit her back?? why didn't you defend yourself??

and it hit me. do you know what that would look like to other people? bigots and self-proclaimed "peace-lovers"?

this lady would just be an insane transgender woman who attacked a cisgender woman in front of her daughter in a ladies' bathroom, self defense argument be damned.

my girlfriend would be a transgender woman who yelled at some girl that was pointing a camera at her.

for them, the argument of self-defence is never guaranteed. for me, i know i'll be in the right. for them? the "right" is never on their side because of their gender identity and the oppressive social view of transgender woman despite the violence they face every single day.

here's what you can do about it, though. use your fucking privilege. if you're cis and a citizen/national of where you live, yell at the asshole catcalling your trans friend. defend your trans sibling against your transphobic parents. hold your trans partner's hand at the doctor's office and stay by their side and ask their questions. any scenario where you can use your privilege to keep your people safe, use it, because the law/society will almost always take your side.