reading some stuff on the history of third-gender roles & its really wild reading people just straight up saying "yeah there's less assigned-female trans people than assigned-male trans people in this culture because people classed as women are more controlled and restricted from experimentation" and also "colonial reports literally did not give a fuck about people classed as women and/or thought gay sex and gender nonconformity were embarrassing and uncomfortable to talk about, especially when it was people they saw as women doing it"
example (from Sharyn Graham Davies's Gender Diversity in Indonesia: Sexuality, Islam and Queer Selves)
The array of restrictions and regulations exacted on women’s behaviour is a key reason why so few females identify as calalai [roughly, a female man], as Puang Sulai, an elderly Bugis man expressly notes: There are so few calalai because women are more nurtured (dipelihara). If a woman goes anywhere she must have a companion (pendamping). A woman’s behaviour is much more strictly controlled than men’s.
also on the Bugis society (from Michael G. Peletz's Gender Pluralism: Southeast Asia Since Early Modern Times)
It is well to bear in mind that Graham encountered only a half dozen or so calalai in the course of her two years of fieldwork—and clearly, she was looking for them—but over a hundred calabai [male women]. This is to say that male-bodied individuals involved in transgender practices and same-sex relations outnumber their female-bodied counterparts by about twenty to one. Non- or potential calalai’s perceptions of the real and imagined psychological stigma, social costs, and divine retribution involved in (or resulting from) adopting the role undoubtedly help explain why it is of such limited occurrence, especially in relation to its male-bodied (calabai) counterparts. [...]
In Bugis society and in most other cases for which we have relevant information, males tend to enjoy more power and prestige than females (although considerations of social class and related variables may trump gender in any given context). They do, moreover, typically display their power and prestige in gendered arenas and in specifically sexual contexts, the latter being among the quintessential settings in which we see displays of power and prestige in any society. Displays of male power and prestige are frequently manifested not only in the socially recognized ability to transgress and transcend gender norms with relative impunity (albeit within limits), and to define the terms of and otherwise control female transgression and transcendence in these areas. A second, related set of dynamics has to do with the fact that female transgression is more often noticed, regulated, and disciplined (through gossip, ostracism, explicit censure, and, in some contexts, more focused, physical sanctions) because the relative status honor of families and more encompassing kin groups is often heavily dependent on or otherwise keyed to the perceived moral purity and overall comportment of sisters, daughters, and other female relatives, as is certainly true among the Bugis. These dynamic go a long way toward explaining why, in terms of gender and sexuality, male-bodied individuals are allowed more “play” than their female-bodied counterparts, and why, as a consequence, they are more likely to outnumber them in terms of involvement in transgender practices and same-sex relations. These dynamics also suggest that even when notions of same-sex desire as illness and sin apply equally to males and females, they are more likely to be mobilized against women than men and thus more likely to be internalized by them.
wow thats crazy its almost like that's what i've heard verbatim from various different transmasculine people from intensely patriarchal places where people classed as women experience a high degree of social control. i'll literally never forget that one post of mine where someone commented that the reason there's less overt explicit lesbophobia / anti-transmasculinity in a lot of places is because systemic misogyny already exists to exert control over those groups' gender performance and sexuality, whereas people who are classed as "male" who are gender-marginalized create the need for specific ways of attacking perceived-male gender-sexual deviance.
required disclaimer this is not to say that trans women have male privilege & everyone is required read the section on male privilege in Emi Koyama's Transfeminist Manifesto. this is a complicated issue that can be and has been weaponized to hurt trans people, but thats no excuse for silencing any discussion around it. & that discussion requires talking about how being raised and seen as a girl / "female" shapes the experience of many trans people in ways that require us to grapple with the lived complexity of gendering and male privilege under (various forms of) patriarchy. if we can talk about how some trans men can benefit from patriarchy & even become actively complicit in toxic masculinity and misogyny, then we can talk about how many trans men were actively kept from expressing their manhood because of misogyny.
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