OK. So. I've been taking some time to process emotionally what went down yesterday, the way I reacted, what is actually going on with me. And because it's me shit and because the maleness and masculinity thread is talking about stuff that has nothing to do with me, I'm putting it here.
It's not about whether or not masculinity is in crisis or anything like that. I'm a woman and so I don't really need to worry about that, about what it means to be a man. I used to worry about that a lot, because I was trying to be a Good Man, but that's just not in the cards for me and never was. I need to let that go.
Here's my actual issue: I'm a woman and I love men. And that is super fucking hard for me.
I don't mean romantically, or sexually, and certainly not fraternally. I do think that unperson was right about that, fraternal love exists and it's not something I was ever able to experience because I'm not a man and never was. As soon as I transitioned, it was such an amazing experience, because immediately I was made welcome, accepted. The sororal love I'd had for women for a long time was accepted and reciprocated. I have to imagine and believe that men experience something similar.
I just think men are really great and I like being around them. I admire men. And the way men started treating me as soon as they realized I wasn't one has been really really uncomfortable for me. Sometimes, not always, I'm afraid of men, in a way I never was when they treated me as one of them. It's not the threat of, you know, violence. It's that men have _power_ that I don't, and they can use that power to hurt me if I'm not sufficiently deferential to them.
That power isn't something that's innate to manhood or natural or anything like that. I had that power, before I transitioned. I didn't realize I had it, but I did. And I feel like maybe that's why women always had to be cautious around me, the way I have to be cautious around men now. Sometimes some women act like I still have that power, which I don't, but I get why someone might think I do.
That power was, I think, a form of privilege, and maybe part of why I think of privilege as a double-edged sword. It kept me at arms' length from women. While women viewed me as a man, I wasn't going to experience sororal love with women, but I felt like a threat around women, because in some sense I was, in some sense _all men_ are, whether they want to be or not.
Because even if a man isn't dangerous, I can't really _know_ that for sure. I feel like I'm always walking around eggshells around men. I feel like if I say the wrong thing, or act the wrong way, they could turn on me, go after me. Or if they don't, some other man could show up and go after me, and then I am put into this situation where I have to protect myself. When that's the situation, it kind of limits how close I can get to men.
The situation yesterday, to me, that's a perfect example. I felt really good about how things were going yesterday. I felt like I was really connecting with men, that I was talking with them about some real shit, and there was some stuff I didn't get, some stuff I got wrong, some cases where I was even, like, _talking over_ men, which isn't something men experience a lot, not the way women do. But the men in this thread, they were kind, and patient, and I trusted... I trust them. It was kind of everything I want from the company of men. It's not something I get often.
And such a fragile thing, because - I'm going to talk about unperson like he isn't here, and I know that's rude, but I don't know how to talk about this without ignoring him, basically. Anyway, he comes roaring in, and he's taken personal offense to something I've said, and he responds by being hostile and, quite honestly, offensive to me personally and to trans people in general. When shit like this happens... I don't think unperson had, or has, any idea what he was actually doing, how he was treating me. I'm going from a situation where I'm able to be vulnerable around men to a situation where I have to be closed-off and defensive. Not only that, but unperson is _personally hurt_ by what I've said and I feel like I have, like, an obligation to explain to him that what I said wasn't a direct attack on him. Not really because I _want_ to soothe him so that he's not hurt, but because of that power he has as a man. It's this hostility, this resentment, that is, in my opinion, most dangerous about men, and I naturally want to de-escalate, defuse what's become a really dangerous and intense situation for me.
And this is hard for me because I have to do this without, like, responding to him in kind. I'm upset with him. He said something that was personally hurtful and offensive and I can't say to him, you know, but also fuck you. I used to say shit like that a lot before I transitioned and... it's not a _loss_ to me that I can't say that. I genuinely don't _want_ to respond in kind to unperson. It doesn't benefit me to respond to him in anger. There's a time and a place for anger and that isn't it.
The best thing to do, I think, would be to acknowledge my anger, to work through my anger and process it before responding. And I didn't do that. Instead I tried to repress my anger, push it down, ignore it, and respond to him calmly and rationally. It was hard work, but I thought it was important, and I feel like I did it well. And then he goes and responds to me like the both of us were having a _rational conversation_, aside from me taking unreasonable offense to his perfectly simple and rational points.
It's at this point that I lose control of my anger. To me, you know, I've gone above and beyond to, like, justify my existence to him, justify to him why I have the _right to have opinions about men_, all without further escalating the hostility and anger he's already expressed to me, which includes not pointing out that he has been personally offensive to me and offensive to trans people in general, and he's not even acknowledging that he's being anything other than objective and rational. I'm angry, and since I've been repressing my anger, it doesn't come out in a healthy way.
In the meantime, what was a really great conversation with men that was making me feel really good has turned on a dime into this really fucking ugly thing where I'm responsible, once again, for tiptoeing around some cishet dude's fragility. And I am responsible, it's clear to me, because of the way other cis guys are chiming in - and it is a thread on maleness and masculinity, so they _are_ absolutely welcome - but they're chiming in to say "I don't know, what unperson says seems perfectly rational to me, what's the problem with it?" Which is a genuinely reasonable and good-faith question to have! These men deserve an answer. I don't want them to feel bad about asking questions like that, because that's how people _learn_. I'm just not really the best person to answer that question under those circumstances, that's all.
It's why I say, why a lot of us say, that it's not our responsibility to explain. There's a lot of pressure. It's an undue burden, a lot of the times, to explain. It's not that I don't want to, it's this constant feeling like I have to drop everything every time some cishet guy gets pissed off about something that's not even about him. And yes, this absolutely is how I behave towards other people sometimes, and I know now - I didn't before, I didn't _have to_ before, not like I do now - how incredibly fucking rude and insulting behavior like that is. I'm working really hard to try and correct this awful behavior I've developed over the course of a lifetime. And that's me. That's not all men. That's me. Most men _don't_ do that, most _people_ don't do that.
The thing is, before I transitioned, that behavior, which has always been unacceptable and inappropriate behavior on my part, was a lot more _accepted_, or at least _tolerated_, than it is now. Particularly because I was, and am, really good at rhetoric. I am really good at framing my emotions as facts, at making my anger, my hostility, and my resentment look reasonable, objective concerns. Like I'm just asking questions. That's a pretty powerful skill to have. It's not an intrinsically male skill. I learned it from a woman. That said, that skill benefited me, before my transition, a lot more than it ever benefited her.
I think I'd feel more comfortable around men, better able to get close to men, if that sort of behavior wasn't tolerated as much as it is.
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 15 August 2023 12:55 (eight months ago) link