Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men has not exactly shown much of an interest in trans* issues in the past. Indeed, the only time I can recall founder Paul Elam ever even mentioning trans* people was in the context of a vicious attack on a Men’s Studies expert who happens to be a trans woman; he suggested she was a mentally ill man-hater whose “so hated the sex they were born with that it sparked a life long academic quest to deconstruct it into something that did not disgust them.”
So it’s a little surprising to see a post on AVFM now with the seemingly dispassionate, slightly turgid, title “Male/female discrepancies in transsexualism.” The post starts out as dry as its title, but it soon becomes clear that it is “scientific” in style only. It’s not an attempt to understand trans women or trans people in general; it’s an attempt to use the existence of trans women as a helpful prop in an old Men’s Rights argument.
After declaring that “the inherent,prenatal explanations for transsexualism are highly questionable” — without actually examining any of these explanations beyond mentioning one study — Jesse Folsom offers his own crackpot theory to explain why, in his words, there are more “male-to-female [than] female-to-male transsexuals.”
In short, he asserts, our society is so biased against boys and men that a lot of boys and men have decided that they want to become girls and women. And naturally, feminists are largely to blame.
[W]hy would a young boy associate more with the stereotypes assigned to girls? Well, one good reason would be because he wants to, because he regards his stereotypes of women as superior. For instance, in a feminist household, expressions of masculinity may be viewed with derision, or, when there is a father present, as a source of shame.
Also, in case you hadn’t realized this, most mothers are women as well:
Even without such associations, however, a child often just spends more time with his or her mother.
Oh, and so are teachers. It’s like there’s some sort of plot!
While it does not occur until after a large proportion of gender ideas are formed, school also exposes children, primarily, to female role models. Not to mention the fact that many behaviors typical of boys are frowned upon and even drugged out of them in modern school environments.
As a result, young boys have no real role models in society.
And where do boys find themselves today? Today, women can be anything they want. Women can be action heroes, happy homemakers, corporate executives, and powerful politicians.
Obviously there are no examples of men in any of these roles for boys to look up to.
There are two categories of fashion, fashion for everyone and fashion for women only. Women are the ones seen as beautiful and glamorous. Women are kind, gentle, empathetic, and allowed to freely express emotion. With the traditional strengths of men now seen as irrelevant or even negative, why wouldn’t a boy rather be a girl? Is this not as good an explanation as any for the discrepancies between MtF and FtM transsexualism?
Well, actually, no. But Folsom continues, insinuating that this evil feministy brainwashing does terrible damage to all the poor little boys who have decided that they want to be girls:
It is simply implausible that a child that associates with the opposite sex label has any real understanding of what that means, but unfortunately, such associations often stick. Further, this gender dysphoria is extremely harmful, frequently leading to severe depression and high suicide and poverty rates for transsexuals. As one might expect, researchers believe that male-to-female transsexuals are the hardest-hit by these problems.
Aside from all the general bullshittery of Folsom’s not-very-original theory here, it’s telling that he never refers to trans women as, well, women, preferring instead to refer to them either as male-to-female transsexuals — or to actually refer to them as male. Like Elam, clearly doesn’t see trans women as real women, but rather as men suffering from some sort of delusion, driven by internalized misandry.
And that’s really the only way that AVFM can have any sympathy for trans women at all: if they’re seen as male victims of feminism, and not as women at all.
Regular Man Boobz commenter Ally S ventured into the Men’s Rights subreddit to offer a rather more nuanced view of the subject. Some highlights:
This article is almost exactly like countless articles written by trans-exclusionary radical feminists. The only real difference is that the arguments are being used to further support MRA talking points rather than TERF talking points. …
When I was little, I didn’t identify as a girl because I associated more with femininity and stereotypes about girls. It was the other way around: I came to associate more with femininity and stereotypes about girls because I identified as a girl. Just as cis girls associate with stereotypes related to their own gender. …
I guarantee that virtually any trans woman will say that adherence to stereotypes and misandry have nothing to do with identifying as female. That’s because there’s a difference between gender identity and gender expression. Personally, I am a trans woman, but my clothing style is basically agender and I engage in what are often considered masculine activities, such as programming. And when I was a child, I actually saw feminine traits as inferior, not superior – yet I still identified as a girl. I have many friends who have had similar experiences. …
Lastly, deliberately misgendering trans women (you know, what the author does in every other sentence) is completely unacceptable, even if one is speaking about young children. We are not and never will be men.
You can see Ally’s entire comment here, as well as a number of detailed followups. Amazingly, they actually got upvotes in the Men’s Rights subreddit, where Folsom’s article received a generally hostile reception. Apparently some of AVFM’s bullshit is so bullshitty that even Men’s Rights Redditors can recognize it as such.
More DanSavagery (warning: will make your blood boil).
To be clear, I don’t actually have anything against the use of the asterisk, especially if a non-binary trans person wants to use it. I’m just pointing out that 1) some trans women are critical of it and 2) in general, it’s easier to just use something like “trans” instead without the asterisk. My posts upthread made it sound like I was calling out people using the asterisk, such as Argenti. But that wasn’t my intent (if anything, I’m just critical of people using the asterisk to silence trans women), and I’m sorry.
No, Ally, your post upthread had me questioning if I was putting my preferences above the preferences of people far more likely to face transphobia (and specifically transmisogyny, and far more…valid? Logical? reasons for those preferences, whereas mine have no basis besides liking it) — the sort of questioning that’s good for the brain.
LBT (and Ally) — thanks, I get weird on this one since I get, uh, passing privilege, I guess. Gods I hate that term, cuz yes, I totally pass as my assigned gender…um…perfect? I mean, not facing violence is obviously good, but misgendering as a standard fact? Not so fond. I’m babbling >.<
Nobody better piss in the fire though, I have a hard enough time keeping it lit with my father constantly poking it and destroying the airflow!
When I first saw trans*, I kept looking to the bottom of the post for the note…
I still do that, wordsp1nner.
@Bina
Holy shit.
I knew he was horrible, but not that horrible. Wow.
serrana
… So do I. I understand the desire behind the term trans*, but do question the use of something that is an established signifier (of there being further explanation elsewhere in the text) to mean something else. After all, what if someone wanted to put a asterix-identified note after trans*? I mean, it does seem like the kind of term you’d see one.
But you know, I’m cis, so I’ll default to whatever the people affected want, or at least the plurality of the ones I’m talking to.
RE: Argenti
LBT (and Ally) — thanks, I get weird on this one since I get, uh, passing privilege, I guess.
So do I. I have had top surgery AND hormones, and I STILL have passing privilege as a woman in this city. *shrugs* Go figure.
Well, that adds to the list of reasons Dan Savage is a PoS. I’d seen the horrible thing about the rape victim before (it’s the one I referred to above) and saw the others earlier today, but the bit about Cool Story Bro and getting poo on his prong was new.
Notice how Savage is willing to imagine the woman in that story as being blind drunk, yet he still puts the blame on her for whatever happened, not on the poooor man who’s writing to him? No suggestion that, hey, if she was blind drunk, you shouldn’t have been doing anything, ‘cos that’s rape.
Enh, the thing that turned me off Savage was that recent article where he talked about it apparently being totally okay to pretend your incest play was real with an online partner, because nobody believes in that shit anyway.
I was still boggled that it was in the paper. Did nobody go up to the guy and be like, “Uh, dude…”
Oh my, look at this exchange (in the comment section of the article) between Elam and a trans woman who was critical of the article:
And here’s one MRA being very honest about the MRM’s transmisogyny:
Well, an asterisk is also used in search terms to indicate “a set of any characters,” so trans* to mean “transgender or transsexual or trans-anything else” isn’t entirely without meaning. But generally, words shouldn’t randomly contain punctuation that isn’t a dash or an apostrophe.
Elam’s response is, well, pretty much what I’d expect from him. I’m a little curious about his “welcome to the house of pain” bit at the start. Is that supposed to be a threat, or is it supposed to mean, “shut up with your stupid problems, because this is where the real men with the real problems talk about real man things.”
Because I just went and looked at that woman’s twitter and she seems pretty awesome, and has more courage in her little finger than the MRM has in its entire movement. She’s taking on TERFs and dealing with their awful harassment on a daily basis.
https://twitter.com/PaxCorpus
More likely than not he’s just being his perpetually angry, bitter self. It does fit with that FTSU stuff he espouses, though.
Paul Fucking Elam, y’all. Head of the Greatest Human Rights Movement in the History of EVAR™.
Damn, can that dude ever project!
I think it means “The assholery I’m about to display is par for the course here at AVfM”.
I missed some of the post from last posts from the last night and want to apologize if I was acting if my testiness over an asterisk was more important than than having empathy for people. I think is respecting people struggle with identity is baseline decency, so sorry about that.
Elem is clearly shitty to trans in general, but also any woman who was the temerity to tell him “you should probably think twice about acting like men have it bad, at all” on his own holy site is going to get a full rage attack. Elem probably would normally delete that comment, but felt the need to make an example of her.
Whoops, meant to write “who has the temerity”.
Auggz — so he can get his ego stroked of course.
As for Elam’s reply to her, and that other commenter, wtf guys? Seriously, biology trumps “psycho-social gender” when there’s doubt? Hey Ally, any doubt you’re a woman? No? Okay then, where’s this magical doubt coming from then? Oh, right, the assholes who want to use woman like you as an example no matter how many times they are told they’re wrong.
I’ve had fish with more empathy than them.
It’s a bad sign that my first reaction was “well, at least he’s acknowledging that she’s female…”
My first reaction to that was “Yet another MRA who thinks that trans women are ‘men who become women’.”
Seriously. If he had done the tiniest amount of research on trans issues … But what am I saying? Asking people to do research and learn about things before they spew about them on the Internet is misandry!
Yup. I sure do love them Men’s Rightsers, they sure do care about trans folks, mmmm-hmmm. *eyeroll*
I also love how Elam acts like part of being a man is being a douche to people around you. Because men are TOUGH! They don’t need things like common decency! They can just be raging assholes at all times, and this is how they BOND!
Please. I’ve seen less cockfighting in cockrub warrior porn.
Here’s an amusing discussion I’m having with u/ComicKeys about intersectionality in the MRM: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1tvbzt/another_stunning_hard_hitting_avfm_expose_sure_to/cedkqya
They’re nice and all (they even wished me Happy New Year, something I’d never expect from most MRAs), but I’m giving major side-eye to them saying “I don’t think the MRM has what it takes politically to have that discussion [regarding intersectionality] yet.” He sounds almost exactly like a white-centric feminist.
In a sense, he’s right about them not having what it takes … because they haven’t a shred of empathy and precious little intelligence in their entire movement. MRAs discussing intersectionality would be all fail.