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So this is definitely one of the stranger posts I’ve ever seen on the Men’s Rights subreddit, which is really saying something, and I’m inclined to say that it’s all bullshit. I mean, I don’t necessarily doubt the body dysmorphia; I doubt the explanation. And I suspect you will too.
I’d be curious what you all make of it, especially trans folks.
Here’s the post, titled “TW need to rant/vent misandry induced gender dysphoria.”
Uggh, where do I begin with this one. This is something I should’ve written a long time ago, but here we go. Since I was a child, I’ve always had this inclination that society saw women as morally superior and men as morally degenerate or inferior.
Well, some people do. And some people think of women as “degenerate or inferior,” as attested to by the 4827 posts on this blog (among other places).
As I entered puberty, this became more pervasive as I developed facial hair and chest hair, characteristics of the evil male aggressor. In society the penis is seen as disgusting and evil and the vagina is seen as whole and pure. I mean fuck, people refer to the penis as junk and to the vagina as cucci/gucci.
Yeah, no one has ever said anything bad about the vagina. No women ever feel anything but 100 percent positive about their bodies.
I began to see my male body as disgusting.
Ok, sure, a lot of people, including boys and men, have body issues. I just don’t think it’s because people call the penis “junk.”
All of this changed when I learned about feminist revisionist history.
Hold on. Prepare yourself for a deluge of bullshit.
I learned about how women were not oppressed throughout history. I learned about how the vote was related to the draft and how women could and did own property. I learned about the skimmington ride and riding the donkey backwards and how men who were beaten by their wives were punished while dv against women was never tolerated. I learned about made to penetrate and the truth about DV.
So he swallowed that “Red Pill,” I guess.
In addition to all of this, some other things I thought about were how women also have armpit hair and ass hair, which men also have.
WOMEN HAVE BODY HAIR. SPECIAL REPORT AT 11.
The male body is never praised but is seen as inherently immoral.
Tell that to the ancient greeks.
Women never praise men for their bodies or tell them how beautiful they are.
Not true.
My last two posts were about how men have no reproductive doctor. Women have one but men don’t. So if the morally sound gender has a reproductive doctor, then the morally unsound gender does not.
No, it’s just that cis men have less complicated reproductive health needs than cis women, what with cis women being the ones who can make an entire new human being inside their body.
I learned that worldwide, despite what most people think, there are more boys out of school than girls and in many developing nations women are equally violent towards their partners and the majority of sexual abuse and rape victims are boys.
Bullshit.
Men don’t get any free STD testing but the morally sound gender does.
Nope. Men can get free or cheap STD testing just like women.
Men have just as many reproductive problems as women but no specialist.
Now you’re repeating yourself.
Despite knowing all this, I wonder, would I be seen as more virtuous if I had a vagina?
Oh dear. Prepare for an even bigger flood of bullshit.
I feel as the only way for this dysphoria to go away would be for the feminist system to be exposed, all lies about women’s oppression throughout history debunked and holding women accountable.
MRAs really love “holding women accountable.” But for what? Not agreeing with MRA bullshit?
Feminist propaganda, all of which is lies are rampant in our society. If I saw ads such as “teach her young, a DV awareness PSA” I would begin to see my penis as less evil and disgusting.
No you wouldn’t.
If I saw women being told that they’re inherently rapists because of made to penetrate, I might stop seeing my penis as morally unsound and unvirtuous.
What is all this shit about “morally unsound” or “unvirtuous” bodies and body parts? Your dick is not a moral agent; it’s just a tool you use for peeing and sex.
If men had a reproductive doctor that gave well-men tests and tested for Epididymitis, spermatocele, inguinal hernias, Varicocele, Hydrocele, Peyronie’s disease, Polycystic ovarian syndrome ( which yes men can develop), postpartum depression, checkups on undescended testis (especially in male infants), smegma ( I know dude wipes are a thing now and if circumcision wasn’t so widespread they would be a lot more common, yeast infections and UTIs (which, if we stopped mutilating male infants, the need for would increase), checkups on men with bell-clapper deformity, BPH, , priapism, free STD testing (especially HPV-cancers causes by HPV in men will surpass those in women very soon if they haven’t already)
Sigh. Our medical system is fucked up in many ways, but there are ways to get your sexual health checked for low or no cost — and that applies to men as well as women.
I don’t think women realize how misandrist they are. In an ideal situation, all of this would be acknowledged by women, women would be allies and would be marching in the streets with #sheforhe slogans.
Men’s Rights “activists” aren’t’ even marching in the streets for themselves. Because all they like to do is complain about the alleged evils of feminists and women in general. God forbid they lift a finger to actually, practically help other men; let’s put the burden on women instead and get mad at them for not doing what we’re also not doing.
Only then would I stop seeing my penis as evil and unvirtuous.
So feminism needs to be destroyed before you feel ok about your dick?
I do have to be honest, I have been feeling a lot of animosity towards women lately and their lack of allyship and or acknowledgement of any of this.
Oh really? I didn’t notice.
So what do you all make of this peculiar mix of misogyny and self-hatred?
###
@Allandrel
I will never forgive Devin Grayson for that scene or her attitude towards it.
Freshly cracked egg, here, who’s been publicly out and living as trans at home/work/out-and-about since last November:
Again, everything this person says about women/feminism as a cause of their bad feelings is BS. I have nothing but contempt for their contentions.
But I’m not going to say whether their typed claims of dysphoria is real or fake.
Not all trans folks are super nuanced/introspective, especially when they’re still closeted to themselves. I know I personally spent well over a decade feeling like certain parts of me were disgusting, even to the point where it interfered with my ability to tolerate certain medical procedures.
In order to Not-Think-About-Trans as a possibility, did I pretend that it wasn’t me who hated thing A but society at large, and my problems were all just societally imposed internalized sexism? And that if society were fixed, maybe I wouldn’t want those bits of me gone as badly? Did I try to convince myself I wanted to like those bits and it wasn’t something wrong with me that made me hate them?
Absolutely. Because navel-gazing and finding the real reason for my discomfort was unfathomably scary, because I knew what I could lose if I let myself actually have those thoughts.
Every trans person who I knew who’d come out in my hometown, had left my hometown and never been heard from again. I didn’t want to lose my home.
I didn’t have as good a grasp on what I could gain by actually working out my issues. Seriously, 10/10 never going back, even with all the anti-LGBT legislation cropping up, no way am I shoving myself back in that closet. Don’t recommend for cis folks, but damn this is nice
If they’re trolling, screw them.
If they’re trans OR cis with dysphoria, still screw their screed but I do hope they can get the help they need to not rip themselves apart (metaphorically), and maybe along the way they’ll do enough self realization to realize why their screed here is stupid as heck.
Because seriously thinking cis women are special and beloved in medicine because they get Pap smears and cis men don’t is absurd.
@cyborgette:
No problem. You didn’t hit a nerve. I wouldn’t normally have touched on the issue at all, because it’s complicated as fuck and, as
@contrapangloss
says, we can’t really know. It is (as a number of us have said) pretty normal to seek an external source of blame for one’s dysphoria, whether it’s etiologically “trans” or not. I don’t have the expertise to estimate percentages, but I would guess it’s at least as common for a trans person to lash out about their dysphoria as it is to be left handed. My personal experience is that it’s actually more common than that, but my personal experience isn’t a representative sample of good data.
It’s not the existence of dysphoria or the lashing out which makes this person’s narrative seem “not trans” to me. I’m not trying to say we’re non-violent or that trans persons in the midst of unresolved conflict with dysphoria handle it better (or appreciate feminism more) than the author of this bullshit. We’re human and how we handle it, for better or for worse, depends on a lot of things including how we were raised and our support systems as well as things more fundamental to ourselves (like personality).
No, it’s the lack of other features of trans experience that makes me guess this is a non-trans narrative (those are best explained in long-form in my original comment).
Still, it’s impossible for any of us to say for sure, and David was obviously curious: I’m sure he’ll learn something from each of our contributions.
So don’t worry about me, or about your own contribution. I think we’re all good here, all trying to do our best to contribute to understanding a difficult and (frankly) tragic story.
(And, yes, as much as this person is being an asshole right now, I still think it’s a tragedy that they ended up where they are.)
@Crip Dyke
Yeah, “complicated as fuck” kind of says it. I kind of feel like talking about it more openly is useful, in part because transphobes will weaponize it no matter what – the issue itself, our speaking on it, our silence on it, whatever. But I completely understand the POV that it’s a trans thing that should stay among trans people.
And it goes without saying – or should go without saying – that dysphoria is never a good excuse for acting like a misogynistic pig.
Yes, this.
This is way out of my depth and something I could never understand. I’ve had self-hating problems to, but the key word is self. That was no one’s fault or problem but my own.
I have great sympathy for trans people, but I really can’t imagine having the mindset of “society needs to change completely and only then will I be able to love myself” rather then, you know. Putting in the hard work to deal with your own issues and accept yourself.
No amount of someone saying “hey, nice cock” will make this guy okay with himself. Just like men making comments about my boobs or saying shit like “mommy milkers” on my photos will fix my own body issues.
rewind 83 years
“It may not get much worse than Germany simply annexing part of Poland.” — some cheerful Polyanna type.
fastforward 83 years
Hmm …
@Elaine
Or in the case of many of us, the hard work to change ourselves into something we can accept. But either way there’s zero excuse for misogyny and harassment.
(Also those dudes commenting on your photos are disgusting people and I’m sorry you encountered them. JFC.)
@ Surplus to Requirements
OK, you got a laugh out of me for implying I’m a “cheerful Polyanna type”.
We have been at war throughout most of recorded history. My particular nation, the US of A, started its being with a war and has essentially specialized in it for much of its lifetime. (I recall reading we have hundreds of military bases across the globe, and our closet competitor at time of reading was Russia, with one base.)
We can doom and gloom with every war that shows up in the news, but until the shitshow starts, we won’t know what it is and what the ramifications are. For my part, since we can do nothing ourselves, I say we watch and hope for the best.
@Cyborgette
No wonder “ShowYourself” from Disney’s Frozen II is so popular with trans audiences.
Show yourself
Step into your power
Grow yourself
Into something new
You are the one you’ve been waiting for
All of your life
@Allandrel
I hadn’t heard the song actually, but
Woof, if that isn’t a mood.
@Cyborgette
It was on a picture where I was wearing a hijab as well. For my friend’s wedding.
I’m not sure I’ve ever commented here before, but I thought I’d add something to the discussion about cis men getting PPD. Yes, they can, and while it’s less common for fathers than mothers it’s not that much less common (something like 15% of mothers and 10% of fathers). It’s not often checked (and should be), but it’s getting better. My husband had it last time, and now I’m pregnant again various medical professionals I’ve seen have lamented the fact that covid restrictions mean he can’t join my appointments, and stressing the various people he should see (including the possibility of a phone/ video appointment with the pregnancy team at the hospital, because while they are “women and newborn health” they know about PPD)
@Elaine
WTF, that’s messed up. I’m so sorry.
@Victorious Parasol
I was stupid and looked up that incident. Wish I hadn’t. I’m glad Grayson at least issued an apology years later, but her initial attitude definitely strikes me as a “don’t trust this person” moment.
It’s also not lost on me that most of the people calling her out seemed to be other women, and most of the people defending her seemed to be men.
it’s not really an argument at all when something happens “less” to men than to women. that was what historically used against all minorities, including trans, today, as an argument, of why nothing needs to be done or changed, because trans and gays are so small minority compared to the majority, that they don’t matter.
I live in northern European healthcare, and even here men don’t get ordered for screening for anything after age 15. women do. that’s why women use much more public health resources. even though men have even lethal conditions, like a heart or vascular conditions from being fat or other cancers.
some of them get from women, like HPV of throat cancer from oral sex given to women by men. even today that HPV fact is not told to age 15 young men in sexual healthcare classes that are given to all boys. because the oral sex given to women by men is not wanted to be discouraged by facts. the sexual classes to boys are always taught by women. almost all teachers of all subjects are women. 60% of physicians here are women.
hpv shots are only given to women. healthcare still favors women. men barely use healthcare, because they are not ordered to anything or to any checkups after age 15. even in our northern European universal, feminist, healthcare.
@redmanticore
Nonsense. I live in northern europe and every sex ed class I ever had, and all official advice, recommends using a condom or dental dam for oral sex because of HPV. It’s hardly the teacher’s fault if men don’t, is it?
Men are screened for bowel cancer after the age of 60. They will have routine checks (such as prostate and heart health) if they attend the doctor. The fact they are less likely to do so is, again, not the healthcare system or feminists’ fault. And the evidence suggests that when men *do* go to the doctor they receive a better standard of care and are taken more seriously.
@redmanticore
If I understand you correctly, I agree with the initial part of what you’re saying — just because a disease or negative outcome or negative event is less common in group X is no reason to ignore the needs of group X or deny that such things occur for them.
That said, you’re missing the VERY IMPORTANT context that this post is about someone who is complaining that such things are the fault of feminism and feminists.
I just don’t see any evidence that this is true. I’m with LollyPop: it’s much more likely that any disparities men might experience in delayed testing or diagnosis is because of to little feminism, not too much.
Ooh, a live one!
@redmanticore
Okay, first off: I don’t appreciate the experiences of people like me being used this way. How about don’t. The analogy is inaccurate, disingenuous, and insulting.
Second: men aren’t a minority. Last I checked, y’all are about 50% of the population. Furthermore cis men are by far dominant politically, pretty across the planet. In a lot of places they have almost absolute political dominance. Matriarchal enclaves are small, usually experimental or highly traditional, and exist at the sufferance of patriarchal nation-states. And the most powerful nation-states, the ones with large thermonuclear arsenals, are overwhelmingly patriarchal. The US, the PRC, and the Russian Federation are all governed (or perhaps it’s better to say ruled) by bodies consisting mostly of cis men. The US is actually an especially dire example of this – we’re the only superpower that gives our President sole authority to launch nukes. And every single time we have elected a President, we have vested this power in a cis man – and most times in one who’s a rapist, as well. That alone is a good marker for how sexist the US is.
Third: I’m terrible at statistics, and I can still see that your argument is statistically nonsense. Bad things “happen less” to trans people because there are far fewer of us, but the proportion (and chance of badness for each trans person) is much higher.
IDK much about healthcare in northern Europe (except that it’s generally better than US healthcare, unless you’re a trans person, then it’s potentially far worse). But I suspect this is bunk, if your healthcare system is managed with the remotest level of competence. Screenings save healthcare systems a huge amount of money by catching illness (esp. illnesses of aging like cancer) earlier, when the treatments will be less expensive and more effective. This also saves lives, which your system might care about if it’s not a eugenicist living nightmare like ours – and even the US system pushes all sorts of screenings. Everyone here gets regular colonoscopies past age 45. AMAB teenagers and young adults get checked for testicular cancer. People with certain skin conditions get yearly screenings for melanoma etc.
As for men having more lethal conditions… no. Ovarian cancer is far more deadly and difficult to treat than testicular cancer. Women and AFAB people have a far higher risk of autoimmune disease, which causes many of us a lot of pain and misery, sometimes even death despite modern treatments. For AFAB folks there are a huge range of reproductive tract illnesses or injuries that can cause death or serious disability. Something like 10% of AFAB people develop endometriosis at some point in their lives, a profoundly debilitating and sometimes lethal condition that is often undiagnosed or poorly managed, because doctors (esp. male doctors) tend to dismiss the pain and symptoms of female patients. Being on birth control can be a factor in strokes, heart attacks, and suicides. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women, and is also the second leading cause of death for women in the US. (And the most common is skin cancer… whose risk factors include the tanning beds that women are pressured into using so that we can look prettier for men.) Women are also at almost as high risk from heart attacks, strokes, colon cancer, and lung cancer as men – and in the case of heart attacks they’ve historically been undiagnosed or misdiagnosed with some frequency, because the symptoms in women are often different from those in men. You know that thing about older women watching out for jaw pain, shoulder pain, upper back pain? It took a lot of us dying needlessly for that to get noticed.
I’ll also throw in that I know this stuff kind of intimately, because I’m a woman living with multiple autoimmune illnesses and physical disabilities… as are many of my friends. It is terrifying how common this stuff is. Almost all autoimmune illness has links to stress and trauma, too – this is part of the cost of living for us, in a society that ubiquitously, omnipresently hates us.
If we tend to live longer than you, we’ve earned it – we take better care of our bodies, and we make fewer stupid decisions. Plus that testosterone strength y’all are so proud of? That has its own physiological cost. T raises cholesterol levels, for starters, and the higher hematocrit that supports your feats of strength also raises your risk of a heart attack or stroke. Don’t go blaming us for that.
Oh fuck off. The reason the HPV vaccine was issued to girls first was that the incidence of HPV related cervical cancer was far higher. HPV is more carcinogenic in AFAB folks, and is helped along by far, far too many fuckboys who want to fuck without a condom, won’t be happy except with penetration etc. Even when/where it was okayed for boys, that was mainly to promote herd immunity so that girls would be more fully protected.
As for sex ed classes and physicians, good. Maybe that will help disrupt the cycles of institutional sexual and medical violence against us. And believe me, pal, we have all seen such violence, every single one of us. Some of us less so than others, but ain’t none of us escape it.
I’m not going to assume that you’ve had it easy (gods no, I’m AMAB and I’ve had a pretty hard life). But overall? Yeah, cis men have it easier medically too, and institutionally in general. Your dubious counterexamples don’t change that.
What sort of useless manchild needs to be “ordered” to the damned quack for a check-up? Your body, your responsibility to keep it running. That includes seeing the doctor once a year or so.
@Cyborgette: I want to cosign everything you said in the strongest possible terms.
(Which aren’t that physically strong, since I have/had a bunch of the things you mentioned.)
Men who use the terrible US healthcare “system” have a running joke about how every man over a certain age gets his prostate checked during routine physicals. You see stand-up comedians make the gesture and sound of a rubber glove snapping on All.The.Time. Never mind that women get the same exact move along with having their vagina cranked open with a cold metal device yearly — from teenage years to old age.
(A friend and I were looking at some ob/gyn tools from the Roman age in a museum, and as her kids were looking at them, we looked at each other over the kids’ heads and she whispered “Haven’t improved much in 2000 years, have they?”)
@Threp: Exactly. Man up and take responsibility for your own damn body. Only children need to be “ordered” to go to the doctor.
@ gss ex-noob
And that’s why I’m relying on the 31% reduction in risk of prostate cancer.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/feb/24/vegetarians-have-14-lower-cancer-risk-than-meat-eaters-study-finds
I read my comment to my boyfriend, and now he wants to know why I don’t sell my old undies. They’re really old (yeah, I’m saving the planet), he’s tired of taking them to the laundrymat, and I could be rich in no time at all. The cat needs kibble and he needs a new computer.
An older family member of mine was just diagnosed with an early stage prostate cancer (should be treatable with surgery, thankfully). Out of curiosity, I tried to ask what kind of screening schedule/program he was in, but it wasn’t made very clear. I got the impression that the initial screening was based on some biochemical marker, rather than a prostate exam. That said, neither of us seem to think prostate exams are a big deal.
My city used to have a basic health check invite program for men who turn 40. Hey, that’s me this very year! I have no idea if the program is still running despite the pandemic. I might go if I get the invitation, though the real target group is men who seriously neglect their health. The program isn’t really about gender/sex specific health issues, except inasmuch neglect of personal healthcare counts as one.
I do wonder if the last time this MRA muppet went to the doctor was when his mother took him as a child.
That aside, I totally agree that if you have issues with yourself, you have to, you know, start with yourself before you put the blame on anyone else.
Also, have donated to the pledge drive. A small amount but I hope it will help the bigger picture, so to speak.
@Contrapangloss
Can you explain the “egg” slang? I’ve seen it tossed around in trans discussions before, but I thought maybe it was a little mocking or referring to something else.
@Elaine
The asshole probably intended to be extra derogatory by sexualizing you while you were wearing a hijab, because I’m sure there was a hefty dose of Islamophobia going on too.
Re: Men getting post-partum depression
I always thought this was kind of a hormonal thing. I guess there’s more to it? Just strikes me as odd that fathers would actually experience this too.
@mantibore
Sorry your government isn’t very good at encouraging you guys to have regular health checkups, but how about you go put on your Big Boy pants and just go to the doctor yourself instead of blaming women for all your problems?