I'd proved, with my deeply fucked-up joke, that I was one of the dudes. I could hang, I could be in the boys' club and get my stripes and gain power and have status beyond "fuckable"

I degraded my own gender to do it but so fucking what, that was their problem, I was up here now

(it was definitely not just their problem because every time I denigrated women I denigrated myself, further internalizing deep self-hatred and reinforcing the kind of toxic masculinity that leaves one unable to regulate one's emotions healthfully or enjoy one's own body)

Male acceptance is tenuous. You have to prove yourself over and over. And I did, for five years, with good success

But it never fully takes. You never truly transcend wretched femininity. Becoming an honorary man while female is a seductive fantasy, but not an achievable one

It is also deeply morally uncool to further denigrate the marginalized group of people you belong to in an attempt to transcend your own oppression, obviously

The fact that it doesn't work just makes it sad

So yeah, I think I get why people not white and male sign onto the far right movement. It looks like a shortcut, a way to get privilege without race/gender/class consciousness, and it can feel amazing

It's not gonna work for them either, of course https://www.thedailybeast.com/proud-boys-are-at-war-with-their-proud-girls-female-extremist-wing

(I don't have an epilogue to this story so here's the tweet I'll link to when my misogynist joke gets screencapped totally out of context in a Twitter argument in a few months)