A thread of mine about male socialization is being reshared so this came to mind:

The debate about whether trans women/transfems have male socialization or privilege implies that male supremacist oppression is defined by proximity to cis womanhood.

In other words, the more like a cis woman you are, the more oppressed you are, and the less like a cis woman, the less oppressed.

But as I’ve said before, society doesn’t add up the aspects of you that it associated with maleness and give you points for them and then add yo the aspects associated with femaleness and take points away for them.

Androgyny isn’t protective, it isn’t a way to “get a bit of manhood” that reduces your proximity to cis womanhood.

Conversely, androgyny results in being more targeted and more policed.

Discourse that targets transfems, as many different forms that it takes, tends to identify bits of maleness in trans women to put us in our place but ironically those things are all places of vulnerability and stigma for transfems.

Trans women are not oppressed only insofar as we are like cis women, as if “borrowing” their oppression. Our oppression occurs in ways that even benefit cis women, but don’t always resemble oppression narratives that cis women relate to. They don’t have to, it’s not about them.