Freedom In Wickedness

afterthebluefairy:

Let’s get this straight right now:

I am not a man. Nor am I a woman. I am transgendered.

For the purposes of this discussion, I frankly do not care what “transgendered” means to anyone else but me. To me, it means I transcend gender. I am genderless. Without gender. OR - it means I have multiple genders. Neither male nor female, I transcend.

I acknowledge I was born female. I understand that no matter what, I cannot change my DNA, my chromosomes. I do not deny my female past. I accept I was raised a girl, lived as a woman, experienced moments in life as cis and straight. I embrace my still existing feminine side.

None of that negates the fact that I am a transman.

I take testosterone. I look, dress and sound like a man. I feel comfortable being perceived as male and in certain situations, with certain people, I very much prefer it. I prefer male pronouns and, as I am pedantic about the English language, I do not like gender-neutral pronouns. I do not make a show of behaving in a masculine way - I do not “act” like a man, yet I am no longer read as anything other than a straight male.

In privacy, with those I trust, and where I feel safe, I am gender-neutral. I have both a male and a female name, and both are on my birth certificate. My birth certificate reads ‘female’, my passport, ‘male’. In public, amongst strangers and those who do not know me well nor need to, and in situations where it is safer to be so, I am male.

Prior to physically transitioning I suffered from gross body dysmorphia. After chest surgery and hormones, despite the fact I am still overweight and my reproductive organs and genitalia are still intact, I am now at peace with my body.

What is the price I pay?

Straight, white male privilege.

Scoff if you want to. Oh, poor me. But it is true. It is a yoke around my neck.

No longer am I welcome in women’s spaces. Not such a heavy price, that, as I never really frequented them before. But I no longer have the option should I wish it.

I can be perceived as a potential threat simply by being read as male.

My right to speak or express any opinion on the experiences of women has been erased. My voice is ignored or I am told to shut up.

My ability to safely and freely express myself in how I dress and wear my hair has been severely limited.

I have no close relationships. I am no longer permitted to bond with women in any other way than sexually (which I cannot do), and I cannot translate the animal, combat-centric language of men en masse. I am outcast.

I am forced to accept misandry as my share of the price for centuries of the oppression of women.

Is there an upside to male privilege for one such as me? Not when your eyes have been opened by 30 years of life in the female. I am flagellated daily by the guilt my straight, cis brothers do not feel, are unaware of.

Did I make a choice? Perhaps I did. Was I fully cognizant of what I was getting in to? No way. Do I regret it? Absolutely, certainly not. 

I love being me. I can be no one else. Yet I have learnt that the rest of the world doesn’t like it. So I shrug and carry on, putting up with the barbs along the way. But still they hurt.

The way this individual twists logic into pretzels to claim that he’s oppressed by having privilege and that misandry is a real thing is downright hillarious.

(Source: )