It seems like Lemmy is all about trans women, I’m genuinely curious though why we don’t have more trans men content. I’d say it’s maybe on the order of 10:1 posts celebrating trans fem vs trans masc (obviously not a scientific calculation).
I don’t have a lot of background in a lot of trans spaces so this is coming from a place of ignorance, but do people in the community have any insight as to why it seems to be this way?
Take this one for instance, it specifically says trans women. Why wouldn’t this just say trans people, comrades or something like that? Is there a large descrepancy between numbers of trans fem/masc or something?
Edit. I appreciate what people have said below. Together these responses give a textured albeit 10,000 foot answer to my question, which was what I was looking for. Thanks ya’ll.
From anecdotal experience trans women are more prevalent in these spaces because many of us have a tech background or know someone who does and is active in these places.
Trans men I know haven’t had that kind of connection and are usually less techy and therefore are not in spaces like these.
That said I agree with you that the meme would be cooler if it accounted for all trans ppl alike.
So here’s my guess. I’m not trans, and what I’m about to say is purely my observation and not based on data.
Folks born with male genitalia doing anything that is not cis and straight is frowned upon more than folks born with female genitalia doing the same.
Society finds two dudes kissing more revolting than two women kissing. It also doesn’t help that folks who transition to become a woman after having undergone male puberty are much more recognizable as trans. Compare this to trans men, who aren’t so easily identifiable as trans.
Hence, trans women have it worse interacting with society compared to trans men. Hence, they crave for a safe space more. Lemmy’s instances tend to be these safe places. Hence, more trans women here than men.
Without doing any research, I feel like I hear about fewer hate crimes targeting trans men than trans women? I’d guess because our society is obsessive with policing women’s bodies. A guy with no beard is whatever, but a woman with some fuzz or stubble is a crime.
(Not to say that trans men don’t have their own struggles)
Obligatory I’m not trans myself, but this is just my understanding of how people justify their hatred
Trans women also get talked about more bc of the transphobic lie that “trans women are just men that want in on women’s spaces to prey on women” and that “trans women are predators.” This is all bullshit. But it’s built upon the patriarchical idea that men have to protect women from other men. Men are simultaneously painted as the protector and the danger and which category they fall into is generally determined by how close they are to the in-group. So cis het non-white men are “dangerous,” but there might be some “good ones.” And white cis gay men can be “okay,” as long as they don’t “make it their whole personality” (re: keep it a secret and never mention it even once). However, trans women are antithetical to patriarchy so they are seen as like the “most dangerous.” Whereas, trans men, while they aren’t part of the in-group, they also aren’t seen as a threat bc transphobic people think someone AFAB can’t be dangerous. Again, this is all bullshit, but it’s bullshit that people who have bought into the patriarchy believe and act violently upon sometimes so it’s important to understand how they got to that so that we can deconstruct it
The thing is also that these transphobes manifest their binary idea of gender into discomfort with trans and nonbinary people, because it questions their narrow worldview.
And some other yet deal with internalised homo- and transphobia, mostly before coming out, or never doing so. I have compassion for that group, and hope they will overcome it. They need to be able to live freely.
Oh, and another part is misinformed due to nillywilly picking the first social media stuff as a “source” (and algorithms often aim for polarising information, since it sells clicks), and not wanting to reach out to y’know, these trans people with respect, to try to understand their perspective.
I see, so because of this asymmetry in treatment by society, there’s an assymetry of suppport in these particular online spaces. Makes sense. I appreciate your input, thanks.
The consensus when this comes up in most of my trans spaces (this topic comes up semi regularly) is that we just tend to be a lot chattier and that probably accounts for a lot of it.
It seems like Lemmy is all about trans women, I’m genuinely curious though why we don’t have more trans men content. I’d say it’s maybe on the order of 10:1 posts celebrating trans fem vs trans masc (obviously not a scientific calculation).
I don’t have a lot of background in a lot of trans spaces so this is coming from a place of ignorance, but do people in the community have any insight as to why it seems to be this way?
Take this one for instance, it specifically says trans women. Why wouldn’t this just say trans people, comrades or something like that? Is there a large descrepancy between numbers of trans fem/masc or something?
Edit. I appreciate what people have said below. Together these responses give a textured albeit 10,000 foot answer to my question, which was what I was looking for. Thanks ya’ll.
From anecdotal experience trans women are more prevalent in these spaces because many of us have a tech background or know someone who does and is active in these places.
Trans men I know haven’t had that kind of connection and are usually less techy and therefore are not in spaces like these.
That said I agree with you that the meme would be cooler if it accounted for all trans ppl alike.
What you’re suggesting seems to align with what other people are saying too. Thank you, I appreciate it.
There’s another reason, tech often allows you to work remotely and without interaction with people which y’know, may or may not be transphobic.
Plus, science fields, arts, etc. tend to be much more welcoming to queer peeps. Awareness helps!
Lemmy is full of tech nerds. AMAB people are encouraged to go into tech, AFAB people are sexually harassed if they go into tech.
Interesting. Yeah that makes sense considering the “masculine” bullshit associated with the tech space. Thanks for your reply.
So here’s my guess. I’m not trans, and what I’m about to say is purely my observation and not based on data.
Folks born with male genitalia doing anything that is not cis and straight is frowned upon more than folks born with female genitalia doing the same.
Society finds two dudes kissing more revolting than two women kissing. It also doesn’t help that folks who transition to become a woman after having undergone male puberty are much more recognizable as trans. Compare this to trans men, who aren’t so easily identifiable as trans.
Hence, trans women have it worse interacting with society compared to trans men. Hence, they crave for a safe space more. Lemmy’s instances tend to be these safe places. Hence, more trans women here than men.
Without doing any research, I feel like I hear about fewer hate crimes targeting trans men than trans women? I’d guess because our society is obsessive with policing women’s bodies. A guy with no beard is whatever, but a woman with some fuzz or stubble is a crime.
(Not to say that trans men don’t have their own struggles)
Obligatory I’m not trans myself, but this is just my understanding of how people justify their hatred
Trans women also get talked about more bc of the transphobic lie that “trans women are just men that want in on women’s spaces to prey on women” and that “trans women are predators.” This is all bullshit. But it’s built upon the patriarchical idea that men have to protect women from other men. Men are simultaneously painted as the protector and the danger and which category they fall into is generally determined by how close they are to the in-group. So cis het non-white men are “dangerous,” but there might be some “good ones.” And white cis gay men can be “okay,” as long as they don’t “make it their whole personality” (re: keep it a secret and never mention it even once). However, trans women are antithetical to patriarchy so they are seen as like the “most dangerous.” Whereas, trans men, while they aren’t part of the in-group, they also aren’t seen as a threat bc transphobic people think someone AFAB can’t be dangerous. Again, this is all bullshit, but it’s bullshit that people who have bought into the patriarchy believe and act violently upon sometimes so it’s important to understand how they got to that so that we can deconstruct it
The thing is also that these transphobes manifest their binary idea of gender into discomfort with trans and nonbinary people, because it questions their narrow worldview.
And some other yet deal with internalised homo- and transphobia, mostly before coming out, or never doing so. I have compassion for that group, and hope they will overcome it. They need to be able to live freely.
Oh, and another part is misinformed due to nillywilly picking the first social media stuff as a “source” (and algorithms often aim for polarising information, since it sells clicks), and not wanting to reach out to y’know, these trans people with respect, to try to understand their perspective.
I see, so because of this asymmetry in treatment by society, there’s an assymetry of suppport in these particular online spaces. Makes sense. I appreciate your input, thanks.
The consensus when this comes up in most of my trans spaces (this topic comes up semi regularly) is that we just tend to be a lot chattier and that probably accounts for a lot of it.