“male socialized”? IM NOT SOCIALIZED AT ALL!!! my gender is neurodivergent socialized
Socialization refers to how other people raised and treated you. It doesn’t refer to whether you strongly took to that socialization.
“Socialized male” is one of the key tools in deploying transmisogyny specifically against trans women.
transphobic examples
Oh, you’re angry? That’s because at root, you’re really a man. Sorry, fem-card revoked for 30 days.
You dress masculine-ish because it’s more comfortable? That’s because you were grown up as a man and you really are one at root.
Hey, you’re wearing too much makeup and those costume jewelry look like a cartoon of a woman. That’s because you’re really a man and you were raised as one.
And on and on and on. It’s crap. Just walk away from it. Transmisogyny is just one form of gaslighting.
Also, it’s unfalsifiable.
You can of course use it as a tool to attack trans women. But that isn’t all it is, no? Reading other replies here there seems to be quite a few people that regard them self trans women and male socialized. Reasoning is clearly stated in those comments.
I am a cis male and very interested in learning what you and other people that are against the idea of male socialized as a term think and why. It really isn’t gas lighting or trying to steal your time or patronizing. I want to learn how you arrived at those conclusions and maybe even how some arrived at the opposite end of them.
Your relationship with that socialisation was very different to mine. We both experienced similar pressures and expectations, and we both received similar privileges based on the way people perceived us, but our lived experience of that was very different.
An analogy is a closeted gay man that has to marry a woman and have kids due to social pressure. He receives many of the privileges of being straight, but it comes at the cost of himself. Calling that straight privilege erases that cost to him, and the price he had to pay by faking a role that wasn’t his.
Nuance is important, and some privileges are real. But being forced to be perceived as someone that you aren’t is not a privilege, and that shouldn’t be ignored.
I would say that at the very least it’s not a term that you as a cisgender person would use to describe any transgender person.
If a trans person decides to describe themselves that way, for whatever reason, that is up to them. But it remains a term that should be used by trans people about themselves.
Important to consider is that many transgender people have big time internalized transphobia. I struggled with it a lot. You (might) go through years, decades, of denying who you are to yourself, hating the aspects of yourself that dont conform to the general idea of the gender you were assigned at birth, and that doesn’t just disappear when you realise and start transitioning.
I’m not saying every trans person in this thread who describes themselves as “male socialized” is doing so because of internalised transphobia, I’m just suggesting it is worth bearing in mind.
I mean, unless you were raised by hippy parents who raised you androgynous from birth, if you are a trans woman, you experienced male socialization. All that means is people treated you like a male. It doesn’t mean anything beyond that. Socialization refers to things external to you.
I think there’s a degree of internalized transphobia in rejecting such a clear and straight forward concept. I get not wanting to acknowledge our pasts, but it is internally transphobic to deny one’s own trans experiences.
There’s nothing shameful about having been socialized male.
Ew. I have nothing more to say to you if you’re gonna start asserting things about me. Disengaging from this conversation and I hope you will too.
So you can accuse others of internalized transphobia, but not the other way around?
You directly accused me of internalised transphobia. I mentioned that internalized transphobia may be a factor in some people’s attachment to the concept. Disengage.
One of the worst things about the “male socialized” or “biological male” dog whistles is that it’s used to treat transfems as having all the worst traits associated with men but none of the privileges. We can be accused of being aggressive, predatory, violent, etc. But we are never get taken seriously like men do, never get the benefit of the doubt, and certainly don’t benefit materially like they do. Men don’t get discriminated against for employment or housing like we do, men make a ton more money than we do. In fact trans women make less than cis women do on average. Also transfems are the only group that are systemically sex trafficked by the government (look up v-coding)
And then there’s “biological man”/“biological woman”, which simply don’t exist but get used frequently anyway.
Well of course I’m biological, what else would I be? Synthetic?
nervous clicking
Let’s move on to the system
Oh, those terms exist and can even have reasonable meaning, just not the one the transphobes think they do:
I am a biological woman: My metabolism runs on estrogen, my T is basically nothing, I have breasts and at some point in the future I’ll even have a vagina. If I am to receive sex-dependent medical treatment I have to receive the female version, because that is just how my body works now.
What I’m saying is that the term can be useful in certain contexts, but the dividing line is not cis/trans but if anything what someone’s hormones are doing, assuming that it even aligns with what is typical for one of the two peaks in a bimodal distribution (meaning that there are very much people who can easily be classified as “neither”).
But unless you are a biologist or directly engaging in medical treatment or research, it is just not a relevant thing.
You’re obviously going to know more about this than I do, because you live it daily, but I was under the impression that which treatment a trans person needed was not reliably the one for a particular sex. That is to say, depending on what was troubling you, you might need either the male or the female version, or potentially even a secret third thing.
That said, I wouldn’t consider that to be what makes you a woman. You were a woman before your body had the characteristics you listed (or a girl, depending on the timeline). Your medical transition made your body operate more like a typical female body, but it didn’t change your identity (as before, I think this is a safe assumption, but it’s still an assumption; I’m not trying to tell you you’re wrong about your experience, I’m just being pedantic over terms).
To me, “biological woman” is like “biological fish”; there is no set of biological characteristics that can determine with 100% accuracy whether a given animal fits into that group.
Okay, there is a lot to unpack here, and I kinda wanted to buy groceries now, so I’ll make it quick.
but I was under the impression that which treatment a trans person needed was not reliably the one for a particular sex. That is to say, depending on what was troubling you, you might need either the male or the female version, or potentially even a secret third thing.
Yes, I was speaking generally about general tendencies in the simple case of binary trans people going through the typical “full” program. There are a lot of nuances, especially among nonbinary people, where this becomes more murky. But it’s worth noting that the same holds for binary cis people, things are far from simple there either: As I wrote, sex is a bimodal distribution and if you assign people to the peak they are closer to, what I wrote will be a reasonable first approximation.
That said, I wouldn’t consider that to be what makes you a woman.
That is a fair approach, I recently understood that I have kinda always rejected the notion of social gender roles on a pretty fundamental level, making it far more about outward biological characteristics more relevant.
So: “Yes, but…”
To me, “biological woman” is like “biological fish”; there is no set of biological characteristics that can determine with 100% accuracy whether a given animal fits into that group.
Yes. you always have a grey zone, but that notably doesn’t invalidate the concept of a fish, it just means that we have to be aware that not everything fits perfectly.
I didn’t realize I was trans until I was 21, and I sometimes use it to refer to the habits/tendencies ingrained in me (many of which I’m trying to un-learn) through my youth. I try to avoid it because of the general connotation, but sometimes it’s the best descriptor to encapsulate that in one term
You were raised “trans in denial”. That’s not the same thing as being raised as a cis person of your assigned gender, even though it may look like it from the outside.
i was raised to be a man. that was not my fault. this was done to me by this fucked up patriarchal system, and turns out i neither want to be a man nor am i a man now.
but being trans did not make me immune to the harmful behaviours and ideas that are taught to those children perceived as boys. i internalized many patriarchal ideas, and while realizing that i am trans at the age of 20 helped me unlearn some of that shit, i am still not free of it and am still unlearning.
not everyone goes through the same and not everyon processes it the same, so i don’t doubt that other people who were raised to be men (both cis men and trans people) made different experiences, but it is certainly true for me.
i don’t know if “male socialisation” is the best word for it, but i think it makes sense to have a word to describe what i and many others went through
it definitely should not define us. everyone can and should unlearn the patriarchal ideas and behaviours they internalized. overcome and reject their socialization.
it is cruel and pointless to hate people for what was done to them; for a past they left behind.
I think its important to draw a line.
“Male socialisation” implies that everyone who was AMAB went through the same kind of upbringing and was exposed to the same kinds of indoctrination, toxicity, and bias. It is an over generalisation at best, and intentionally misrepresentative at worst.
If you want to talk specifically about what being assigned male at birth did to your upbringing, I can see it being useful to have a generally understood terminology for that. But you aren’t talking about something that is necessarily applicable as a broad term like “male socialisation”.
I was raised by people who thought I was a male, and part of that bombarded me with machismo and objectification of women. Traditional masculine values were, or at least there was an attempt to, pasted onto me. But many of them slid right off because even if I didnt acknowledge it until a decade or more later, I was a woman, and these values did not align with me. Some stuck, and took learning and introspection to undo.
I am still undoing some of that and I’m sure theres more that I’m unaware of that I will be undoing for years. But my experience differed so greatly from one whose identity aligns with their assigned gender at birth, because the core assumption at the root of what those around me were trying to impart upon me, was wrong. I was not a man. I have never been a man.
I can plant a seed and a plastic bead in the same soil, give them the same fertiliser, water them the same, and only the seed will grow into a plant. The bead might be wet, or dirty, just like the seed, but to expect that it would have experienced the same resulting changes as the seed would be unwise.
“Male socialization” paints transgender women as invariably unable to escape the chains of their assigned gender at birth. Let us rather discuss, on an individual basis, the toxicity and unhelpful values that were or were not taught by those we trusted.
Thank you. I had never considered this view:
“Male socialization” paints transgender women as invariably unable to escape the chains of their assigned gender at birth. [Emphasis added]
I feel like i also was exposed to a lot of cultural views, about men and women, about race, class, etc, which were informed by my role and identity in society. And while I’ll always have that background to overcome, my background doesn’t control my beliefs or behaviors.
I had no idea people were using it to say that trans women would always be “like men” but it makes sense now… unfortunately :(
I’m glad I could provide some valuable thought food for you!
We are, of course, influenced by our upbringing, but I do think that gesturing at this nebulous, oversimplified concept of “male socialisation” is not constructive.
“Male socialisation” implies that everyone who was AMAB went through the same kind of upbringing and was exposed to the same kinds of indoctrination, toxicity, and bias. It is an over generalisation at best, and intentionally misrepresentative at worst.
You’re making the mistake of confusing, “everyone is unique, therefore no description is perfect” with “everyone is unique, therefore no description is possible or useful.”
I’m not making a mistake - I am directly stating that this term does not do a good job at capturing a group in a useful way.
There is ample feminist literature for decades debunking how “male socialization” is used today.
More current, is the concept viewed from intersectional feminism, which criticises the fact that flattening down “male socialization” in this way does a disservice by excluding other, perhaps more prominent social and circumstantial factors which all contribute together, such as race, class, disability, sexuality, nationality, etc.
A more nuanced discussion is necessary, in my opinion, and I dont think I have ever seen “male socialization” used in a constructive context. I most prominently see it used to invalidate (trans) women’s genders, hand-wave away poor behaviour, etc.
I’ve seen the term used with extreme usefulness, even within the trans community.
Studying male/female socialization is extremely useful for binary trans people who want to pass and assimilate into society. Maybe it’s not useful for the most gender rebel nonbinary folks out there. And more power to such folks. But we shouldn’t gatekeep trans identities and invalidate the experiences of binary trans people.
And yes, you are making the exact mistake I suggested:
More current, is the concept viewed from intersectional feminism, which criticises the fact that flattening down “male socialization” in this way does a disservice by excluding other, perhaps more prominent social and circumstantial factors which all contribute together, such as race, class, disability, sexuality, nationality, etc.
A description does not have to be perfect to be useful. All models are wrong. Some models are useful. Gender socialization is not the sole determiner of behavior. It may not even be the greatest single factor of behavior. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t broad averages that are still very useful to reference in the right context.
For example, men are generally socialized to take up more space than women are. And this is true across many other axes. Across most cultures, religions, income levels, etc. Men are encouraged to be big, bold, and be heard. See manspreading. Women are encouraged to be smaller and take up less space. Maybe you can find some rare culture in history that this wasn’t the case. But it’s true for the cultures that the vast vast majority of human beings on this earth live in.
And this is not simply an academic matter. For a binary trans woman seeking advice on how to pass better, “take up as little physical space as possible” is actually fantastic advice if she isn’t already doing it. You can have a body, face, and voice that are read as female. But if you sit down a couch, wearing a skirt, and spread your legs wide instead of keeping them crossed or closed? That will immediately out you as a trans woman, or at the very least draw attention to you. Women generally are socialized to close their legs when they sit. Maybe that’s not true for the Sentilese, but for an American woman living in the US in 2026, it’s certainly true in far more cases than not.
Passing is all about appealing to societal averages. Again, if someone doesn’t care at all about passing, fair enough. But we should not invalidate the experiences of those who wish to pass. And for those that do, studying their socialization and adjusting their behavior accordingly is something that most of us have to do.
Again, it isn’t a mistake - I am criticising the label not because it is imperfect, but because it is not a meaningful label. I would appreciate if you would consider the fact that I heard you the first time and disagree for a reason, not out of ignorance.
I understand where you’re coming from with behaviour and mannerism adjustment - I had not (until yourself) seen these aspects held under the nebulous umbrella of “male socialization”, at least not when it comes to the kinds of things that binary trans women would be looking to change in an effort to be perceived as feminine. Perhaps this is the correct term for that, but I’m not convinced
As a binary trans woman who is intentionally performing gender in a mostly traditional way, I wouldn’t begin to gatekeep trans identities or invalidate the experiences of binary trans people. For all the conversation about behaviour and mannerism adjustment, I would have instead been using the terms “femininity” and “masculinity”, or “traditional X gender presentation”, especially given the widespread adoption of the term “male socialization” as a piece of transphobic rhetoric. I believe the aforementioned two terms to be more well defined, generally applicable, and less prone to centering the conversation on a gender they do not identify with.
If it is useful to you to use this term in this way, more power to you. I shouldn’t, can’t, and won’t prevent you from doing so.
but being trans did not make me immune to the harmful behaviours and ideas that are taught to those children perceived as boys.
Absolutely not. But you also didn’t have the same relationship with your upbringing as cis men and boys did, because you dealt with a lifetime of internalised transphobia that made you doubt who you are.
We all absolutely share some similarities with the socialisation of our cis peers, good and bad, but we did not have the same experience as them, and I think that’s an important distinction to make. “Male socialisation” erases those different experiences. But when you don’t conflate the two experiences, you can start to talk about the difference, whilst also acknowledging the commonalities.
I disagree. It takes a village to raise a child. Socialization is not something you have a say in. It’s about how other people treat or treated you. Your own sense of self is unfortunately not a factor.
Socialization is something that is done to you. It’s not something you chose to participate in.
Sure, you could reject the term simply because of the term “male” could be offensive in any context. But then we could call it “assigned male at birth socialization”, but that just seems a wordy way of saying the same thing.
Unless you’re out or transitioned at a very young age, you will have lived many years of your life being treated as your assigned gender at birth. And society treats people differently depending on whether they’re read as male or female. That treatment is socialization.
It has little to no relation to your actual gender identity.
I call it what it is. Socialization as a closeted trans person.
Which is to say, it’s a mixture of being socialised as our assigned genders, but it’s also our own internal relationship and interaction with those norms and pressures. And that last part is very different between cis people and trans people.
I’m not saying trans people escape the influence of being socialised according to our assigned genders. I’m saying the way we internalise and respond to those norms, perceptions and pressures differs sufficiently that it should be acknowledged and talked about, not erased and conflated with cis experiences.
This is true, however, consider Jax.
It’s not that it is always an anti trans dog whistle, just that it’s frequently used as one. When you see otherwise used that way, it causes PTSD when people use it innocuously. I still can’t here “fren” without instantly being suspicious
Wait wait what’s the tea about fren
Let’s not forget how this also degrades gender-nonconforming cis women. Saying “oh, that thing you’re doing is a male thing from male socialization” works to tell trans women they’re not “real” women, but equally signals to some cis women they’re not “real” women either! This really just boils down to policing women, just the same old patriarchal standards.
Wait wat. Then how am I supposed to express exactly that? I only realized I was trans close to graduating high school. All my close friends up to that point had been male. Male gender stereotypes influenced what I did in my free time, how I behaved in class, how I saw the world.
It took effort to shed some of that. Maybe it’s because I haven’t heard it used in a transphobic context yet, but “I was male socialized” is, I’d have said up to this post at least, very apt.
There ARE transphobic contexts that other people here can better explain, but also, “Male/Female Socialization” generally implies that everyone has the exact same set of experiences they go through based exclusively on assigned gender, ignoring race/ethicity, sexuality, class, ability, neurodivergence, etc.
Like were you “male socialized” as a middle-class neurotypical white guy or what? It just doesn’t provide a lot of useful context compared to how often it’s used as a thought-terminating cliche to dismiss trans people discussing gendered issues.
Like were you “male socialized” as a middle-class neurotypical white guy or what? It just doesn’t provide a lot of useful context compared to how often it’s used as a thought-terminating cliche to dismiss trans people discussing gendered issues.
There’s a fine line between “everybody is unique, so no description is perfect” and “everyone is unique, so no description is possible.”
Of course, but when discussing patriarchy it’s more useful to just utilize intersectional frameworks and specify you grew up poor/black/closeted or openly gay along with AGAB, while when people say “male/female socialized”, it’s… too unhelpful to converse around. Descriptions are already possible without resorting to defaultist phrases that, frankly, assume someone is white, middle-class, etc like I mentioned. Too many people are not those things, these aren’t outliers.
Is it more useful? Because in this context obsessing over intersectionality just seems to be muddying the waters to the point of opacity.
Literally everybody has “male socialisation,” it came free with your patriarchal society that centres male narratives as the default human experiences. It’s why I don’t think it’s a useful term with any real practical applicability beyond bullying trans women.
I agree that the term is mostly used to bully people. But to be fair, you’re inventing your own definition for the word.
The definition you’re using:
male socialization (n): the cultural conditioning produced by a patriarchal society
The standard definition:
male socialization (n): the cultural conditioning applied to those in society assigned male at birth
As far as usefulness, it does have actual positive use even in the trans community. Sure, some portion of the trans community doesn’t care about passing, but most do. And if you’re a binary trans person actually trying to be seen and treated by strangers as your gender, adjusting your behavior is part of this. Cis society expects men and women to behave differently. Boys and girls are raised differently to reflect this behavior.
And for a lot of trans people, a bit of deconstructing of their own male or female socialization is necessary if they want to integrate into a binary role in society. Even just simple things like how men are conditioned to take up space, while women are conditioned to take up less space. If you’re a trans woman and you seek to blend into society, if you don’t work on some of your male socialized behaviors, you’re likely not going to be able to pass. Sure, some trans people just completely reject the socialization forced upon us, but most of us don’t. Most of us absorbed a lot of our gendered socialization growing up as a survival mechanism. And for most trans people, deconstructing that socialization is part of transition.
male socialization (n): the cultural conditioning applied to those in society assigned male at birth
I guess my problem here is that I don’t consider that definition as being descriptive of a coherent and observable phenomenon. Idk, I’m having trouble trying to understand what it’s even supposed to mean here, could you perhaps be more specific wrt what that actually entails?
No disrespect, but have you like…gone outside? Parents raise boys and girls differently. The differences in the ways (on average) those seen as boys or girls are raised and treated IS what we call male/female socialization.
First, immediately abandon any absolute idea here. We’re talking generally, broad averages. Yes, everyone is unique. Yes, no two people are socialized exactly the same.
Do you really not understand how differently society raises those perceived as male and female? Are you blind to how society treats adults that it reads as male or female? That is socialization - the gendered treatment you receive based on how you are perceived.
Below I’ll provide a list of examples. But warning, try not to get hung up on the idea that these have to be universal. For example, one aspect of gendered socialization is that those perceived as men are more encouraged to go into contact sports like football or wrestling. You personally may never have had an interest in sports, but that’s irrelevant when we’re talking about society as a whole.
Those read assigned male at birth, on average, tend to be:
- Forced or encouraged to wear shorter hair.
- Strongly discouraged or prevented from using makeup.
- More strongly encouraged to study STEM subjects.
- Trained to take up maximum space. (See man-spreading.)
- Trained to carry a wallet.
- Encouraged to play with action figures and toy soldiers.
- Trained to speak up and talk over others.
- Trained to expect a woman to get out of your way.
- Dressed in blue and given blue toys as an infant.
- Taught to avoid most skin care and beauty techniques.
Those read assigned female at birth, on average, tend to be:
- Forced or encouraged to longer hair.
- Encouraged or required to wear makeup.
- More strongly encouraged to social sciences and pink-collar fields.
- Trained to minimum space.
- Trained to carry a purse.
- Encouraged to play with dolls.
- Trained to let others speak first.
- Trained to get out of the way of a man.
- Dressed in pink and given pink toys as an infant.
- Taught to take skin care and beauty techniques very seriously.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Again, it would be a mistake to respond to this saying, “but no one ever taught ME one of those items,” or “I was taught that way, but I rejected it!” We’re talking about broad societal averages, not what one person in particular experiences.
Again, it would be a mistake to respond to this saying, “but no one ever taught ME one of those items,” or “I was taught that way, but I rejected it!” We’re talking about broad societal averages, not what one person in particular experiences.
Ok sure, but this discussion is about how (if at all) it applies specifically to a demographic where these pressures often don’t stick, and if it’s still a useful concept in this application. No disrespect, but have you gone outside…? Because most of the trans women I know don’t act like men, and even before coming to terms with their identities didn’t really embody what you’ve described here, to a point where I don’t think that trans women not being “male socialised” according to your given definition are individual outliers, but rather that your model of gendered socialisation just… isn’t broadly applicable to trans women…?
Yo some of y’all in the comments really need to get educated on Transfeminism. Quit trying to argue trans women are “biological males” that’s just transmisogyny.
I prefer to say, “I didn’t go to the girl academy.”
I’ve never actually heard this used as a dog whistle :O. But I don’t think there’s any more polite language to refer to the phenomenon…
Its more commonly a dogwhistle than it is an innocuous statement - but the point of dogwhistles is that you don’t notice them unless you are aware of them
My bioçem wife:
Did u mena gonad presentŋ, or AIS, mosaicism, turner, chimerism, 3x, Klinefelter, Pentasomy, dysgenesis, swyver, X male syndrome, …?
deleted by creator
What are better ways to address this?
In a group I go to, there’s an amab enby who talks a lot, give their uninformed opinion on everything with assurance, talks over or interrupts other people, readily raises their voice to make themselves heard, and uses their physical presence to intimidate people they disagree with. They have a deep voice and tall body with beard. I guess I would have called this “male socialized” before this post, but I don’t want to use dog whistles or anything.
Simple. They’re not “male socialized”, they’re just an asshole.
Asshole-ness knows no gender
Attributing these behaviors to “male socialization” let’s people off the hook for their actions. This person may be weaponizing their masculine presentation to talk over and intimidate people but that’s just not doable for trans women. You know who can and does do that? Trans men. I’ve regularly seen trans men do exactly as you described, but no one would say they’re “male socialized”. Trans men do that cause they’re men and know they can benefit from it. So it’s frankly just not an accurate way to describe this behavior AND it’s a transmisogynistic dog whistle.
Also tbf enby doesn’t inherently mean not man.
Not sure how they identify, but my elven nonbinary boiwife goes by he/they and still considers themself a man.
Luffy is an ally king
“a transfem”
