63 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: Trans Women, Male Privilege, and the Intersectionality of Patriarchal Oppression
Transitioning is not about just ‘joining’ womanhood; it’s about asserting a lifelong identity and facing unique challenges that cis women can’t understand. I hope you can understand that while all women face oppression, the challenges trans women face deserve recognition too.
Absolutely. But you're still playing victim Olympics ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Becoming a woman is difficult for everybody, as is navigating life as a woman. You are dismissing the very real struggles so many girls go through to become women, the very complex, often painful, fraught journey that involves navigating society and family, sometimes medical hurdles, and years of internal struggles after the physical changes. And your dismissing the very real identity struggle so many women ~~hi~~ go through their whole lives ~~trying to~~ And that's not even getting into how men interact with women who don't reciprocate and how dramatically cruel and dangerous they become as soon as they realise they're not wanted.
Yes, yours is a costly journey. And yes, horribly you're in much more danger of violence as a trans woman. And yes, you can face daunting and violent rejection from not just your family but society at large. Yours isn't an easy path. Your struggles are very real. I acknowledge that. And since I'll never live your life, I'll forever lack your insight into your life. Maybe the problem here is that you don't think you're 'joining' womanhood while I'd think you are, since womanhood to me is a collective rather than just an individual identity. So when I say welcome to being a woman, it's not that I don't take your struggles seriously, or think that they're insignificant, it's that I also see them as a subset of the crap women have been dealing with forever while you see them as personal and specific to you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Comment by FeelGuiltThrowaway94 at 30/01/2025 at 00:19 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I appreciate your acknowledgment of the struggles trans women face. I feel that framing our challenges as a “subset” of women’s issues risks erasing the specific struggles we encounter. I would argue this failure to acknowledge our specific struggles is why we are so marginalised. I don't think it's Oppression Olympics to point that out.
While cis women certainly experience lifelong struggles due to patriarchy, trans women face oppression from both men and cis women, who often disregard our needs (prisons, bathroom bills, or healthcare access).
For example, a cis woman in the UK was mistakenly placed in a male prison and was quickly apologised to and moved to a women's facility. She shouldn't have been in that position at all of course. But trans women wouldn’t even receive that consideration - they are banned from women's prisons even if they have had bottom surgery most of the time. An uncomfortable truth is that our safety, dignity, and well-being are often disregarded in the name of “protecting cis women" when we already face disproportionate marginalisation.
Gender non-conforming cis women share some of these struggles, and I don't deny that at all. But the experience is different when you’re denied womanhood altogether.
By subsuming our challenges into general “women’s issues,” we risk ignoring our unique needs and experiences. It's not about competing struggles, but ensuring our distinct challenges are recognised and addressed too.
Comment by SuperPrussia at 30/01/2025 at 00:04 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Trans women experience some things, while cis women experience other things. It's important to make distinctions between both when relevant, as so each group can best advocate for the advancement of ALL women from their respective fronts.
Now, to be fair, a lot of things regarding womanhood *suck*. I think a lot of us can relate to that, trans or cis. Now, I don't really see how any point here was made "personal" or "specific" to any of the commenters. I think that all that's been said here is just observations on how "the crap women have been dealing with forever" affects people differently depending on their background.
Comment by Iron_willed_fuck-up at 30/01/2025 at 00:26 UTC
-40 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Have you considered that lumping us simply into womanhood as a whole can feel like you’re erasing issues specific to trans women? Similar to how some white people dismiss racism by saying something akin to “we’re all people with problems” or “all lives matter”?
In addition to misogyny, we do regularly experience transphobia and transmisogyny specifically that cisgender women rarely if ever experience themselves. Often from cisgender women as well. I’ll be honest, the population I find myself receiving the most transphobia from is usually older cishet, white women.
Please keep in mind that across the board trans people (and this includes trans men, trans women don’t have a monopoly on trans issues) have worse statistical outcomes than cisgender people. Adult trans people report attempting suicide at a rate of 41%. For the cisgender population that drops to 1%. In addition to that we have worse incidence of mental and physical health as well as worse access to proper mental and physical healthcare. We have higher incidences of violence, domestic abuse, SA, homelessness, joblessness, discrimination, etc. This only gets worse if you are at an intersection of being trans AND another marginalized community with black trans women fairing the worst. It’s the height of foolishness to dismiss our issues as just a subset of women’s issues and not something in their own right.