Y’all, we have a problem.
These are some of the results of a survey done on our community concerning gender identity:
1.08% Binary Trans men (4).
1.08% Transmasculine people (4).
1.35% Cis women (5).
That’s right, there are more CIS WOMEN on a TRANS community than binary trans men or transmasculine people alone.
We have a problem.
This isn’t just a Blahaj problem. Another queer instance did a similar survey and found only 3% of their users were trans and use he/him pronouns.
Not having enough transmasc voices is going to be detrimental to our community. There are plenty of transmasc people on the internet. The problem is with Lemmy.
So what are we gonna do about it?
It sounds like that’s specifically the trans men that you know, not a majority. I know plenty of trans men who are chronically online.
I don’t think anyone is arguing transmasc presence shouldn’t be encouraged, but it is also my perception that the ratio of chronically online transfems is significantly higher than transmascs. And furthermore, in trans spaces in general I also see this imbalanced ratio, for example at my local trans support group there might be one or two transmasc folks at most, transfems are more likely to show up to the support group and in much larger numbers (like 1 transmasc to 10 transfems).
I am not entirely sure why this is, either. It’s especially puzzling because as I understand it there actually are equal numbers of trans men and trans women, so it seems that trans men are less present in trans spaces but not fewer in number overall.
I’m not sure my speculations as to why are going to be accurate or helpful, but I am wondering if you have any ideas as to why this disparity exists (on Lemmy or elsewhere)? Being a (trans) man can be quite lonely and I personally would like to see more transmasc presence in trans spaces.
Dang it…I accidentally deleted my comment. Anyway I was saying that I think age plays a role in irl queer spaces. I notice a lot of younger transmasculine folks in society and trans spaces than older (though part of that is a bias in the ones that are visibly trans and not, and older ones are less likely to be as visibly trans). Maybe there’s more transmasculine gen zers or transmasculine gen zers feel able to be more open about their transness. I personally have met many more transmasc than transfem people irl, but every single one of them was gen z.
As somebody else mentioned, it’s relatively easy to be stealth as a trans man especially once on T. Also I have heard a lot of transmasculine people, especially binary trans men who pass and especially straight binary trans men who pass say that many irl queer spaces are unwelcoming or outright hostile to them because of a general distrust of men and masculinity. Not sure if that would apply to online queer spaces, tho.
And you’re right, there is the isolating aspect of being a trans man. Being treated as a man by society is lonely. You’re expected to be stoic and tough stuff out. Friendships between men are a lot less focused on emotional support than between women. Obviously, this will not always be true but it’s something I’ve noticed.
Hmm, the IRL trans spaces I am a part of like the support group tend to be more gen y than gen z, so if you’re right about the age thing it’s at least consistent with what I’m seeing. However, it doesn’t explain why there seems to be such a dearth of transmasc folks online where you would think gen z would be more common. Maybe gen z are more likely to be on tiktok than reddit, and reddit happens to be where the trans community orbits right now?
One of my speculations was that being a trans man doesn’t have the same challenges as for trans women, and those differences might explain the differences in approach to community. I don’t in any way want to imply trans men have it easy, but it does seem like trans men might be able to integrate into cis society more easily for various reasons, and to that end they might be more likely to go stealth and not need to stick around in trans groups (which could expose their trans status, and is a risk probably not worth taking for many trans men). I think the same thing is true of trans women, btw - I don’t see a lot of stealth trans women in the support groups IRL, though I do see many passing trans women online (at least photos of them, which I think are upvoted higher on reddit than less-passing photos).
Somewhat random, but I have personally met several trans men attorneys and seen on TV trans men attorneys, usually attorneys who are fighting for trans rights. Not sure what to make of that and it could be irrelevant or sampling bias (it’s a small subset, maybe 3 - 4 people), but I certainly noticed.
If trans men transition and integrate more easily I would guess it relates to gender disparities among cis people, and the way gender markers are weighted in our society, e.g. a beard and a deep voice both come easily with T and they weigh more heavily when “gendering” someone (compared to feminine markers do on a trans woman). For trans women with a deep voice and a beard shadow it might be really hard to overcome the “weight” of those gender markers to appear as a woman to most people (even if they have large breasts, for example), and there is a greater fragility in their womanhood than there might be for trans men (not to imply trans men don’t also experience similar struggles, uncertainty, etc.).
There is greater fragility in women’s gender even for cis women compared to for men (though again, many cis men experience insecurity in their gender). The gender is more violently and strictly enforced for women than for men, and men who cross over into womanhood are more stigmatized.
Of course what is not getting talked about here are transmasc folks who don’t take T, or of the many instances where trans men have struggled immensely and been killed for who they are. I don’t think I can repeat enough that trans men are subject to similar struggles and violence as trans women even if the ways those manifest might look a little different.
That said, I don’t feel confident in my speculation - I don’t actually know enough and I’m going off of what I’ve seen and what I’ve read about gender from Julia Serano and others. I would prefer something more empirical and tested.
Either way, I wonder what pragmatic steps we can take to create a space that is more inviting to trans men and transmasc folks. We need them, online and IRL.