Look, We Have To Care About Marginalized Men Across The Board, Not Just Trans Men/mascs.

Look, we have to care about marginalized men across the board, not just trans men/mascs.

Not only is that insulting to trans men by insinuating that we have some sort of special virtue over cis men for being assigned female (which isn't even true for many transmascs and is interexist/exorsexist to imply) but it ignores the fact that the patriarchy views marginalized men as a threat to patriarchal masculinity.

Patriarchal manhood is perisex, white, abled, cis manhood.

Any other type of manhood is seen as deviant.

Patriarchy sees disabled men as a threat to patriarchal manhood because under patriarchal standards, men are seen as emotionless workhorses. If a man is unable to perform to the work standards of capitalism, he is seen as a failure of a man. The system actively seeks to harm, torment and kill disabled men.

The patriarchy is inherently steeped in white supremacist ideals, black and brown men may be circumstantially afforded privilege at the expense of other marginalized people, but the goal of the system and people in power is not to uplift black and brown men. It's to use us as a tool and mouthpiece to spread their hatred, ready to discard us at any moment. Never play their game.

When a black man is killed and people's reactions are "well he was a big guy" or "he was a thug" in order to justify the killing, yes, this is racism, but it's racism using sentiments that are steeped in hatred and demonization of black masculinity. It needs to be part of the conversation.

I've had this conversation a couple of times with people who disagree with me and have never gotten a helpful response to "how does this help marginalized men" when they dissect every issue from manhood/masculinity.

When a black man is told to smile more so he doesn't look so threatening, "Well that's just racism"

Ok well it's racism based on the assumption that black masculinity is dangerous. Can we talk about that?

When a trans man gets ostracized from queer groups once he starts presenting more masculine or has to hide his masculine traits and self deprecate his identity to be seen as redeemable, "Well that's just transphobia"

Yeah? AND it's transphobia based on a hatred of perceived masculinity and embracing manhood.

I've seen trans women and intersex people get harassed on here and transvestigated for not denouncing all aspects of manhood and supporting marginalized men. This is a fucking problem. If you can only respect people if they completely denounce manhood, which is a NEUTRAL way to identify, you end up hurting so many people and emboldening ideas you claim to fight against.

If you have an issue with this discussion acknowledging this and think it's at odds with women's issues, you have a serious problem with gender essentialism. If you see overlap of these issues happen to people of different genders, it does not make these issues any less harmful to marginalized men.

It just further solidifies that the reasons bigots use to harm us are based in absolutely nothing, because sex and gender do not work how they impose it on the rest of us.

I'm sick of the conversation continually boiling down to "trans men are hurt because we're seen as women" or "that's just misogyny" Yes that's PART of it but that's not EVERYONE'S experience and it's not the whole story.

Acknowledging the ways the system vilifies manhood that does not fit the standard will lift up all marginalized men (and I don't mean lift up above women, all genders should be supported and lifted out of oppression, this is just one facet of the work that needs to be done to combat gender essentialist thinking). Ignoring these issues leaves us bowing to the patriarchal standard of manhood instead of allowing people to create healthy expressions of manhood outside of it that may even be a mix of all kinds of diverse forms of gender expression. The latter is what gender liberation looks like, being able to choose how you express your inner self to the outside world regardless of what that might be as long as it is not harmful to others. I want that, that's beautiful.

I'm not leaving my brothers in the dust while I get mine.