What you didn't make clear is that the National sorority forced the local sorority to take this guy though he didn't have the minimum GPA (which you mentioned) and he didn't do rush (thus he wasn't voted on). It was a very cruel thing for the National to do to Artemis, as they should have known he wouldn't fit in at all. And they should have known that he, clearly, didn't have the self-knowledge that he wouldn't fit in. And, of course, it was mean to the women. They deserve to have a sorority of like-minded women.
I don't find AGP's threatening but I do find it a massive turn-off and very close to disgusting. Since I stupidly had an AGP friend stay at our house for a few days, I found out how very hard it is to be around someone with that particularly sexual kink. He paraded his sexuality in a way that was unavoidable. Nothing like that had never happened to me around straight male friends my entire life.
You beat me to it. I'm glad that Meghan has acknowledged the omission. I'm not an expert on Greek life but the idea of a national office forcing a local chapter to accept someone who did not meet the chapter's baseline standards sounds unprecedented.
So the national officials decided to virtue signal on the backs of a bunch of 20 year old girls who assuredly did not want some guy walking around ogling them? I wonder if any of their daughters were members of this Wyoming chapter - I think not. And how did the national office even know Langford had been rejected unless he reached out to them?
Aside from all that, the entire saga sounds like the plot of a bad 1980's teen sex comedy. As in, Anthony Michael Hall/Patrick Dempsey is in love with Molly Ringwald/Ally Sheedy but she keeps ignoring him. Desperate for her attention, he identifies as a girl and rushes her sorority so he can be close to her everyday. (Meghan and others over 50 will get these ancient pop culture references - Sarah can Google the names)
I find the comment that your friend "paraded his sexuality in a way that was unavoidable" interesting. I am wondering if you could share what you mean? Was your friend dressed in "inappropriately" sexually arousing clothes, or talked about sexual things alot, or something else? Was it like femininity on steroids, so to speak? Thanks.
As a mother of a 100 lb 16yo girl, I'm always reminding her to pay attention to her surroundings, listen to her instincts, travel in packs, and don't worry about hurting people's feelings. It's sinister that society (and the schools!) are teaching women and girls otherwise.
I'm sorry, but what is this "finding a forever home" bullshit? I've only ever heard that phrase in relation to bringing animals home from a shelter. It's almost unbearably cloying when the subject is puppies--it's baffling when we're talking about college students. Do they think of themselves as kitty-kats on top of everything else?
It's also used by human adoption agencies and it is cloying, especially when you consider that adoptive parents are like all other parents. Sometimes they're good at parenting, sometimes not. And they divorce just as often as non-adoptive parents. There is no "forever home" for babies, especially given the current trend of "rehoming." Sororities, as I understand it, provide a safe space for women on campus who want to live with other women while they're at college. It provides instant community to someone away from home for the first time. So a sorority is not a "forever home" either. The term "Forever home" is supposed to make you think of warm puppies.
Oh yes you're welcome. If you want to see the English language abused in the service of selling a product, adoption agencies have it all going on. Maybe I'll write an essay about that. I'm adopted and I used to work in advertising. Thank you!
When we came home, I showed him his room. He came out - we are five minutes in - wearing my wife's bridesmaid dress with a hard-on. And then he mentioned he better get the dress off or he might "stain it" as it was so exciting having it on. I shudder remembering.
...how did you not find this threatening? this is absolutely vile. i would have kicked him out and then burned that dress after. I am thinking perhaps youre a man? because I think most women would find this experience pretty violating.
I am a woman. I didn't feel threatened because I knew we were under no physical threat. I should point out that he is autistic and blind. It's a complicated story why we were friends - basically he is a friend out of pity. I knew he was AGP, but I didn't have any idea that he would feel free to do what he did until... Kicking out a blind, autistic guy in a strange place just wasn't anything I would do. But, I made it clear to him, he would never be invited back.
Ok, here's a twist: I was his matchmaker. I, a non-Jew, was able to find him a wife. (Yes, I'm amazed, too.) They are both Jewish. Her stance on his proclivities is: If I ever see it or hear about it, I will immediately leave you. Thus, I think his visit to us was his holiday to be an out-loud AGP guy. He was never out of a dress (shudder) except when we went to a concert where I told him he had to dress like a guy.
I see. I've been in situations like this/had friendships like this. Out of context though it sounds a bit threatening lol. I think perhaps threatening is not the exact right word to describe AGPs, despite perhaps a few of them being reasonably threatening. most are just not well I think...often on the spectrum. having this sexuality projected at me makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, disgusted, and even somewhat violated or manipulated. when I was younger I was in a few situations similar to yours and I was too polite/sympathetic so I just brushed it off. Now a few years older and upon reflection I feel like I was somewhat manipulated into ignoring my instincts. This is not behavior I could tolerate being around at all anymore.
Men with neurological deficits can become hypersexual. I had a patient once with a serious traumatic brain injury who just would not stop groping everyone else in the psych hospital.
Makes you appreciate how much active suppression is going on in men with functioning frontal lobes.
holy crap - I'm surprised you didn't kick him out immediately! putting on your wife's clothes without her permission is a little off-putting, but putting on your wife's clothes for sexual gratification? yikes!
Thanks for sharing-- that is plain wrong! In what world is it that appropriate- to go through your host's clothes, wear them, get aroused, then come out and show your host, and joke about staining it? Sarah months ago, when talking about AGP, said something to the effect that AGP requires/demands that other people be involved in your kink without their consent.
It's the autism. Of course it isn't appropriate but he has very few social skills like many autistic folks (and he is not weakly on the spectrum... one cannot miss it.) If he wasn't autistic (and blind!), my bleeding heart qualities would have not come out to befriend him. He wasn't joking about staining it. He was seriously worried that he would, which is sad and disgusting all at once.
I was sitting in a graduate school class on managerial ethics of mostly twenty-something women. The professor asked about what examples of discrimination we were aware of and the first answer was a story about a male person (I think this was a case in Arkansas) being excluded from a sorority. And we’re talking about a very stereotypical group of college students, with a female majority and several who were probably in sororities. This was the first answer. Not something about black people’s voting rights or antisemitic violence or gay people being banned from government work because of some vague fear about the gayness being used by Soviet agents.
And frankly, they hardly came up with anything else. There was a lot of mumbling.
I guess I'm one of the ultra-credulous WaPo readers b/c I felt really bad for Artemis. My college-age son has a biologically male trans-identifed, non-passing, physically large friend who we've known forever and I picture him/her experieincing stalking, ostracization and insults on campus and how awful that would be. At the same time, I understand why the KKG women were uncomfortable. I guess there should be trans/nb sororities and fraternities.
I'm having a hard time with the confident assertions that Artemis has AGP. I haven't known enough trans people to feel capable of sorting out etiologies, and it sounds like Sarah knows a lot, but it seems to me that it's dicey to diagnose a stranger on the basis of a news article.
I did not read the WaPo article, but had heard about the story from a less sympathetic outlet and just seeing this poor kid’s picture made me feel bad for him. He obviously just wants to fit in somewhere, and have friends and support, which is what we all want. I was an awkward looking child for a time, and had middling social skills, and other kids treat you terribly, and it hurts, and you don’t understand why you are the target of cruelty.
Here’s the thing though: You can’t make people like or accept you. If you’re unattractive and have poor social skills, you’re going to have a rougher go in life and that’s just the way it is. Pile this trans thing on top of those disadvantages and you’re asking to be ostracized. And then to join a *sorority*????? To be *accepted*???? Who on earth led that child to believe that the Greek system is where you seek acceptance when you’re far down on the social status ladder? He was just completely out to lunch if he thought that was going to end any other way than how it did.
If you’re a misfit, you seek community with other misfits. You learn about yourself and what you are good at and what you have to offer the world and focus on that instead of what you don’t have and what you aren’t. Life isn’t suddenly going to become fair because it hurts our feelings that it isn’t. Learning to accept this is a precondition for truly becoming an adult imo.
I think they are fairly confident that is is AGP because virtually all studies of people who transition from male to female have - before this recent explosion of gender ideology - fallen into one of two types. 1. It is the classic gender dysphoria which develops early - way before puberty, which remains "consistent, persistence and insistent" that the person feels like "a girl" OR it is guys who show no interest in being the opposite sex until puberty but develop this very strong sexual proclivity. Here is a wikipedia piece on it, which includes those who push back against the concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard%27s_transsexualism_typology Of all the transwomen I know, they have clearly come from one of these two groups. Perhaps there is now a "third way" that has developed? Maybe. It doesn't ultimately matter in terms of Artemis. My point is that he is clearly not a female and females deserve to have spaces without people who "feel they are a woman". And the national sorority totally blew it - which was the act that was very unkind - putting him in this untenable position.
I hope Sarah will say more about why she feels uncomfortable using the pronouns (if there is more to say). I feel very uncomfortable. I’ve yet to find myself in a situation where I was expected to use them and people were listening. If/when that happens, I don’t know what I’ll do.
The economist Bryan Caplan compared the pronoun situation to the way we refer to the adults who adopt children as being those children’s “parents” when this is not true biology. He said we do it in part to be polite and in part because we want to encourage/support adoption. I am in complete agreement with this, so I guess I just don’t want to encourage or support gender transitioning (I do want to be polite). I’m not sure why I don’t want to support gender transitioning, I think my brain just won’t let me believe that a world of gender transitioning is better than a world where people are comfortable in their own skin.
My employer hired a man who identifies as she/her, and I have to very deliberately construct sentences that avoid pronouns. I will use his chosen name, but I will not call him “she”. It was very confusing at first but I have gotten better at using the passive voice to avoid the need for pronouns.
@meghandaum: You have 3 different twitter accounts which may account for low twitter engagement. Even though I'm following you I forgot you were on twitter which means I was probably following the wrong one.
Are you talking about The Unspeakeasy account and the Unspeakable podcast accounts? Those are very new and very minor compared to @meghan_daum, which I've had since 2009. But I think since the blue check went away it's not clear which one to follow.
I really enjoyed Intellectual Brown Web. There was one commenter who was like "How dare you say fuck, think of the children!" and I firmly believe everyone should go over there and demand more fucks.
Why don’t we hear more cases of transmen seeking access to male spaces like fraternities, school, & locker rooms? What’s different about someone born female who identifies as male and her relationship to her masculinity versus male-born people who identify as female & their relationship to their femininity?
Among members of both groups it seems like the preference is for female rather than male spaces & companionship, no?
Transwomen seek to surround themselves with people who share their gender identity. Transmen still largely socialize with women or other transmen. Is this choice, or circumstance (ie men reject them, while women are more likely or at least expected to accommodate transwomen)?
The only place I can think of where transmen have likely advocated for more access to male spaces & roles is the military. Do transmen in the military bunk and change with men? Do transwomen bunk with women? I understand the military supports transition, but then what?
My best guess: Even with testosterone injections, a female identifying as a transman, is still female.
Perhaps through biology or socialization, or both, the female qualities that manifest in accommodating others, coupled with a diminished need for power (or exude an appearance of) isn’t completely erased, despite a trans identity.
Also, there’s more of an awareness that men are unlikely to sincerely affirm their identity.
I wish the media that covers the Olympics would be more honest in their coverage of athletes that aren’t brought to the brink of suicide, when they choose to compete with other females, despite their “trans” or “non binary” identity.
Seems to me that people respond to incentives. The benefits of being a women are social, the benefits of being a man are biological. Thus, those adopting the female identity focus on social clout and are not always interested in hormones or other medical interventions, while there are a ton of women experimenting with testosterone (which is a performance-enhancing drug) who maybe aren’t that interested in actually being part of the male world (thus, “non-binary”).
Obviously I understand why transmen aren’t clamoring to be incarcerated in men’s prisons or to play with men in competitive sports. I mean fraternal organizations where men seek belonging through brotherhood. This could include club sports. Did women infiltrate such organizations legally prior to the recent movement for trans rights, so access is already open to all?
I commented before listening. Sarah’s analysis is spot on: women are skeeved out by sharing spaces with AGP and many of these high profile cases seem to involve AGPs rather than Blair Whites. Many women are very comfortable around transwomen who “pass” and who are presumably attracted to men. They pose no threat.
I actually think “modern” & younger men are pretty comfortable with transmen in their spaces by the same logic that women aren’t comfortable with (some) transwomen in their spaces: transmen aren’t (usually) sexually attracted to men. This, coupled with them being physically smaller, cancels out whatever potential bigotry men might feel toward transmen. I think it’s safe to assume that the people who feel most uncomfortable in this situation are the transmen, not the men.
I know a couple of what I'd count genuine male-to-female trans people (as co-workers, at any rate) snf one thing that's always struck me is that their primary interest seems to be to pass - i.e., to blend in. So it's always struck me as off when the first impulse of some who "transition" seems to be "now let's go crush some bitches in athletics!" That seems entirely incongruous with the objective of blending in. Maybe they're autogynophiles, maybe they're just weirdly misogynistic at some primal level, or maybe they're just grandiose narcissists trying to find a slot where it's easier for them to justify their grandiosity (I suspect the latter, at least to a large extent, though it's just a hunch). But it's always seemed clear to me that there's some pathology darker and more profound than disphoria driving that particular bus.
PS - Listeners prefer to be known as just "gax," Meghan.
Special shout out to Razib Khan who gets a generous mention in this episode.
Also, FIRST!
Damnit!!!!
It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore
Yaaayah
What you didn't make clear is that the National sorority forced the local sorority to take this guy though he didn't have the minimum GPA (which you mentioned) and he didn't do rush (thus he wasn't voted on). It was a very cruel thing for the National to do to Artemis, as they should have known he wouldn't fit in at all. And they should have known that he, clearly, didn't have the self-knowledge that he wouldn't fit in. And, of course, it was mean to the women. They deserve to have a sorority of like-minded women.
I don't find AGP's threatening but I do find it a massive turn-off and very close to disgusting. Since I stupidly had an AGP friend stay at our house for a few days, I found out how very hard it is to be around someone with that particularly sexual kink. He paraded his sexuality in a way that was unavoidable. Nothing like that had never happened to me around straight male friends my entire life.
Good point. We should have made that more clear.
You beat me to it. I'm glad that Meghan has acknowledged the omission. I'm not an expert on Greek life but the idea of a national office forcing a local chapter to accept someone who did not meet the chapter's baseline standards sounds unprecedented.
So the national officials decided to virtue signal on the backs of a bunch of 20 year old girls who assuredly did not want some guy walking around ogling them? I wonder if any of their daughters were members of this Wyoming chapter - I think not. And how did the national office even know Langford had been rejected unless he reached out to them?
Aside from all that, the entire saga sounds like the plot of a bad 1980's teen sex comedy. As in, Anthony Michael Hall/Patrick Dempsey is in love with Molly Ringwald/Ally Sheedy but she keeps ignoring him. Desperate for her attention, he identifies as a girl and rushes her sorority so he can be close to her everyday. (Meghan and others over 50 will get these ancient pop culture references - Sarah can Google the names)
Over 40! How dare you ;)
Important background on how it happened! Thank you, Robin.
I find the comment that your friend "paraded his sexuality in a way that was unavoidable" interesting. I am wondering if you could share what you mean? Was your friend dressed in "inappropriately" sexually arousing clothes, or talked about sexual things alot, or something else? Was it like femininity on steroids, so to speak? Thanks.
Woke morality has one rule: consequences are strictly for other people
As a mother of a 100 lb 16yo girl, I'm always reminding her to pay attention to her surroundings, listen to her instincts, travel in packs, and don't worry about hurting people's feelings. It's sinister that society (and the schools!) are teaching women and girls otherwise.
I'm sorry, but what is this "finding a forever home" bullshit? I've only ever heard that phrase in relation to bringing animals home from a shelter. It's almost unbearably cloying when the subject is puppies--it's baffling when we're talking about college students. Do they think of themselves as kitty-kats on top of everything else?
It's also used by human adoption agencies and it is cloying, especially when you consider that adoptive parents are like all other parents. Sometimes they're good at parenting, sometimes not. And they divorce just as often as non-adoptive parents. There is no "forever home" for babies, especially given the current trend of "rehoming." Sororities, as I understand it, provide a safe space for women on campus who want to live with other women while they're at college. It provides instant community to someone away from home for the first time. So a sorority is not a "forever home" either. The term "Forever home" is supposed to make you think of warm puppies.
I had no idea about adoption agencies' use of the phrase, thank you. That's remarkable.
Oh yes you're welcome. If you want to see the English language abused in the service of selling a product, adoption agencies have it all going on. Maybe I'll write an essay about that. I'm adopted and I used to work in advertising. Thank you!
To say nothing of "gotcha day."
Oh yeah that’s a beauty.
I had to google this. Ewwwww
When we came home, I showed him his room. He came out - we are five minutes in - wearing my wife's bridesmaid dress with a hard-on. And then he mentioned he better get the dress off or he might "stain it" as it was so exciting having it on. I shudder remembering.
...how did you not find this threatening? this is absolutely vile. i would have kicked him out and then burned that dress after. I am thinking perhaps youre a man? because I think most women would find this experience pretty violating.
I am a woman. I didn't feel threatened because I knew we were under no physical threat. I should point out that he is autistic and blind. It's a complicated story why we were friends - basically he is a friend out of pity. I knew he was AGP, but I didn't have any idea that he would feel free to do what he did until... Kicking out a blind, autistic guy in a strange place just wasn't anything I would do. But, I made it clear to him, he would never be invited back.
"I should point out that he is autistic and blind"
I'm going to hell because I laughed out loud when I read this. Sweet Jesus.
Yeah--I mean, damn. The plot thickens!
Ok, here's a twist: I was his matchmaker. I, a non-Jew, was able to find him a wife. (Yes, I'm amazed, too.) They are both Jewish. Her stance on his proclivities is: If I ever see it or hear about it, I will immediately leave you. Thus, I think his visit to us was his holiday to be an out-loud AGP guy. He was never out of a dress (shudder) except when we went to a concert where I told him he had to dress like a guy.
And here I thought the twist had already occurred. That's a doozy alright.
wow... do you think they are a good match ? you sound like a really nice person lol.
I see. I've been in situations like this/had friendships like this. Out of context though it sounds a bit threatening lol. I think perhaps threatening is not the exact right word to describe AGPs, despite perhaps a few of them being reasonably threatening. most are just not well I think...often on the spectrum. having this sexuality projected at me makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, disgusted, and even somewhat violated or manipulated. when I was younger I was in a few situations similar to yours and I was too polite/sympathetic so I just brushed it off. Now a few years older and upon reflection I feel like I was somewhat manipulated into ignoring my instincts. This is not behavior I could tolerate being around at all anymore.
Men with neurological deficits can become hypersexual. I had a patient once with a serious traumatic brain injury who just would not stop groping everyone else in the psych hospital.
Makes you appreciate how much active suppression is going on in men with functioning frontal lobes.
O M G
SAME, friend... Everything about this is a lot.
holy crap - I'm surprised you didn't kick him out immediately! putting on your wife's clothes without her permission is a little off-putting, but putting on your wife's clothes for sexual gratification? yikes!
Thanks for sharing-- that is plain wrong! In what world is it that appropriate- to go through your host's clothes, wear them, get aroused, then come out and show your host, and joke about staining it? Sarah months ago, when talking about AGP, said something to the effect that AGP requires/demands that other people be involved in your kink without their consent.
It's the autism. Of course it isn't appropriate but he has very few social skills like many autistic folks (and he is not weakly on the spectrum... one cannot miss it.) If he wasn't autistic (and blind!), my bleeding heart qualities would have not come out to befriend him. He wasn't joking about staining it. He was seriously worried that he would, which is sad and disgusting all at once.
I was sitting in a graduate school class on managerial ethics of mostly twenty-something women. The professor asked about what examples of discrimination we were aware of and the first answer was a story about a male person (I think this was a case in Arkansas) being excluded from a sorority. And we’re talking about a very stereotypical group of college students, with a female majority and several who were probably in sororities. This was the first answer. Not something about black people’s voting rights or antisemitic violence or gay people being banned from government work because of some vague fear about the gayness being used by Soviet agents.
And frankly, they hardly came up with anything else. There was a lot of mumbling.
I guess I'm one of the ultra-credulous WaPo readers b/c I felt really bad for Artemis. My college-age son has a biologically male trans-identifed, non-passing, physically large friend who we've known forever and I picture him/her experieincing stalking, ostracization and insults on campus and how awful that would be. At the same time, I understand why the KKG women were uncomfortable. I guess there should be trans/nb sororities and fraternities.
I'm having a hard time with the confident assertions that Artemis has AGP. I haven't known enough trans people to feel capable of sorting out etiologies, and it sounds like Sarah knows a lot, but it seems to me that it's dicey to diagnose a stranger on the basis of a news article.
I did not read the WaPo article, but had heard about the story from a less sympathetic outlet and just seeing this poor kid’s picture made me feel bad for him. He obviously just wants to fit in somewhere, and have friends and support, which is what we all want. I was an awkward looking child for a time, and had middling social skills, and other kids treat you terribly, and it hurts, and you don’t understand why you are the target of cruelty.
Here’s the thing though: You can’t make people like or accept you. If you’re unattractive and have poor social skills, you’re going to have a rougher go in life and that’s just the way it is. Pile this trans thing on top of those disadvantages and you’re asking to be ostracized. And then to join a *sorority*????? To be *accepted*???? Who on earth led that child to believe that the Greek system is where you seek acceptance when you’re far down on the social status ladder? He was just completely out to lunch if he thought that was going to end any other way than how it did.
If you’re a misfit, you seek community with other misfits. You learn about yourself and what you are good at and what you have to offer the world and focus on that instead of what you don’t have and what you aren’t. Life isn’t suddenly going to become fair because it hurts our feelings that it isn’t. Learning to accept this is a precondition for truly becoming an adult imo.
Yup, you've got a point there. There's political advocacy and then there's real life/real world happiness and they don't always align.
I think they are fairly confident that is is AGP because virtually all studies of people who transition from male to female have - before this recent explosion of gender ideology - fallen into one of two types. 1. It is the classic gender dysphoria which develops early - way before puberty, which remains "consistent, persistence and insistent" that the person feels like "a girl" OR it is guys who show no interest in being the opposite sex until puberty but develop this very strong sexual proclivity. Here is a wikipedia piece on it, which includes those who push back against the concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard%27s_transsexualism_typology Of all the transwomen I know, they have clearly come from one of these two groups. Perhaps there is now a "third way" that has developed? Maybe. It doesn't ultimately matter in terms of Artemis. My point is that he is clearly not a female and females deserve to have spaces without people who "feel they are a woman". And the national sorority totally blew it - which was the act that was very unkind - putting him in this untenable position.
Had a similar childhood experience, couldn't agree more, and feel that this is the messaging that the anti-bullying movement is missing.
I hope Sarah will say more about why she feels uncomfortable using the pronouns (if there is more to say). I feel very uncomfortable. I’ve yet to find myself in a situation where I was expected to use them and people were listening. If/when that happens, I don’t know what I’ll do.
The economist Bryan Caplan compared the pronoun situation to the way we refer to the adults who adopt children as being those children’s “parents” when this is not true biology. He said we do it in part to be polite and in part because we want to encourage/support adoption. I am in complete agreement with this, so I guess I just don’t want to encourage or support gender transitioning (I do want to be polite). I’m not sure why I don’t want to support gender transitioning, I think my brain just won’t let me believe that a world of gender transitioning is better than a world where people are comfortable in their own skin.
My employer hired a man who identifies as she/her, and I have to very deliberately construct sentences that avoid pronouns. I will use his chosen name, but I will not call him “she”. It was very confusing at first but I have gotten better at using the passive voice to avoid the need for pronouns.
Now imagine treating a male patient in a women’s-only recovery center.
@meghandaum: You have 3 different twitter accounts which may account for low twitter engagement. Even though I'm following you I forgot you were on twitter which means I was probably following the wrong one.
Agreed. I only followed one accout and did not realize there were three
Are you talking about The Unspeakeasy account and the Unspeakable podcast accounts? Those are very new and very minor compared to @meghan_daum, which I've had since 2009. But I think since the blue check went away it's not clear which one to follow.
No. Take a look. All 3 are for Meghan Daum and have a picture of you.
Ugh. Those are fake accounts.
I was following one of those from way back. I’m rarely on so I didn’t notice. At least I’ll add to your follower count now.
I really enjoyed Intellectual Brown Web. There was one commenter who was like "How dare you say fuck, think of the children!" and I firmly believe everyone should go over there and demand more fucks.
Why don’t we hear more cases of transmen seeking access to male spaces like fraternities, school, & locker rooms? What’s different about someone born female who identifies as male and her relationship to her masculinity versus male-born people who identify as female & their relationship to their femininity?
Among members of both groups it seems like the preference is for female rather than male spaces & companionship, no?
Transwomen seek to surround themselves with people who share their gender identity. Transmen still largely socialize with women or other transmen. Is this choice, or circumstance (ie men reject them, while women are more likely or at least expected to accommodate transwomen)?
The only place I can think of where transmen have likely advocated for more access to male spaces & roles is the military. Do transmen in the military bunk and change with men? Do transwomen bunk with women? I understand the military supports transition, but then what?
Because only a man would make this shit into a continuous pissing match.
My best guess: Even with testosterone injections, a female identifying as a transman, is still female.
Perhaps through biology or socialization, or both, the female qualities that manifest in accommodating others, coupled with a diminished need for power (or exude an appearance of) isn’t completely erased, despite a trans identity.
Also, there’s more of an awareness that men are unlikely to sincerely affirm their identity.
I wish the media that covers the Olympics would be more honest in their coverage of athletes that aren’t brought to the brink of suicide, when they choose to compete with other females, despite their “trans” or “non binary” identity.
Seems to me that people respond to incentives. The benefits of being a women are social, the benefits of being a man are biological. Thus, those adopting the female identity focus on social clout and are not always interested in hormones or other medical interventions, while there are a ton of women experimenting with testosterone (which is a performance-enhancing drug) who maybe aren’t that interested in actually being part of the male world (thus, “non-binary”).
Obviously I understand why transmen aren’t clamoring to be incarcerated in men’s prisons or to play with men in competitive sports. I mean fraternal organizations where men seek belonging through brotherhood. This could include club sports. Did women infiltrate such organizations legally prior to the recent movement for trans rights, so access is already open to all?
I think they know the men won't have it. Men don't feel the same need to bend over backward to accommodate other people's feelings.
I commented before listening. Sarah’s analysis is spot on: women are skeeved out by sharing spaces with AGP and many of these high profile cases seem to involve AGPs rather than Blair Whites. Many women are very comfortable around transwomen who “pass” and who are presumably attracted to men. They pose no threat.
I actually think “modern” & younger men are pretty comfortable with transmen in their spaces by the same logic that women aren’t comfortable with (some) transwomen in their spaces: transmen aren’t (usually) sexually attracted to men. This, coupled with them being physically smaller, cancels out whatever potential bigotry men might feel toward transmen. I think it’s safe to assume that the people who feel most uncomfortable in this situation are the transmen, not the men.
I know a couple of what I'd count genuine male-to-female trans people (as co-workers, at any rate) snf one thing that's always struck me is that their primary interest seems to be to pass - i.e., to blend in. So it's always struck me as off when the first impulse of some who "transition" seems to be "now let's go crush some bitches in athletics!" That seems entirely incongruous with the objective of blending in. Maybe they're autogynophiles, maybe they're just weirdly misogynistic at some primal level, or maybe they're just grandiose narcissists trying to find a slot where it's easier for them to justify their grandiosity (I suspect the latter, at least to a large extent, though it's just a hunch). But it's always seemed clear to me that there's some pathology darker and more profound than disphoria driving that particular bus.
PS - Listeners prefer to be known as just "gax," Meghan.