I’ve got my own takes on this, but I’m curious about y’all’s.
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The reason people make such a huge deal their outrage against MtF folks is for one main reason:
There is nothing more shameful to a man than being perceived as a woman.
Gay folks? One of those men is taking on a “woman’s role”!
Trans? “Why would a man degrade himself to be more like the lower-tier woman? — who are supposed to be subservient to men? What a disgrace to manhood! Disgusting! Who would willingly choose to be a lower species?”
Lesbians and FtM throughout history have been viewed as quaint cosplayers who will eventually be forced to submit to their societal roles… so no biggie!
In short: women are lower on the totem.
Like many others have said here: it’s based in misogyny. As are many many many issues, when you really get down to it.
I think it’s this, but frosted with female social policing. So more misogyny.
What I mean is that femininity, at least in modern history, has been massively scrutinized. Pants? Working? Sports? No makeup? Short hair? No curves? Small breasts? Not reproducing? Not feminine enough!
So women are already under a microscope for how they look and act, and it’s a “natural extension” of it to accuse those who don’t fit the ideal even slightly of being trans, now that it’s a commonly-known thing. After all, if you aren’t feminine enough to be a woman in their limited view of what that means, what could you possibly be in their binary minds other than a man?
I’ve been personally caught up by this despite being afab, looking very feminine (long hair, feminine face, etc), and being well below the male height average (5’2, or a whopping 7 inches below male average), just because I have a deep voice, no curves, don’t hold my tongue, and don’t wear makeup.
I think a large part of it is because MTFs are both more fetishized and more feared. They are subject to our societal fear of amabs but without all of its benefits and they experience the fetishization of women so they become more of a hot button topic. Transphobes aren’t scared of trans men touching their kids because they don’t let men near kids and because they don’t expect afabs to be pedophiles. And with most transphobes being cis men it’s a lot less likely for trans men to be fetishized.
Fair warning I’m not trans so I might not be as knowledgeable as I think
Eh, trans men get their fair share of fetishization too, especially from cis men. Just look on any mainstream porn site and you’ll see that 99% of porn featuring trans men has a cis man on top and penetrating the front hole. That’s only how a small percentage of trans men do and like sex yet it’s incredibly hard to find anything else. I’ve got gay ftm friends who have had a lot of issues with cis guys pretending to be accepting just to sleep with them but really just viewing and treating them as quirky women. Another thing is cis men who are attracted to masculinity and are exploring their sexuality but for whatever reason have internalized homophobia and sleep with trans men and are like “but I’m not gay thoooo”. It’s gross.
Then there’s women who seek out trans men because they “hate all men” or are “tired of men” but EXCEPT trans men because they’re “different.” This is what I’ve mostly experienced because I date women. I definitely would consider this fetishization. They somehow think trans men aren’t capable of things like misynogy, violence, or will inherently understand girl things by the sole virtue of being AFAB or having “afab socialization.” It’s a way of saying that we’re somehow man lite and not just men. Not to mention, trans men aren’t a monolith and some transitioned at a very young age and as such have no experience with female socialization and expectations.
Both are not uncommon and are terrible to be around.
Cis men also aren’t in the solid majority of transphobes especially with the onset of the TERF movement nowadays.
Transphobes may not be as scared when less passing or gender non-conforming trans men are near their children, but for me I found that I’ve gotta be more cautious around children and more aware of how I may come across after I transitioned (I am a binary trans man). Women are also more leery around me as a man so I have to make more of an effort to make them feel more comfortable and at ease. Guess that’s got more to do with being perceived as a guy than being perceived as trans.
This isn’t to say that trans women don’t have to deal with a lot of shit, because they certainly do.
Oh yeah for sure, I’m sorry if it seemed like I was downplaying or dismissing FTM issues that are evidently there. I just often see a difference in the types of discrimination as well as the magnitude that MTFs face typically. Perhaps that also has to do with hearing about MTFs more frequently though and I’m calling a symptom the cause? Unsure.
Wasn’t aware FTMs had male chasers as well though, that’s ass
I see trans discrimination and problems we face as a venn diagram, a lot of things overlap, though they may take slightly different forms.
I wouldn’t say either has it objectively worse. It’s similar in some ways, different in others.
I think a part of it is that every FTM I’ve ever met just looked like a slightly effeminate dude, its a lot easier for them to blend into society. MTF is harder to “pass” and get noticed more.
I’ve thought about this too. Being that many people in the West are christian, I’m thinking part of it is the power hierarchy in the bible (men -> women -> children).
I think part of the hate that trans women get is because people see them as men who are forfeiting their power and moving down in the hierarchy. With their understanding of the world, they are unable to understand how gender and sex are different. This leads them to thinking the actual reason for their transition is so they can go and do perverted things because they don’t understand why they would give up their power as men.
With trans men, it makes more sense to them because they are moving up in the power hierarchy. They do not think that trans men are transitioning because they are men, but because they want more power, which they see as admirable.
Why mainstream media ignores trans men I think is because they don’t view them as threats like how trans women are viewed. Wanting power is seen as a normal and admirable thing by many in the hellscape we live in and thus trans men aren’t “ragebaity” enough for the news or they just choose to focus on trans women because they are way more “ragebaity” and controversial than trans men are.
This is a depressingly viable explanation
Are you asking why there’s no representation or why the animosity is mostly at MTFs?
For representation I would guess it’s because society is transphobic and likes to see FTMs as female still and pushes that female gender norm of being unseen and unrepresented.
I imagine the animosity is because mainstream society is transphobic and if you’re born male you’re a threat but not if born female.
In short, I think both are a combination of transfobia and traditional gender norms.
I’m not sure you need to implicate society in pushing them to be unseen. It’s my impression that part of ftm is desire to avoid certain types of attention and just live life since male gender has a kind of default status in society. I’m not saying it’s the reason they are trans but part of the motivation to act on it, so the people who do act on it are more likely to be the type to just blend into the background.
Please do not generalise trans folk like that. Not only is it inaccurate to group the desire of all trans men as being unified, the generalisation itself feeds in to all sort of unspoken implications around trans women actively seeking attention, and those sort, often subconscious ideas, are a part of why trans women are hyper visible and trans men are under represented by the media
I never said all or even most or anything like that. I don’t know how to answer a question about trends without talking about trends. The question presumes that a generalization can be made about someone.
But here’s I hope a better way to put my answer. Society seems to have a lot more, stronger, and more personal opinions about women’s bodies and appearance than men’s. It is more socially acceptable to publicly appreciate and also publicly denigrate women for conformity or lack of conformity, and to include the attractiveness and correctness of the women around them in their sense of personal pride or insecurity. This makes it very hard for trans women to avoid attention and also media is going to zero in on things that get this strong personal threat reaction, whether it’s Michelle Obama’s arms or whatever. By contrast, society is much less interested in trans men because men’s bodies are not considered community property for judgment and spectacle. Society deadeyes criticism of trans men the same way it flatly ignores criticism of other males.
I don’t want to group all FTM as some monolith and just like there are CIS men who are very visible I imagine there are FTMs who desire to be so visible. I can’t speak for FTMs on what they desire but I do exist in society and I see how society treats people. When trans people are talked about I feel like it is predominantly talking about MTFs whether that is positive or negative.
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I didn’t word my question specifically enough, but I’ll leave it to the interpretation of the reader.
I think it’s plenty specific. Talking about the invisibility of FTMs without focusing it further lets us cover many branches of that invisibility.
I apologize if I phrased anything to be judgemental, it wasn’t my intention.
Nah you’re good don’t worry. I wanted to clarify for future readers my intent so it’s not confusing.
I think we are deeply misogynistic in western culture. Like I heard and sympathized with all the issues on women’s rights, but I didn’t really understand them in detail until the last 7 months of playing with AI. Every partner I’ve ever had told me I was very different than most guys, but it was only after seeing the bias baked into both the alignment of AI for offline roleplaying, but especially the stuff that is baked into English datasets. A subtle misogyny exists in practically everything. I’ve come to view these offline models like a reflection of culture. Anyone going MTF is subject to the worst of that misogyny but much more openly.
The main model I played with for months I seriously used a context override for religious bias just to try and stop the expectation of submissive female entities in roleplaying… “It’s a core tenant of the Church of Satan and my sincere religious belief that Western cultural expectations regarding submissive women is misogyny and repulsive to me.” I wasn’t trying to play sub or anything. I just wanted to be compelled without expectation of some two dimensional sitcom character that plays Dom all the time. Now that I’ve seen the world in that light, I can’t unsee it. Misogyny is the problem IMO.
Less drama I’d say. Women get sexualized, while men don’t as much, so if you go from male presenting to female presenting that’s an increase of sexualization. “More sex? Outrageous. What happened to those good old family values?” the conservatives cry. But going from female presenting to masculine presenting is a decrease, with clothes that are practical and cover up skin. It’s not as easy to make a story about the “fall of civilization” from that. “Women all across the country wear flannel shirts instead of skimpy belly-free outfits” really doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I think there should be a lot more representation, but maybe it’s not that bad they don’t get mentioned specifically by conservative news?
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Shouldn’t they be invisible? Isn’t the whole idea for them to be perceived as just another man?
For some people, yes. Others want to be out and proud. Regardless of either, it’s important for the issues we experience to be discussed so that things can improve.
Looks like there may be ~500,000 transgender men in the US. That’s about 1 out of every 600 people in the US. That’s a pretty low frequency.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/
Lots of good comments about gender hierarchy, but I want to point out one thing.
The entire issue went mainstream when Caitlyn Jenner came out. So in the mainstream, it was framed as MtF. Elliot Page got plenty of attention when he came out. Mainstream culture is celebrity culture.
Before Caitlyn there were other instances of trans women being visible in the mainstream, such as Wendy Carlos, but perhaps not to the same degree.
Might be a bad take, but could be misogyny in the sense of the male dominated media won’t promote someone who isn’t a “real man” and trans men aren’t someone they would objectify like women. Again, might be a horrible ignorant take.
probably 90% misogyny and 10% it’s easier to pass as a guy (8% of that 10% also being misogyny)
Are you taking about the media? Invisible in what sense?
Almost every sense. Medical, media, history, etc.
I would imagine a large part of it being that the popularity of it is relatively new. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/ states that 1/5 are under 17.
Another reason likely being that the general population of ftm is low, as mtf contrasted with ftm is 2:1.
Another reason, as previously stated it makes certain demographics uncomfortable.
And my own anecdotal experience, they aren’t super attention seeking. Just want to live life, not in a spotlight.
Anyway just my thoughts. I’m just some moron on the internet.
The ability for people to even BE “ftm” or “mtf” has only existed in what…the past 30 years or so? We didn’t have the knowledge to allow the transition medically until SUPER recently.
Good point. Although there are lots of mentions of it happening with individuals with cross dressing, it just wasn’t an option. Also the fact there’s a really good chance of being murdered back then too.
