TERFs and other transphobes like to claim that trans women aren’t really women in part because we were socialized male, but were we really? I came across a post on Mastodon that made the point that trans girls can experience this attempted socialization very differently from actual males. For us it can, in fact, be a traumatic experience.

For instance, my earliest “male socialization” came in 2nd grade when I first started attending a public school. It was there that the boys started beating me up on a regular basis. I did not know why, either. They just wanted to fight me. I responded by learning how to fight back, but that was because I was literally in danger and needed to be able to defend myself, not because I enjoyed fighting. This physical abuse went on through the end of my 8th grade year when I was 12, and the constant repetition of violent attacks week after week, month after month, year after year didn’t teach me to be some stoic fighter who could stand up against the odds, or some such macho BS like that. What it taught me was that boys were capricious and violent. They enjoyed hurting people and they enjoyed hurting me, in particular. Instead of making me more like a boy, it made me just fear them.

And then there was the “cheerleader” incident when I was 10 that I have written about previously. In that instance I was exposed to some heavy male socialization in the form of my older sister making it clear that I was going to get in trouble for acting like a girl. So yeah, male socialization also meant that I learned to be ashamed of who I am and not let anyone see the real me. I learned that I could not trust anyone. In that regard I guess it had the intended result, but for different reasons than for boys, in that while I learned to hide my feelings, I wasn’t doing it to appear tough, rather I was hiding my feelings because I felt like I’d be punished if I didn’t. In reality I desperately wanted to share my feelings with others.

This came back to me again years later after I’d come out to my parents and before I’d really started my transition. At the time I would frequently break out in tears sitting at my desk at work because life just seemed overwhelming to me and I felt like I’d never be able to transition. I mentioned this to my father one day, for what reason I don’t know, and his response was typical male BS about how I shouldn’t let others see me cry because they’d think I was weak and I might get fired. His response angered me because of its insensitivity and callousness, and since I was out of the closet I felt free to tell him exactly what I thought of his advice and that I was not at all ashamed to be seen crying, because crying was cathartic and helped me deal with my depression. So that “hide your feelings” socialization went away as soon as I was out and didn’t have to worry about exposure any more.

Another big part of male socialization is instilling in the child the belief that males are superior to females. Well, clearly there was no way that would take seed in my mind. I was positively envious of the girls I knew and actively emulated them when I was alone. I wanted to dress like them, walk like them, talk like them. I observed them when I could to try and pick up tips on how I should behave myself. Sadly I didn’t get to be good friends with any of them, because again, there was the fear of being exposed as wanting to be a girl. But I definitely grew up thinking girls were superior to boys in every conceivable way, so that’s another strike against me supposedly being socialized as male.

One aspect of male socialization that gets mentioned sometimes is that boys are encouraged to learn science while girls are discouraged from it. That wasn’t really the case for me, growing up, though. I was in honors classes for some of junior high and all of high school, and in those classes we had lots of very bright young women and the teachers were often accomplished women themselves, so the girls got a fair shake in my classes. 3 of them who I knew and had many classes with even went on to get doctorate degrees: 2 MDs and one PhD. Meanwhile, I never got beyond my BS because of depression.

So, was I socialized male? Well, an attempt was made, but it didn’t really work. I grew up completely disaffected from boys and masculine things, and really envying and identifying with girls, even though I did not get socialized female at all. Sorry, transphobes, but you need to reconsider your position.