It seems like Lemmy is all about trans women, I’m genuinely curious though why we don’t have more trans men content. I’d say it’s maybe on the order of 10:1 posts celebrating trans fem vs trans masc (obviously not a scientific calculation).
I don’t have a lot of background in a lot of trans spaces so this is coming from a place of ignorance, but do people in the community have any insight as to why it seems to be this way?
Take this one for instance, it specifically says trans women. Why wouldn’t this just say trans people, comrades or something like that? Is there a large descrepancy between numbers of trans fem/masc or something?
Edit. I appreciate what people have said below. Together these responses give a textured albeit 10,000 foot answer to my question, which was what I was looking for. Thanks ya’ll.
So here’s my guess. I’m not trans, and what I’m about to say is purely my observation and not based on data.
Folks born with male genitalia doing anything that is not cis and straight is frowned upon more than folks born with female genitalia doing the same.
Society finds two dudes kissing more revolting than two women kissing. It also doesn’t help that folks who transition to become a woman after having undergone male puberty are much more recognizable as trans. Compare this to trans men, who aren’t so easily identifiable as trans.
Hence, trans women have it worse interacting with society compared to trans men. Hence, they crave for a safe space more. Lemmy’s instances tend to be these safe places. Hence, more trans women here than men.
put simply, my transmasc brother in law is more concerned about what fish he’s gonna catch next than the effects of corporate censorship on the current operating system market share
Yeah, it may be the tech demo that Lemmy serves that skews content the way it does in other places (like bluesky). Another commenter was gesturing in that direction and it makes sense to me. Thanks for taking the time.
There are around the same numbers of transmasc and transfem people in general (according to like surveys and stuff), but imhe, trans men tend to be less online than trans women, particularly in tech oriented spaces like Lemmy, and often when they are they’re less visible about being trans and just try to blend in as “one of the guys”. I am not a trans man though, so please take my observations with a massive pinch of salt
A lot of trans men actually are very stealth. I think it might have something to do with how people aren’t used to physically scrutinizing men the same way they do women or they just don’t realize that trans men can be buff, beardy, handsome or virtually indistinguishable from cis guys. Like I know trans guys who nobody at their jobs know they are the least bit trans.
For a lot of us it holds that if you already have people who see you as completely a man why would you want them to even think anything even a little bit different? You get to just be … A man. Not a trans man , not different or under scrutiny just you.
I have heard those who have gone through puberty blockers and earlier horomone intervention are more generally comfortable openly and volentarily identifying as trans even when they are able to be stealth. Like -they are legit just kind of better adjusted and comfortable in their situation.
From anecdotal experience trans women are more prevalent in these spaces because many of us have a tech background or know someone who does and is active in these places.
Trans men I know haven’t had that kind of connection and are usually less techy and therefore are not in spaces like these.
That said I agree with you that the meme would be cooler if it accounted for all trans ppl alike.
Okay so… Gunna stop you there cuz I think you’re overthinking some things.
It’s useful to think of what trans people experience as just an automatic, unfilterable reaction to their phenotype characteristics of their birth sex - like all the talk of gender performativity is actually not super useful for understanding the basics here so put that to the side for the time being.
I am a trans person. My brain looks at my body and sees all these different sex characteristics. To the majority of cis people having these characteristics are kind of neutral - only having positive or negative values if they are attractive or unattractive. To me as a trans person though there is no neutral sex characteristic - regardless of how socially attractive or unattractive those characteristics are to other people. My brain weights all those collective bits of my body as either abhorrent or something amazingly positive.
When I am talking with people and they use the wrong pronoun they are transmitting to me in words that they have seen and judged my physical body based on an automatic assessment. Registered a characteristic that I find abhorrent and reported their findings back to me. That person through language is effectively becoming a mirror put in front of me through which my automatic internal process of reward and punishment can start picking over everything that I hate or love about my physical experience.
None of this really has to do with gender performance or roles. Like I can be a trans man and still be into girl coded stuff just like any cis guy could. What you like is informed about where you’ve been and what you’ve been exposed to. A LOT of trans people bemoan that they essentially need to over-perform a gender role so that other people have visual cues to know not to call them by the wrong pronoun.
When people transition they are just asking for help not reporting their own bodies back to them. We aren’t trying to spiritually embody some kind of true apex femininity or masculinity. If you got into your field of work or sphere of socializing by following socially enforced gender paths of least resistance then changing your physical presentation is a problem.
For many particularly there’s this stage where to avoid being anything but trying being openly trans one endeavours to be the best possible version of their birth gender. It’s why a lot of trans women end up in the military. They say “I’m going to just be a better man. One of the best! I will belong, I’ll be fit. People will treat me well” … And that doesn’t fix being miserable it in fact just throws gasoline on something that feels indescribably worse. You feel isolated from all other humans by dint of everyone flattering you about things that make you feel alien and awful. All those features in the mirror become more pronounced as you move deeper into the territory of things that male your brain ping abhorrent. Your relationships suffer because people are just trying to tell you you’re doing great in your role and it is making you miserable instead of better. Alone instead of supported.
What you have to realize is that being trans isn’t a choice, and our gender identity has historically been highly suppressed, so a lot of us end up living as our assigned gender for a large portion of our lives before realizing who we are and starting our transition. I didn’t realize who I was till I was 33, but some people don’t realize until their 50s, 60s, 70s, etc. So we are socialized as our assigned gender, and all that that entails. Many trans women end up in science, engineering, and technology roles because many of us are neurodivergent and neurodivergent people tend to be drawn to these fields. The gender based discrimination against women in these fields means trans men living as women pre transition are disinsentivized from these roles. I work in aerospace and it’s a major sausage fest. Since we often don’t transition until later in life you end up with a bunch of trans women in traditionally male dominated STEM positions and trans men in traditionally female dominated positions.
In general though all trans people suffer worse outcomes in the work place, whether they’re trans women, men, or nonbinary. The outcomes are partially related to how “passing” they are, but also yes misogyny and misandry have their impact depending on where a particular trans person finds themself. As a trans woman in a historically highly misogynistic industry (which I love for the technical aspects) it’s just something I’m going to have to deal with. It fucking sucks and I wish things were different, like I also want more women around at work like holy fuck it doesn’t have to be all white dudes, but like I said before being trans isn’t really a choice. I am trans, and I can either transition and deal with the consequences for a chance at being finally happy in my skin or I can kill myself. That sounds really dark and maybe a bit dramatic but for a lot of trans people that’s the reality.
I’ll also say it was a lot easier to get a job in the tech industry back when I looked like a man. After I transitioned, I had no choice but to switch careers.
(obvious statement : I guess their gender identity must matter a lot to them)
You’re reminding me of something my late grandmother, who was born before the Great Depression, had to say about gay people 20-30 years ago that I found pretty profound. Especially for her generation.
“I don’t know why all these angry people claim that being gay is a choice. People are so mean to them, and some of them get beaten half to death or worse. Why would anyone choose that?”
She followed that up with consternation that they had to go and choose the word “gay” as their label. “It used to just mean happy, why couldn’t they pick a different word!” Which I always found to be such a quaint gripe; she felt like a word she loved was appropriated from her. Man I miss that sweet woman.
AMAB people are more likely to be diagnosed with autism, by a significant amount. It’s something like 4:1. However, AFAB people with autism are significantly less likely to get diagnosed, due to this little thing called misogyny. Still, significantly more AMABs than AFABs have autism, it’s supposedly close to 3:1. So, trans women are more likely to end up with autism, autistics are more likely to end up talking about how their linux is the best linux on this tiny social media platform.
The only trans person I’ve ever known personally* was a FtM trans guy that I worked with who was mid-transition. He did talk once about how a lot of people forget about FtM trans people.
*I assume there are trans people I have met that I just didn’t know were trans. And now I’ve typed “trans” out so many times that it looks weird to me.
Without doing any research, I feel like I hear about fewer hate crimes targeting trans men than trans women? I’d guess because our society is obsessive with policing women’s bodies. A guy with no beard is whatever, but a woman with some fuzz or stubble is a crime.
(Not to say that trans men don’t have their own struggles)
Obligatory I’m not trans myself, but this is just my understanding of how people justify their hatred
Trans women also get talked about more bc of the transphobic lie that “trans women are just men that want in on women’s spaces to prey on women” and that “trans women are predators.” This is all bullshit. But it’s built upon the patriarchical idea that men have to protect women from other men. Men are simultaneously painted as the protector and the danger and which category they fall into is generally determined by how close they are to the in-group. So cis het non-white men are “dangerous,” but there might be some “good ones.” And white cis gay men can be “okay,” as long as they don’t “make it their whole personality” (re: keep it a secret and never mention it even once). However, trans women are antithetical to patriarchy so they are seen as like the “most dangerous.” Whereas, trans men, while they aren’t part of the in-group, they also aren’t seen as a threat bc transphobic people think someone AFAB can’t be dangerous. Again, this is all bullshit, but it’s bullshit that people who have bought into the patriarchy believe and act violently upon sometimes so it’s important to understand how they got to that so that we can deconstruct it
The thing is also that these transphobes manifest their binary idea of gender into discomfort with trans and nonbinary people, because it questions their narrow worldview.
And some other yet deal with internalised homo- and transphobia, mostly before coming out, or never doing so.
Oh, and another part is misinformed due to nillywilly picking the first social media stuff as a “source” (and algorithms often aim for polarising information, since it sells clicks), and not wanting to reach out to y’know, these trans people with respect, to try to understand their perspective.
I see, so because of this asymmetry in treatment by society, there’s an assymetry of suppport in these particular online spaces. Makes sense. I appreciate your input, thanks.
It seems like Lemmy is all about trans women, I’m genuinely curious though why we don’t have more trans men content. I’d say it’s maybe on the order of 10:1 posts celebrating trans fem vs trans masc (obviously not a scientific calculation).
I don’t have a lot of background in a lot of trans spaces so this is coming from a place of ignorance, but do people in the community have any insight as to why it seems to be this way?
Take this one for instance, it specifically says trans women. Why wouldn’t this just say trans people, comrades or something like that? Is there a large descrepancy between numbers of trans fem/masc or something?
Edit. I appreciate what people have said below. Together these responses give a textured albeit 10,000 foot answer to my question, which was what I was looking for. Thanks ya’ll.
So here’s my guess. I’m not trans, and what I’m about to say is purely my observation and not based on data.
Folks born with male genitalia doing anything that is not cis and straight is frowned upon more than folks born with female genitalia doing the same.
Society finds two dudes kissing more revolting than two women kissing. It also doesn’t help that folks who transition to become a woman after having undergone male puberty are much more recognizable as trans. Compare this to trans men, who aren’t so easily identifiable as trans.
Hence, trans women have it worse interacting with society compared to trans men. Hence, they crave for a safe space more. Lemmy’s instances tend to be these safe places. Hence, more trans women here than men.
put simply, my transmasc brother in law is more concerned about what fish he’s gonna catch next than the effects of corporate censorship on the current operating system market share
I hear bluesky has more transmascs tho
I followed a couple of them, they were funny.
Yeah, it may be the tech demo that Lemmy serves that skews content the way it does in other places (like bluesky). Another commenter was gesturing in that direction and it makes sense to me. Thanks for taking the time.
There are around the same numbers of transmasc and transfem people in general (according to like surveys and stuff), but imhe, trans men tend to be less online than trans women, particularly in tech oriented spaces like Lemmy, and often when they are they’re less visible about being trans and just try to blend in as “one of the guys”. I am not a trans man though, so please take my observations with a massive pinch of salt
Typical male attitude, not wanting to talk about their feelings.
Someone tell Donald Trump that…
I see. That makes sense, thanks for taking the time, regardless of salt.
I dont understand why. But yes ive encountered far more trans women
A lot of trans men actually are very stealth. I think it might have something to do with how people aren’t used to physically scrutinizing men the same way they do women or they just don’t realize that trans men can be buff, beardy, handsome or virtually indistinguishable from cis guys. Like I know trans guys who nobody at their jobs know they are the least bit trans.
For a lot of us it holds that if you already have people who see you as completely a man why would you want them to even think anything even a little bit different? You get to just be … A man. Not a trans man , not different or under scrutiny just you.
I have heard those who have gone through puberty blockers and earlier horomone intervention are more generally comfortable openly and volentarily identifying as trans even when they are able to be stealth. Like -they are legit just kind of better adjusted and comfortable in their situation.
…that you’ve noticed / they told you
From anecdotal experience trans women are more prevalent in these spaces because many of us have a tech background or know someone who does and is active in these places.
Trans men I know haven’t had that kind of connection and are usually less techy and therefore are not in spaces like these.
That said I agree with you that the meme would be cooler if it accounted for all trans ppl alike.
There’s another reason, tech often allows you to work remotely and without interaction with people which y’know, may or may not be transphobic.
Plus, science fields, arts, etc. tend to be much more welcoming to queer peeps. Awareness helps!
What you’re suggesting seems to align with what other people are saying too. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Lemmy is full of tech nerds. AMAB people are encouraged to go into tech, AFAB people are sexually harassed if they go into tech.
This whole thing is confusing. So the AFAB people transition , but in the same fields that AFAB people at birth usually go to, but transition to male.
AMAB people go into toxic male dominated fields where women are harrassed, and then transition to female, and have things get worse for them?
(obvious statement : I guess their gender identity must matter a lot to them)
But then, the transmen aren’t in the male dominated spaces… but they’re male?
Okay so… Gunna stop you there cuz I think you’re overthinking some things.
It’s useful to think of what trans people experience as just an automatic, unfilterable reaction to their phenotype characteristics of their birth sex - like all the talk of gender performativity is actually not super useful for understanding the basics here so put that to the side for the time being.
I am a trans person. My brain looks at my body and sees all these different sex characteristics. To the majority of cis people having these characteristics are kind of neutral - only having positive or negative values if they are attractive or unattractive. To me as a trans person though there is no neutral sex characteristic - regardless of how socially attractive or unattractive those characteristics are to other people. My brain weights all those collective bits of my body as either abhorrent or something amazingly positive.
When I am talking with people and they use the wrong pronoun they are transmitting to me in words that they have seen and judged my physical body based on an automatic assessment. Registered a characteristic that I find abhorrent and reported their findings back to me. That person through language is effectively becoming a mirror put in front of me through which my automatic internal process of reward and punishment can start picking over everything that I hate or love about my physical experience.
None of this really has to do with gender performance or roles. Like I can be a trans man and still be into girl coded stuff just like any cis guy could. What you like is informed about where you’ve been and what you’ve been exposed to. A LOT of trans people bemoan that they essentially need to over-perform a gender role so that other people have visual cues to know not to call them by the wrong pronoun.
When people transition they are just asking for help not reporting their own bodies back to them. We aren’t trying to spiritually embody some kind of true apex femininity or masculinity. If you got into your field of work or sphere of socializing by following socially enforced gender paths of least resistance then changing your physical presentation is a problem.
For many particularly there’s this stage where to avoid being anything but trying being openly trans one endeavours to be the best possible version of their birth gender. It’s why a lot of trans women end up in the military. They say “I’m going to just be a better man. One of the best! I will belong, I’ll be fit. People will treat me well” … And that doesn’t fix being miserable it in fact just throws gasoline on something that feels indescribably worse. You feel isolated from all other humans by dint of everyone flattering you about things that make you feel alien and awful. All those features in the mirror become more pronounced as you move deeper into the territory of things that male your brain ping abhorrent. Your relationships suffer because people are just trying to tell you you’re doing great in your role and it is making you miserable instead of better. Alone instead of supported.
It can be quite the hole to dig oneself out of.
What you have to realize is that being trans isn’t a choice, and our gender identity has historically been highly suppressed, so a lot of us end up living as our assigned gender for a large portion of our lives before realizing who we are and starting our transition. I didn’t realize who I was till I was 33, but some people don’t realize until their 50s, 60s, 70s, etc. So we are socialized as our assigned gender, and all that that entails. Many trans women end up in science, engineering, and technology roles because many of us are neurodivergent and neurodivergent people tend to be drawn to these fields. The gender based discrimination against women in these fields means trans men living as women pre transition are disinsentivized from these roles. I work in aerospace and it’s a major sausage fest. Since we often don’t transition until later in life you end up with a bunch of trans women in traditionally male dominated STEM positions and trans men in traditionally female dominated positions.
In general though all trans people suffer worse outcomes in the work place, whether they’re trans women, men, or nonbinary. The outcomes are partially related to how “passing” they are, but also yes misogyny and misandry have their impact depending on where a particular trans person finds themself. As a trans woman in a historically highly misogynistic industry (which I love for the technical aspects) it’s just something I’m going to have to deal with. It fucking sucks and I wish things were different, like I also want more women around at work like holy fuck it doesn’t have to be all white dudes, but like I said before being trans isn’t really a choice. I am trans, and I can either transition and deal with the consequences for a chance at being finally happy in my skin or I can kill myself. That sounds really dark and maybe a bit dramatic but for a lot of trans people that’s the reality.
I’ll also say it was a lot easier to get a job in the tech industry back when I looked like a man. After I transitioned, I had no choice but to switch careers.
You’re reminding me of something my late grandmother, who was born before the Great Depression, had to say about gay people 20-30 years ago that I found pretty profound. Especially for her generation.
“I don’t know why all these angry people claim that being gay is a choice. People are so mean to them, and some of them get beaten half to death or worse. Why would anyone choose that?”
She followed that up with consternation that they had to go and choose the word “gay” as their label. “It used to just mean happy, why couldn’t they pick a different word!” Which I always found to be such a quaint gripe; she felt like a word she loved was appropriated from her. Man I miss that sweet woman.
My hypothesis is that tech skews ND, and trans people also skew ND. It doesn’t explain the gender imbalance though, at least not by itself.
AMAB people are more likely to be diagnosed with autism, by a significant amount. It’s something like 4:1. However, AFAB people with autism are significantly less likely to get diagnosed, due to this little thing called misogyny. Still, significantly more AMABs than AFABs have autism, it’s supposedly close to 3:1. So, trans women are more likely to end up with autism, autistics are more likely to end up talking about how their linux is the best linux on this tiny social media platform.
Interesting. Yeah that makes sense considering the “masculine” bullshit associated with the tech space. Thanks for your reply.
The only trans person I’ve ever known personally* was a FtM trans guy that I worked with who was mid-transition. He did talk once about how a lot of people forget about FtM trans people.
*I assume there are trans people I have met that I just didn’t know were trans. And now I’ve typed “trans” out so many times that it looks weird to me.
Without doing any research, I feel like I hear about fewer hate crimes targeting trans men than trans women? I’d guess because our society is obsessive with policing women’s bodies. A guy with no beard is whatever, but a woman with some fuzz or stubble is a crime.
(Not to say that trans men don’t have their own struggles)
Obligatory I’m not trans myself, but this is just my understanding of how people justify their hatred
Trans women also get talked about more bc of the transphobic lie that “trans women are just men that want in on women’s spaces to prey on women” and that “trans women are predators.” This is all bullshit. But it’s built upon the patriarchical idea that men have to protect women from other men. Men are simultaneously painted as the protector and the danger and which category they fall into is generally determined by how close they are to the in-group. So cis het non-white men are “dangerous,” but there might be some “good ones.” And white cis gay men can be “okay,” as long as they don’t “make it their whole personality” (re: keep it a secret and never mention it even once). However, trans women are antithetical to patriarchy so they are seen as like the “most dangerous.” Whereas, trans men, while they aren’t part of the in-group, they also aren’t seen as a threat bc transphobic people think someone AFAB can’t be dangerous. Again, this is all bullshit, but it’s bullshit that people who have bought into the patriarchy believe and act violently upon sometimes so it’s important to understand how they got to that so that we can deconstruct it
The thing is also that these transphobes manifest their binary idea of gender into discomfort with trans and nonbinary people, because it questions their narrow worldview.
And some other yet deal with internalised homo- and transphobia, mostly before coming out, or never doing so.
Oh, and another part is misinformed due to nillywilly picking the first social media stuff as a “source” (and algorithms often aim for polarising information, since it sells clicks), and not wanting to reach out to y’know, these trans people with respect, to try to understand their perspective.
I see, so because of this asymmetry in treatment by society, there’s an assymetry of suppport in these particular online spaces. Makes sense. I appreciate your input, thanks.