rae
2yr ago
One of those truths is someone who went through male puberty will always, in every single case, have a competitive advantage over a woman.
Are you saying that every single person who went through male puberty can beat any woman, including top-level female athlete? That would be blatantly false. Obviously the average male beats the average female, and top-level male beats top-level females, but a top-level female will beat the average male. See average mile run times: 6:30 for top 1% of males, 7:48 for top 1% of females, 8:18 for top 50% of males, 9:51 for top 50% of females. Interestingly enough, the female mile run record is 4:12.33 while the male world record from 1913 was 4:14.4 - the advantages of modern nutrition, sports science etc. can outweigh male puberty without it.
The extreme of rightist gender essentialism is just as wrong as leftist blank slatism, humans aren't that sexually dimorphic a species that you can make such blanket absolute statements. Personally, I went through male puberty, but in high school the female athletes routinely trounced me in every sport or measure of physical fitness. In phys ed I even remember having to play with the girls because I had 0 chance with the boys. This is despite me working out a decent amount - I just didn't have the bone structure or metabolism the other teen boys did.
rae
2yr ago
What do you mean by competitive advantage? It sounds like you're saying males have a raw physical advantage (e.g. being bigger and stronger) against females in every single case but that females can have better techniques/training, which is what I disagreed with. Male puberty by itself gives you larger and stronger bones, increased muscle mass, higher circulating hemoglobin, etc., but you can still end up with a weaker physique in absolute terms than a genetically lucky female with access to the best nutrition and sports science while growing up. What competitive advantage do you have then?
You can argue that male puberty gives you a competitive advantage all else being equal - same environment, same nutrition, but different sex - but in absolute terms, you don't necessarily have an advantage because you went through male puberty. What competitive advantage does a 5'4 twink with slender body type (narrow shoulders, small joints, etc.) have against say, Brittney Griner? I doubt any amount of training could bridge that gap.
rae
13d ago
You are basing your worldview on random ragebait TikTok videos, a platform where the #peeyourpantschallenge had over four million views. Please, I implore you, talk to real people instead of doomscrolling dumb online discourse.
MEN are the ones not putting in enough effort into their appearance and there's just not enough hot men out there.
It’s absolutely true that most men put way less effort into their appearance than women. Like, c’mon. If you don’t believe this, tell me your skincare routine, how many hair products you own, and how long it takes you to get ready in the morning.
But anyway, that should be an advantage for you. Getting a nice haircut, moisturising regularly and buying a few well fitting fashionable outfits will already set you apart from the crowd.
rae
15d ago
Everyone wants gibs. Cushy government jobs, questionable grants, corporate welfare and industry nepotism are not a gendered phenomenon.
rae
1yr ago
I’m a bisexual trans woman so I got to experience some manner of both, but I do agree that the effect is greatly confounded by deeper issues like dysphoria.
My main experience would be that sex with men is a lot more variable, in that the bad is much worse but the good is a lot better, and the quality depends quite a lot on your partner, while with women it’s generally fairly average and depends more on your own state than the other person. So casual sex would be better for most men, but relationship sex would be better for women with the right partner.
The peak physiological pleasure is definitely greater when you’re a woman though, multiple full-body orgasms aren’t really a thing for men (trans men generally keep the ability to have multiple if they had it before, but they become otherwise closer to the male ones: brief and concentrated in the genitals). I certainly don’t miss the male sexual experience at all and see it as the equivalent of sexual fast food vs. going to a proper restaurant.
rae
1yr ago
Some trans men don’t get dysphoric when it comes to pregnancy, or just want a biological child badly enough that they go through it anyway. Medical professionals should be aware of the fact that a person that looks like a man could be pregnant, as it’s a medical reality.
With regards to the emoji, current standard practice is to have a non-gendered, female and male version for every emoji. Given that pregnant trans men and non-binary people exist, why not be inclusive follow the standard? Although they did deviate from the usual, which is to make the default emoji non-gendered and have the gender be a modifier, for backward compatibility reasons.
rae
2yr ago
If an adult is trans but not taking hormones and has no intention of taking any in the future, their trans status is highly questionable unless they have a medical contraindication or live in a hostile environment where transitioning is dangerous.
rae
1mo ago
That link doesn’t work btw.
For all the men I know who are perpetually single, it’s pretty obvious why they’re that way, whether it’s from an off-putting personality, impossible requirements, or just plain never leaving the house. I don’t know a single one of these mythical average nice guys that somehow can’t get a girlfriend despite their best efforts.
rae
2yr ago
“Getting a sex change” is also an old timey term for gender reassignment surgery, so I’m seeing more of a general move from sex towards gender when it comes to trans discourse. Definitions are generally fuzzy and shift over time anyway and nature doesn’t care for human’s need to categorise everything into neat little boxes.
Even sex doesn’t have an easy binary scientific definition (how do you categorise intersex individuals?) and so best to precisely detail what you’re saying. I personally think it’d be better to use terms like “chromosomal sex” and “phenotypic sex” - the former you can’t change, the latter you can to some degree. Then you have gender which relates to phenotypic sex but is mostly irrelevant to your chromosomes - we didn’t even know they existed until the late 19th century.
I don’t agree with some of the philosophy behind trans activism but our goals are largely aligned, and obviously I will be more sympathetic to an ideology that supports my existence than one that does not.
Gestures wildly at Europe
In what sense? I live in a European country and transgender HRT, along with many surgeries, are available through the public healthcare system. One of my trans friends got put on blockers and transitioned as a minor. Sure it’s not as easy as the US where you have informed consent, and the public healthcare system has hideous waiting lists (in general), but the medical consensus here is still to treat gender dysphoria with transition.
rae
2yr ago
Fair point, that was a straw-man. My uncharitable interpretation was perhaps motivated by my own personal experience of being in the >95th percentile of teenage boys and not being able to match my overweight, untrained male classmates despite going to the gym 3x a week and trying to average around 3k calories a day. I didn't feel like my male puberty had given me much competitive advantage when I would get beaten in arm wrestling by random female classmates or the teacher assigned me to play football with the girls in PE, so while I agree that the male/female athleticism distribution is bimodal, overlaps do exist.
rae
14d ago
I have to ask what you're basing your statements off of because none of these statements are true for the "average" man, and they haven't been for at least the last 10 years. Full disclosure, I'm a late millennial/early zoomer (late 90s to early aughts) straight male.
This is my own lived experience as a bisexual man (at that time), and this was in the last 10 years as well. I’m not American though, so perhaps it’s different and more cut-throat in the US?
I was no “chad”, just a short skinny effeminate guy. I had an awful personality, little interest in women and still a few hook-ups and flings just happened from going with the flow. Getting set-up at work was a real thing that happened to me.
rae
15d ago
What is the objective of this male general strike? What’s in it for the men, just teaching some women who making annoying videos a lesson? Why would any man who’s a productive member of society rally behind this?
Society is set up so no woman need to be entirely reliant upon a particular man.
That benefits men too! The time when the average man needed to farm the land, build a house and fix most things he owned himself is over. Men are just as reliant on the collective labour of society as women. Any blue or white collar male worker needs the police, firefighters, agricultural workers etc just as much as any woman, and can count on disability and unemployment benefits if things go poorly (maybe less so in the US, but that’s another issue).
And it’s not like women don’t do any “essential” work. The healthcare system would fall apart without the majority female nurses and staff. Childcare? Education? Who does the majority of the work when it comes to household and raising kids? Fighting over which is more “essential” is pointless.
You’re just doing the same old identity politics as the feminists you’re complaining about, just flipped.
rae
1yr ago
Tbh that sounds like a cool hook for a sci-fi dystopia story where the population is addicted to AR glasses that personalise reality to their own wants and desires. Basically one step below living in the Matrix.
I’m the opposite, I don’t understand why anyone would find feminine behaviour attractive. Why wouldn’t you much rather have a partner that’s strong, stoic, driven, ambitious, practical, able to provide for both themselves or for you, takes the lead, etc? Versus one that’s submissive, meek, relies on you for emotional and physical reassurance, is more anxious and stressed out, doesn’t have grand ambitions beyond their family, is more interested in people than concepts, and forces the relationship into artificially divided roles based on gender?
Now sure I’m not a straight guy so it’s hard for me to empathise, but I honestly can’t understand why men fall in love with feminine women when I hear them complain so much about how they can’t understand their partner, how they don’t share interests, how they’re [insert stereotype of women here], how they don’t initiate sex, etc. Why not go for an equal life partner who shares your drive, focus and interests, and is just as sexually motivated as you instead?
rae
2yr ago
This both not at all universally the definition trans advocates use and in fact a minority opinion(see truscum discourse) as well as a phrasing that obscures more than it enlightens. What is distress? What are the experiences of a natal sex and how do you differentiate them from those of the complimentary sex having only experienced one of them(or in the case of prepubescent children neither of them)? Memes are powerful things, anyone in the wrong side of a social media pile on can attest to their ability to induce distress.
There’s a lot of medical literature documenting gender dysphoria but I can tell you my own experiences: while I didn’t know what it was like to be female, I knew what it was like to gain the attributes of adult men by going through puberty, and that was a profoundly negative experience. I would constantly try to minimise those attributes by shaving every inch of my body, taping away my genitals, and fantasise about mutilating my penis so doctors would make me a girl. I had no awareness that transitioning was a thing; my body just felt wrong, and socially I was upset whenever I would be put into male roles. Whereas when I transitioned, the constant negative thoughts and obsession about the wrongness of my body traits slowly went away, and I could finally bear to look in the mirror without being absolutely disgusted.
What I reject is appropriating a place in society that was not carved out for you
What places in society aren’t carved out for me? I’m fine with sports being segregated based on hormone levels (present and during puberty), but I see any attempt at sex segregation to be outright harmful. Sending trans women to women’s prisons or not should be decided on a case-by-case basis, a petite passing trans woman is going to get sexually assaulted and likely raped by going to a men’s prison, while a large natal male sexual criminal who’s not on HRT but self-IDs as a woman is a different case entirely.
What else? I’m generally opposed to making things like scholarships and awards based on identity rather than merit. Women’s shelters? Same as prison’s - and I’m not sure they’d let in a 6’ trans man with phallo so it’s not just about biological sex. Women’s bathrooms? Toilets should be unisex tbh, but a passing trans woman will look more out of place in the men’s than the women’s.
rae
2yr ago
You don’t transition because you have the internal experience of the opposite sex - you transition because you have distress at having the experience of your natal sex. You don’t need any exposure to the modern trans gender discourse to develop gender dysphoria, simply existing in a society with different genders is enough.
Trans people don’t believe they are actually changing their sex, which is which the term “transsexual” was abandoned in favour of “transgender”. But hormones are not purely aesthetic and feminisation/masculinisation of the brain is actually scientifically observable - not only on MRI scans but also on test scores, e.g. post HRT, visuo spatial ability is enhanced in FtMs, while verbal working memory is enhanced in MtFs (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453020301402).
If anything, I’d say trans people experience distress at their internal experience not aligning with their desired gender and post HRT it does - many anecdotal reports of how your mental state changes on estrogen or testosterone, not only from trans people but cis people who also undergo HRT (e.g. men with low T who report increased energy, confidence, etc).
As someone who has dysphoria and tried many ways to deal with it, I have yet to see any treatment that’s better than transitioning - it’s the current medical consensus for a reason - but if you know of any, feel free to link them.
rae
14d ago
I was talking about my own Lived Experienced™ though! Maybe I should have cleared that up more. Oh well.
I think blackpill/manosphere/battle-of-the-sex discussions benefit from queer viewpoints as they can bridge the gaps between the sides so to speak, so I’m happy to give my two cents regardless.
rae
14d ago
If society isn't offering any net benefits in exchange for the money paid into it, then it is quite morally defensible to stop paying in.
You’re American I believe, so fair enough your social services are inefficient and terrible (although you pay less taxes and earn a lot more than us Europeans), but that’s completely unrelated to gender.
Why would any man want to continue to support a productive society that treats him like an expendable worker bee and doesn't even guarantee that he'll at least have the CHANCE to pass on his genes?
This is clearly a personal grievance. All I can say is, you’re sitting inside watching content designed to make you angry, with the goal of hooking you on a corporation’s algorithmic content feed and selling your attention to the highest bidder. It’s not real.
It’s absolutely true that being plugged into the globalised online rat race is hopeless and depressing, so switch it off. Focus on your local community, your niche interests, and you’ll find people that value you for who you are. Join a commune or go pick fruits if you have to.
I think your point is getting a bit lost in this discussion. Anyone who can understand basic statistics can look at the relative differences in population averages.
What exactly is the hypothetical autistic teenager supposed to learn by comparing his performance to other women playing the same sport? It’s unlikely for him to be good enough that he can’t find a single woman who’s better than him. How is it supposed to discourage him from transitioning?
rae
23d ago
I don’t want to discount the psychological and physical benefits of but come on, it won’t stop anyone from being autistic, or even trans. I wish it did! I went to the gym and I just became an autist with a six pack. And it didn’t stop me from being trans either, unfortunately.
Plenty of athletic people I know are various flavours of neurodivergent or queer. Some trans guys I know are particularly into bodybuilding and powerlifting and it uh… has the opposite effect of making them conform to the social expectations of birth sex.
rae
1mo ago
I’ve never heard “what’s up with all the canes” despite being pretty active in trans communities (I actually don’t know anybody that uses a cane or crutch), although I’m seeing that canes are popular in the broader American queer community for some reason? I do know that various disorders are more common among trans people (e.g. endometriosis, PCOS in FtMs, EDS in general) but they’re not related to puberty blockers. Delaying puberty for too long without any sex hormones is bad for bone health, that’s for sure.
Not quite. The original rationale for puberty blockers was passing, "time to choose" was a marketing strategy. It has been lost to debate when the reversibility of blockers became dubious / indefensible.
To have the best chance of passing, you should skip the 2 years of puberty blocker and just go straight into opposite-sex HRT. Once you are on estrogen or testosterone, you’re not at a higher risk of osteoporosis than cis women/men respectively, and it’s conceivable your risk could actually be lower than someone who goes through menopause. Trans women that are on only puberty blockers for a while will actually grow taller and have a barrel-like chest (the classic eunuch physique), even if they avoid masculinisation.
rae
1yr ago
That picture shows Buck next to Laverne Cox who’s quite tall and wearing heels, he’s actually the average height for a cis man in many countries at around 5’9. I personally wouldn’t use Buck Angel as the go-to trans man because he’s turned into a proto-TERF himself strangely enough, and far more physically impressive trans men absolutely exist, see Mitch Harrison who can stand next to the Rock and is 6’3 and is quite muscular.
How are you supposed to enforce sex-segregated bathrooms anyhow? Should you pepper spray anyone who you think doesn’t belong, like what happened to this tall biological female thinking they were in the presence of a biological male?
The sources I’ve looked up show no link between gender inclusive bathroom policies and crime rates, but if you have any that contradict that, feel free to share.
rae
1yr ago
Yes, though I was under the impression that cancer treatments are extremely potent, and dangerous, and are only prescribed when you actually have cancer, rather than given out like candy as a prophylactic?
There are many kinds of medications used as cancer treatment. Chemotherapy would probably fit the description of extremely potent and dangerous, and you don’t want to go on it unless you have cancer.
Meanwhile bicalutamide is a popular cancer treatment for malignant prostate cancer, but is also given out to cis women with androgen-dependent conditions like acne, hirsutism, hair loss; it’s also given to men who have overly long erections. It has very few side effects except rare liver interactions (so you have to get frequent blood tests).
Either "some form" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, or this is plain unlikely to be true? Even WPATH kept the 18+ age limit for female bottom surgery, even as they abolished limits for every other procedure.
I was talking about hysterectomy, which many cis women get for cancer prevention (or treatment). Removing the uterus and ovaries will obviously go a long way in preventing uterine and ovarian cancer. The 18+ limit seems sensible to me in any case.
Thanks!! The only thing I’d disagree with is that transition isn’t necessarily an irreversible all-or-nothing process. You can start by changing your presentation to something more feminine or masculine, transition socially, and even HRT is a very gradual process that leaves you with multiple months to decide and for MtF patients there’s one irreversible change and that’s breast growth, but they’ll rarely grow big enough that they would require double incision mastectomy should you detransition. FtM patients will get voice deepening, male pattern baldness, facial hair growth (although laser hair removal isn’t a big deal), and bottom growth, but it’s much easier for FtMs to socially transition than MtFs without hormones.
What made the gender dysphoria go away for you if I may ask? I was able to repress it for a while after adolescence, but it came back with a vengeance once the infamous “twink death” hit.
I’m a trans woman but before that I was a man and dated women and men. My experience isn’t typical but I know a decent number of straight men and I have trouble believing an actual average guy can avoid having a single date for years, unless they’re avoiding all social situations with the opposite sex.
If you’re a regular straight person, everything is basically designed for you. You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex. People try to set you up with their friends/co-workers/whatnot. You can hook-up with random strangers at a party if the chemistry’s right without having to worry if they’re in the <5% that’s attracted to you, if you’re sexually compatible, or if you’re trans and passing, that they won’t react violently.
You don’t have to deal with people hiding your relationship, you can just follow a preset script, introduce your partner to your friends, meet their parents without fear, etc. And as a man the bar is honestly pretty low and it’s ridiculously easy to set yourself apart in terms of fashion/being a decent partner/a decent father, and your attractiveness is dictated by a multiple of things rather than just your rapidly declining physical appearance.
Plus most straight men seem to be attracted to most women? I don’t understand it but it should make your life easier to not be picky.
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