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nerdflighterSO I received an anon on tumblr, as I do, which said:
“socialization” theory as it stands is a hot mess. esp because of terfs, who use it to claim things like “trans women have male socialization”........which they definitely don’t lmao........socialization theory is good but radfems fucked it up
i think there needs to be space to talk about the ways in which both trans men and trans women report being affected by rape culture and that lens cannot be gender socialization...because when we talk about gender socialization as something that takes place in this sort of vacuum where everyone is socialized as the gender they really are...........that does not reflect reality and it does not reflect the mental state of the people the socialization is supposedly being acted on. like i don’t mean to say that people are socialized as their agabs - that’s not true either. there’s a middle ground between 'trans women experience the same socialization as cis women' and 'trans women experience the same socialization as cis men'. neither of those are true, because trans women aren’t cis and they aren’t men.
socialization theory can account for the ways in which people perceived as women (trans men) and people who are women (trans women) both live under the threat of rape, structure their lives around that threat, that isn't gender socialization
because the entire point of radfem gender socialization (man am i tired of typing these long words out) is that males don't experience rape culture...........which is predicated on the assumption that men can't be raped. if you can't be raped how can you experience rape culture?
so the core of their argument against trans women is:
1. all women live under the threat of rape
2. this is female socialization
3. males rape
4. males cannot BE raped
5. males experience rapist socialization (because only females can be raped and they are never the rapists.........so the people doing the raping have rapist socialization.
6. trans women are male
7. trans women do not live under the threat of rape (blatantly untrue and easily disproven by the stats btw)
8. trans women are male rapists
but the material reality is that trans women are raped more than anyone else in the queer community and trans men also live a lot of their lives wondering if they’re gonna be raped, as you just noted, even after they pass.
so how do you reconcile these experiences - clearly the result of socialization of SOME kind, without resorting to gender as the axis of violence?
my proposed answer is *drumroll* rape culture socialization
important note: when I say ‘rapeable’ I do not mean ‘deserves to be raped’. I do not mean ‘is always raped’. when I say ‘rapeable’ what I mean is, ‘able to experience rape [as a form of violence]’. rape is a form of violence like any other, and in some sense we’re all rapeable just as we’re all killable: we possess a physical body, that somebody can come along and hurt. it’s not a statement about whether our bodies deserve to be harmed or violated in such a way, and I beg you to not take it as such.
here’s how that goes. everyone experiences rape culture socialization. e v e r y o n e. but some groups in particular have messages directed at them that tell them they could well be victims of rape if they don’t fulfill certain prerequisites that will supposedly prevent them from being raped. the primary target of these messages from the POV of society are afab people. afab people, which for society is synonymous with ‘women’ are socially conditioned to think of themselves as people against whom rape can be committed (im sorry for the convoluted sentence phrasing). so trans men absorb this message that they’re people against whom this form of violatory violence can and will be used, especially in a “corrective” manner.
by contrast, cis men by and large don’t see themselves as rapeable. that is not to say that cis men don’t get raped - just that they don’t constantly worry about being raped because society doesn’t push male bodies as rapeable. however, society does treat trans women as “failed men” or as predators themselves, or as “traps”, all of which are ways of saying “acceptable target.” so trans women, in addition to absorbing messages directed at women (because they’re women, duh) about how women are rapeable, also absorb messages about trans women as uniquely rapeable.
so they’re socialized in a rape culture too.
so I believe what you’re experiencing, anon, is not female socialization but rape culture socialization, which is something that affects each and every one of us.
thoughts welcome, and please let me know if someone's already thought of this even though I swear I came by this honestly I really am behind on all the reading I should be doing......lmao. Anyway. I'm not posting that answer until I can be reasonably sure that I won't be misinterpreted TOO badly, and a part of that is clearing up my phrasing and sentences. My answer has been pasted verbatim as I wrote it on tumblr (which in turn was pasted in from a rant I put in a discord server) and I really hope it makes sense yeezus. Anyway, have at it.
Re, Radfem rethoric about 'male/female socialisation' it's also kinda sad I think because 'masculin vs feminin socialisation' is a really good way do describe some things? Like (And radfems, ironically, are HUGE on that one??) how me being afab resulted in having stuff like 'don't go home alone in the dark (because you are a womynnnn)' drilled into me and now I'm STILL nervouse alone on the streets even when I pass as a man and I know my cis-men friends just. can't even comprehend that?
(socialisation anon) and like I LIKE the angle of 'this is socialisation, not inherent' because I DIDN'T get to have a childhood as a boy but I still AM one (sometimes. I think. things are confusing) and thus it refames these (occassionally dysphoria-inducing) anxieties as something that was DONE TO, assigned to me. Like. Society decided I HAVE to be a girl (tho I am not) and then that thus I HAVE to be anxious about [Rape Culture Shit].
(socialisation anon) and like I LIKE the angle of 'this is socialisation, not inherent' because I DIDN'T get to have a childhood as a boy but I still AM one (sometimes. I think. things are confusing) and thus it refames these (occassionally dysphoria-inducing) anxieties as something that was DONE TO, assigned to me. Like. Society decided I HAVE to be a girl (tho I am not) and then that thus I HAVE to be anxious about [Rape Culture Shit].
“socialization” theory as it stands is a hot mess. esp because of terfs, who use it to claim things like “trans women have male socialization”........which they definitely don’t lmao........socialization theory is good but radfems fucked it up
i think there needs to be space to talk about the ways in which both trans men and trans women report being affected by rape culture and that lens cannot be gender socialization...because when we talk about gender socialization as something that takes place in this sort of vacuum where everyone is socialized as the gender they really are...........that does not reflect reality and it does not reflect the mental state of the people the socialization is supposedly being acted on. like i don’t mean to say that people are socialized as their agabs - that’s not true either. there’s a middle ground between 'trans women experience the same socialization as cis women' and 'trans women experience the same socialization as cis men'. neither of those are true, because trans women aren’t cis and they aren’t men.
socialization theory can account for the ways in which people perceived as women (trans men) and people who are women (trans women) both live under the threat of rape, structure their lives around that threat, that isn't gender socialization
because the entire point of radfem gender socialization (man am i tired of typing these long words out) is that males don't experience rape culture...........which is predicated on the assumption that men can't be raped. if you can't be raped how can you experience rape culture?
so the core of their argument against trans women is:
1. all women live under the threat of rape
2. this is female socialization
3. males rape
4. males cannot BE raped
5. males experience rapist socialization (because only females can be raped and they are never the rapists.........so the people doing the raping have rapist socialization.
6. trans women are male
7. trans women do not live under the threat of rape (blatantly untrue and easily disproven by the stats btw)
8. trans women are male rapists
but the material reality is that trans women are raped more than anyone else in the queer community and trans men also live a lot of their lives wondering if they’re gonna be raped, as you just noted, even after they pass.
so how do you reconcile these experiences - clearly the result of socialization of SOME kind, without resorting to gender as the axis of violence?
my proposed answer is *drumroll* rape culture socialization
important note: when I say ‘rapeable’ I do not mean ‘deserves to be raped’. I do not mean ‘is always raped’. when I say ‘rapeable’ what I mean is, ‘able to experience rape [as a form of violence]’. rape is a form of violence like any other, and in some sense we’re all rapeable just as we’re all killable: we possess a physical body, that somebody can come along and hurt. it’s not a statement about whether our bodies deserve to be harmed or violated in such a way, and I beg you to not take it as such.
here’s how that goes. everyone experiences rape culture socialization. e v e r y o n e. but some groups in particular have messages directed at them that tell them they could well be victims of rape if they don’t fulfill certain prerequisites that will supposedly prevent them from being raped. the primary target of these messages from the POV of society are afab people. afab people, which for society is synonymous with ‘women’ are socially conditioned to think of themselves as people against whom rape can be committed (im sorry for the convoluted sentence phrasing). so trans men absorb this message that they’re people against whom this form of violatory violence can and will be used, especially in a “corrective” manner.
by contrast, cis men by and large don’t see themselves as rapeable. that is not to say that cis men don’t get raped - just that they don’t constantly worry about being raped because society doesn’t push male bodies as rapeable. however, society does treat trans women as “failed men” or as predators themselves, or as “traps”, all of which are ways of saying “acceptable target.” so trans women, in addition to absorbing messages directed at women (because they’re women, duh) about how women are rapeable, also absorb messages about trans women as uniquely rapeable.
so they’re socialized in a rape culture too.
so I believe what you’re experiencing, anon, is not female socialization but rape culture socialization, which is something that affects each and every one of us.
thoughts welcome, and please let me know if someone's already thought of this even though I swear I came by this honestly I really am behind on all the reading I should be doing......lmao. Anyway. I'm not posting that answer until I can be reasonably sure that I won't be misinterpreted TOO badly, and a part of that is clearing up my phrasing and sentences. My answer has been pasted verbatim as I wrote it on tumblr (which in turn was pasted in from a rant I put in a discord server) and I really hope it makes sense yeezus. Anyway, have at it.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-26 06:28 pm (UTC)My sociology text book describes socialization as this, Socialization: the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, norms, and actions thought appropriate for them, and explains that we experience socialization throughout the entirety of our lives, because we are always changing how the world views us and characterizes us changes as we age, at the most basic level. People who are approaching middle age will start to be socialized by agents of socialization (people or groups that affect our self concept, attitudes, behaviors, or other orientations toward life) and will start to act more "middle aged", or like preteens acting more like teens as they grow older, due to media representation of how teens act, their friends around them, and the adults in their lives influencing the development of their concept of self.
Gender socialization (learning society’s “gender map,” the paths in life set out for us because we are male or female) is the same way, constant throughout a persons life. So no matter how much radfems focus on early socialization (socialization of children/babies by parents, society, media and other agents of socialization) as trans people come out and even before they come out and just realize they aren't cis, they are being socialized as their gender.
another thing that I really cant say much about but, I think @hellofriendsiminthedark said like months ago that if you live in a society, you experience the same kinds of bigotry that others experience, even if it isn't directed at you. The concept of "experience" does not leave room for people who literally experience it happening to the next person, that is experience too. So white people "experience" racism, if they exist in a racist society and are involved in everyday life. Men "experience" rape culture (especially in the context of producing more socially excused/acceptable forms of rape and rapists), cis people "experience" transphobia as they can see it exists and can replicate it if not taught why its wrong.
If you are wondering about the wording of "rapeable", I don't particularly like it. I feel like "victimization" works a lot better, because so much of the misogynistic protection of women in society is based on not only rape but also intimate abuse as well. The reason why men don't consider themselves to be "victimized" is because of male socialization, "you can't be a victim of rape/intimate abuse/anything else considered inherently female but does affect men" type shiz.
I could go on rants about the gendering of victimhood and how it has negative ripple effects to not just survivor activism but also like post-colonialism and post-genocide activism, but I digress.
I want people to talk about how they were raised and how they were and continue to be socialized by agents of socialization because the radfem definition is awful and the sociological definition is an amazing tool to understand why you act the way you act, why you believe what you believe and what you can do to change that if it is causing you strife.
oh and one last thing, trans women are not the most sexually assaulted queer subgroup, its trans men then trans women. its not a super significant difference (something like 40% of trans men to 35% of trans women).
no subject
Date: 2019-03-01 05:20 pm (UTC)your thoughts about the word rapeable are valuable, and I'll work on that change.
that's...an interesting and depressing statistic, and it's the kind of thing I'd love to spread, if you can give me a source link? I have always wondered at the rates at which transmasc people are assaulted; I'd love to read more about it. thanks!
no subject
Date: 2019-03-01 07:00 pm (UTC)I saw a facebook post that explained this study [https://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/USTS-Full-Report-FINAL.PDF] and the findings about sexual assault start on page 205. I saw that post months ago so my previous description was wrong (sorry about that!).
"Experiences also varied across gender, with transgender men (51%) and non-binary people with female on their original birth certificate (58%) being more likely to have been sexually assaulted, in contrast to transgender women (37%) and nonbinary people with male on their original birth
certificate (41%) (Figure 15.16)." pg. 205