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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.
Re: obvious tw's and stuff, idk
Date: 2019-03-01 05:06 pm (UTC)Anyway. I read it through, as I said, and I'm not sure whether you're pointing out errors in my reasoning or...the other thing? urgh. this is probably more of me being bad at parsing tone and intent but I just...do not know. (no hard feelings either way, ftr)
I found this bit really interesting, because it jives with something I've been turning around in my head for a while - it sounds like you're quoting something, and if so: can I read the source?
Re: obvious tw's and stuff, idk
Date: 2019-03-01 05:52 pm (UTC)The thought process was kind of like... people typically don't think to do queer readings of their lives until they start questioning their own queerness. If you fit into normative structures, you have no reason to really engage with them and position yourself against them. People who are (closeted and) questioning have a really neat positionality and embody a lot of dissonance and dualities as a result of living these sort of "double lives," wherein they occupy the same normative spaces as before, but now they have this unshakeable awareness that there's more to consider beyond that. It's kind of like class consciousness in that way--once you gain the awareness that there's something going on, it sticks with you forever.
I was also drawing from some really old gender socialization discourse. I remember this one argument I liked that trans women don't go through male socialization, but rather they experience closeted trans woman socialization, wherein instead of internalizing messages about machismo and masculinity, they actually internalize messages about transphobia and transmisogyny and the ways they have to submit to keep themselves safe and the ways they will always be rejected by institutional structures.
And while this is one way to understand trans identity through a framework of gender socialization, I think it does nonetheless have many of the failings that are inherent to any such framework, in that it still positions something as innate, whether it's the coherency of transness, the messages that the collective sum of all trans folks receive from society, the sensicalness of any gender identity, etc.
So basically I'm like "a lot of people understand that some theory or another doesn't work well and they try to resolve it by expanding it, without actually addressing the flaws which are fundamental to that theory. In this case, that would mean expanding a theory of gender socialization to address trans genders, for example by making new categories for people to be socialized into, ie trans ones. However this approach doesn't actually do anything about a lot of the critiques to be had of the original theory." It's not really directed at you or a statement that this is what you were doing, but more of idle commentary at solutions I've already seen to the issue, potentially with an implied warning that This Is a Thing.
Re: obvious tw's and stuff, idk
Date: 2019-03-08 03:44 pm (UTC)