candidlyautistic:

nohetero:

nohetero:

heyyo here’s a fun fact for y’all

trans women don’t experience male socialization before we come out

we experience closeted trans woman socialization which is an entirely different and extremely toxic monster

thank and have a terrible day if you disagree 

hi if you’re safe to do so you should probably be reblogging this
the idea that trans women are socialized as anything but women is one of the most potent arguments for stripping us of our humanity

Hi, transgender sociologist here. I love the OP because oh my gosh trans woman socialization is such a hugely complicated thing. So here’s simplified breakdown of how it works.

Socialization happens two ways. There is the socialization that we as people socialize ourselves as, and there is how society socializes us.

Trans girls socialize themselves maybe by watching other women and emulating them – often whether or not they realize they are doing it. Society socializes trans girls who don’t know they are trans yet by treating them overtly like boys.

What ends up happening is that there is explicit socialization that a trans girl chooses which can be EITHER socialization as a girl or a boy depending on whether or not they know they are trans – choosing birthday or holiday gifts would be an example of this; do they ask for the doll house or the construction set? And there is implicit socialization that is learned by the trans girl, which is usually a mix of mostly girl with a little of boy socialization stuff thrown in.

Then there is the same options for how society treats us, except that there is much less choice in that. Society will, in most cases, overtly treat a trans girl as a boy. This will be explicit stuff; trans girls are taught to use the boys bathroom, for example. Then there is all the implicit stuff, about how it is wrong to be an effeminate man.

When OP mentions trans woman socialization, they’re not wrong – and it is exactly that mix of self-socialization and outside socialization that shapes how trans women are socialized. It isn’t that we are socialized as men, or as women. We are socialized in a hugely complex interaction between socialization and men and women.

And yeah, it is toxic as fuck. Holy shit it can do a number on us. It is exactly that we need to be socialized one way and try our hardest to be, only to have society push back that fucks us up.

Can trans people be socialized strictly as girls/boys women/men? It does happened with exceptionally supportive parents and school systems. But right now it is rare. In most cases, we get the complex fucked up mix of everything.

So don’t ever let a jerk tell you, a trans person, that you were socialized as just a man or just a woman. That’s not even how socialization works.

You were socialized as a trans person. Period.