on voluntary regendering
first, a definition.
according to talia bhatt:
... transmasculinity is subject to regendering. Where transmisogynistic forces marginalize and ostracize the transfeminine from society, rendering us unworthy of any fate outside of being treated like sexual chattel, transemasculative forces deny the transmasculine any possibility of escaping reproductive exploitation and seek to re-gender the transmasculine--viewed as lapsed reproductive assets--back into the confines of womanhood. [emphasis mine]
i think a lot of transmascs refuse to fully let go of the 'woman' identity because we do have a lot of trauma around our experiences being perceived as such, yet we are unable to really describe our experiences outside of the lens of cis misogyny. this is from a larger societal view of woman=good men=bad which is why you dont see as many transfems claiming so-called 'male socialization'. in theory, being a 'man' should have protected transfems against transmisogynist violence even before they knew they who they were. if a man is an all-powerful figure incapable of being subject to gendered violence, then there would be no tension between the closeted transfem and the expectations of manhood put upon her. so many transfems say that they were always excluded for being their normal selves, or felt enormous soul destroying pressure to put on a performance of normative cis masculinity for their own safety. this is perhaps me talking out of turn here, but this doesnt seem like something cis men worry about.
ive long felt that even closeted transfems dont have the same access to male privilege that cis men dont, simply because i know how much of an imposter i felt in 'womens spaces' pre transition. you feel like at any moment someone will discover that you dont belong there, that youre the odd one out failing to meet expectations. at least in my experience, i was never comfortable being 'one of the girls'. this constant state of anxiety and fear wears down a person over time. its not a privilege to crush your true self, to sand away all of your rough edges to fit in.
theres a myth that society is ok with tomboys. i suppose you could have called me a tomboy but i feel like this is a very racialized term. you dont really see many black or asian tomboys--its mostly something white girls are allowed to explore. even in their case, those girls are expected to grow out of it as soon as humanly possible, preferably by the time they start puberty. i have seen people assume that this is why transmascs are able to get away with not transitioning, since society seems more comfortable with a masculine presenting cis woman than with trans women. i wont speak to which one society prefers, but i dont see the figure of a masculine woman as particularly beloved. the reality is that cis women are not allowed to do basically anything and are punished whether they defy or conform to gendered expectations.
i think some of the misunderstanding around how transmasculine people see ourselves comes from this tension. on one hand we have very real and violent experiences with conforming to a gender that is not even our own. how on earth do we even describe what we went through when we were closeted or pretransition? yes we may have some privilege now but our childhoods were traumatic and violent, and many of us are still regarded as women. transmasculine people are very much erased as being simply woman+, another variation of woman who does not need to have his specific experiences and worldview taken into account.
on the other hand, seeing ourselves through the eyes of a transphobic society seems counterproductive. i wonder what the point of self identification and transition is if we ourselves insist on classing ourselves as a form of woman.
by now i hope you understand that the trans child experiences enormous anxiety and violence even when they dont fully understand themselves. the transfeminine and transmasculine will both experience violent attempts at regendering, and failing that, particularly in the case of the transfeminine, degendering. the difference appears to be that the transfeminine leaves a perceived position of privilege into one of perceived lower status, with the reverse being true for the transmasculine. i suppose my hot take in all this is that i dont really see it as that clear cut, particularly for the transmasculine, since we know full well that cis masculinity is not a monolith. to pretend like an asian cis man is regarded with the same respect as a white cis man is ridiculous, yet for some reason we are forced to accept that trans men cant be measured against cis men. if we are not men, then we must be women--but why?
we never have to be challenged on what it means to 'leave' your assigned sex behind like transfems do because we're told that women are natural victims of patriarchy. while this is true to an extent, its not the whole picture since men are quite violent to each other. we cant compare ourselves to cis men because cis men abused us, and we arent our oppressors. how insulting. except again, this would require stripping cis male victims of cis mens violence of their gender, which is what society already does to them. society already emasculates cis men who suffer at the hands of other men, to say nothing of the cis men who are abused by women. im quite open about how my abuser is a woman. frankly, people dont like to be reminded that cis women are often as dangerous to children as anyone else, and they often have incentives to harm them since children are treated as property.
to buy into this violent logic and then apply it to ourselves does us no favors and only excludes us from the joy of being who we are. being myself is freedom, but all freedoms come with responsibilities and burdens. there is no mythical eternal victim position that allows you immunity from considering your actions. this is somewhat understandable since we are never really put in a position to genuinely reject how we were raised. whenever we are victimized or harmed, that can be easily blamed on being 'female'. i was harmed for being a woman or having female biology or female socialization. my innate femaleness made me an eternal victim.
even aside from the rank bioessentialism of it is, is this not just misogyny? women are oppressed under patriarchy, but this line of thought treats the position of Woman as almost a natural victim, someone who is inherently less than others due to who they are. if you accept women are inherent victims then it makes sense that you would want to blame your experiences on biological fatalism. 'yes, i identify as a man, but i will always be female; therefore, i can only view my experiences through the lens of womanhood and nothing else.'
the reality is that gendered violence happens in different forms. the violence towards a person performing masculinity the 'wrong' way is no less severe than violence against a stereo/typical feminine cishet woman. we deserve the right to name our own violence under our own terms. your outward presentation is not necessarily the be all, end all to your own personal internal sense of self. you do not have to accept being treated as female for protection. there is no safety in the closet.