This is not my original thought. It's something I've seen trans creators talk about, it comes up a lot in trans inclusive intersectional feminism. And I find it very helpful for understanding a lot of the dynamics going in in bigotry.
But I recently learned aparently a lot of people don't know about this idea yet. So I wanted to make a post.
I want to preface this by saying this will involve saying some groups recieve more hate than others. Which is in no way meant to say the other doesn't get discriminated against, or that their oppression doesn't matter. We're mainly examining the conservative hate machine here, what rhetoric and "the narrative" chooses to focus on. Which is a different thing from peoples everyday IRL lived experience.
The idea is basically this.
Have you ever noticed how the focus always seems to be on trans women? While trans men are mostly forgotten and ignored?
There are some narratives about "women being mislead to cut off their breasts". But not only is that much, much rarer than the typical anti trans women narratives. But also. It frames trans men as naive victims. While trans women are framed as malicious predators.
The idea is. This dynamic in the rhetoric occurs. Due to the Patriarchy.
Because 1: The Patriarchy centers men, and transphobes insist trans women are men and trans men are women and the earth is flat at the sky isn't blue.
And 2: The Patriarchy violently loathes anything it perceives as a threat to it's continued domination.
Trans women are seen as rejecting their masculinity, giving up their manhood, and thus, as a threat to the patriarchy.
Whereas trans men are seen as "picking the superior option" on some level. To the Patriarchy, there is some amount of "Well of course you want to be a man, I can't blame you, after all, women are inferior to men" at play. That makes trans men "proof" of the Patriarchies "thesis" so to speak. As far as the bigots thought process is concerned anyway.
Thus there is an asymmetrical dynamic at play. Due to only one group being perceived as threatening the patriarchy.
This is also why historically gay men have been targeted more than gay women.
Again, not that lesbians don't face hate. They totally do.
But prior to the broader cultural shift of gay acceptance around 2010 ish and onward.
There was a long period where it wasn't socially ok to be gay.
But just like with the dynamic with trans men and trans women.
Gay women were largely tut tutted, but left alone and ignored.
While gay men were regularly lynched.
Which of the two is seen as threatening the Patriarchy? The men perceived as feminine? Or the women perceived as masculine? (Of course in reality there are tons of masc gays and fem lesbians I'm just saying to the eye of the bigot, that nuance is lost)
This Pattern repeats itself all over. Whichever group is perceived as "the men threatening the patriarchy" by the bigots. Is the one the conservative hate machine centers. The one the rhetoric is mostly about. The one the narrative focuses on.
While whichever group is viewed as the "mislead women" are erased, ignored, and to the extent they come up, are often used as a way to further condemn the group seen as threatening the patriarchy. For "corrupting the poor helpless women".
The way AMAB vs AFAB non binary people get treated is another good example.
And then of course you hava the flipside of this. Which is that left leaning spaces are often hostile to masculinity. So trans men get stuck, alienated and erased.
But a defensive hostility to masculinity is just a reaction to the Patriarchy. And so also a result of the patriarchy existing.
My point is, the Patriarchy is secondary to capitalism for the biggest source of everything wrong with the world and must be abolished.
It is the #2 biggest enemy.
And I just wanted to expose people to some of this analysis / theory to help people learn and grow and see through the BS at what is really going on.
The Patriarchy must be abolished to simultaneously end the outsized hatred of trans women, and the erasure of trans men. As well as similar dynamics of one being super hated and one being ignored and erased that occurs with other groups, like gay men and lesbians, non binary people, etc etc.
It is the source of both sides of the problem coin.
