CLH Words

In case you need a definition on eggs: an egg is trans fem slang for a trans woman who does not yet realize she is in fact a woman. Hatching or breaking an egg is when a trans woman begins to understand her identity. This essay should help put this idea into context as why so many trans women are eggs before coming out.

               I have a degree in psychology. I don’t really ‘use’ it in my day to day life. My job does not require it, which is really what a degree is for. Yet, I find myself using the concepts I learned about a lot. After all, psychology is the study of the mind, something everyone has. That’s not to say that I armchair diagnose people with various disorders, but that I use it to better understand people and their actions, including my own. I largely disagree with the various psychology institutions, for a variety of reasons, but still think it can be a decent frame to examine behaviors and opinions on the macrolevel. This brings me to the pseudoscience fake-psychology I want to talk about: the concept of trans women being “male socialized.”

               Hopefully if you are following my blog, you know, at least somewhat, that this argument holds less water than a broken strainer. But, just in case, I want to briefly discuss two counter arguments for it. First, it is not based in science. There is no real biological difference between men and women. Studies show that we are way more alike than we are different. From brain scans to behavior to hormones. There is little difference, and way more overlap than bio bioessentialism would have you believe. Most/all of the differences come from social norms and pressure, not innate forces of nature. There are many ways to be a woman or a man or neither, with a ton of overlap. No two people are ‘socialized’ the same, let alone act the same. And by and large, trans people, even pre coming out, fall closer to the gender they identify with than the one assigned at birth. But secondly, even if there was such a thing as a force of nature that shapes how men and women act…who gives a fuck? Why would that mean we get to ignore what trans people say about ourselves? Are humans not capable of change? Sure, we are made up of all our past selves, yet we can grow and change into new ones. Even if there is such a force that shapes everyone based on their AGAB (which again, there is not) why must that be the only thing to take into account? Why is that more important than the experiences of the trans people now, our mental health, our choices made to be ourselves. Even if in the past we were treated like one gender, why can we not be a new one today? Because at the end of the day, it is not about science or respecting reality but about denying trans people agency and justifying treating us like shit.

               And treating us like shit brings me to my main point here. I was not ‘male socialized.’ If anything, I (and most of the other trans women I talk to) were treated like failed males before we came out. This is the contradiction at the heart of gender essentialism, and thus most of societal views of gender/sex: gender is both unchanging and rigid, yet someone can fail at it. One of my earliest memories is me being teased in preschool for using ‘girly’ colors in art I was making. That was no one off experience either. Throughout my childhood and adolescence my peers, and most adults around me, pushed back every time I expressed my gender authentically. I was not ‘male socialized’ but instead bullied and coerced until I was male enough by societal standards. By the time I reached high school, I had more or less learned to act the part of a male, and burry any desires I had to go against it. Even then, I was still not seen as truly a man, as my peers saw through my attempts.

               This is what transmisogyny looks like before a trans woman comes out, or even realizes she might be trans. Masculinity is expected, femininity is punished, and any slip up is seen as a reason to discount her manhood, her gender as a whole, to the point that she is no longer seen as fully human. Her only real option, other than to persevere through the hate to the other side, is to double down on her masculinity, using it to prove her humanity, until it forms the egg around her. She learns how to pass for one of the boys to avoid the dehumanization and abuse thrown at her, only for transmisogyny to later  hold it up as proof that her womanhood is fake. Trans women are not allowed to exist as we are, but instead forced to change every aspect of ourselves to please those around us, in the hopes that we are man enough to avoid the transmisogyny thrown at us. This instinct to shape ourselves to please others is carried over, affecting us in many ways past our coming out and transition.

               If this is ‘male socialization,’ then I am not sure why the TERFs use it as a gottcha when talking about trans women. I have had to unlearn a ton of harmful behaviors I got from the years spent trying to fit into my egg. To hold up my upbringing in a male body as some sort of proof of my womanhood being lesser is not only transphobic but also a deep misunderstanding of what it is like to be a trans women pre coming out. I was never fully a man. I was not privy to the  benefits of manhood, and any that was given to me came at a cost of my  true self. Trans women are women. We are simply women who were forced to exist as failed men for a time. May all eggs crack and many beautiful trans chicks come forth.