So I am blissfully unaware of why "male socialization" might be a topic of the day, but I could happily tell you both why the whole premise is bullshit gender essentialism, which I don't feel like doing, and why the way transphobes use it is hilariously off base, which I now will

The premise put forth by... you know, the far-right fascists who don't actually know a single damn thing about trans women and really want to convince everyone that we are these big hulking bearded gross misogynistic manly men who decided to put on dresses one day for nefarious

purposes is that, being men, all trans women clearly grew up within a culture that teaches all men to be loud and obnoxious and treat women like a subservient underclass and/or unpersoned sex objects while women are taught, like, basic empathy and nonviolent conflict resolution

skills, so even if we start treating trans women as women after transition, we're still going to be these crude beer swilling brutes.

So... OK again, there are a TON of problems with that, but the most relevant one within this specific context is the absurd notion that this crap

is actually taught to people in some kind of direct one-on-one series of lessons.

Like sure, if we actually lived in a society where like, when we turn 10 years old or whatever, our mother or father drag us off to a special little chamber and go "OK Billy. You are a man now, so

now you must listen close as I impart to you the ways of how to treat women like complete shit and to bro it the hell up at keggers."

That doesn't actually happen. We all know that doesn't happen. And it's a complete joke for anyone to pretend it does.

To whatever extent that

this whole concept isn't total BS, what DOES happen is that all of us grow up in this big cultural stew where all the media we're exposed to and a good swath of the people around us perform all the gendered BS constantly, so everyone learns "hey men are supposed to act like this

and women are supposed to act like this."

And if you're cis (or really, if you're cis and straight, because lets be real there's this whole other set of expectations/stereotypes for all the rest of us which are quite pointedly different), then to one degree or another that just

all kinda subconsciously sinks in and you start emulating that and hopefully later in life you realize how much of that is indeed bullshit and become a better person.

But... see, here's the part where that whole little pesky fact that trans women are women crops up and ruins all

this bigoted logic. People don't "turn trans" at some point in life it's a starting condition. And it can take decades to really work out what's up in some way you can articulate and really accept, but a big ol' part of the process of working that out is actually figuring out why

this exact sort of crap just does not click for you like it clicks for everyone else.

Like, I definitely cannot speak for everyone here, but speaking for myself and a not insignificant number of trans women I have compared notes with on this, there was DEFINITELY a big ol' chunk

of my youth where I was really acutely aware of all of this "male vs. female socialization" crap, and just how very much I did not at all fit the mold of it all. Like there was this whole "dude mindset" and matching attitude and every single guy I knew totally fit in with it, but

I found it so damn incredibly alienating I thought there was just something fundamentally wrong with me. Like a part of my brain didn't form right or I had some weird personality disorder as the result of some traumatic childhood event I'd blocked out or something. And then I'd

hang out in the company of just other women here and there, friends of my mother and what have you, and age gaps aside, that was a way more comfortable space for me. And they'd all find my company really refreshing because I gave off absolutely zero dudebro vibes of any sort, and

being so comfortable, would ask me things like hey, why do guys always whatever?" and I would consistently be just as clueless as all of them. At least beyond what things I did pick up by essentially being a spy behind enemy lines, and spending way more time than cis women ever

tend to as a fly on the wall in spaces with no other women, where all the men around me would get into the serious guy talk for some time before noticing enough weird little things about my body language and mannerisms and responses and such to clue in that there's some sort of

intruder in their midst and they should probably cut the locker room talk and try to work out just what the hell my deal was instead.

And wow I cannot convey just how young I was when THAT really reared its head as an issue. Like, a good decade before I worked out that there was

even "something wrong with me," forget that that something was "I'm trans," and I'm sure decades before any of them could put any of this into words, people consistently would either treat me like a girl, or treat me like some sort of weird and upsetting anomaly. Those children

prone to random violence at school? They would beat the everloving hell out of me, regularly, and I'm pretty much sure not a single one of them could genuinely articulate an answer if you were to ask just what it was about me that made them so compelled to work over my kidneys.

Honestly though, you don't have to take my word for it on this. Personally I have a strict policy of ever putting pictures of myself up on the internet, and it did not occur to me when I got the hell away from my parents to snag any old scrapbooks on the way out anyway, but find

any trans woman who is willing to show you old pictures from when they were in grade school or maybe junior high, and I GUARANTEE you they are going to bust out what is very damn clearly a little girl with a really bad haircut and kind of a tomboyish dress sense. That's not some