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this screenshot keeps making the rounds but i do think that there genuinely could be a real sociological study done to examine the relationship between the oft-joked "which way western tran?" crossroad about being a trans woman versus being a bigoted femboy, stemming from 4chan. https://twitter.com/dumbandawful/status/1324780519641534466">https://twitter.com/dumbandaw...
i& #39;ve talked about this with a number of people before so allow me to try and condense it down into one cohesive thread and bare with me here as of course this will involve generalizations, but it& #39;s the best running theory i have for this overall trend.
it begins with the simple-
it begins with the simple-
fact that anyone can be queer (as in, broadly not cishet) regardless of their beliefs, so it is a reasonable assumption that there will be some amount of people on 4chan who find themselves developing queer feelings, even in spite of the significant amount of bigotry that they-
absorb from the garbage hellhole of misery that is 4chan itself. as you might imagine, this is quite the predicament indeed, because all of those bigoted external beliefs that they hold are now being turned inwards and internalized against themselves, thus making it an arduous-
task to explore those budding feelings in any healthy manner. the short of it is that they can either get out of that environment and hopefully become a communist trans girl like a normal person, or they don& #39;t and stay as a self-hating bigoted femboy trapped in a cycle of denial.
now an astute reader might be quick to point out that this analysis lacks an account for people of this type who *aren& #39;t* bigoted nazis, but in truth it does as it& #39;s a two step process. one must first 1) escape the bigoted environment and work through their bigotry, then 2) they-
must break out of the self-hate cycle of denial. i posit that step 2 is harder than step 1 due to the former before being *external* bigotry whereas the latter is *internal* bigotry, namely transphobia, and society is quite cisnormative indeed. as an aside, the prevalence of-
femboys/trans people often adopting more extremist political positions it that once you radicalize in one direction you usually aren& #39;t going to go back to the center unless you hold a great deal of privilege. reconsidering one societal construct(gender) oft spurs a domino effect.
ah, but where does that specific femboy aesthetic come from? japan, of course. by and large, 4chan has fetishized japan to a ridiculous degree, but discussing that more is a little outside of the scope of this, so take that as an axiom if you will. the specific aesthetic that we-
see so often adopted on 4chan and elsewhere (4chan has influenced a great deal of internet culture, so when it pops up elsewhere it can usually be traced back to 4chan regardless) forms a tight cycle where the person denies the experience of dysphoria (even despite explicitly-
describing dysphoria) and the possibility of being a girl (because of their internalized transphobia) by putting it all under the guise of a self-affirming "well i just wanna be a femboy" which stems from the aforementioned fetishization of japan. it is a vicious loop which, in-
my experience, is incredibly resilient to any attempts at breaking the loop. i should state here for the record that no i do not mean all femboys as there& #39;s a very specific type that i am referring to, and no i am not trying to "force" anyone to reconsider their gender.
as a good friend of mine ana pointed out, the diction that 4chan frequently employs and the context in which the words are used highlights this idea. both "trap" and "trans" are used with the plausible deniability of being the same yet not being the same, but when looking at the-
*porn* that is often at the heart of this aesthetic, they generally use every word BUT "trap" or "femboy" to describe any actual *change* within a person. that is to say, there is a clear (even if implicit) distinction made between feminization where there is no "change" to the-
person themselves, or it& #39;s tf/gender swap/whatever else. they& #39;re similar in presentation but the labeling is different and the manifestation is different (and as a side note i wanna write a thread about the concept of forcefem, but later!). in the latter there& #39;s obviously a lot-
of outdated and fetishizing terms, but it& #39;s less common compared to the former because the former is effectively a coping strategy to avoid thinking about gender at all. it dodges the whole concept by accepting the peripheral reality but the denying the core metaphysical aspect.
that is to say, one may accept every aspect of their feelings about the physical world (a list could go here, but in short: manifestations of dysphoria), yet still at the end of the day say "i& #39;m just a boy lol" and through their internalized transphobia, deny the grander picture.
