Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight The transphobic 'gendercrit' line about trans women being 'socialized as males' purposefully elides that patterns of masculinity are often involuntarily BEATEN (often very literally) into us.
To hold that against us when we transition is to doubly punish trans.
Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight In practice, what this means for many trans women is that we learn to IMITATE patterns of acceptable masculinity, but it's still involuntary, against our will, and doesn't come naturally.
It is NOT internalized. It is what we SHED immediately as fast as we can upon transition.
Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight These unwanted patterns of masculinity are almost literally worn EXTERNALLY--they are absolutely not 'internalized.'
When trans women speak about a 'weight' coming off when we transition, THIS is usually what we're talking about: shedding the involuntary patina of masculinity.
Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight These people, and the transphobic society more broadly, simply refuse to acknowledge that trans women repeatedly report that once that outer layer of imitation masculinity is shed...
...FEMININITY comes NATURALLY to us, after an interim period of adjustment.
Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight But this period is when stereotype threat is strongest for trans women.
I wrote about that here:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
If you want a copy, just ask me.
Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight It's often why you'll see many newly out trans women running AWAY from these patterns of masculinity as fast as possible, and I suspect is why 'gendercrits' and transphobic people see our newfound femininity as inauthentic
Well, we haven't had TIME to find our authentic self yet
Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight You, a cis woman, have had your whole life to explore with your gender expression. And it evolves over time.
Give us a chance, space, and time to figure out who we really are.
I went from makeup, skirts, and heels all the time...
...to sport leggings and cute t-shirts mostly.
Dr. Veronica Ivy @SportIsARight And, again, using this time of adjustment and exploration against us is...
...just...
...fucking hell could you people just not?
Most everyone I came out to in my first year were astonished at my gender identity, largely because they had always seen me as completely masculine. I had learned very hard lessons as a teenager that feminine expression was not tolerated from me, and had to be suppressed. With that suppression also came a number of toxic attitudes and personality traits that I am not at all proud of.
But as OP says here, none of it was internalized. What WAS internalized was the ways that society is so horrifically unfair to women, because I could relate so well to the women around me, and embracing feminism was a major stepping stone to shedding that masculine veneer.
But doing so took time. There’s a reason I waited a year and a half before I started my Instagram. That first year of shedding the masking and acclimating to women’s spaces was awkward as fuck, and in some places quite painful.
There’s a photo from the first company holiday party where I went as myself that I cannot stand to look at because I stood out so harshly from the other women in the company. Not just because of what I was wearing but also because I still carried myself like a man.
Nearly every transfemme more than two years in can tell you about their awkward princess phase (and I’m sure transmascs have their own version as well). The stereotypes of men in dresses all stem from this stage of transition, when we are most uncomfortable and most obvious, struggling to all the things we weren’t allowed to learn as teenagers.
Please afford baby transes some space, they wouldn’t be in this place if they had been given the opportunities to do this younger.