u/AirportOk8750

This is definitely not the first time someone's made this comparison but it just now occured to me.

Liberals seem progressive because they advocate for the system (capitalism) to change, but they refuse to acknowledge all the harm that is an intrinsic part of the system and cannot be eradicated if the system itself is not eradicated. "Progressive" religious people are exactly like this, except with religion. They seem like the ultimate progressives because they try to make a certain religion's teachings more progressive, while ignoring that bigotry and indoctrination are inherent to their religion and have caused harm on a mass scale.

This is a bit long and I'm sorry about that, I'm just pretty upset right now.

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I was reading a post on a largely queer subreddit on here about feeling isolated from the queer community as a trans man. Okay, sure. I relate a little, being transmasc myself while also being a lesbian, a lot of cis gay people don't like me. The post was a little bit strange in how it talked about women and kind of straw-manned women's distrust of men as "you're an icky man so you deserve it" but other than that nothing too intense.

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(I know this is not a queer-centric sub necessarily, this is just the lead-in to what I'm talking about.)

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But I look at the comments and here come a bunch of cis men and even some trans men talking about "misandry" and the "male loneliness epidemic" and overall just villainizing women for generally distrusting men. You know, after the fucking centuries that men have been harming women en masse how dare women be wary of men.

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First of all, I'm tired of this debate, MISANDRY IS NOT REAL. There has never been a point in time when women hating men was systemic and resulted in the oppression of men for being men. Thousands of women are harassed, raped, and killed every year because of misogyny and you're gonna act like some women hating men because they are legit terrified of what men could do to them is some big oppressive issue for men?? Really??

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Second, the "male loneliness epidemic" is 100% self-inflicted and I'm tired of people acting like it's women's fault. Men socialize other men to not open up, to not talk about their feelings, and to not form emotionally vulnerable relationships. But that is somehow women's fault and therefore they're responsible for fixing it? It makes no sense.

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There was also a comment that was so obtuse and misleading that I wanted to bash my head against the wall. Someone legit said "people seem to think that patriarchy oppresses women and uplifts men". ...THAT'S BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT DOES?? What else would it fucking do?? Patriarchy uplifts men and puts men above women as if they are superior to women. That does not mean that every man is going to be happy and thriving. It means they are uplifted by societal privilege. It's the "well I'm a man and my life sucks so how could the patriarchy be real" argument all over again and I am exhausted by it. There are some side effects of the patriarchy that harm men but that does not mean that men are not uplifted by patriarchy or are oppressed by it.

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And as much as I hate saying "I don't believe you" to someone when they talk about their supposed experiences, at some point it becomes glaryingly obvious that their "experience" is either untrue or greatly exaggerated in order to straw-man someone. I'm sorry but I do not believe that en masse queer women are harassing trans men for being men and justifying it with "oh well you chose to be an icky man so you deserve this". That's such an unrealistic claim. At what point can we say you're just being misogynistic and trying to villainize women for not trusting men?

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I don't hate trans men and I never will. I share a lot of my gender experiences with trans men and find community in them. I will always fight for them and defend them against transphobia because they have a right to live their lives as their true selves. And believe me, as someone who is gender-nonconforming and non-binary and often participates in largely cis spaces I will be the first to say that certain parts of the queer community have an issue with how they treat masculinity. But it also has a HUGE misogyny problem in way more spaces than it has a masculinity problem. Queer men are almost always centered and given priority over queer women. And here we have trans men falling into the trap of "I'm a victim of the male loneliness epidemic because I'm a man, women are such misandrist bitches, you should feel bad for me because I'm a man" even while not having the same societal privilege that cis men do.

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Yeah maybe queer women don't like you and don't want to be around you because you're always saying how misandrist they are and how much "misandry" you've had to go through, while so many of them and many of the other women in their lives have been victimized by men. And now you're feeding into cis men's victim narrative.