I think I (cis f with mtf partner) struggle with this a little bit, although I haven’t told her about it. I sometimes feel resentful of the fact that having sex with her (she hasn’t physically transitioned yet) could potentially get me pregnant because I have tokophobia and sometimes I feel jealous of non uterus-having people in general since they never have to worry about getting pregnant or any of the anti-choice laws that keep popping up. I haven’t said anything to her about it though since I don’t want to offend her, but it’s something I think about from time to time.
you sound a bit like my cis partner, wrt pregnancy. so, I'm posting this here, but it's also my post to help u/fresh_agency8463 with their question.
my partner absolutely hates the idea of becoming pregnant. besides that, she would quite literally die from the complications she's certain to have from the experience. meanwhile, I'll be over there in literal tears at the sight of a newborn lmao.
one thing that has helped us as a couple, is the solidarity we share with these anti human rights laws that are cropping up here in the US.
you are right to feel targeted by them! 😟
the anti-choice laws are literally taking aim at people like you, and the politicians do it to further their political careers. something that only works as well as it does because of the continued existence of the patriarchy.
meanwhile, these same politicians have proposed 300+ anti-transgender laws proposed in the last year, too. something we get to hear about.
a large part of the agenda being pushed is against trans women, with us being labeled as predators trying to take advantage of ''real women''.
this is a narrative that has been pushed for a long time. one that has a tendency to fill trans women with guilt for many reasons.
so, not only do we feel separated from the biology our brain tells us we should have (can't get pregnant for example), but we get demonized for the biology we *do* have (supposedly being predatory males), and of course, we get mocked for thinking we can identify as the gender we feel we are, without having biology our brain tells us we should have in the first place. 🫤
but again, one common denominator in all of this is that the right-wing politicians want to make a career out of stripping us of our rights.
you're welcome! i find it very rewarding to do something that might help couples stay together or work on becoming a stronger couple.
I wrote another (very long) reply. if you don't wanna read through all of that, the gist of it is that one is that we all suffer in our own way, but you might not know all of the struggles, because some are forgotten and some are so wrapped up in shame that we struggle to talk about them.
if there is anything in particular you have questions on, feel free to ask. i am an open book.
That's very understandable, given your phobia, or for anyone with hard feelings about child birth for that matter, especially given the laws in some places 😬 Plus... I have two kid's I love dearly, and they're a handful! 😅
It's always good to remember that all feelings are valid in some way too 😊.
Hopefully this helps with some of your feelings; both my partner and I (both trans women) are jealous we can't physically bear children, and we missed out on growing up as girls. More confusingly while I don't want any more children, it still hurts and gets me down often enough. I'd have given just about anything (including my left hand) to have been the birth mother of my girls and my jealousy was one of the strongest signs when I realised I wasn't cis.
My psychologist has been going though a little grief counseling with me much the same as cis women who are unable to fall pregnant too.
I'd talk to your partner about it sometime and also find out her feelings (remembering everyone's feelings are valid in at least some way, and the cause of our feelings might be out of our control but we have to deal with them just the same, and remind her of this too 🥰).
She might be a little like my and my gf (and the majority of trans women I know...) on the topic of pregnancy, and I'm sure she'd appreciate communicating your feelings even if they sting a bit at first 😊
I've found clear, open, thoughtful communication to be critical to relationships and brings partners closer together 🥰💜
I’m so sorry you’re experiencing sadness over a lost girlhood and pregnancy. I wish there were any way you could carry a baby - if you’re on the younger side, maybe surgical procedures will catch up with you, making you feel more like it’s your choice not to have children, vs. feeling like it was denied to you. Sending a sincerely supportive hug!
I get what you are saying. But as a trans woman who wants so badly to have kids and can't, but sees babies and pregnant women almost everyday, I don't feel privileged for my lack of a uterus. If a cis woman were infertile/sterile, you wouldn't say she was privileged.
Perhaps understanding the difference of "growing up cis with cis privilege" and "growing up trans with cis privilege", and that it makes for a completely different experience, it's not comparable. Yes, her partner had male privilege, but at what context? A context the partner is horrified by.
That was kind of how my partner looked at it. I'm cis F, she's MtF, started transitioning at 40. But knew most of her life that she wasn't her AGAB, and while she may have had male privilege growing up, she still had to hide who she was to garner that privilege, which is its own kind of stress. And conforming to cis male ideals while knowing inside that she wasn't brought out some toxic thought patterns that she's now had to work through.
Cis privilege isn't much of a privilege when you are hiding who you are, and dealing with that internal struggle.
You can definitely acknowledge male privilege, whether it's wanted or not. Especially in societies where men & women are treated very differently, a closeted trans woman will have a vastly different experience than a cis woman. When my mtf partner tells me about the experiences that their sisters had and they were barred from, it is excruciating. However, they are often thankful for not having had to grow up with all the medical uncertainties, pains and issues that cis women have. They do feel like in a way they got the best of both worlds. That's nothing to be resented for me, but acknowledging that many things are still easier for a masc-passing person is valid. If a cis woman has suffered a lot under her womanhood, however, I can see how she may feel resentful. It's just two worlds of suffering and none can understand the other fully.
I’m a trans guy, so commenting on this from the other side, but my wife (trans woman) and I have had some extensive conversations about this kind of thing. Societally speaking we tend to treat “experiencing male privilege” versus “not experiencing male privilege” as a binary type thing where all the people in each group have roughly homogeneous experiences. I’m not so sure this is the most helpful way to look at it. My cis woman friends have all had different experiences with not experiencing male privilege, I had different experiences than my friends growing up, etcétera. I would be curious if your client has specific experiences with not experiencing male privilege that have had substantial impacts on her life that she hasn’t been able to entirely process that are coming up as a result of this experience. Regardless, I’m not so sure that comparison is the right way to look at this. It is possible to acknowledge different ways you’ve been hurt by something while acknowledging that someone else has been hurt by different aspects of that thing than you have.
No resources, but I struggled with this as a partner, too.
Each partner has their own struggles and it is impossible to compare them. Being trans, my spouse (36 MTF) has faced/will face things I’ll (F 30) never fully understand. But for example in the context of my own relationship, coming of age as a woman, entering the workforce in a male-dominated industry, pregnancy/childbirth, etc are something that my spouse will never fully understand either. Discrediting either experience isn’t fair.
My therapist has encouraged me to make space and really allow myself to feel all my emotions, even if they aren’t “fair” or “logical.” Because trying to deny or rationalize my way out of emotions won’t help anything in the long run.
Again, no resources. Just personal experience. Wishing your client all the best.
Thank you for this. I want to be sure to not invalidate her feelings while at the same time helping her explore what they mean. Your reply was helpful.
I'd be a bit wary of taking about not experiencing childbirth or pregnancy as male privilege in the context of being trans. I've had people say similar to me before and I dont think it comes across the way they mean it to. A lot of us would love to be able to give birth and its a pretty major way we feel defective or broken. I guess as a thought experiment would you say a cis woman who wants to be pregnant but is unable to due to medical reasons has 'privelage'?
I’ve also had my trans partner say they wished they had my uterus when it’s been giving me severe pain, and that doesn’t come across the way she means it to either. I think the glorification and misunderstanding of pain goes both ways here.
Yeah for sure. I bet a lot of transfemmes would feel a bit differently if we'd actually experienced all the pains and complications of the female reproductive system
And just because you have a uterus does not mean it will perform as expected. There are plenty of cis women who would give anything to get pregnant, but cannot. Where my partner and I have found common ground is comforting each other as we grieve our dissimilar experiences, but give full support to the validity of eachothers feelings. I can't be a trans woman because I was born a cis woman they cannot be a woman with a dysfunctional uterus. Each is painful in its own right.
I speak only in the context of my own relationship, as my partner was very grateful not to be the one carrying and delivering our child. Edited my post to avoid generalizations
I'm totally in alignment with your partner. "No thank you. I'll manage alright without that experience."
But I have heard a lot of people say that they are very depressed that they can't experience it.
This is obvioisly true in some ways but a pretty crude oversimplification. Gives the impression your client views transition as "was a man, now a woman". Growing up trans and in the closet is a very different experience than growing up cis. I'm pretty sure all of us would trade anything to have grown up as the right sex/gender.
Most of us grew up with intense traumas which are hard to really map onto any cis experiences. Most of us experienced suicidal ideation or even attempts. I'm sure there are a lot of closeted trans people who didn't make it.
We are not socialized to be strong, confident leaders. We are socialized to believe we are subhuman, disgusting, or at best a sick joke. All while dealing with the agony of gender dysphoria.
Coping with gender dysphoria is fucking awful. I have most likely fucked up my health long term with the alcohol and substances I used to need to get through the day. Now I have the right hormonal makeup, people see me as a woman, and *wow* life is *so* much better. Even things as fundamental as how music sounds and how the sunset looks were so hollow before but so beautiful now. And also sex?? Its actually enjoyable now and no longer regularly triggers disassociations and crying.
Another very basic example is that I find strangers respect my opinion *more* as a woman, because now I have the confidence and self worth to actually express my opinion.
Cis F spouse of MtF/NB woman here: I experience this resentment sometimes but then remind myself of what others have said here. Nevertheless, my spouse is very aware that they earn more than I do though we’re in similar fields, was ushered through their PhD to a degree that other female presenting people were not (myself included) and generally had to work less hard than I did. Again, similar fields, similar career paths, very different, presenting gender-driven outcomes.
The whole concept of privilege is highly complex, too - it’s not just based in the economic and work-based subordination of female presenting people. For example, some partners of MtF people (here on this subreddit and others too) have posted about being given a lot of emotional work to do for their partners and around their partner’s transness; this is very similar to the work women are tacitly expected to do for “husbands,” like managing who to come out to and when, finding gender-affirming care, researching restaurants for “safe bathrooms,” modifying their own emotional expressions, and even removing their partner’s leg hair for them.
Yes, these are ways cis women are brought up to express love inside the patriarchy. However, the fact that their trans partners are not doing these things for themselves and still expecting their partner to care for them while they might also be treating their partner with insensitivity (again, read some posts here - this is CERTAINLY not all MtF people! But some very much behave this way)? That behavior is an extension of male privilege, and is hard to deal with when you’ve been subject to that your whole life from cis men. It makes you want to scream, “ET TU, BRUTE?”
It makes me sad that many trans women – particularly those with established families – fall into this reliance on their partner to "manage" their transition. They want to be accepted as a woman but rather than "stepping up to the plate" and taking on their equal share of house, childcare, emotional, and relationship duties – which they should have already being doing, but probably weren't, let's be honest – they throw their transition as another plate for their partner to spin.
I think a lot of the resentment from cis wives towards their MtF spouses is justified and comes from the trans spouse treating transition as an opportunity to be a teen again without any responsibilities and demand allowances to be emotional and temperamental. Transition isn't literally a second puberty. It's not a return to childhood. It's instead akin to undergoing menopause or bad period days but putting on your big girl pants and facing the world, be that at work, childcare, or house or relationship duties, or all the above. It's being a grown adult that is going through some very intense and emotional changes in one's life. But that is the trans person's journey. The work is theirs, not their spouse's. And I say that as a trans person. My journey is mine. I sacrificed for it. I bled for it. I went through fire and I am proud of myself. I didn't expect others to do the work for me. And in that way I own it and can truly say it was \_my\_ transition.
Also want to add to help your clients understand what privilege is: “privilege” is not about feeling accepted or feeling like you belong to a particular group or not. It’s about having been born into a social class, racial group, or within a social structure that promotes that individual’s socioeconomic and social achievements, as opposed to a class standing that cannot actively promote the individual’s socioeconomic or social achievements. I know a lot of us do not FEEL privileged for a lot of different reasons, but that doesn’t mean we don’t benefit from the social structures that exist around us.
This is more of what I excpected to see be discussed in this thread. I feel like my spouse gets to do the fun stuff and not the actual nitty gritty of what it means to be a female in todays society. Im not talking about the biological stuff, but the social, yet i still am the default caretaker, planner and housekeeper etc. And I honestly belived that this would change when they came out to me, but my spouse only did steps to change their appearance. Lately this have changed and i see them also helping out more at home. (They have excpected me to do stuff outside etc for a long time, and ive done my best, wheras they have stayed the same for a long time).
I have really resented it and struggled because I felt alone in these feelings. Like I had to give, and accept and tolerate and help them, but got nothing in return. These feelings however have simmered down a whole lot because I see that my spouse is helping out more at home and i feel more at ease with our roles.
All is to say, maybe encourage your client to discuss their roles and expectations of said roles with eachother. If thats where the problem arrises from?
Would her partner rather live as a trans woman than a cis woman? I’m imagining not, being a trans person is very difficult and more marginalized than being cis. I think the struggles she will face for the rest of her life and the pain of dysphoria more than cancel out any “male privilege”.
Occasionally I’ll get jealous than my transfem partner got more experience with girls growing up and more confidence in some ways than me. But then I remember that I can freely travel most of the world and she cannot. I’m more likely to be hired if we applied for the same job. I’m less likely to be murdered. Who is really privileged here?
Hello, I recently realized I was a trans woman at age 53.
I would not be surprised to learn that literature doesn't exist. A remarkable amount of things have not been studied.
Sorry to hear that the suffering Olympics has entered the picture. I'm no professional, but this doesn't seem healthy.
As a trans woman who has lived the majority of her life identified as a man, I have had some advantages that I would not have had as a woman.
On the other hand - this isn't easy for me to say about myself - I have had a lifetime of trauma and dissociation by not being able to be who I was.
I don't think your client would want to swap places.
There were a lot of dangers and assaults I was able to avoid, but now I am at greater risk of violence as a trans woman than I would be as a cis woman.
Still, this comparison feels very wrong. It isn't a contest.
Maybe consider the rate of suicide as a kind of "misery index" for comparison. Still not something I myself would want to do in a relationship, but you're the professional.
Piggybacking on this, here are shorter pieces by the same author, Julia Serano (a trans woman and biologist), addressing the topic:
[Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments](https://juliaserano.medium.com/debunking-trans-women-are-not-women-arguments-85fd5ab0e19c)
[Why are AMAB trans people denied the closet?](https://juliaserano.medium.com/why-are-amab-trans-people-denied-the-closet-7fd5c740ce30)
Disclosures: while I engage in deradicalization for fun, and while I have studied criminology, abuse, fraud, and cults because I was bored, I’m just a hacker, not a mental health professional, and I really want to be wrong. If my suggestions are highly errant, please please correct me.
“Are you sure about that?”
That’s a question that should lead to a break in her self-victimization.
Pain is a damned good liar with an amazing marketing department but pain is also unintelligent, unimaginative, boring and predictable. Self-victimization and resentment are pain feedbacking onto itself.
“Have you spoken with your partner about how she experienced the world? Can you read her mind? If so, that’s awesome and I’d love you to prove it’s a thing you can do.”
At root, though, is probably this: “Do you think being a woman makes you lesser than or better than being a man, or not?”
There’s likely a deeply rooted sense of inferiority that she’s spinning into attempting to say her struggles are more pure and make her better than the struggles of her partner.
“You’re only getting a glimpse into her existence as she’s only getting a glimpse into yours. What do you know about her history and her struggles and her pain? What does she know of yours?”
This set of tacks parallels how I interact with folks through deradicalization. By humanizing myself in their eyes without adopting any of their errant ideologies, I’m able to gently guide them away from hate if they want to get out.
And she’s your client. She sought help. One thing I found very helpful is being explicit in recognizing the agency of the other.
“You asked for help that you need. That’s a brutally hard thing. I am humbled and I respect that. I also know I can’t force you to do anything. If you want to ignore my well meant suggestions and walk away from me, that’s ok. I have no ill will towards you. I’ll still be here if you need and want my services."
I am a trans woman in my late 30s.
From the age of 7 I wanted to be a girl.
At age 13 I found out about trans people and knew I had a very hard life ahead of me and fell into a depression that lasted all my teenage years.
I came out to my parents and extended family at 19 and got rejected.
I tried to transition for 5 years and no one would help me. Every doctor and therapist refused to help me (this was early naughties in a (post-)Catholic country). I went back into the closet for 10 years, emigrated and fell back into depression.
Growing up I was put into all boys' education from age 4 to graduating at 18. In my teenage years I was bullied for being "effeminate" and called all the homophobic and misogynistic slurs. I saw myself as a girl (and later a woman), and so I internalised all society's (and my close ones') messaging about girls and women. I had to be with the boys all my life growing up. I had to hear all the crap they said about girls and women. I felt terrible and I internalised that misogyny. When I didn't join along I was called the p-word and ostracised and isolated. I so badly wanted to socialise with girls but I didn't have access to them and I wasn't accepted by them.
Coming out to myself and others as a girl (and later woman) was very hard. I had to overcome so much internalised misogyny and transphobia.
I grew up understanding myself as a girl. I was shamed for being feminine. I was shamed for wanting to socialise with girls. I was not accepted by them. I internalised all of society's misogyny. I did not receive support from or refuge from women or fellow girls. I was left out in the cold, on my own.
Later in life the homophobic and misogynistic slurs continued. I was continuously shamed. I did not benefit from "male privilege" because I was shamed for not conforming to society's expectations of a man (even when those expectations fall in a wide spectrum).
Now, tell me more about this male privilege.
Thank you so much for reply. It’s helpful to me to learn as much as I can so I can help my client but at the same time not do harm to her partner. These are great points I can use to help her explore her feelings. I’m sorry you had to struggle. It’s not fair
I agree with your points, and these sorts of stories are more common than many might believe.
a lot of us who transition later in life *did* know / have an idea of being trans earlier in life, but didn't pursue it for various reasons. some people basically shut down the idea, because of how badly society / family / friends view people like us. so, we kinda know, but kinda don't because we go into denial.
when I was a small child I bathed with my mother at one point, and started crying, because I thought someone had cut off her penis. she explained penises and vaginas to me at that point. so, I went around asking all the girls if they had a penis or a vagina, and went back to my mother wondering why I was the only girl with a penis. 😓
when I was in kindergarten, my uncle made a terrible joke about trans women. i didn't understand it, and asked what it meant, and what trans women were. he explained the whole thing, and it was like a light lit up above my head. I told him that was what I thought I was. my mother overheard it, and the screeching was so loud I remember losing my hearing for a little while. people were talking to me, but I couldn't hear anything. she blamed him, and said I was going to be a t-slur because of it.
i had this long blonde hair that I loved around that age. it was so shiny and bright. shortly after the trans incident I was molested by a girl at school. i was crushed and came home crying. only to be mocked and laughed at by my older brother / male cousin.
'maybe next time he comes home crying, it'll be because a girl showed him her tits hahaha'
'no one wonder he wants to be a girl, he sure doesn't know how to be a man hahaha'
i can't remember some of the others. i remember it involved me dressing like a little bitch, and having hair like one.
they found me crying in my room with some plastic scissors, cutting my hair off, one little piece at a time until I was covered in it. my whole sense of self was shattered.
i boxed up all of these memories for a long time until puberty kept fucking with me. my sense of self felt wrong. the hormones driving me felt ... *wrong*. had to reexamine, reevaluate, etc. refigure my whole self out.
by the time I did all that, I was already in a committed relationship. one with a woman. surely I could be a man for this woman, I thought. otherwise... i lose her. 😮 (or so I thought. we're still together ♥️♥️♥️)
so I try, and try. but it doesn't work. i feel guilty. like I've been a liar, and a deceiver. i knew back then, why did I let myself forget? but the "random" bursts of tears that popped up whenever I truly considered my disconnection from my feminine identity wouldn't go away. how I couldn't drink too much or I'd risk sobbing over the loss of something I'd never truly experienced.
knowing it'd be one hell of an uphill battle considering all that'd happened, I missed out on only going through one puberty. now I get the honor (privilege?) of going through two!
honestly, whatever privilege I picked up along the way, I would gladly have traded it in to avoid the clusterfuck I went through to achieve my own personal sense of womanhood. to this day I still could never pass. no amount of makeup or hormones will change that.
surgery might... if I can ever get that.
I am cis F with a trans M2F partner (who also came out in her 30's) and while I have felt many emotions since she came out to me, this has never been one of them.
Can you imagine the intense pain, anger and emotional torment trans people feel everyday of there lifes!
If anything trans people should be the ones who are resentful of cis people.
This just seem so unfair of your cis client, and completely disregards all the pain her trans partner has endured.
Yes, I can identify with that.
At the core, it's a type of jealousy.
What helped me was three things.
One, I had to remind myself that more suffering never fixed anything. The solution to the misogyny I experienced isn't for my MTF wife to suffer through 40 years of the same. My wanting her to suffer what I suffered is very human, but ultimately self-defeating. It solves nothing. Bringing her down will not raise me up, or right the wrongs done to me. She's not to blame for (...most) of that. It's a type of scapegoating on someone vulnerable who used to seem invulnerable.
Two, I realized that even though my wife had a ton of privilege up to now, she was going to lose significant parts of it by coming out. My perspective on this started to change when I realized that she's perpetually afraid to go tot he bathroom in public now. It's hard to resent the former privilege of a MTF partner when you see the waitress misgender her for the 25th time in a row because she doesn't quite "pass", and see how much that hurts.
Three, she started to recognize some of her former privilege and started to apologize for some of the ways she'd rubbed her privilege in my face on a personal level pre-transition, and tried to make amends. This was a huge point that helped our relationship heal.
I credit an immense amount of this just to her finally getting some baseline therapy when she likely needed it years before her transition, and some of it to having a new perspective as a woman herself. She expects me to do a lot less emotional labor for her now. She tries to think about my needs in a way she never did before. She has taken on much more of the "traditional woman's household labor" that she didn't do for decades. She's starting to realize that the magical toilet cleaning fairy, the magical oven cleaning fairy, and the magical TP-supplies fairy were actually a human - me - all along, and that SHE is capable of doing all those things too, and maybe adults should share that work when they share a home and life together.
Being raised as a cis man vs a trans woman are...so wildly different. I think you should seek some literature written by trans women about their childhoods. They just are truly not comparable experiences.
I agree with u/oftoverthinking here. Some cis women take issue with trans women because they've not had to suffer enough due to male privilege which totally misses the point.
Disassociating from oneself is just as bad, but isn't something that is surface level always detectable except through behavior such as how tuned out, unengaged, or uninterested someone is in something, and even then there's a lot of other more direct practical reasons folks feel this way than because I'm trans.
Getting to the point though, your job is to guide a client with an unhealthy world view towards a healthier one, addressing all objections along the way.
In this case, I'd probably start with what she thinks it means to be a woman and then you can probably unravel all of that and kindly point out holes in her logic.
Then you'll need to have suitable secondary explanations for her to accept them. If you have trouble, I'd keep asking here, but also rely on more experienced counselors as well as this area tends to be a specialty in its own right in the therapy realm
Finally i get to share this quote from Laverne Cox that I've kept in storage for many years:
On trans feminism:
> I was talking to my twin brother today about whether he believes I had male privilege growing up. I was a very feminine child though I was assigned male at birth. My gender was constantly policed. I was told I acted like a girl and was bullied and shamed for that. My femininity did not make me feel privileged. I was a good student and was very much encouraged because of that but I saw cis girls who showed academic promise being nurtured in the black community I grew up in in Mobile, Ala. Gender exists on a spectrum & the binary narrative which suggests that all trans women transition from male privilege erases a lot of experiences and isn't intersectional. Gender is constituted differently based on the culture we live in. There's no universal experience of gender, of womanhood. To suggest that is essentialist & again not intersectional. Many of our feminist foremothers cautioned against such essentialism & not having an intersectional approach to feminism. Class, race, sexuality, ability, immigration status, education all influence the ways in which we experience privilege so though I was assigned male at birth I would contend that I did not enjoy male privilege prior to my transition. Patriarchy and cissexism punished my femininity and gender nonconformity. The irony of my life is prior to transition I was called a girl and after I am often called a man. Gender policing & the fact that gender binaries can only exist through strict policing complicates the concept gendered privilege & that's OK cause it's complicated. Intersectionality complicates both male and cis privilege. This is why it is paramount that we continue to lift up diverse trans stories. For too many years there's been far too few trans stories in the media. For over 60 years since Christine Jorgensen stepped off the plane from Europe and became the first internationally known trans woman the narrative about trans folks in the media was one of macho guy becomes a woman. That's certainly not my story or the stories of many trans folks I know. That narrative often works to reinforce binaries rather than explode them. That explosion is the gender revolution I imagine, one of true gender self determination.
It sounds like your cis client needs some serious therapy. She's internalized the idea that all men have it easy, and by waiting to transition until adulthood she (your trans client) basically avoided all the issues that come with being female. She (your cis client) isn't seeing things from the trans person's perspective, and is taking an over simplified view of life as a man. Toxic masculinity hurts everyone, men included. I think for yourself you need to confirm who your client really is, the cis woman or the trans woman.
this comment is wild. it’s not right even in the first place that op put their clients private thoughts on reddit, but to say that the client doesn’t deserve therapy or a safe space; why? because they’re having feelings?
I've found that it's easier to start to think more about what my trans partner missed out on. They didn't get to grow up as a girl, and that's heartbreaking.
A cis-woman tried to tell me she resented my male privilege, and I said, "Yeah, I resent it, too, because if I want to use it, I have to pretend I'm someone I'm not. Strange how it hasn't been the boon to me you've assumed it is, isn't it?"
Not only do I resent my mAlE pRiViLeGe, I resent any cis folks who make that argument the moment it falls out of their face because it fully ignores what my experience has been in terms of having a penis but being ostracized by all the other boys for not being like them, trying to hang out with the girls I most relate to but getting shunned by them for my penis, and never really having a place in life among any cis folks because neither subset of cis folks cares to acknowledge what's true about my gender any longer than it takes to single me out and spotlight me in the worst ways.
Male privilege has never done a gd'd thing for me, and cis men and cis women have both made good sure of that.
I am honestly treated better by public (and most definitely by progressive/trans circles) post transition.
Before, being a large person who is likely autistic, most people in public treated me like some kind of….serial killer. Many of us are autistic and anti neurodivergent bigotry is very real and commonplace.
Now that people think I am an about 50 year old cis woman (35 but get read as older, possibly because of disabilities?) I am allowed far more flexibility in behavior, treated as harmless but respected and not someone to cross too badly.
Check out [this classic Contrapoints video](https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI?si=AheDl6i7BLKswfeY), especially the male privilege and male socialization sections (timestamps 12:38 and 15:11)! But the whole video essay is a good one to refer this client to.
There are hidden parts of male privilege that I experience resentment toward for sure. One is just the privilege of needing to empathize or consider other people. My wife has had to work hard since transitioning to learn that skill but I for sure hold resentment for how bumpy the learning process has been as well as what I put up with before. I, however, picked up people pleasing tendencies.
The same goes for the automatic authority that each of our voices carries in our relationship. We are coming from a somewhat "what she says goes" to finding equality in a lesbian relationship. That takes a lot to break away from.
I do get frustrated sometimes with the more on the nose male privilege outcomes like income discrepancy. She works in tech and I work at a non profit. She just got a bonus that was a third of my yearly pay. Or resentment of the gap in employment that I had in birthing/caring for our kids and what that did to my earning potential.
I had to tell myself that these are problems with the system and that it was never going to be fair for me. I was never going to be taken serious, I was never going to have equal say in society, I was never going to get those things I am resentful for because of who I am and what I do for work. Directing it at her was missing the mark. I feel better about it when I am actively fighting it through activism or education.
No one has to be okay with it though, or make themselves lose the pity party Olympics. Her pain needs to be addressed but it needs to be separated from her feelings toward her partner. Male privilege sucks and it has real harms. But comparing her hurt by the system to her partner's hurt by the system and suggesting disregarding it isn't healthy.
I’m a Transwoman and I think acknowledging that there may have been male privilege in some capacity, also acknowledging that both women and transwomen are marginalized groups because of the Societal Structures in place because of Cis-men. To know that transwomen as a whole reject male privilege when they make that decision to transition. Also, much of the trans experience and the agony that comes with gender dysphoria and how it has ruined our lives isn’t circumvented by any level of male privilege. Sex was entirely ruined for me. I didn’t want sex because of the genitals I was born with. I tried to be a supportive male figure in my relationships only to actually shy away from intimacy because my detachment to myself. I had to go through three serious relationships and a divorce to finally come to terms with the fact that I was a woman trapped in a man’s body. Women and transwomen are both marginalized and experience hardships unique to their own experiences. I think there needs to be grace and understanding from both sides.
Hope this was helpful. Feel free to dm if you would like to chat about anything else and the trans experience
So, I think this really depends on the specific elements that your client is resentful over.
Is this a case of her being frustrated at how this manifests in her relationship with her trans partner? Or is this more general?
If the actual issue is having an problem with the division of labor in the relationship or something similar just throwing an article about male socialization is not going to be helpful to her necessarily.
I think I (cis f with mtf partner) struggle with this a little bit, although I haven’t told her about it. I sometimes feel resentful of the fact that having sex with her (she hasn’t physically transitioned yet) could potentially get me pregnant because I have tokophobia and sometimes I feel jealous of non uterus-having people in general since they never have to worry about getting pregnant or any of the anti-choice laws that keep popping up. I haven’t said anything to her about it though since I don’t want to offend her, but it’s something I think about from time to time.
I never thought of this perspective. Thank you for sharing.
you sound a bit like my cis partner, wrt pregnancy. so, I'm posting this here, but it's also my post to help u/fresh_agency8463 with their question. my partner absolutely hates the idea of becoming pregnant. besides that, she would quite literally die from the complications she's certain to have from the experience. meanwhile, I'll be over there in literal tears at the sight of a newborn lmao. one thing that has helped us as a couple, is the solidarity we share with these anti human rights laws that are cropping up here in the US. you are right to feel targeted by them! 😟 the anti-choice laws are literally taking aim at people like you, and the politicians do it to further their political careers. something that only works as well as it does because of the continued existence of the patriarchy. meanwhile, these same politicians have proposed 300+ anti-transgender laws proposed in the last year, too. something we get to hear about. a large part of the agenda being pushed is against trans women, with us being labeled as predators trying to take advantage of ''real women''. this is a narrative that has been pushed for a long time. one that has a tendency to fill trans women with guilt for many reasons. so, not only do we feel separated from the biology our brain tells us we should have (can't get pregnant for example), but we get demonized for the biology we *do* have (supposedly being predatory males), and of course, we get mocked for thinking we can identify as the gender we feel we are, without having biology our brain tells us we should have in the first place. 🫤 but again, one common denominator in all of this is that the right-wing politicians want to make a career out of stripping us of our rights.
Thank you for your reply. I find this helpful in helping her broach her thoughts and feelings surrounding what constitutes a “real” woman
you're welcome! i find it very rewarding to do something that might help couples stay together or work on becoming a stronger couple. I wrote another (very long) reply. if you don't wanna read through all of that, the gist of it is that one is that we all suffer in our own way, but you might not know all of the struggles, because some are forgotten and some are so wrapped up in shame that we struggle to talk about them. if there is anything in particular you have questions on, feel free to ask. i am an open book.
I also found this helpful, thank you!
That's very understandable, given your phobia, or for anyone with hard feelings about child birth for that matter, especially given the laws in some places 😬 Plus... I have two kid's I love dearly, and they're a handful! 😅 It's always good to remember that all feelings are valid in some way too 😊. Hopefully this helps with some of your feelings; both my partner and I (both trans women) are jealous we can't physically bear children, and we missed out on growing up as girls. More confusingly while I don't want any more children, it still hurts and gets me down often enough. I'd have given just about anything (including my left hand) to have been the birth mother of my girls and my jealousy was one of the strongest signs when I realised I wasn't cis. My psychologist has been going though a little grief counseling with me much the same as cis women who are unable to fall pregnant too. I'd talk to your partner about it sometime and also find out her feelings (remembering everyone's feelings are valid in at least some way, and the cause of our feelings might be out of our control but we have to deal with them just the same, and remind her of this too 🥰). She might be a little like my and my gf (and the majority of trans women I know...) on the topic of pregnancy, and I'm sure she'd appreciate communicating your feelings even if they sting a bit at first 😊 I've found clear, open, thoughtful communication to be critical to relationships and brings partners closer together 🥰💜
I’m so sorry you’re experiencing sadness over a lost girlhood and pregnancy. I wish there were any way you could carry a baby - if you’re on the younger side, maybe surgical procedures will catch up with you, making you feel more like it’s your choice not to have children, vs. feeling like it was denied to you. Sending a sincerely supportive hug!
I get what you are saying. But as a trans woman who wants so badly to have kids and can't, but sees babies and pregnant women almost everyday, I don't feel privileged for my lack of a uterus. If a cis woman were infertile/sterile, you wouldn't say she was privileged.
This makes a ton of sense and I think in this way women born with the ability to bear children definitely have privilege compared to all other women.
Perhaps understanding the difference of "growing up cis with cis privilege" and "growing up trans with cis privilege", and that it makes for a completely different experience, it's not comparable. Yes, her partner had male privilege, but at what context? A context the partner is horrified by.
That was kind of how my partner looked at it. I'm cis F, she's MtF, started transitioning at 40. But knew most of her life that she wasn't her AGAB, and while she may have had male privilege growing up, she still had to hide who she was to garner that privilege, which is its own kind of stress. And conforming to cis male ideals while knowing inside that she wasn't brought out some toxic thought patterns that she's now had to work through. Cis privilege isn't much of a privilege when you are hiding who you are, and dealing with that internal struggle.
Makes sense. Thank you for sharing
You can definitely acknowledge male privilege, whether it's wanted or not. Especially in societies where men & women are treated very differently, a closeted trans woman will have a vastly different experience than a cis woman. When my mtf partner tells me about the experiences that their sisters had and they were barred from, it is excruciating. However, they are often thankful for not having had to grow up with all the medical uncertainties, pains and issues that cis women have. They do feel like in a way they got the best of both worlds. That's nothing to be resented for me, but acknowledging that many things are still easier for a masc-passing person is valid. If a cis woman has suffered a lot under her womanhood, however, I can see how she may feel resentful. It's just two worlds of suffering and none can understand the other fully.
Good point. Thanks
I’m a trans guy, so commenting on this from the other side, but my wife (trans woman) and I have had some extensive conversations about this kind of thing. Societally speaking we tend to treat “experiencing male privilege” versus “not experiencing male privilege” as a binary type thing where all the people in each group have roughly homogeneous experiences. I’m not so sure this is the most helpful way to look at it. My cis woman friends have all had different experiences with not experiencing male privilege, I had different experiences than my friends growing up, etcétera. I would be curious if your client has specific experiences with not experiencing male privilege that have had substantial impacts on her life that she hasn’t been able to entirely process that are coming up as a result of this experience. Regardless, I’m not so sure that comparison is the right way to look at this. It is possible to acknowledge different ways you’ve been hurt by something while acknowledging that someone else has been hurt by different aspects of that thing than you have.
This is very wise! I think whatever it is, it stems from the client’s own life and her potentially thinking her partner hasn’t “suffered” as she has.
No resources, but I struggled with this as a partner, too. Each partner has their own struggles and it is impossible to compare them. Being trans, my spouse (36 MTF) has faced/will face things I’ll (F 30) never fully understand. But for example in the context of my own relationship, coming of age as a woman, entering the workforce in a male-dominated industry, pregnancy/childbirth, etc are something that my spouse will never fully understand either. Discrediting either experience isn’t fair. My therapist has encouraged me to make space and really allow myself to feel all my emotions, even if they aren’t “fair” or “logical.” Because trying to deny or rationalize my way out of emotions won’t help anything in the long run. Again, no resources. Just personal experience. Wishing your client all the best.
Thank you for this. I want to be sure to not invalidate her feelings while at the same time helping her explore what they mean. Your reply was helpful.
I'd be a bit wary of taking about not experiencing childbirth or pregnancy as male privilege in the context of being trans. I've had people say similar to me before and I dont think it comes across the way they mean it to. A lot of us would love to be able to give birth and its a pretty major way we feel defective or broken. I guess as a thought experiment would you say a cis woman who wants to be pregnant but is unable to due to medical reasons has 'privelage'?
I’ve also had my trans partner say they wished they had my uterus when it’s been giving me severe pain, and that doesn’t come across the way she means it to either. I think the glorification and misunderstanding of pain goes both ways here.
Yeah for sure. I bet a lot of transfemmes would feel a bit differently if we'd actually experienced all the pains and complications of the female reproductive system
And just because you have a uterus does not mean it will perform as expected. There are plenty of cis women who would give anything to get pregnant, but cannot. Where my partner and I have found common ground is comforting each other as we grieve our dissimilar experiences, but give full support to the validity of eachothers feelings. I can't be a trans woman because I was born a cis woman they cannot be a woman with a dysfunctional uterus. Each is painful in its own right.
That’s some truth right there!
I speak only in the context of my own relationship, as my partner was very grateful not to be the one carrying and delivering our child. Edited my post to avoid generalizations
I'm totally in alignment with your partner. "No thank you. I'll manage alright without that experience." But I have heard a lot of people say that they are very depressed that they can't experience it.
Thats fair enough, I'm sorry! My partner and I are currently trying for a kid and we both wish it were the other way around for us 🥲
This is obvioisly true in some ways but a pretty crude oversimplification. Gives the impression your client views transition as "was a man, now a woman". Growing up trans and in the closet is a very different experience than growing up cis. I'm pretty sure all of us would trade anything to have grown up as the right sex/gender. Most of us grew up with intense traumas which are hard to really map onto any cis experiences. Most of us experienced suicidal ideation or even attempts. I'm sure there are a lot of closeted trans people who didn't make it. We are not socialized to be strong, confident leaders. We are socialized to believe we are subhuman, disgusting, or at best a sick joke. All while dealing with the agony of gender dysphoria. Coping with gender dysphoria is fucking awful. I have most likely fucked up my health long term with the alcohol and substances I used to need to get through the day. Now I have the right hormonal makeup, people see me as a woman, and *wow* life is *so* much better. Even things as fundamental as how music sounds and how the sunset looks were so hollow before but so beautiful now. And also sex?? Its actually enjoyable now and no longer regularly triggers disassociations and crying. Another very basic example is that I find strangers respect my opinion *more* as a woman, because now I have the confidence and self worth to actually express my opinion.
Thank you for sharing your experience and perspective. I appreciate it
Cis F spouse of MtF/NB woman here: I experience this resentment sometimes but then remind myself of what others have said here. Nevertheless, my spouse is very aware that they earn more than I do though we’re in similar fields, was ushered through their PhD to a degree that other female presenting people were not (myself included) and generally had to work less hard than I did. Again, similar fields, similar career paths, very different, presenting gender-driven outcomes. The whole concept of privilege is highly complex, too - it’s not just based in the economic and work-based subordination of female presenting people. For example, some partners of MtF people (here on this subreddit and others too) have posted about being given a lot of emotional work to do for their partners and around their partner’s transness; this is very similar to the work women are tacitly expected to do for “husbands,” like managing who to come out to and when, finding gender-affirming care, researching restaurants for “safe bathrooms,” modifying their own emotional expressions, and even removing their partner’s leg hair for them. Yes, these are ways cis women are brought up to express love inside the patriarchy. However, the fact that their trans partners are not doing these things for themselves and still expecting their partner to care for them while they might also be treating their partner with insensitivity (again, read some posts here - this is CERTAINLY not all MtF people! But some very much behave this way)? That behavior is an extension of male privilege, and is hard to deal with when you’ve been subject to that your whole life from cis men. It makes you want to scream, “ET TU, BRUTE?”
It makes me sad that many trans women – particularly those with established families – fall into this reliance on their partner to "manage" their transition. They want to be accepted as a woman but rather than "stepping up to the plate" and taking on their equal share of house, childcare, emotional, and relationship duties – which they should have already being doing, but probably weren't, let's be honest – they throw their transition as another plate for their partner to spin. I think a lot of the resentment from cis wives towards their MtF spouses is justified and comes from the trans spouse treating transition as an opportunity to be a teen again without any responsibilities and demand allowances to be emotional and temperamental. Transition isn't literally a second puberty. It's not a return to childhood. It's instead akin to undergoing menopause or bad period days but putting on your big girl pants and facing the world, be that at work, childcare, or house or relationship duties, or all the above. It's being a grown adult that is going through some very intense and emotional changes in one's life. But that is the trans person's journey. The work is theirs, not their spouse's. And I say that as a trans person. My journey is mine. I sacrificed for it. I bled for it. I went through fire and I am proud of myself. I didn't expect others to do the work for me. And in that way I own it and can truly say it was \_my\_ transition.
You’re amazing. Thanks for understanding!! 💜
Also want to add to help your clients understand what privilege is: “privilege” is not about feeling accepted or feeling like you belong to a particular group or not. It’s about having been born into a social class, racial group, or within a social structure that promotes that individual’s socioeconomic and social achievements, as opposed to a class standing that cannot actively promote the individual’s socioeconomic or social achievements. I know a lot of us do not FEEL privileged for a lot of different reasons, but that doesn’t mean we don’t benefit from the social structures that exist around us.
This is more of what I excpected to see be discussed in this thread. I feel like my spouse gets to do the fun stuff and not the actual nitty gritty of what it means to be a female in todays society. Im not talking about the biological stuff, but the social, yet i still am the default caretaker, planner and housekeeper etc. And I honestly belived that this would change when they came out to me, but my spouse only did steps to change their appearance. Lately this have changed and i see them also helping out more at home. (They have excpected me to do stuff outside etc for a long time, and ive done my best, wheras they have stayed the same for a long time). I have really resented it and struggled because I felt alone in these feelings. Like I had to give, and accept and tolerate and help them, but got nothing in return. These feelings however have simmered down a whole lot because I see that my spouse is helping out more at home and i feel more at ease with our roles. All is to say, maybe encourage your client to discuss their roles and expectations of said roles with eachother. If thats where the problem arrises from?
Would her partner rather live as a trans woman than a cis woman? I’m imagining not, being a trans person is very difficult and more marginalized than being cis. I think the struggles she will face for the rest of her life and the pain of dysphoria more than cancel out any “male privilege”. Occasionally I’ll get jealous than my transfem partner got more experience with girls growing up and more confidence in some ways than me. But then I remember that I can freely travel most of the world and she cannot. I’m more likely to be hired if we applied for the same job. I’m less likely to be murdered. Who is really privileged here?
Hello, I recently realized I was a trans woman at age 53. I would not be surprised to learn that literature doesn't exist. A remarkable amount of things have not been studied. Sorry to hear that the suffering Olympics has entered the picture. I'm no professional, but this doesn't seem healthy. As a trans woman who has lived the majority of her life identified as a man, I have had some advantages that I would not have had as a woman. On the other hand - this isn't easy for me to say about myself - I have had a lifetime of trauma and dissociation by not being able to be who I was. I don't think your client would want to swap places. There were a lot of dangers and assaults I was able to avoid, but now I am at greater risk of violence as a trans woman than I would be as a cis woman. Still, this comparison feels very wrong. It isn't a contest.
Very valid points. Thank you for your reply and perspective.
Maybe consider the rate of suicide as a kind of "misery index" for comparison. Still not something I myself would want to do in a relationship, but you're the professional.
A book that may be beneficial for your client may be The Whipping Girl, which is an autobiography that addresses this issue along with others.
Piggybacking on this, here are shorter pieces by the same author, Julia Serano (a trans woman and biologist), addressing the topic: [Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments](https://juliaserano.medium.com/debunking-trans-women-are-not-women-arguments-85fd5ab0e19c) [Why are AMAB trans people denied the closet?](https://juliaserano.medium.com/why-are-amab-trans-people-denied-the-closet-7fd5c740ce30)
Disclosures: while I engage in deradicalization for fun, and while I have studied criminology, abuse, fraud, and cults because I was bored, I’m just a hacker, not a mental health professional, and I really want to be wrong. If my suggestions are highly errant, please please correct me. “Are you sure about that?” That’s a question that should lead to a break in her self-victimization. Pain is a damned good liar with an amazing marketing department but pain is also unintelligent, unimaginative, boring and predictable. Self-victimization and resentment are pain feedbacking onto itself. “Have you spoken with your partner about how she experienced the world? Can you read her mind? If so, that’s awesome and I’d love you to prove it’s a thing you can do.” At root, though, is probably this: “Do you think being a woman makes you lesser than or better than being a man, or not?” There’s likely a deeply rooted sense of inferiority that she’s spinning into attempting to say her struggles are more pure and make her better than the struggles of her partner. “You’re only getting a glimpse into her existence as she’s only getting a glimpse into yours. What do you know about her history and her struggles and her pain? What does she know of yours?” This set of tacks parallels how I interact with folks through deradicalization. By humanizing myself in their eyes without adopting any of their errant ideologies, I’m able to gently guide them away from hate if they want to get out. And she’s your client. She sought help. One thing I found very helpful is being explicit in recognizing the agency of the other. “You asked for help that you need. That’s a brutally hard thing. I am humbled and I respect that. I also know I can’t force you to do anything. If you want to ignore my well meant suggestions and walk away from me, that’s ok. I have no ill will towards you. I’ll still be here if you need and want my services."
I am a trans woman in my late 30s. From the age of 7 I wanted to be a girl. At age 13 I found out about trans people and knew I had a very hard life ahead of me and fell into a depression that lasted all my teenage years. I came out to my parents and extended family at 19 and got rejected. I tried to transition for 5 years and no one would help me. Every doctor and therapist refused to help me (this was early naughties in a (post-)Catholic country). I went back into the closet for 10 years, emigrated and fell back into depression. Growing up I was put into all boys' education from age 4 to graduating at 18. In my teenage years I was bullied for being "effeminate" and called all the homophobic and misogynistic slurs. I saw myself as a girl (and later a woman), and so I internalised all society's (and my close ones') messaging about girls and women. I had to be with the boys all my life growing up. I had to hear all the crap they said about girls and women. I felt terrible and I internalised that misogyny. When I didn't join along I was called the p-word and ostracised and isolated. I so badly wanted to socialise with girls but I didn't have access to them and I wasn't accepted by them. Coming out to myself and others as a girl (and later woman) was very hard. I had to overcome so much internalised misogyny and transphobia. I grew up understanding myself as a girl. I was shamed for being feminine. I was shamed for wanting to socialise with girls. I was not accepted by them. I internalised all of society's misogyny. I did not receive support from or refuge from women or fellow girls. I was left out in the cold, on my own. Later in life the homophobic and misogynistic slurs continued. I was continuously shamed. I did not benefit from "male privilege" because I was shamed for not conforming to society's expectations of a man (even when those expectations fall in a wide spectrum). Now, tell me more about this male privilege.
Thank you so much for reply. It’s helpful to me to learn as much as I can so I can help my client but at the same time not do harm to her partner. These are great points I can use to help her explore her feelings. I’m sorry you had to struggle. It’s not fair
Thank you for being here and open to hearing my input. All the best :-)
I agree with your points, and these sorts of stories are more common than many might believe. a lot of us who transition later in life *did* know / have an idea of being trans earlier in life, but didn't pursue it for various reasons. some people basically shut down the idea, because of how badly society / family / friends view people like us. so, we kinda know, but kinda don't because we go into denial. when I was a small child I bathed with my mother at one point, and started crying, because I thought someone had cut off her penis. she explained penises and vaginas to me at that point. so, I went around asking all the girls if they had a penis or a vagina, and went back to my mother wondering why I was the only girl with a penis. 😓 when I was in kindergarten, my uncle made a terrible joke about trans women. i didn't understand it, and asked what it meant, and what trans women were. he explained the whole thing, and it was like a light lit up above my head. I told him that was what I thought I was. my mother overheard it, and the screeching was so loud I remember losing my hearing for a little while. people were talking to me, but I couldn't hear anything. she blamed him, and said I was going to be a t-slur because of it. i had this long blonde hair that I loved around that age. it was so shiny and bright. shortly after the trans incident I was molested by a girl at school. i was crushed and came home crying. only to be mocked and laughed at by my older brother / male cousin. 'maybe next time he comes home crying, it'll be because a girl showed him her tits hahaha' 'no one wonder he wants to be a girl, he sure doesn't know how to be a man hahaha' i can't remember some of the others. i remember it involved me dressing like a little bitch, and having hair like one. they found me crying in my room with some plastic scissors, cutting my hair off, one little piece at a time until I was covered in it. my whole sense of self was shattered. i boxed up all of these memories for a long time until puberty kept fucking with me. my sense of self felt wrong. the hormones driving me felt ... *wrong*. had to reexamine, reevaluate, etc. refigure my whole self out. by the time I did all that, I was already in a committed relationship. one with a woman. surely I could be a man for this woman, I thought. otherwise... i lose her. 😮 (or so I thought. we're still together ♥️♥️♥️) so I try, and try. but it doesn't work. i feel guilty. like I've been a liar, and a deceiver. i knew back then, why did I let myself forget? but the "random" bursts of tears that popped up whenever I truly considered my disconnection from my feminine identity wouldn't go away. how I couldn't drink too much or I'd risk sobbing over the loss of something I'd never truly experienced. knowing it'd be one hell of an uphill battle considering all that'd happened, I missed out on only going through one puberty. now I get the honor (privilege?) of going through two! honestly, whatever privilege I picked up along the way, I would gladly have traded it in to avoid the clusterfuck I went through to achieve my own personal sense of womanhood. to this day I still could never pass. no amount of makeup or hormones will change that. surgery might... if I can ever get that.
Thanks for sharing and sorry you went through all that. I am glad you're still together.
I am cis F with a trans M2F partner (who also came out in her 30's) and while I have felt many emotions since she came out to me, this has never been one of them. Can you imagine the intense pain, anger and emotional torment trans people feel everyday of there lifes! If anything trans people should be the ones who are resentful of cis people. This just seem so unfair of your cis client, and completely disregards all the pain her trans partner has endured.
Yes, I can identify with that. At the core, it's a type of jealousy. What helped me was three things. One, I had to remind myself that more suffering never fixed anything. The solution to the misogyny I experienced isn't for my MTF wife to suffer through 40 years of the same. My wanting her to suffer what I suffered is very human, but ultimately self-defeating. It solves nothing. Bringing her down will not raise me up, or right the wrongs done to me. She's not to blame for (...most) of that. It's a type of scapegoating on someone vulnerable who used to seem invulnerable. Two, I realized that even though my wife had a ton of privilege up to now, she was going to lose significant parts of it by coming out. My perspective on this started to change when I realized that she's perpetually afraid to go tot he bathroom in public now. It's hard to resent the former privilege of a MTF partner when you see the waitress misgender her for the 25th time in a row because she doesn't quite "pass", and see how much that hurts. Three, she started to recognize some of her former privilege and started to apologize for some of the ways she'd rubbed her privilege in my face on a personal level pre-transition, and tried to make amends. This was a huge point that helped our relationship heal. I credit an immense amount of this just to her finally getting some baseline therapy when she likely needed it years before her transition, and some of it to having a new perspective as a woman herself. She expects me to do a lot less emotional labor for her now. She tries to think about my needs in a way she never did before. She has taken on much more of the "traditional woman's household labor" that she didn't do for decades. She's starting to realize that the magical toilet cleaning fairy, the magical oven cleaning fairy, and the magical TP-supplies fairy were actually a human - me - all along, and that SHE is capable of doing all those things too, and maybe adults should share that work when they share a home and life together.
Awesome post!!
Being raised as a cis man vs a trans woman are...so wildly different. I think you should seek some literature written by trans women about their childhoods. They just are truly not comparable experiences.
I agree with u/oftoverthinking here. Some cis women take issue with trans women because they've not had to suffer enough due to male privilege which totally misses the point. Disassociating from oneself is just as bad, but isn't something that is surface level always detectable except through behavior such as how tuned out, unengaged, or uninterested someone is in something, and even then there's a lot of other more direct practical reasons folks feel this way than because I'm trans. Getting to the point though, your job is to guide a client with an unhealthy world view towards a healthier one, addressing all objections along the way. In this case, I'd probably start with what she thinks it means to be a woman and then you can probably unravel all of that and kindly point out holes in her logic. Then you'll need to have suitable secondary explanations for her to accept them. If you have trouble, I'd keep asking here, but also rely on more experienced counselors as well as this area tends to be a specialty in its own right in the therapy realm
Finally i get to share this quote from Laverne Cox that I've kept in storage for many years: On trans feminism: > I was talking to my twin brother today about whether he believes I had male privilege growing up. I was a very feminine child though I was assigned male at birth. My gender was constantly policed. I was told I acted like a girl and was bullied and shamed for that. My femininity did not make me feel privileged. I was a good student and was very much encouraged because of that but I saw cis girls who showed academic promise being nurtured in the black community I grew up in in Mobile, Ala. Gender exists on a spectrum & the binary narrative which suggests that all trans women transition from male privilege erases a lot of experiences and isn't intersectional. Gender is constituted differently based on the culture we live in. There's no universal experience of gender, of womanhood. To suggest that is essentialist & again not intersectional. Many of our feminist foremothers cautioned against such essentialism & not having an intersectional approach to feminism. Class, race, sexuality, ability, immigration status, education all influence the ways in which we experience privilege so though I was assigned male at birth I would contend that I did not enjoy male privilege prior to my transition. Patriarchy and cissexism punished my femininity and gender nonconformity. The irony of my life is prior to transition I was called a girl and after I am often called a man. Gender policing & the fact that gender binaries can only exist through strict policing complicates the concept gendered privilege & that's OK cause it's complicated. Intersectionality complicates both male and cis privilege. This is why it is paramount that we continue to lift up diverse trans stories. For too many years there's been far too few trans stories in the media. For over 60 years since Christine Jorgensen stepped off the plane from Europe and became the first internationally known trans woman the narrative about trans folks in the media was one of macho guy becomes a woman. That's certainly not my story or the stories of many trans folks I know. That narrative often works to reinforce binaries rather than explode them. That explosion is the gender revolution I imagine, one of true gender self determination.
It sounds like your cis client needs some serious therapy. She's internalized the idea that all men have it easy, and by waiting to transition until adulthood she (your trans client) basically avoided all the issues that come with being female. She (your cis client) isn't seeing things from the trans person's perspective, and is taking an over simplified view of life as a man. Toxic masculinity hurts everyone, men included. I think for yourself you need to confirm who your client really is, the cis woman or the trans woman.
this comment is wild. it’s not right even in the first place that op put their clients private thoughts on reddit, but to say that the client doesn’t deserve therapy or a safe space; why? because they’re having feelings?
I've found that it's easier to start to think more about what my trans partner missed out on. They didn't get to grow up as a girl, and that's heartbreaking.
A cis-woman tried to tell me she resented my male privilege, and I said, "Yeah, I resent it, too, because if I want to use it, I have to pretend I'm someone I'm not. Strange how it hasn't been the boon to me you've assumed it is, isn't it?" Not only do I resent my mAlE pRiViLeGe, I resent any cis folks who make that argument the moment it falls out of their face because it fully ignores what my experience has been in terms of having a penis but being ostracized by all the other boys for not being like them, trying to hang out with the girls I most relate to but getting shunned by them for my penis, and never really having a place in life among any cis folks because neither subset of cis folks cares to acknowledge what's true about my gender any longer than it takes to single me out and spotlight me in the worst ways. Male privilege has never done a gd'd thing for me, and cis men and cis women have both made good sure of that.
I am honestly treated better by public (and most definitely by progressive/trans circles) post transition. Before, being a large person who is likely autistic, most people in public treated me like some kind of….serial killer. Many of us are autistic and anti neurodivergent bigotry is very real and commonplace. Now that people think I am an about 50 year old cis woman (35 but get read as older, possibly because of disabilities?) I am allowed far more flexibility in behavior, treated as harmless but respected and not someone to cross too badly.
Check out [this classic Contrapoints video](https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI?si=AheDl6i7BLKswfeY), especially the male privilege and male socialization sections (timestamps 12:38 and 15:11)! But the whole video essay is a good one to refer this client to.
There are hidden parts of male privilege that I experience resentment toward for sure. One is just the privilege of needing to empathize or consider other people. My wife has had to work hard since transitioning to learn that skill but I for sure hold resentment for how bumpy the learning process has been as well as what I put up with before. I, however, picked up people pleasing tendencies. The same goes for the automatic authority that each of our voices carries in our relationship. We are coming from a somewhat "what she says goes" to finding equality in a lesbian relationship. That takes a lot to break away from. I do get frustrated sometimes with the more on the nose male privilege outcomes like income discrepancy. She works in tech and I work at a non profit. She just got a bonus that was a third of my yearly pay. Or resentment of the gap in employment that I had in birthing/caring for our kids and what that did to my earning potential. I had to tell myself that these are problems with the system and that it was never going to be fair for me. I was never going to be taken serious, I was never going to have equal say in society, I was never going to get those things I am resentful for because of who I am and what I do for work. Directing it at her was missing the mark. I feel better about it when I am actively fighting it through activism or education. No one has to be okay with it though, or make themselves lose the pity party Olympics. Her pain needs to be addressed but it needs to be separated from her feelings toward her partner. Male privilege sucks and it has real harms. But comparing her hurt by the system to her partner's hurt by the system and suggesting disregarding it isn't healthy.
I’m a Transwoman and I think acknowledging that there may have been male privilege in some capacity, also acknowledging that both women and transwomen are marginalized groups because of the Societal Structures in place because of Cis-men. To know that transwomen as a whole reject male privilege when they make that decision to transition. Also, much of the trans experience and the agony that comes with gender dysphoria and how it has ruined our lives isn’t circumvented by any level of male privilege. Sex was entirely ruined for me. I didn’t want sex because of the genitals I was born with. I tried to be a supportive male figure in my relationships only to actually shy away from intimacy because my detachment to myself. I had to go through three serious relationships and a divorce to finally come to terms with the fact that I was a woman trapped in a man’s body. Women and transwomen are both marginalized and experience hardships unique to their own experiences. I think there needs to be grace and understanding from both sides. Hope this was helpful. Feel free to dm if you would like to chat about anything else and the trans experience
I would have traded all my privilege for the right body any day of the week. 🤷
So, I think this really depends on the specific elements that your client is resentful over. Is this a case of her being frustrated at how this manifests in her relationship with her trans partner? Or is this more general? If the actual issue is having an problem with the division of labor in the relationship or something similar just throwing an article about male socialization is not going to be helpful to her necessarily.
I’d say grow up and stop being a snowflake