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Transmen are a separate issue but nobody seems to care much about them. 95%++ of the culture war around trans people is about transwomen, from sports to bud light to prisons to women’s shelters and from JK Rowling to Caitlyn Jenner. Almost every prominent trans person is a transwoman. The vast majority of trans activists who are themselves trans are transwomen. Transmen are essentially written off; they’re mostly just butch lesbians who consoomed some bad memes.
Trans women are, by nature of the transition much more visible. A man wearing women’s clothing is obvious and easily clocked as trans. A woman wearing men’s clothing simply looks like a short man without a beard. Elliot Paige doesn’t look that far off from a 16-year old man, put her in an average high school and she’d be seen as perhaps a weak man, but a man. Put Dylan Mulvaney anywhere in public and he’s a man in a dress and heels. If you’re looking for a spokesperson for a social group, it seems like you’d want people who are obviously part of that group. A very light white passing black person isn’t a good choice for a black rights activist simply because they don’t appear black and thus the public can’t see this person as an aspirational black person.
My sister’s best friend is a trans man as of quite recently. I knew her as a girl and she was a blue hair, tumblr type, I suspect into Yaoi. Now he’s a twinkish bottom with a thin beard addicted to Grindr hookups. Still, you wouldn’t clock him as a woman, and he seems to be having a great time. Honestly, he’s probably one of the very happiest people I know.
I confess I find this strange, and I hope (truly) that he doesn’t regret his transition eventually, but it is less grating to me than MtF. I think it’s aesthetic, as you suggest. There is an Emperor’s New Clothes phenomenon to MtF that doesn’t exist with FtM.
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A lot of the culture war about grooming seems like it’s about trans men.
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Agreed on all points, but it would still suck to undergo a mastectomy and sterilize yourself only to realise too late that you'd made a huge mistake (just ask Keira Bell). I don't necessarily disagree with your claim that most MTFs are autogynephiliacs, but that doesn't address the rising proportion of trans people who are FTMs, nor the possibility that they arrived at the conclusion they were trans men as a result of their education.
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Not quite. The anti-trans side is very concerned with trans men. Almost every prominent trans person is a trans woman, but statistically the majority of young trans people (and due to the exponential increase in referrals to gender clinics in recent years, most likely the majority of trans people overall, but I haven't checked) are trans men. As a result all talk of detransitioners is overwhelmingly focused on women to the point that guys who fell victim to the trans trend are barely more than an afterthought. The two things are mirror images of each other, and come from quite classical views of each sex (men are scary and women are harmless, hence the reaction to trans women and lack of reaction to trans men - women are to be protected and men are disposable, hence the reaction to detrans women and lack of reaction to detrans men).
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