masculinity is rewarded for cis men. in cis women, trans women, and trans men it’s mocked. femininity is also rewarded for cis women. but for cis men, trans women, and trans men it is mocked. it’s not masculinity that is rewarded in society, it is conformity. it’s a very specific type of masculinity that must be performed by cis men, and a very specific femininity that must be performed by cis women. if these things are performed by people who don’t belong in those narrow boxes, or if anyone practices a variant non-conforming expression of masculinity or femininity (or androgyny) they are a target of mockery and scorn and often violence in society
femininity is more often derided, that’s true. that’s an aspect of misogyny. but another aspect of misogyny is that masculinity is also mocked when it’s performed by people that society does not consider to be men, which includes trans women and trans men. to patriarchal society, trans people exist as an aberration; another category of gender that is worthy of mockery regardless of how we perform gender. trans women get scorned for either being too masculine or too feminine, being told they need to “actually try” or that they’re “putting on a costume of women”. the same goes for trans men, if we are too feminine than we’re “not really trans and just doing it for attention” and if we are too masculine we are “ugly, bald, fat, mutilated.”
there’s no winning in how we perform our genders, because our very existence doesn’t conform to the regimented cis standards. its not about masculinity versus femininity, it’s about following the oppressive rules that are forced on us based entirely on our agab.
every moment of your life, from birth to death, constantly, while you aren’t looking, there’s some kind of weird shapes just moving around in the ocean. and the shapes are eating eachother sometimes too. and they might even dig holes. and all of this is happening during everything else that’s going on. like think about the most important moment in your life. the thing that shaped you as a person. the entire time that was happening, far away, deep in the ocean, where no human has ever seen, there was some kind of wet sack with a weird protrusion flailing about in the water. maybe it even grabbed a fish. who knows. i don’t. just think about that for a bit
