Misogyny, or Misandry?

I notice that, in the trans debate, there is endless sympathy for females who “transition,” and nothing but contempt and the most extreme disdain for men who “transition.”

The female transitioner is given full theory of mind, full empathy, and full sympathy. Everything she does—every single thing, no exceptions—is cast as a response to some trauma that someone else did to her. No matter how badly behaved she may be, or how in need of actual therapy for actual childhood trauma, she is never held responsible for making better choices.

It’s an endless parade of “supportive” posts that excuse her misbehavior specifically to blame it on men. Not the actual men who may have hurt her, but on men as a sex class. That is the motivation of most anti-trans commentators, including those nominally on the right, or at least not on the woke left.

The one goal that almost all such commentators have is to be able to make, and to be seen to make, a public accusation of “misogyny” against any man who gets within a mile of anything coded “trans” or “drag.” This article from Malcolm Clark (who does lots of good work, but I disagree with him on this analysis) is an example.

Drag queens are “misogynist.” “Trans women” (men who pretend to be women) are “misogynists.” Why do they do what they do? Misogyny. Why do they wear dresses? To mock women with “woman face” because of misogyny.

Hatred of women. That’s the entire explanation offered to us about these men, even from smart and otherwise sensible commentators. This free-floating “hatred of women” is never questioned. It’s never interrogated. It’s never explained. It has no backstory, no motivation. It’s simply a law of the universe that we are to accept.

And questioning it as this essay you’re reading right now questions it? That will be called an act of “misogyny.”

The “through feminist eyes” lens is so totalizing that many people reading this will not be able to actually understand it. The emotional commitment to believing that men in general, and “trans women” specifically, are simply “misogynists” is so strong that I won’t be surprised when this post is circulated with accusations of “misogyny.” Fish don’t know what water is, etc.

Anyone who has read my work or watched my show over the years knows that I am “anti-trans.” It is a lie, it’s an unhealthy delusion, it’s a trauma response, it’s a tool of narcissists; it’s many things. But none of them are healthy. I’m very aware of how many destructive, dangerous narcissists there are in “trans,” and have always acknowledged the unfairness, and sometimes danger, of these men being allowed to go into female-only places.

But it’s striking how absolutely devoid of empathy and theory of mind the “gender criticals” are when it comes to males who are “trans.” All that sympathy, all that understanding extended to female transitioners is absent. Completely absent. Don’t believe me?

Hunt up an example from any commentator and show me anyone giving these men the psychological benefit of the doubt extended routinely (and often excessively) toward female transitioners. You won’t find it but in perhaps 1 of 30 pieces on the topic.

These men, too, were almost universally traumatized in childhood. Child abuse, neglect, and parental emotional dysregulation and bad modeling is found almost universally in the background of those who claim to be trans. Male and female.

The contempt for the male transitioner is so profound that it extends even to minors. To boys and teens. They are spoken about in the same moral terms as fully adult serial male rapists, even when they have done no such thing.

Why is this the case? The biggest part of it is our unwillingness to treat females as full agents capable of bad behavior as well as good behavior. That is reserved for men. In our era, all women everywhere are automatically victims (of men). They are never, ever perpetrators.

Really. Delve into the childhood background of most drag queens, “trans women,” and similar, and you will find a cauldron of Cluster B mothers. Borderlines and narcissists who distort their relationships with their sons. You’ll find totally absent fathers, or violent father figures, who destroy the son’s ability to see himself as a man. It happened to me (and no, I’m not an outlier. I’m the common outcome of such a family).

I’m dismayed to have to say that the vast majority of (again, otherwise sensible, smart people) of commentators on trans, including gay men, seem like they hate men. Yes. I’m saying that it looks an awful lot more like actual misandry than it looks like an honest discovery of universal “misogyny.” These gay men themselves know some of the emotional experiences of the sissy men who end up transing. They understand the forces that tug at young men growing up, and how difficult it can be when you’re not “like the other boys.”

Why, then, is there absolutely zero empathy (not “excuse bad behavior,” but “understand motivations”) for the transing men? Why cannot commentators at least try to see these men in the same psychological, human terms that they see the women with?