"Im so tired of needing to always be a man"

[Michelle789]

You'll notice that in threads about male privilege, most of the most ardent critics of the notion of male privilege are CDs, and other TG folks who feel the benefits they get from male privilege (which are huge), don't outweigh the cost. Because they really are tired of being forced to always be men.

I would say any CD, TS, or other gender variant who had a difficult time trying to be a man and hiding femininity (and consequently have been read as gay or sissy) are usually the most ardent critics of male privilege.

I also think accepting the notion of male privilege makes the assumptions that men are perpetrators, and women are victims. If you're a male who has played the victim role, whether to a male or female perpetrator, to you male privilege breaks down. If you've been a victim of a female perpetrator, regardless if you're male or female, male privilege also breaks down. This is why some GGs who were bullied by other women also don't believe in male privilege.

Because the downside to being a guy is you can't be feminine in this society, at least not very feminine, and the more you show this, the more you lose the rights to your man card.

Those of us who had a difficult time hiding our femininity, and got read as gay or sissy lose a lot of our male privilege, and therefore to us, male privilege does not outweigh the costs - so to us women may be perceived to have more benefits than men, or at least there is an equal trade-off between the genders.

Those of us who were able to hide our gender variance retained all our male privileges, and therefore to us, male privilege does outweigh the costs.

We all have a bias towards our own life experience without regards to how others experienced their life. If your father worked 80 hours a week and was never home, you might assume all men work long hours. If your father worked 40 hours a week and was home by 5:30 pm every night, you might assume that all men are home by 5:30 pm every night. If you grew up in a home where there was always food on the table and bills always paid that everyone had the same and you may be oblivious to the fact that there are people who starve and live without electricity. If you grew up eating only once per week with electricity being turned off half the time, you might think that's normal. It's called the normalcy bias.

DebbieL - I can relate to most of what you said in your post.