The View from the Other Half

Audio Summary

The View from the Other Half narrates a few stories from transgender men on finding love and the adjustments they had to make following their transition. Prior to their procedure, most of these men were gay females. They describe how society’s upbringing of women affected how they socialized as men today. For example, one man stated he often felt uneasy going into bars and trying to flirt with women because “being raised as females-we were never taught how to pick somebody up.” This shows how the gender you were socialized as and raised as affects you psychologically and behaviorally down the line as well. Another man’s statement about such a topic was: “before I was a man I could talk about how I like going to strip clubs and that made me cool and edgy-now (as a man) it just makes me a jerk.” When these transgender individuals decided to transition, society’s treatment of them transitioned with them as well.

Outside Example

This podcast reminds me of a youtube video, “Gender Critical” by a binary transgender woman, Natalie Wynn, known by her youtube persona Contrapoints. In this video Natalie addresses radical feminists who oppose transgender women because they believe them not to be “actual women” for not having gone through the same oppression since birth. However, Natalie counters that argument by stating that she has in fact encountered oppression on a similar level. She states “you don’t know what it’s like to occupy an identity so stigmatized that most of the people who are attracted to you in private are too ashamed to admit it in public. You don’t know what it’s like to have a body so non-normative that you’re shut out of whole areas of society.” https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI?t=1179

Connection

This segment of Contrapoints’ video correlates with the podcast because it describes the struggle transpeople may have in finding love on the other side of the gender line and the adjustments necessary in battling society’s conception of you vs your own perceived identity. In the podcast the men express their concerns of “who is our target audience” for dating? The trans body is so stigmatized against in our society because it is non-conforming to gender ideals, so many transpeople have trouble finding lifetime partners. Contrapoints expresses this exact concern as well.