At the time of this writing, I am almost 2 months into a journey of fueling this body with testosterone. And let me tell you, it has opened my eyes. I have a somewhat unique viewpoint, having been fueled by estrogen 48 years since puberty, and now seeing firsthand the differences between estrogen and testosterone. My experience is by no means universal, but I can speak to this particular body, with all its mobility issues, and what changes came immediately. It was like flipping a switch.
From where I sit, it seems like cis men literally have every single aspect of life easier than cis women and others whose bodies are fueled by estrogen. Estrogen fueled people expend way more energy to accomplish the same tasks, they have an exponentially wider range of things they’re responsible for, and they are denigrated and disrespected every step of the way. This has got to stop!
Working with a cis man, say loading a moving truck or such, I had the notion their additional strength came only when they needed it. Think of an accelerator pedal in a car. Say estrogen’s pedal only moves 1 foot before it’s maxed out on the floor, but testosterone’s pedal moves 3 or more feet before maxing out. When a cis guy needed extra strength to pick up that couch, I thought they just moved their accelerator farther than mine could go.
But, no, it’s not like that at all! Using the same analogy, it’s like the arm of estrogen’s accelerator has a resistance set to 100 and testosterone’s is set to 10, as well as their range being farther!
Every single motion requires less exertion. Exponentially. I just shucked ears of corn in two broad motions each. Boom, done. Doing dishes takes a fraction of effort. Every. Single. Thing. I have always been a strong person, and relatively speaking, for the exact same body, this is freaking off the charts.
To think that cishet men have to be asked to help around the house or with the child rearing? That they come home from a hard day at the office and have to put their feet up while their estrogen fueled partner has been busting ass all day around the house, has to keep track of all the things, and still is expected to be on duty 24/7? Fuck that!
That might be appropriate when manual labor is the occupation of the individual, but not otherwise, not for our entire culture. Testosterone fueled people should be on their knees thanking estrogen fueled people for all they do. Nay, cis women and other estrogen fueled women should just fucking stop.
A strike is in order. Big time. Especially with all the human rights that have been revoked. It’s time to stop taking up all the slack and ensuring everything works. Enough is enough!
Ever since puberty when all my cis male friends, whom I used to beat at every sport, got strength and privilege they didn’t earn and left me in the dust, I’ve been feeling it wasn’t fair. I had no idea how far it went, though. Now that I’m partaking of the magic elixir, I can attest first hand, it’s totally not fair!
How dare they act like they do all the work, and are inherently better, when every single thing is easier simply because of an accident of birth? It’s a well-kept secret among testosterone fueled bodies, and the jig is up. I’m spilling the beans. This is seriously out of balance. No wonder society is the mess it is!
With such privilege should come proportionate responsibility. It always rankled that cis girls and women were expected to do all the domestic tasks, earn a paycheck (or 3), while cishet men breeze in and need down time at the end of a workday. Now that I know how effortless most everything is in comparison, I’m even more appalled.
And I don’t want to hear “not all cishet men”. I will shut that down in a heartbeat. They ALL benefit from this dynamic. Why do we allow the selfishness of just cleaning up their own individual acts and letting the others run rampant over cis woman and other estrogen fueled people? They’re afraid of being ostracized? Get over it! Cishet men, get to work, you lazy bums! Call in your brothers! Y’all perpetuated this crime against humanity, fix it!
And tangentially, I knew there was something that did not sit right with me seeing cis women taking leadership roles in men’s groups or offering classes to help diffuse toxic masculinity over the last few years. Now I know why. That’s just more offloading of responsibility and laziness. Oh, yeah, and trying to get in their pants. Eye gazing, anyone?
Cishet men want to act like it’s an effort to get in touch with their feminine side? Please! Acting like everything is equal just because they’ve gone out in the woods together and cried? Fuck that! Want us to think they are now working so hard to change? Spare me. Get to work, guys. Clean this mess up!
I’m really surprised I haven’t heard more about this from trans-folk. I can’t be the only one who has noticed this. I see cis women rallying around transwomen and fighting for their rights as women, but I don’t see or hear a lot transwomen fighting for cis women’s rights. I don’t see or hear transmen being vocally feminist, either. Unless they went on hormone blockers at puberty, all have experienced life on both sides of the hormonal divide.
The silence is disappointing. Perhaps it’s from self-preservation, but at this point, I’m far closer to death than to birth, so I’m willing to go out on a limb. I’m committed to being more of a feminist than I have ever been so far.
I’ve been chewing on this since the beginning of my journey, as saying these things is risky. I am fully aware that everything I have said here can be, and historically has been twisted to subjugate and oppress estrogen fueled women and gender diverse people. It’s easy to go from ‘men expend less energy’ to ‘women are less capable’. From acknowledging the strength imbalance and asking them to do a proportionate share of the workload to ‘women are weak and need protecting’. These framings are toxic. They start with a grain of truth and twist it to gain a power advantage. And it has worked all too well.
Cishet men have pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes for eons, and it’s time for this charade to end. They need to man up and fix this shit, and all other genders need to go on strike until they do.
And I haven’t even touched on the pay disparity or workplace discrimination. Perhaps this will turn in to a series. Time will tell.
#TMusings