If I am allowed to be honest for a moment, I don’t want to be discussing how my siblings in arms are currently fighting for our rights in states all across the map. I don’t want to be writing about how by denying basic rights, people like me live in fear of being killed for existing out loud. And I truthfully don’t want to be discussing how toxic masculinity is a dark cloud hanging over society, and how rape culture and transphobia are both byproducts of it. But it seems I have to, so I will.

 

I’m someone who likes to read feel-good media pieces rather than heartbreaking news. Sure, I enjoy the odd true crime piece when the subject interests me, but I’ve never been one to romanticize serial killers or true crime cases as a whole. I’m saying this now because I don’t want to discuss bad news or topics that make me sad. But this is a topic I know well, so I will write what I can.

 

Toxic masculinity as a concept is something no one wins from. It’s part of a larger picture, of course, as most things are, but the damages it causes reach all corners of the world. Toxic masculinity typically causes shame in men to act in a way that prioritizes strongness and “asshole” behavior to get what they want, which is what is often mistaken for the attention of women. In reality, toxic masculinity causes men to act like assholes for the attention of men, to make them stand out to their fellow masculine counterparts and signal “Yes, I am one of you, please accept me.”

 

As discussed by Julia Serano in “Why Nice Guys Finish Last”, rape culture has affected our way of thinking as a whole, and by doing so, has affected what society puts its energy into. Most straight cis women do not want “aggressive” men, but they want strong and protective men who are in touch with their emotions. The aggressive men do not see the latter option as being on par with the first two descriptions. This is part of the reason why “assholes” always put down and try to convert “nice guys” into assholes (if they aren’t already assholes pretending to be nice guys).

 

Serano writes that “[B]y the same token, in a world where men are only ever viewed as sexual aggressors, some men will take on that role in order to gain attention and to feel desirable. So long as the predator/ prey mindset predominates and a demand remains for women and men to fulfill those stereotypes, a large percentage of people will continue to gravitate toward them.” (pg. 236). As an expansion of this, I want to bring the conversation over to the trans community.

 

There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to discuss all of the effects toxic masculinity has on the trans community, so I’m going to attempt to keep it brief. But, knowing me, ‘brief’ will still be more than enough information.

 

I did my final for a class last semester on toxic masculinity and its effects on the transmasculine community. And from the research I did for that final, I found that because of toxic masculinity, society puts pressure on men to “be men” in the traditional sense, rather than simply be human. For men, vulnerability is often neglected, dismissed, or combated. For men, this means being aggressive, and rude, and forcing their happiness into a hole for it to disappear. Assholes like that are the biggest peddlers of rape culture and the predator/prey mindset that occurs in it.

 

Men like this don’t see trans women as women. They see trans women as misbehaving men who are a threat to “socially acceptable” masculinity, which is why they’re constantly attacking them. This is also why these attacks on trans people have rarely been aimed at trans men; aggressive cis men see trans men as women and therefore do not care enough about them to include them in the conversation.

 

To be brief, our country’s descent into transphobia is a direct cause of toxic masculinity. The same can be said about how we’ve emphasized assholes versus nice guys. We have been slowly moving towards a focus on men being in touch with their emotions and less on muscle-bound alpha males, but the self-proclaimed “alpha males” haven’t caught the memo yet. This is yet another example of what I mentioned earlier, with how the asshole behavior isn’t to attract women but to garner the attention of men who think similarly to them. Alpha males don’t want women to be attracted to that, they just want to finally have a space where their ideology can be safe to continue festering into a bigger problem.

 

If we were able to cut the root of the problem — toxic masculinity, in this case — then the issue with rape culture and its predator/prey mindset would be easier to get rid of. Our ability to change what society desires to be the dominant attitude has been done for centuries before us (like, for example, a sudden rise in y2k fashion and the “heroin chic” body type), and we could finally use it in dismantling toxic masculinity as a whole.

 

Serano ends her piece with something that has stuck with me since reading it. She writes that “[T]he system will not be dismantled until all (or at least most) of us learn not to project the predator stereotype onto men and the prey stereotype onto women… Viewing all men as predators is a convenient self-defense mechanism, but it ignores the countless men who are respectful of women… we won’t get to where we want to be until the men-as–predator/sexual aggressor assumption no longer dominates our thinking. It’s difficult to imagine getting there from here, but we’re going to have to try.” (pgs 239-240). I agree with her that the journey to dismantle these stereotypes and views of rape culture will be difficult, but that journey is one we must strive to take. Our society has the potential to change for the better, and I really believe that.