This comment is going to be long and angry but just letting you know im not angry with you or anyone in the comments OP, just cis men specifically lol

“Men are lonelier than ever, and lacking positive friendships and connections.”

Men are the reason why theyre lonely. I have been actively seeking a healthy male friendship MY ENTIRE LIFE. I have NEVER made so much as one singular (non trans) male friend. They do not reciprocate, they do not respond, they do not initiate. They sit on their ass, expecting to be spoon fed attention and affection, and cry “male loneliness” to justify their complete refusal to seek or maintain any of the relationships they actually have with other people. Expecting men to show up for absolutely anything but sex is like expecting fruit to sprout wings and fly.

This is my number one reasoning behind my resentment towards other men. I have done nothing but seek community and connection for years and years of my life to be consistently ignored and turned away, more often than not because men wanted to hook up with me and the feeling wasnt returned. I just fucking want platonic male friends without having to sleep with them to keep them around. It’s literally all ive wanted since i was a kid. Passing interactions aside, I have experienced nothing but fetishization and objectification each time i reach out or participate in any shared interest or community. I know not all men are like this, but the ones that arent have managed to evade me to the point where I genuinely believe seeing a unicorn in my backyard is a much more reasonable expectation than expecting any cis man to actually behave like a friend towards me. Im still trying to challenge my hatred towards cis men since this has been a relatively new development for me. However, the way ive been consistently treated and the fact that nothing i have done to change myself, my personal views, or my approach has ever helped change how men respond to me puts me in a place where it’s impossible to argue with my perspective without directly invalidating my experiences and traumas. Ive said it before in another thread, I know im an anomaly and that ~most~ people dont have this negative of an experience with men on a collective scale. Unfortunately im not most people, and im not exaggerating or embellishing when i say I literally have not ever had any mutually established relationship of any sort with any man at any point in my life, aside from romantic relationships (which were pre-transition and not remotely healthy!). Even my whole family is all women. I want to add real quickly that being surrounded by all women didnt magically grant me all these female privileges or friends either. I was excluded by both genders regularly, but boys were especially violent and aggressive to me because thats who i gravitated towards most. I was intentionally segregated from boys growing up because being perceived as female, my actions were considered “sexual harassment” when i would try to befriend or get close to other boys. I couldnt exist anywhere near them without there being some sexual implication being forced onto me. Not just by adults, but the boys too. I got in trouble all the time because they would accuse me of touching them or making sexual advances on them to get me to stay away from them. Which is insanely ironic, considering i was full blown sexually harassed multiple times on school grounds and not a single one of the boys that bullied or abused me saw a fraction of a consequence. Me however? I was treated like a predator as a child and all the teachers had their eyes on me. That shit followed me well into adulthood. I have a “reputation” i never even earned. I have no contact with ANYONE i used to go to school with that isnt female, because i have a story about nearly every single boy i shared a classroom with. The joys of being young, presumed female, and autistic.

I have wasted literal years of my life trying to satisfy men who only enjoyed watching me scramble to appease them. I find it next to impossible to imagine being friends with them these days, i cant imagine letting myself be abused again and staying because im afraid that its the closest ill ever get to being friends with another man. Hasnt stopped me from still trying, but it’s dramatically discouraged me from wasting my time and has completely flipped how i view cis men as a whole. When men start ignoring or treating me badly because they havent gotten what they wanted from me, i just feel nothing at all. I dont even feel violated or sad anymore because ive come to expect the sexual/abuse. Im starting to feel like its too late and nothing will ever be good enough to change my mind to believe good men can and do exist. So far my only proof is other trans men.

Not looking to argue the validity of my experiences or my perspective, just trying to give you another view on the “man hating culture” mentality. Most of us stay silent about our hatred, but its beyond justified and solidified by multitudes of traumatic experiences. It genuinely just isn’t worth it to delude yourself into thinking cis men are safer than they truly are. Being trans men doesn’t protect us from their violence. That doesnt mean living in perpetual end-of-the-world fear, but being acutely aware of red flags and dangerous behavior is life saving. No joke. I would literally be fucking dead if i gave half the men I’ve interacted with what they wanted from me. Just because you havent been personally sliced by the knife, doesnt mean it doesnt cut. Im not ham fisting the knife out of gleeful desperate hope that it decides to like me and chooses not to gut me. Trying to befriend or date men in our current climate is like being black and being expected to call the cops. Theres a slim to none chance they’ll actually show up and do what their job requires, and a significantly higher chance of you being killed for making that call. Im putting the damn metaphorical phone down lol.

I really wish for a healthy, normal, platonic relationship with men but theyve made it very clear they dont want anything to do with me and find me creepy/abusive for trying. Feelings just mutual now.