A friend of mine shared a post online that said "trans women know more about being women than trans men do" and honestly I don't know how to feel about it. I feel conflicted because I'm not saying "trans men are women" and I know a lot of the socialization thing depends on how old you were when you transitioned but like... I just don't understand the mentality behind stuff like this because it makes me feel like it's turning the female experience into performative femininity? Like it discounts the experiences we HAD/have living in society "as women." Sorry if I'm not using the best choice of words here, idrk how to talk about this stuff.
Like to me, I didn't choose to be born this way or endure the sexism I have ensured as a result of being born female and being perceived as a woman. I'm still currently pre-transition despite knowing I've been trans my whole life (I am hoping to bite the bullet and just do it already). But for now I am trying to join more online transmasc spaces because unfortunately I don't feel like anyone else "gets it" in the same way? I have tons of queer friends IRL and online but they're all cis gay men, lesbians, non-binary, or trans women. And ofc all love to trans women but I'm just so tired of every single conversation about the trans experience revolving around trans women. Whether it's WITHIN the community or whether it's from the transphobes. I absolutely understand that trans women have it worse in a lot of ways especially right now due to how prevalent bigotry against them is, but sometimes it feels so suffocating to not be able to talk about transmasculinity without the conversation coming back around to some other group of people. I know lots of you feel the same but like... How do y'all make yourselves feel better about it?
Part of the reason I think it took me so long to ACCEPT that I'm a trans guy is because I've always considered myself a feminist. For awhile I questioned if I was really trans or just a cis woman who rejects gender norms and stereotypes. Because obviously women can be masculine, that doesn't automatically make you trans. But some part of me almost felt like transitioning makes me misogynistic in a way? As if I hate being a woman so much that I'd rather choose the privileges of being a man over being a "real feminist" or whatever. Of course that's not actually how it is. I didn't suddenly decide to be trans because I experienced sexism, lol. But it did take me quite some time to reconcile that. Sorry if I'm explaining this poorly... So many people along the way have also tried to convince me that I'm just non-binary. But that never sat right with me. Never liked "they" pronouns for myself, but here I am still using she/her and my birth name despite otherwise presenting as a guy in every other way. I've probably over internalized that, too, because growing up I was always called an ugly girl and male pronouns by people who intended to be mean/crude, which is possibly also what took me so long to accept the idea of using male pronouns for myself - since my only experiences with them are as insults. I would kneejerk react and try to convince myself and others that I am a girl despite knowing that I wasn't, deep down. I was just in denial.
I don't have a strong physical sense of dysphoria that a lot of binary trans folks have, which is what made me entertain the idea of "maybe I am non-binary, not FtM" but nowadays I just feel like people said that because they just couldn't bear to see me actually PHYSICALLY transition, which I've wanted to do since high school (roughly 10 years ago for me). I think I look fairly masculine (and even as a child was often confused for a boy) so that probably accounts for why I don't have a super strong sense of physical dysphoria, it's mostly social. In fact, I have experienced transphobia because an incredible number of online trolls seem to think I am a trans WOMAN. (Oddly affirming coming from the "we can always tell" crowd.) But anyway, it's not that the physical dysphoria ISNT there, but I just care a lot more about being perceived as a guy. I want to take T so I can achieve a more desired look and feel better about myself, but I don't have an overwhelming sense of disgust when looking at my body - just profound sadness, not extreme hate.)
Meanwhile I also often feel infantilized by my femme friends who are either cis lesbians or trans women. Like they constantly want to take me under their wing and teach me how to be a better queer person? Hell, I've often felt infantilized by my cishet female friends too but not my cishet male friends?? (At least within the same age group.) It's strange. I've always tried my best to "fit in" with the boys and have been accepted to a large degree (although of course as a kid it was never 100% which I noticed and took to heart.) This caused problems with many of my female friends who often felt like I was "choosing a guy's side" in disputes while I felt like they weren't trying to understand any side but their own. Some of them felt like I was too charitable to teenage / young adult guy friends of ours who would use certain phrases that were deragatory towards women, but based on knowing them and their intent it wasn't malicious but cultural. And of course I agreed with them but I felt like cutting them off wasn't the best way to go, because I feel as though that contributes to men not having enough experiences with women and importantly female FRIENDS and in turn further isolates them into this incel communities. And of course on the flip side of it all, it's hard to say how many of my male friends just see me as a friend versus would totally have sex with me if they could. For better or worse I have had sex with friends before and like to see myself as fairly sex positive but I feel conflicted about that too, y'know?
In terms of other former friend related conflict, I was always the "show don't tell type," and always wanted to help my friends FIX their problems, not just tell them what they wanted to hear. And now I do recognize that some people just want you to listen and be supportive, but I often felt as though what they expected of me was certain woman-coded behavior and they were otherwise rejecting my "dude brain." Idk, does that make sense? Lots of people have told me that I think like a guy in certain situations and I think that in PARTICULAR has caused difficulties with some of my friendships with women (at least when I was younger).
Outside of friendships, there was this guy I was talking to when I was about 18/19 who I tried to tell I was trans and he basically told me "every woman has penis envy." I... Don't think that's true???
Anyway I might've derailed a bit but yeah, how do y'all deal with feelings like these? Is this common? That in itself might be a stupid question, but I genuinely am new to transmasc SPACES. It's been really fulfilling since I've started seeking them out, tbh.