I thought that all the general trans man hate and discourse didn't get to me. It turns out I was wrong.
I spent the day in what I think is the most clear instance of a "woman's space" I can think of. The Girl Scout National Convention. At the end of the day, I was surprised that no one ever questioned my presence once.
If you did not memorize the girl scout law at a very young age, here are some things that girl scouts promise: to be "friendly and helpful," to be "considerate and caring" and to "respect [themselves] and others." It is not friendly to ask someone "why are you here if you're a man?" It isn't considerate or respectful, either. In hindsight, yeah, of course people who are big enough into the organization to go to the convention are going to respect the tenets and not be so rude that they'd ask why the hell I'm there.
That friendly line is no joke. I got into so many conversations with so many people throughout the day. And not person one had any hesitation towards talking to the random man there. Mind you, not just a random man—a random man who came entirely alone. I wasn't there helping with a troop. I wasn't there with a woman. I was just some guy at the Girl Scout convention. And no one gave a shit. They were as happy to see me there as they were to see anyone else. I was there because I care a lot about Girl Scouting, and everyone was just happy to be in a room with other people who also are dedicated to this organization.
Because here's the thing: in the real world, "women's spaces" exist for a reason. If the people running them are good people? They are going to care a lot more about those reasons than about sticking perfectly to those gender lines.
Girl Scouts doesn't exist because the people running it think boys and men have cooties. It exists because children need to learn leadership and life skills and how to be empowered to make change in the world and be the independent people they want to be. With the way society is currently structured, it's a lot harder to teach children raised as girls to be those things when children being raised as boys are also in the room. I want to one day live in the world where a separate scouting and leadership organization for girls is not necessary, but as much as I generally hate gender and sex segregation, I don't think we live in that world right now. If you're not a man, there is pressure to make yourself smaller if you're competing with men for attention. If you want to teach girls to take up space, it helps to remove boys so they don't have that pressure.
People in Girl Scouts generally understand two things: not every one of those girls will grow up to be a woman, but the assertiveness, confidence, self-esteem and power learned in Girl Scouting are just as important when they don't, if not even more useful because being trans is fucking hard; and having male volunteers who listen to and support girls helps empower them. Aside from the fact that more volunteers are always a good thing, regardless of their gender, male volunteers specifically teach girls that actually, they don't need to be small around men, because here are men who want you to take up space. They serve as proof that you don't need to be in a 100% female space to have a voice.
I am at the Girl Scout National Convention for a reason. I was asked to be. I helped plan the 2020 one that never happened when I was still a Girl Scout, and so when they needed volunteers to talk about their careers, I was on the email list. When I filled out the form saying I was male, they didn't care. My job was relevant and they thought it was a good thing to teach girl scouts about. They wanted me as part of their women's space.
But more than that, I'm here because Girl Scouts does work. I would not be who I am without it. It's why I have the job I have; I didn't feel the pressure to do what was expected of me. I knew that if I wanted something and believed in it and was confident enough, I could make it happen. It didn't matter what life path people expected of me; I was going to take the one that I knew would work for me. It's why I didn't hesitate to travel to Washington D.C. all by myself. I learned independence and how to exist on my own from things I did as a Girl Scout. So I do what I want, regardless of other people. I'm not afraid to exist on my own. It's why I have the transition I want—I learned that if you find the right people and just ask, you can make things happen. It didn't matter that I'd never heard about someone asking for a specific scar on their chest to be preserved when they get top surgery; I was going to ask surgeons if they would until I got a yes. It didn't matter how often I read that phalloplasty with urethral lengthening but without vaginectomy is incredibly hard to get; I did the research to find the surgeon that seemed like my best shot, booked a consult, and traveled by myself to a different state just to find out without any guarantee of a yes (and then got one and my first surgery is in October).
You can complain all you want about trans men clinging too hard to their assigned gender at birth, but the reason I am living a happy life and will have my dream body one day is because of an organization with Girl in the name. You can't erase that from my history. That will always be part of me. Whiny, discourse-brained people on the Internet might not understand that. But every person in that convention center did, because Girl Scouts means the same thing to either them or someone they knew. They didn't need to be told.
I don't exactly have a point with all of this, except that discourse is incorrect and the real world is full of lovely, understanding, reasonable people if you are lucky enough to find them. The entire idea of a male-female binary is a simplification. The real world is full of nuance and people who understand it. And also that if you ever have a childhood who is even vaguely counted as a girl, you should sign them up for girl scouts. (Yes, in the USA this does include trans girls. Girl Scouts is happy to have them. Although I can't speak for other countries; I'd imagine with current UK laws Girl Guides in particular have their hands tied).
Not even the only "women's space" I've been fine in, by the way. Even going to a lesbian bar, there were other men there, because people like going to bars with their friends, and if someone is a lesbian, that doesn't stop them from bringing their gay guy bestie as a wingman. Again, in the real world, the point of a place is more important than strict rules. The point of a lesbian bar is for lesbians to feel comfortable and have a community. That works better if they can bring their friends.
(And for the record, because some people think if a "woman's space" is cool about trans men, obviously they must be an AFAB only/vagina only club: while obviously you can't know for sure if someone is trans just by looking at them, I saw people there who appeared to be trans women. And people who appeared to be cis men, too, while we're at it. You don't need a vagina or to be a woman or to ever have been a woman; you just need to care about girls. And yes, the lesbian bar also had a trans woman there.)
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