Unpopular opinion but I thought that we as āfeministsā were supposed to be listening to the people with uteruses on the issues that they have when gaining care for those uteruses??? Thinking about the situation as āwomenās issuesā has been the typical thought process for society. However, as queer humans I feel like we should be better than the cis-hets. I feel exhausted having conversations defending myself online because of the way my gender identity is?? Like, that makes no mfn sense. I have been oppressed my entire life because of my agab and now that I feel empowered enough to take some of my identity back from the chains of catholic school PTSD I somehow have āmale privilege.ā Let me get this straight - you think someone whose ID says F and who also has PCOS and needs to have regular medical care and medical coverage to make sure this condition doesnāt disrupt my internal organs that I have privilege? Yeah sure ??
Trans men, trans masculine, gender queer, non-binary, agender, gender non-conforming, gender fluid, and anyone not mentioned here (but who resonates with this sentiment) do not OWE ANYONE a gender presentation that directly correlates to their gender identity. I think society needs to get it through their think skulls that any masculine gender presentation of the sort does not make it so that someone automatically has a āmanā status attached to them. Yes, that can happen but that doesnāt mean it is happening.
I feel like binary advocates all around the gender world and cannot cling to a space of people that see another person and do not automatically assume the socialization of their gender and sex experience during their upbringing is what my brain automatically thinks it is. I have met too many trans people irl and immersed myself with too many trans experiences irl and on the internet to know that just assuming with my eyes is not good enough and it is actually hurtful in some cases. So what is the mfn harm in just asking someone what their pronouns are? It seems like the goal for some people is to exclude any masculinity in physical form or ideology upon first glance unless there is some underlying ātrue proof of feminismā like a bump under my shirt because my binder used to not keep me 100% flat and from that small little giveaway I would be clocked by so many people as being afab. When this would happen to me it felt like I wasnāt being taken seriously. People would automatically assume I was a butch and expressing any sort of trans masculine non-binary identity I received similar rhetoric that I would receive when I first came out as bi-sexual in 2014. āWhy canāt you just pick a sideā āItās so selfish to do that to peopleā āYouāre confusing other people because you play dress up too much.ā Thankfully, (on my own as a 28 y/o) I was able to get top surgery. However, these moments will be with me for life, and when I present feminine I expect them to happen now because of my lack of breast tissue. Just because it is āeasier for meā to pass now one way doesnāt mean that is my specific gender goal and feels like a burden every time I tell someone that is not my goal.
The point of my medical transition was not to be āable to passā better than I was able to before hand but it was more so for the ability to present feminine without feeling so fucking uncomfortable that I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I literally cannot explain how much I wanted to explode when going into public and very obviously being sexualized by so many people when presenting feminine. Itās so uncomfortable I had panic attacks regularly when I tried to force-fem myself in undergraduate so badly that I didnāt know what was wrong with me or what to do with myself. I never thought of the timeline that I am in today to EVER be possible by any means. I even developed an ED in college to try and make myself ālook prettierā and āmore desirableā even though those two things were the very core of my gender dysphoria. Mind you, this is 2018 and I had already tried to come out of the closet two times before in my life with rejection from all supports that I had. So, 19 and 20 year old me thought it was a me problem and that I had to fix whatever was wrong with me because it was so obviously something that I was doing that made me the bad one not everyone else, so I thought at least.
It took multiple years of separating myself from my points of trauma in my life and it was extremely difficult to do so. Most people cannot afford to just leave their family and start a new by themselves, especially in the economy that we are dealing with in the joke of a year of 2025, but somehow some way during that time I was able to get away and start living for myself and not everyone else. I moved to a city I had never lived in before and started anew. Understanding that I loved femininity but that I needed some more masculine traits in order to feel comfortable presenting feminine was a conclusion Iām not sure that I would have come to without leaving the extremely toxic āsupport systemā that I had at the time. Additionally, the rise of queer community online during the shutdown was another resource that I didnāt realize how much I needed until it actually happened. Reading that so many people online were just like me gave me the motivation to move forward with my life because I had the comfort of knowing that I was not alone in who I was.
The erasure of the social complex issues that people under the trans masculine gender presentation category face is disheartening in the ever growing cold world that we live in. Please listen to trans men and nonbinary humans. We are not just trying to ātake the spotlight from the dollsā we are also just simply trying to exist and voice our suppression on this planet. I cant speak on the experience of a trans femme human but I will sure as hell defend that they have the right to express the way that makes them feel comfortable. Itās extremely hard as someone who has been told my entire life that Iām ātoo loudā ātoo sensitiveā ātoo un-ladylikeā to speak up about the issues that I face as a trans masculine person who presents in a genderqueer way, and itās extremely ironic when voicing these issues to be told that we are being ātoo loudā ātoo sensitiveā and ātoo bitch boy.ā
Some of this stuff just weighing way too heavy on me and a lot of trans masculine people around the internet are also saying similar things so here we go. I hope these reaches people who resonate with the message of what Iām trying to convey. Show love spread love.
