i think the truly performative nature of masculinity can be shown most obviously in the trans male experience because we are men who weren’t actively trained to adhere to toxic masculinity since birth.* despite my facial hair and my lower voice, people still look at me strangely because my mannerisms are “too expressive”. i talk freely with my hands, i’m quick to show physical affection, i raise my voice when i get excited, and when i stand i often shift my weight between hips. these are behaviors that were never trained out of me as a child and as a result, seem off when combined with my masculine appearance.
when this came to my attention, i found myself trying to train them out of myself, without really questioning why beyond wanting to “pass better”. i took up more space on seats on the bus, i took a wider stance when waiting in line and forced my center of gravity towards the middle of my body, i tried to keep my voice at a lower pitch when asking for help, and tried over and over again to keep my hands from moving when i spoke, even though it felt so unnatural. eventually, it came to my attention that masculinity is so reenforced in our society that it was putting pressure on me to train myself to adhere to this standard that felt so constricting. despite being bisexual, my thoughts even went so far as to say “if you don’t do this, people will think you’re gay” as if that was a bad thing. as if i couldn’t achieve actual masculinity if people didn’t assume i was straight until proven otherwise.
there’s a large middle ground between “smol soft trans boy” and “masc body builder trans man” and i believe a lot of it stems from these guys not knowing what to do about masculinity. the fact that society won’t deem us “male enough” if we don’t put pressure on ourselves to conform to a minefield of rules. to me, trying to pull apart what aspects of masculinity i actually possess or like, and what aspects i feel forced upon me, has not only helped me learn more about myself, but provided a nice case study, i think, into how artificial masculinity is in the first place.Â
*I feel the need to add a disclaimer onto here that I’m not getting into whether or not trans men were “socialized female” or implying that trans women were socialized as male, but rather saying that toxic masculinity requires constant reenforcement and trans men, unless they come out young, are not subjected to that at an early age, but rather feel that pressure later in life as they come out and transition.
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