What do transgender women/girls think it is to be a man?

[ValuePartnership]

I have tried and tried in every place to find out what exactly it is (specifically) that makes women, and especially girls, feel they are "really" men? Does anyone have any idea? I am a man and would love to know what, apart from some very general conviction (asserted but never made specific); wanting to wear male clothing; wanting male "body shape"; represents becoming a "man" to trans women (or girls). Such ideas are supposed to match the reality of having a male identity. I do not have any supposed cis-gender identity, but I know what things have been central to living as a boy and then a man - and it's nothing like anything I have read about trans men. I never thought being a man depended on others seeing me as man; I never thought about my body shape; most of the clothes I wear (and have always worn) are very ordinary and could just as easily have been worn by a woman. The big big deal for me all my life (I am in my 60s) has been the way I experience sexual excitement and arousal: my body will register it (and sometimes against my wishes) through penile erection; the next has been the experience of orgasm deep in my body (prostate gland); then how vulnerable to attack (friendly or violenbt) by other males, or my own clumsiness, my testicles made and make me. Only then came comparisons - I was aware of, generally to a high degree, being taller and stronger than females. Finally, I learned that I could become a father (with a growing realistion I was expected to do so); that I had a distribution of body hair (more than some other men and less than others) that affected my appearance. It seems to me that even if you think you are a man, you have no idea what being a man is like unless you are one. Hence nobody ever says. Anyone able to help with ideas?

Red/Chris is bang on about binaryism and the need to conform.

What contradiction? Rejecting stereotypes is mainstream and has been happening for centuries. Its no contradiction. They is not as special as they think they is. They is mainstream.

"They is not as special as they think they is. They is mainstream." I don't understand this use of language? People who use they/them use it with correct English syntax, as in "they are". I am strongly gender critical, but have only ever heard "they is" from people taking the piss out of non binary people, which doesn't do the gender critical position any favours, really.

@ilikeyarn "I'm absolutely relieved I don't have to design bridges, fix cars, fight fires, fight wars, fight crime, deal with scary animals or lift heavy things."

I know what you mean. My son was in tears the other day because he doesn't want to design bridges when he is older. I sat him down and explained that he HAS to design bridges. He is a MAN and that is what men DO unless they want to be arrested.

On a serious note there are differences in the proportions of men/women doing jobs but I know women that are civil engineers. They didn't have to become men to do so. There are male teachers and nurses. They don't have to become women to do it. On the other hand there are women who absolutely hate the idea of fixing computers/cars (like you) but that doesn't mean women and men who do those things are miserable.

But I suspect some transmen have very regressive ideas (I want to do computer stuff/like cars so I am a man rather than a woman that likes doing stereotypically male things). Some just don't want to be a woman. And some are emulating teenage boys from fan fiction (that is usually a female writers idea of what a male is)

You sound EPIC.

We're talking about a singular person of known sex. Correct grammar is to use is not are. Are is confusing because you think there are multiple people. It's about clarity not taking the piss. I've been very confused by articles using they are to refer to e.g. a transman. The very nature of calling someone a transman means they are woman sex. So we know their sex. Personally I'd back a better neutral pronoun. Appropriating they in all contexts does not work and put a great deal of cognitive load on readers. Which is clearly not reasonable.

I'm a bit confused by this. Isn't identifying as a man buying into the binary system they claim not to believe in, even if they reject the surgery aspect?

Yes. It's highly conformist.

@Righthandcider Actually, reading a map is something that needs to be normalised for boys and girls. But that's a whole other rant.
I don't think setting mousetraps is a particularly difficult/onerous job anyway. And I don't think its the kind of job that would have been exclusively for men anyway. Even in the past.
Flying a plane is pretty cool though. I would crash it. But not because I'm a woman, just because I'm very clumsy.

And I've just read, in the Daily Fail, about an American living in the UK, who has both a penis and an artificially created 'vagina' who is suing the government. He wants to be recognized as non-binary on official documents. He apparently doesn't know what his official gender is. Well, if he doesn't know???

I’m a perfectly normal middle aged woman who has grabbed every opportunity that has come my way and run with it. I’ve had some luck, and also made a lot of opportunities happen because I saw an opening. This is generally considered to be quite normal with men but ‘pushy’ by women - why? There are lots of things men do that women just don’t, because it’s not ‘ladylike.’ Bugger that!

As for map reading - why is this considered a male thing? I am good at it (without giving too much away, I do it for a living and I represent my country in a mappy discipline, and DD does too.) It’s just like any other learned skill - there is no bit of map reading that I need a penis to do well.

@WarriorN thanks for that article. Yes it does confuse me as Chris/Redcar srill dresses and presents as they did when they identified as female - eg rather like Eurythmics era Annie Lennox.

I am thrilled when promient women present something different from the overly sexualised and ultra feminine mainstream for celebs these days. I am just baffled as to why there is a need to deny biological reality in order to do so.

I give performers a bit of a free pass as playing with identities is common. I can understand how "Redcar" can be seen as an embodiment of the masculine side of their personality. But it is a bit odd when everyone kind of agrees that, yes, this person is now a literal man.

It also worried that little girls that want to dress and be like them (and they are an awesome artist and dancer) may think they need to supress or deny their womanhood as a result. It is just another way of being a woman.

@loislovesstewie trying not to be prurient here but I am wondering how that would even work. 🤔

On maps again though, we are our own worst enemy. I teach map skills too, mostly to women. I was told at a training session recently being conducted by a top instructor that teenage DD was better than some of the army navigators he gets through his lessons. Yet still I hear other women perpetuating the myth that men are better at map reading. When DD was in Guides, they did nothing to address this, preferring to do the ‘cooking on a campfire’ stuff if they were doing outdoor activities, and even knitting a blanket. 🙄 Whereas at Scouts my DS does hiking and navigating and compass skills as perfectly normal things for boys. DH cannot find his way out of a train station without his phone to tell him which way to go, and blindly follows his satnav anywhere - sometimes to highly amusing or infuriating ends. Yet map reading is still ‘blokey.’ And don’t even get me started on the jokes I’ve heard over my career about women parking. There is no sentence more punch-worthy than ‘not bad…..for a girl!’

@Ginmonkeyagain ,well to say it boggles my mind is an understatement. It reminds me of people who have horns placed in the head, or parts of the body removed. One man has had fingers, lips, ears removed in order to become reptilian. I really don't know what they are hoping to achieve and find it hard to believe they will ever be happy. Just because you can do it, doesn't make it right.

I have a very good born male friend to whom this has happened. For medical reasons he ‘ has no balls’

I don’t think anyone meeting him would know this from his appearance or behaviour. He is just a (fairly elderly) bloke. He still shaves. Most of the people with whom he socialisées are not aware ( I think, I wouldn’t ask) of his condition. Certainly he and they do not seem to relate to each other in any different way.

People who undergo a similar operation before puberty have a very different presentation. Maybe Surprisingly, they tend to grow more , and bulk out more than males who have undergone male puberty. That is why bullocks and steers and to some extent geldings have been created for millennia : because it makes them more tractable and fattens them up for the table. Human males who have been subjected to the same treatment tend to have very long bones , look at the singers of alto roles in depictions of eighteenth century opera. They bear a striking resemblance to people who have had similar treatment inflicted on them in modern times.

Handels singers were renowned for having a rather ‘hysterical’ temperament - although that might have been the theatrical environment. Certainly they did seem to behave differently from both the male and female performers. Most of the people employed in harems in the ancient world were also characterised as ‘fat” and ‘shrill’, so seem to have been created before puberty.

of course, there is no female equivalent. Women who had their breasts cut off were ‘just’ breast less women. It is unlikely that anyone could survive a hysterectomy until modern times. Women who put on male clothing and performed male ‘roles’ were just women in mens clothing.

Or...we could stop recording gender because it's highly individual and therefore somewhat meaningless and just record sex. I.e..male and female. Oh wait...that is what we record.

BTW this person does not have a penis and a vagina. One of them is a crude mock.up. I.e. neovagina or neopenis.

TBH I am not sure why we need to record sex on passports and driving licences.

Yes, I agree it is a neo vagina. He was born male. And still is.

Sorry to be crude but it's not any kind of vagina, it's just a hole.

Rejecting femininity. I can understand it. It's like taking yourself out of competition you didn't enter.

Men aren't under the same pressures.

Oh god yes. I came of age in the mid nineties and there just weren't these pressures. I didn't own a hairdrier or foundation until my mid twenties. For me make up was fun - hair mascara, glitter gel, massively unflattering dark plum lipstick, neon nail varnish - not about looking "perfect".

My standard night out clothes were converse, baggy combat trousers from warehouse and either a cartoon print t shirt or a velvet vest top depending on how fancy the occasion was.

I think it's rejecting the role that others are trying to impose upon you.

'Girls have long hair'

'Girls wear pink, they wear dresses, they wear pretty shoes --that hurt their feet and stop them from moving freely and comfortably'

'Girls don't have mountain bikes/BMXs, they have sparkly pink things with a step over handlebar and a basket and bell that can't be used for stunts or going offroad'

'Girls don't climb trees'

'Girls can't play cricket'

'Girl's don't have computers'

'Girls don't talk to boys'

'Girls are weak'

'Girls can't do Maths/Science/programming/Graphics/Woodwork'

'Girls are there to look pretty and make boys feel special'

'Girls are nurses and Mums and primary school teachers'

Sometimes, they'd ignore all those things and just get on with being themselves for years - and then puberty hits. There's no ignoring it then because your body has let you down by giving you breasts and periods. Beforehand, if you had shortish hair for comfort and wore jeans and a t-shirt, there would be times when nobody realised you were a girl, as they would have tried to stop you doing something or criticised you for it had they known. But now you have bits that jiggle and are uncomfortable, that bra you've been given feels itchy and constrictive and everybody can see it under your clothes. Boys who might have been your friends for years get weird or teased for being your friend 'Oh, you lurve her!'. Other boys start pinging bra straps or groping you 'for a laugh'. Men start yelling shit about your body at you as they go past in cars. Randoms start following you on your way to school. Other girls don't like you because 'she's a slag, I saw her talking to boys'. Boys shout over you at school. You realise that unless you look like the women on TV/in the media, you have no value - doesn't stop the comments or groping, but you're simultaneously too ugly to have worth and too pretty to have agency, intelligence and value outside your physical appearance and availability to men/boys.

Everything you see and hear tells you that your future is going to be utterly shit because of your body, your sex, telling people that you need to be placed into a predestined gender role that you do not want. You realise that statistically, you are now in the category of victim. You're in danger. Because your body, by going through puberty, has put you there.

It's a rejection of the future as experienced by women and girls as much - because the future as experienced by men and boys appears safer, freer and just far more appealing.

Genderism is all about the binary. Feminine people must do this, and masculine people must do that. It all seems to be about performing whichever side of the binary divide they choose to be on.

I don't need to know what gender a person is before I decide whether they are interesting or worth knowing. I don't need to know their sex either, but at least the sex is a real thing.