Positives and Negatives

So far, this weekend has been far more social than most of my weekends are, and that’s without the Superbowl party we’re going to tonight. What happened was that my wife and some of the other students in her department were tasked with showing a new prospective student around, so from Friday evening through all yesterday I was out and about with a group of other people. While I’m usually not one for quite that much uninterrupted socializing, it did make some things I like and don’t like about seeing myself as trans come in to focus.

First, the positives. The grad student, who was male, really seemed to gravitate to me. I’ve noticed this happens a lot when there’s one other guy around in a group of women. They’ll talk more to me than to the women, we’ll subtly try to one-up or impress one another, and we’ll walk or stand nearer to one another while the girls do their thing. (Ask is not the biggest fan of this behavior, btw, so be ready to hear more about it).

I like the feeling of being friendly with guys and being recognized as more like one of them. I’m not sure how to describe why, exactly. It’s not that I think women can’t talk about comic books and video games and sci fi, or that I think women and men should be separated, or that I don’t like hanging around with women- but there’s just a feeling of comfort, for me, about the way that guys relate to one another. On the one hand, it’s more surface-level than the way (most) women relate to one another- less likely to break out into a conversation about people or relationships or personal revelations. And on the other hand, there’s a natural level of competition between men which means there’s less need to worry about insulting someone or having them worry about whether they just insulted you. I like that about “male” mode of relation. It feels comfortable.

I’m probably expressing this badly. Ask may very well read this and be annoyed with me. But it feels like a cop out to say “Oh, there’s some mystical dysphoria that’s healed by being viewed as more of a guy or hanging out with guys, and you couldn’t understand it unless you were a trans guy”. So I’m trying to explain exactly what it is I like, and I know I’m probably falling back on stereotypes, but it’s damn hard to talk about the differences between men and women without doing so.

Anyway. On to negatives. I really dislike how questioning my gender has made me more self-conscious. I spent more time noticing men’s bodies than I have in my entire life, and also noticing butch women, and how different they look from men. Also. When my new buddy held doors open for me (which he did way too often), I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that while I saw us as two guys hanging out, he just saw me as a somewhat more masculine woman. That’s not something that used to bother me, and I don’t like being aware of it. I also hate that I’m spending extra time in the restroom making sure my binder is doing the best job possible, or fussing over my clothes to minimize my hips, or realizing how different my body looks from men’s bodies. And, I hate comparing my hand gestures and my intonations and the way I’m standing to the way men do it, and worrying when I do it “wrong” (i.e., more feminine). The very concept of having a “right” way to stand or a “right” way to speak is problematic.

Too much self-consciousness takes me out of my environment and separates me from the moment. It makes me inauthentic, perhaps even narcissistic. These are the sorts of tendencies I’d rather suppress in myself than bring more to the forefront. The fact that this gender identity confusion stuff makes doing so more difficult is a real problem. I’m not a fan of gender issues.