Something that’s been on my mind lately is how to navigate my relationships with cis people, and especially cis men, that I’ve known since pre-transition. At meals and get togethers with friends and family I keep finding myself in conversation with the men more than the women, and it feels like they’re talking to me man-to-man, and I’m not enjoying it. Some examples of what this looks like include getting cornered when it’s just the two of us in the kitchen, or being at a table with another couple and the conversation splits to cis women / cis guy and me, and never comes back together. I can see a number of factors involved with why this might be happening.
One big part of this is that we had a male relationship before my transition, and so it’s easy to just keep acting like that’s how we relate to each other. Similarly, the women in this scenario don’t have as well defined a relationship with me, so it’s not as easy for us to slip into a comfortable socializing pattern. A lot of cis people seem to have no idea how to talk to people in transition. I know a lot of trans people would rather not get questions or comments from their friends and family, which is understandable in the case of having transphobic people in your life, but in my case I’m supposedly surrounded by allies who don’t seem to notice or want to ask how things have been going for me. I’m willing to have that conversation, transition is so WEIRD and COOL and EMOTIONAL and I want to share! I want to be seen and acknowledged as a woman by my friends and family, and I wish they would show an iota of awareness about it.
I probably look pretty nervous at cis-heavy social gatherings these days. There’s so much that I’m trying to juggle when I’m out with cis people - how’s my appearance? Is my voice too deep? Am I being too loud and obnoxious in a male way? Am I lapsing back into old patterns? How are they perceiving me? I’m extremely self-aware in ways that I’m not around the trans folks in my life. I experience internal transmisogyny around “living up” to being a woman, not wanting to embarrass other women by sharing their pronouns. And so when it comes to being around men, I feel like it’s extra important for them to see me exhibiting these traits so that they won’t keep perceiving me as a man, and sometimes this has been translating into making myself small and quiet to get a handle on the shitstorm of pressures in my head. I think that some of these men are picking up on this, and trying to make me feel more included by engaging me in conversation. There’s like a “chivalry” component to it?
Lastly I’m not forgetting that as a cis man it can be intimidating to be in social situations with a lot of women, and “guys have to stick together” in those sorts of circumstances. One meme of sexism is the mystery of the “fairer sex” - women are supposedly unpredictable and emotional, and their bodies are weird. You can’t understand them! On the opposite side of the coin, men are, of course, calm, cool and rational. We all know this is a heap of bullshit designed to take away women’s autonomy and give men a free pass for feelings of entitlement. But even the best feminists can internalize this thinking to some degree. Cis men especially seem to struggle with awareness around these stereotypes since they aren’t taught how to relate to their feelings, which means they’re easily scared in non-male settings. So since I’m the closest thing to a man in the room, the cis guys light upon me for companionship. This feels like an additional emotional burden for me to carry. I’ve already talked about my hyperawareness of self, and now unintentionally a guy friend is asking me to soothe his ego and protect him from the icky girls. I absolutely do not want to be in this role, and I have plenty of this crap to work through in my own brain before I can start helping somebody else.
This post really doesn’t have a point or a positive ending, it’s a vent about a common experience in my life right now. It feels good to try and get some of the steps of this dance written down, at least. Just one of the papercuts of transition.