I've chosen not to medically transition and even if I did I might end up in some weird gender space like being perceived as a feminine gay man or something which I think is a different experience but it still surprises me when people don't know that this is going to happen at this stage:
I mean for starters Norah Vincent (not trans,) did a social experiment in 2006 where she lived as a man for a while to compare the experiences.
Uh I know she talked about this a bunch but too lazy to find quotes:
The main observation that she talks about is basically men's loneliness. Lack of intimacy in male spaces, and that both men and women are more hostile socially to men.
Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man is a 2006 book by journalist Norah Vincent, recounting an 18-month experiment in which she disguised herself as a man and then integrated into traditionally male-only venues, such as a bowling league and a monastery. She described this as "a human project" about learning. She states at the beginning that she is a lesbian but not transgender.
She wrote about how the only time she had ever been considered excessively feminine was during her stint as a man: her alter ego, Ned, was assumed to be gay on several occasions. Features of herself that had before been seen as butch were seen as oddly effeminate. Vincent stated that, after the experiment, she gained more sympathy for the male condition: "Men are suffering. They have different problems than women have, but they don't have it better. They need our sympathy, they need our love, and they need each other more than anything else. They need to be together."[2][3]
That's what I was saying and she's not the only person to describe that. I think this could be somewhat of a mindfuck in itself. But something similar happens anyway if people find out you're trans/non-binary and want to insult you lol they will point out all the ways your feminine if they think you're afab. I am pretty feminine but I don't exactly see myself as a feminine gay guy. Firstly because I'm non-binary (and not monosexual,) I've known some gay guys irl who I felt were more feminine than me in some ways (and I can't really explain why I felt this way but yeah,) but also if I consider one gay guy I did relate to a lot who is famous he gets comments like this:
He does look lika a lesbian freelance journalist, though...
Never knew he was gay tbh..Not that it matters to me.
The points I relate on don't matter to other's perception though people go off body language and sometimes hair length and other physical features. I find most social rules constricting in one way or another anyway. I'm in a weird position where people have had different views about me anyway which does not help when building an identity actually.
Found this reddit thread lol:
CMV: Norah Vincent's psychological distress from living as a man is not evidence that life as a man is harder, but is evidence for the negative impacts of gender dysphoria.
I don't think that's plausible because trans people talk about similar stuff too. That was her perspective though I guess and I don't know if she said it was harder just that it was harder than she expected and not easier than 'living as a woman' but maybe she said it was harder at some point I don't know.
The other reason is the external experience of "passing" trans people. There are plentiful viewpoints from trans men who were socialized and treated as women, and trans women who were socialized and treated as men. They were treated one way before they were trans, and now that they "pass" as their gender, are treated the other way. They might not have the intrinsic experience of being both genders, but they do have the external one. They can speak to how society treats you different as a man, vs. as a woman. And I have seen accounts from both trans men and trans women, that they are treated more positively as a man.
But it's not black/white sometimes people who are ambivalent present as more feminine up to the point of passing as women to get access to attention + benefits that women have despite being cis men. Like some femboys and so on. Many people who live as non-conforming women are treated badly and so transitioning actually does help them socially. Sometimes people's lives were worse before transition and they feel more confident later. Really varies depending on individual and the environment, your class background etc.
One other factor I think is relevant to her why her experience was stressful is homophobia/misogyny. Norah was a lesbian and considered herself "butch", but in her experiment as a man, was frequently clocked as a effeminate or gay man. I think it's reasonable to entertain the notion that some of her negative experience could have been influenced from being fully accepted as a man, or that her feminity that was peeking through at times was being viewed in a negative way, or leading to negative treatment.
That makes more sense to me but it's not a trans/cis thing since I've seen trans men who are read as feminine detransition and often the reasons given are far more about gender roles and social stuff. Most aren't butch prior to doing that though so that aspect was a bit weird/interesting. They're usually attracted to men and can't hack being perceived as very feminine men because of how society treats people like that. Sometimes they miss presenting a certain way with makeup + long hair which they think is easier if they detransition and since many of these people are trans med and have a certain identity thing where their identity depends on medical status they just start saying they're women. Also correlation with these people declaring transition is bad etc and sometimes suppressing their sexuality. Thinking of a couple of people in particular I stumbled on on YouTube there. They tend to be very skeptical of transition even when they miss things about living as a guy.
I don't think the social situation was always like this exactly though if you read really old letters between some guys like Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed you can see they were pretty close:
When this shall reach you, you will have been Fanny's husband several days. [2] You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting---that I will never cease, while I know how to do any thing.
But you will always hereafter, be on ground that I have never ocupied, and consequently, if advice were needed, I might advise wrong.
I do fondly hope, however, that you will never again need any comfort from abroad. But should I be mistaken in this---should excessive pleasure still be accompanied with a painful counterpart at times, still let me urge you, as I have ever done, to remember in the dep[t]h and even the agony of despondency, that verry shortly you are to feel well again. I am now fully convinced, that you love her as ardently as you are capable of loving. Your ever being happy in her presence, and your intense anxiety about her health, if there were nothing else, would place this beyond all dispute in my mind. I incline to think it probable, that your nerves will fail you occassionally for a while; but once you get them fairly graded now, that trouble is over forever.
I think if I were you, in case my mind were not exactly right, I would avoid being idle; I would immediately engage in some business, or go to making preparations for it, which would be the same thing.
If you went through the ceremony calmly, or even with sufficient composure not to excite alarm in any present, you are safe, beyond question, and in two or three months, to say the most, will be the happiest of men.
I hope with tolerable confidence, that this letter is a plaster for a place that is no longer sore. God grant it may be so.
I would desire you to give my particular respects to Fanny, but perhaps you will not wish her to know you have received this, lest she should desire to see it. Make her write me an answer to my last letter to her at any rate. [3] I would set great value upon another letter from her.
Write me whenever you have leisure. Yours forever.
A. LINCOLN
P.S. I have been quite a man ever since you left.
At this point this gets interpreted as homosexuality though and most guys are terrified of appearing gay. Not only does this not sound like how friends would write to each other
now (regardless of gender,) it doesn't even sound like how romantic partners talk to each other most of the time. Most people don't have or least don't express this level of affection for one another anymore.
I mean case in point (though I guess it's different if it's early on):
My impression from things people say and certain videos clips is that women have become a
lot more neurotic over time too and it's not actually normal for women to view every guy as a predator (which they often now do, also are encouraged to do really but they probably always were encouraged to do that so I don't know.) But like there are video clips of eg: a young woman now reacting in an almost traumatic way to being approached by a guy which I don't think would have happened in the past (it's a bit selective though she might have an anxiety disorder at the same time who doesn't in gen z?) and in fact you can find video footage of the 80s and 90s where strangers just have normal conversations in shops at 2:30am although she might have been drinking. Yeah this one...
The comments are often like:
crazy how friendly everyone was. you'd get told to [BEEP] off now today
Is this real? Like you could just go up to people like this?
Now everyone has social anxiety.
The french girl was beautiful, I definitely would've tried to get to know her. 😂
and back then she'd have loved the compliment unlike todays women where you are instantly a predator if you talk to them
This makes me wanna cry. Im so scared to leave my house because people are so mean now a days. I wish i grew up in this time.
^ then obviously there was a massive unnecessary argument about gay people under this.
This is America though in the UK there are regions which have just always been inexpressive and cold tbh. Also again I wasn't alive then so you'd need a lot of videos to say and people act differently on camera. Then on top of all that it was filmed near Disney World and people sometimes act differently in certain environments like that. Some of the comments are probably over romanticising things too.
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