to man, or not to man (on anti-transmasculinity).
aka I take a silly tweet and make it way too deep and personal.
DISCLAIMER: Please do not take any of what I say here as the absolute truth and/or applicable to every single trans person out there. This is merely based on my own experiences. Secondly, I do not believe nor intend to argue that all cisgender people are like the ones I've described below. For the sake of clarity and brevity, I make some sweeping generalisations. Finally, the purpose of this work is not to suggest that transmasculine people have it harder than other trans folks. I'm not here to play Oppression Olympics.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Transphobia, anti-transmasculinity, misogyny
Every once in a while, I scroll through my camera roll and stare at this tweet like a long lost lover. I find that I come back to it the most when I fail to resist the toxic wastelands of queer discourse and feel slightly distressed about someone's opinion on my male identity. Usually, it's something that insinuates or loudly proclaims that I, a transmasculine person, am no better than the evil cisgender male patriarchs of society, that I have no place in feminism, etcetera etcetera. Sometimes I even think that my discomfort and insecurity over these sentiments only further confirms that I am yet another fragile, seething male deserving of that vitriol.
This discourse appears everywhere once you begin to notice it. TERFs and radical feminists claim that trans men are delusional women who cannot handle oppression and want to "cheat the system" by becoming men--thus betraying the feminist cause. Even in supposedly inclusive queer spaces, I've sat silently as people half-jokingly claim that T will make me aggressive, angry, and unfeeling. If you dare to refute those statements or bring up transmasculine struggles, you're brushed aside and told that you're speaking over others who are more deserving of the spotlight.
So, kind of pathetically, I return to this tweet like it's reassurance, that I am not the evil, patriarchal oppressor. That because, in spite of the fact that I've betrayed womanhood by "choosing" manhood, I still understand what it's like to be a girl. I understand what it's like to be taught to make yourself smaller, to apologize for existing, to be sexualized before you even understand what that means. I understand what it's like to be taught that your value is in your appearance, your compliance, your ability to nurture others at the expense of yourself. These lessons are part of me, even as I navigate the world as a man.
But this understanding, this lived experience, becomes both a shield and a burden. It's quite ironic that I must claim my girlhood/womanhood in order for my masculinity to be acceptable to myself and others, as if simply being happier and fulfilled with masculine identity isn't enough to rationalise being the way I am. And then, there will be those who yell that by claiming my girlhood, I am actually weaponising it to shield myself from accusations of oppression. There seems to be no safe "middle ground".
The discourse around transmasculinity feels like a game where the rules keep changing. Claim too much of your past, and you're appropriating women's experiences for social capital, or somehow suggesting that a trans woman's experiences with womanhood are less legitimate. Disavow that past entirely, and you're denying the realities that shaped you. Be too masculine, and you're a traitor to feminism. Be insufficiently masculine, and you're just playing dress-up and embarrassing "real" trans folks. It's exhausting to exist in this perpetual state of scrutiny, where your identity becomes a political battleground for everyone else's ideologies.
What's lost in these debates is the simple humanity of it all—that transitioning isn't a political statement but an act of survival. Recognizing and embracing my transmasc identity has nothing to do with patriarchy or oppression, but everything to do with finally feeling at home in my own body and mind. I have to constantly reiterate that this is all I want: my survival.
I find myself wondering if cisgender people understand what a privilege it is to have your gender treated as unremarkable, to never have to justify why you feel the way you feel about your own body and identity. To never have to prove that your existence isn't a political act, but simply a human one.
Perhaps that's why this tweet resonates so deeply. It acknowledges the complexity without demanding justification. It sees both the man I am and the girl I was without erasing either.
This constant need to justify my existence is exhausting. But what's perhaps even more draining is watching the spaces that once felt like sanctuary become much less welcome.
"KAM".
The progressive spaces that I once called home have become increasingly hostile territories as I've embraced my transmasculinity. There's a particular brand of feminist discourse in these communities that treats masculinity not as a diverse spectrum of human expression, but as a pathology to be cured.
I've watched as people I know share posts proclaiming that "men are trash" or "masculinity is the root of all violence." Posts proclaiming that butches reinforce heteronormativity gain thousands of views and likes. I've been told that I specifically have to work twice as hard to combat the patriarchy and toxic masculinity--the unspoken implication being that my masculinity is inherently suspect, requiring constant self-policing to be deemed acceptable. My long journey to pursue medical transition has been met and delayed by people who've told me: "you'll look ugly as a man", "but you're such a pretty girl", and "T will make you angry".
I'm expected to nod along to all of this because, apparently, receiving adversarial reactions to maleness is just what being a man is about. I'm expected to nod along because I've seen the damage patriarchy can do. And I have seen it--up close and personal--but I've also seen joy in masculinity when it's expressed with authenticity rather than as performance. I've experienced the profound relief of finally recognizing myself in the mirror when I embraced my transmasc identity.
What these spaces fail to understand is that demonizing masculinity doesn't dismantle patriarchy--it reinforces it. It solidifies the idea that to be masculine is inherently to be domineering, aggressive, emotionless. It leaves no room for tenderness, vulnerability, or nurturing within masculine expression. It absolves violent men of their actions by framing their violence as inherent and natural ("boys will be boys"), rather than acknowledging that they can and must change. These sentiments also reinforce white supremacist ideals, that certain groups--Black and brown men in particular--who are stereotyped as being hypermasculine, are inherently more violent and dangerous (an oversimplification, but I'm not going to open that can of worms further). And for transmasculine people, it creates an impossible choice: deny your authentic gender or accept your role as the enemy.
These spaces claim to be intersectional, to understand the complexities of identity, but when it comes to gender, they often revert to the most reductive, black-and-white binaries: woman equals good, man equals bad. There's no room in that equation for someone like me, whose very existence troubles those neat categories. There's no acknowledgment that masculinity can be gentle, compassionate, nurturing--that these qualities aren't exclusive to femininity but are simply human.
The irony isn't lost on me that in trying to escape the rigid gender expectations placed on me as a girl, I've encountered equally rigid expectations about what it means to be a man. The difference is that now, those expectations come from the very communities that claim to be fighting for gender liberation.
the paradox.
There's an assumption that lurks beneath many of these conversations--that in transitioning, I've somehow inherited the full weight and benefit of male privilege. To imply otherwise, that a man or masculine-identifying person can be oppressed is heretical to people. As if masculinity is a monolith, and all men walk through the world with identical experiences of power. As if the moment I opened the closet door, society handed me the keys to the patriarchal kingdom and the basement for Saturday night drinks with the boys.
It's complicated. My masculinity will always be questioned in ways cis men's rarely is. In locker rooms, in doctor's offices, in intimate relationships--my body betrays the narrative of uncomplicated manhood. I've been threatened with rape and physical assault by cis men who seek to "correct" my supposed gender crime, and then told by cis women that these instances of violence don't happen to someone like me. I don't have the uninterrupted lifetime of cis male upbringing that teaches certain men they are entitled to space, to attention, to forgiveness when they fail. I don't have the network of other men who reinforce these entitlements, who close ranks around their own.
When conversations about male power arise, they often focus exclusively on cishet white men of privilege--then extrapolate those observations to encompass all masculinity. But, thing is, power isn't transferred wholesale through gender presentation; there are lots of factors that interplay to consider: including race, class, disability, sexuality, and yes, trans status. A Black trans man navigates a different reality than a white cis man. A disabled trans man experiences different barriers than an able-bodied one.
And yet, again, progressive spaces often flatten any nuance in favour of simpler narratives. They position all masculinity as equally powerful, equally dangerous, equally responsible. They demand I acknowledge male privileges I do not experience without recognizing the vulnerabilities that are part of my reality. They insist I claim power I do not possess in order to properly atone for it.
The truth is that transmasculine people often exist in a power limbo--too masculine to be welcomed in certain women's spaces, not masculine enough to be fully accepted in men's. We're visible enough to be targeted but not visible enough for our specific needs to be recognized in broader trans advocacy. We're told our transitions represent a flight toward privilege while simultaneously experiencing some of the highest rates of violence, suicide, mental health issues, and discrimination within the queer community [1], [2], [3].
This isn't to say that passing privilege isn't real, or that transmasc people don't benefit from certain aspects of male privilege when we're read as cis men. But rather to acknowledge that our relationship to power is complicated by our transness in ways that purely binary thinking cannot capture. My masculinity doesn't shield me from transphobia, misogyny, racism, and anti-transmasculinity (more on that later) any more than my past does. I live in a body that is perpetually read and misread, that flip-flops between target and oppressor depending on who's doing the looking.
finding wholeness.
Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever feel fully at home anywhere. Cis men cannot understand the formative experiences that shaped me and see me as a target; cis women see me as having abandoned their struggle. Progressive spaces question my politics; conservative ones question my right to existence. I exist in the in-between, in the both/and, in the complexity that binary thinking cannot contain.
What I'm describing throughout this essay (if you can even call it that) is a phenomenon that rarely gets named: anti-transmasculinity. It manifests in the exclusion of transmasculine people from feminist discourse except as cautionary tales or tokens of validation. It shows up in the assumption that our transitions are motivated by internalized misogyny. It appears in how our specific healthcare needs are overlooked. It's present when our trauma is dismissed because we're now "men," when our masculinity is treated as inherently more toxic or more fragile than cis men's, when any attempts to advocate for our needs are accused of stepping over someone else. Anti-transmasculinity positions us as either failed women or counterfeit men (often both), never as whole people. And like most prejudice, it's rarely named directly--instead disguising itself as progressive politics or feminist/gender analysis, making it all the more insidious and difficult to confront.
Regardless, I'm learning to stop apologizing for my masculinity, to stop qualifying it with my past experiences to make it more palatable to others. My masculinity isn't acceptable because I was once a girl; it's acceptable because it's authentic, because it's mine, because it's my humanity in all its complicated glory.
And when I look at that tweet now, I smile not because it validates me in the eyes of others, but because it reminds me of the journey I've taken. The wisdom I've gained from straddling worlds, from seeing gender from multiple perspectives, and from knowing firsthand that none of us are just one thing.
As I've discussed in my earlier piece, to lesbian, or not to lesbian: the question shouldn't be whether someone can fit into a neat box, but whether those boxes can expand to hold the complexity of all our lived experiences. What might our conversations about gender look like if we stopped demanding that people choose sides? What liberation might be possible if we acknowledged that none of us--cis or trans--experience gender in exactly the same way?
(If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. I originally did not mean for this to be so long lol.)