When women look like men

There are many difficult social challenges, being a woman who looks like a man. This seems common, among some butch lesbians who never medicalized and those who did. But, the problem seems significantly intensified when testosterone changes our appearance beyond any recognition of female. This is so much the case that it makes it very difficult to hold onto our awareness of ourselves as women, while adapting to our new social realities.

Men and women are treated differently, socially, occupationally, romantically… The nuances of this are very apparent to me, having once been perceived as female, and now perceived as male. I moved socially from one box which felt too limiting, to another box that feels too limiting. This has created a dilemma and a grief that I’m hearing expressed among other medicalized women who feel stuck in between two realities, with no apparent way out of the trap.

There are ways I’ve benefited from appearing male. I’ve made the most of it and have lived a constructive life. I’d say that safety has been the top benefit. I’d gone from almost constant homophobic and sexist harassment as a butch lesbian to absolutely none for almost 20 years. I went on to life as a highly gender non-conforming woman, unnoticed and unharmed by aggressors, which allowed me to focus on my career, raising kids etc.

But, there are costs. The potential physical health complications are what most people focus on. I think the emotional and relational ones are worse. Those complications are rarely aired.

This has been a preoccupation for me over the past several months, as I reorient myself to my femaleness, making some huge mistakes, and suffering some painful losses. This reorientation is often destabilizing when we do it. And I wish people would be more sensitive to how destabilizing it is, when they push us to do this, and trigger trauma.

One of the first things that happened when I started speaking publicly, is I now face the aggression of others. Being out means that the trans veil is off. And everyone’s feelings about a woman this gender non-conforming are on. And what we then face, are all of the reasons for why we as women made this choice in the first place, including feelings of being very unloved and very unsafe.

Fortunately, I have developed skills to manage many of the situations that come up. My skin is thicker than it was in my youth, but I’m still confronted with it. Many are. It’s a demon needing to be faced. And if I, as an adult who has been stable and successful for many years, am finding it this hard to be honest, then what of the girls and those without resources?

This is hard to talk about because of landmines of political positions and personal feelings about the sexes and sex stereotypes. I’ll try to stick to facts.

I am a woman who was a socialized female, and no amount of testosterone has ever changed that. The dynamics between transmen and transwomen make it clear that changing appearances does not change our social behaviour, relational needs or social status.

The relational complications are what I find most challenging.

My life-long perception of myself as “masculine” is, in some ways, very funny. Like all people, I have a mix of stereotypically male and female traits. I enjoy carpentry and tend to think visually and spatially in ways seen as “masculine”. I’m also very “feminine” – I’m sensitive and find most of the world way too crass for my sensibilities. I like gentle conversation. Pretty things like flowers. Poetry and art. I prefer the ballet to the mosh pit.

I hide many of my more “feminine” traits, as a matter of necessary adaptation to living in the world looking like a man. A man with my gentle sensitivities is equally at risk of violence and social exclusion as a butch lesbian. I discovered that very quickly in my early days passing as a man. I started to be gay-bashed, rather than butch-bashed.

So, I adapted. Women are good adaptors. But here are some of the relational costs:

I am always assumed to be an aggressor, a potential threat and as holding power over women, even in situations in which I am the woman in the situation with less power, and am sometimes exploited, with no recourse that is apparent to me.

I’m expected to be entirely stoic and unemotional – a “rock” for women. Yet, women can yell at me, swear at me, or even physically assault me, etc which I’m expected to just “suck up” and never have feelings about.

No romantic interest has ever bought me flowers

No romantic interest has ever flirted to win my heart. Only for sex.

In romantic relationships with women, I’ve always tried to be very sensitive to the ways in which their experiences and their bodies intersect. I’ve enjoyed touching partnerss bodies in ways they’ve said feel good and are healing. No partner has ever reciprocated that or even considered that my body is female and bears my experiences. There are times I’ve asked for that kind of attention and touch, and it seemed unwelcome. I was expected to maintain the illusion of masculinity at all times and the suggestion that I have uniquely female needs seemed repulsive to others. So, I go to a massage therapist if I ever want to just be touched in ways that feel safe and good. Even that is suspect to some who think a man would only want a massage for sexual reasons.

Many women form social bonds with female friends which provides them with emotional supports. Men are expected to maintain their stoicism among men. This means that I have all of the emotional needs as any other woman, but none of the opportunity to voice those needs, have them met, and receive care.

The female rituals of doing each other’s hair and makeup or trying on clothes has long fascinated me. As a kid, I did have many friends and went to many sleepovers with the girls. Telling scary stories and going on late-night walks through the nearby cemetery were things I did eagerly. The hair and makeup thing made me feel very uncomfortable. But, deeper than that aversion was a longing. I did want to feel the care and intimacy of those kinds of rituals between girls. I do like clothes, just, rather than make-up and having my hair curled, I liked my handsome cowboy boots and boyish appearance. When I think back to those times, rather than feel excluded, and uncomfortable, then drawing the conclusion that I just hated those things, I wonder if there could have been a way to include me, a gender non-conforming girl, in female bonding rituals, in ways authentic to me - Rather than attempt to make me less gender non-conforming which caused me shame and othering.

Women aren’t weaklings. But we do have vulnerabilities unique to women. Masculine women aren’t without those same needs and vulnerabilities. In fact, as women on the margins of what most people consider acceptable for womanhood, we’re often more at risk of male violence, social isolation and lack of resourcing. Unfortunately, what “trans” does, is solidify a social contract in which our uniquely female needs are given a place 6 feet underground, rather than articulated and finally met. Many years of unmet relational needs have weakened me internally as I’ve stood stoic and proud upon the grave of my needs as a woman.

As I take off the veil of trans, publicly, these are the things I face. And as I say them out loud, so many women are saying “me too”.

But, you know what? Many men are saying it too. Men I know who see me as a more openly vulnerable kind of man, have been sending me this song and video in our DMs. This song is exactly how I feel. I don’t think anyone is benefiting from being only partially human and without intimacy.

I did develop sympathies for men when I transitioned. I’d pretty much been a lesbian separatist before then. I’m now seeing a lot of men who are often sensitive boys, with good hearts, feeling just as trapped by gender roles and stereotypes as I am, who want intimacy and want their hearts to be seen, but who risk being ridiculed and rejected if they break ranks, just as I have.

That fact actually gives me a sense of hope.

Because it’s been very easy for me to conclude that because I will never look like a woman again, that I’m forever trapped in a box, without my emotional and relational needs met.

Fortunately, this is a human need, not just a female need.  

So I’ll say it for all of us. Not being fully human because of “gender” is really, really stupid. It does damage. But I, and many medicalized women, are having trouble seeing a way out and feel trapped in the reality of being women who are never seen as women. We feel invisible to women, left out of the social bonds with women, and outside of the care and resourcing for women.

Unfortunately, “man face” is something we’re stuck with. It comes overpacked with three times the baggage most men travel with. It’s a girl thing.

Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash