Oh hey I’m AFAB but more or less NB at this point and let my gender presentation flux with both people’s perceptions and whatever seems to be working best in the moment, especially career-wise so I actually have a LOT of thoughts on this. A looot of this discusses societal stereotypes on gender, so while I think it’s shitty, the fact that a lot of people (wrongly) perceive trans people as their birth sex is of relevance to my perspective on this discussion. So, trigger warning: prejudice / transphobia.
Background:
I’m AFAB so most of my upbringing was femme oriented
I also come from an autism / ADHD HEAVY family so I still missed some of the social aspects of gendered upbringing
my parents WERE fundies however, so my attempts at more feminine presentations (makeup, heels, etc) resulted in a lot of sex-shaming from my parents, but there was also a looot of pro-birther nonsense and everything about pregnancy just freaks me out. There’s probably a looot to unpack there as to how I wound up nonbinary, but ultimately I am what I am now, so it is what it is.
I spent the first few years of my career working on a psych unit for criminally insane men so the formative years of my young adulthood were spent learning how to speak from my chest and not look like a target
my current presentation is that sort of “no gendered features” / look like a clean shaven young man / lesbian (vs the beard AND boobs / “aaaall the gendered features” look). The only surgery I’ve had is my tits chopped off + tubes out. So I don’t look ooobviously trans, but a lot of people also can’t really tell what genitals I have at a glance which some people find …distressing. for some reason.
I’m also white which I think lets me “get away with more” than others.
Thoughts:
I usually use the women’s bathroom. Sometimes I bring a she-wee to work but all the unit bathrooms are singles so it’s more just because I work with animals (male and female) who don’t know how to put the seat up when they pee standing / squatting. This is mostly because whether it’s reality or trauma based (see above work history) I don’t trust most men around me with my pants off vs women will be socially awful but I likely won’t have to come to blows over it. I do get some weird looks though, and some have stopped me, but then they just get this really confused / uncomfortable expression and ultimately leave me alone. But as far as your question goes, I do think I would get less backlash as a AFAB going into the men’s room than an AMAB gets doing the reverse, so there’s definitely an aspect of my vagina being inherently less threatening in vulnerable contexts… somehow?
sexually, I can be a top or a bottom (penatrator OR penatratee) and pussy vs bussy doesn’t matter too much to me other than that fitting things in the backdoor takes a lot more prep work (but I’ll talk more further down about how that flexibility is convenient for me personally). As far as gender relations go, I feel like I get more “girl power” brownie points for strapping on and pegging my male partner vs how men who receive anal penetration are perceived despite the fact that I’m essentially letting him do almost the exact same when he fucks my ass. I even typically use a “strapless” strapon (they still realistically need a harness to stay in) so I am actually being physically stimulated by the act, it’s not even (necessarily) a dominance thing.
work / patient care: I work high-acuity psych so every patient has to have their skin checked for injuries and contraband (particularly weapons). I usually count as female for the purposes of keeping things same-sex. As far as your specific question though, it’s also usually fine for me to count as female when searching men, even if the other person is also a woman. I usually try to have a male staff member with me as well, but nursing is pretty female dominated and I’ve noticed both in terms of patient comfort and working policy, two women searching a man is NOT as frowned upon as two men searching a woman. Do with that what you will. Same also goes for care / cleaning of genitals / breasts when patients require that.
In terms of responding to violent patients: it depends and I’ll change my demeanor as needed. If a patient seems like they’ll respect a man more I’ll stand taller, drop the pitch of my voice / speak from the chest, and be more directive. If I think they’ll respond better to me being more gentle / nurturing I’ll do that (although I’m not as good at it) but again as far as your question goes, I don’t think an AMAB person would be trusted the same way were they witnessed going back and forth like that.
That said, this raises the most important advantage to looking / acting masc - the high violence patients who respond better to gentleness are fairly few and far between. Patients who perceive me as more masculine are far, FAR more likely to cooperate with me being directive when I need to be. It’s also in most cases not a fear thing in that they perceive me as stronger / more powerful, it’s that they perceive me as more equal and worth listening to. I’ve had (usually boomer age) dementia patients in particular who gave every female nurse before me absolute hell for every single part of their treatment plan including the stuff the nurse has 0 control over but just went along with me saying the exact same things, then halfway through the shift they tell my coworker that “oh yes that nice young man has been so helpful!” It happens a lot actually, and I have a muuuch easier time with the sexist patients than most of my female coworkers. I recently did have one patient with homosexuality related delusions who targeted me a little, but that’s pretty rare (they commented on him mostly going after men in report last night and I was like “hey he came after me the other night!” and one of my coworkers actually turned to me and was like “I don’t think that counts as him targeting a woman…”)
I guess my ultimate statement on it is thus: my particular combination of transness (including my race) is highly favorable considering, and I’ve heard that’s often true for transmascs which I think is highly reflective of societal prejudices based on birth sex. I still get the weird looks and called mean names, but I’m sitting in exactly the least taboo combination where most people can assuage their prejudices by categorizing me as a “tomboy.” People also often assume I’m a lesbian which is a little less favorable, but much more favorable than being trans (which is closer to the truth, I’m surgically confirmed and actually tend to prefer men).
I’ve actually arguably been able to use my gender presentation to avoid violence in many cases, which almost universally cannot be said for transwomen or AMAB NBs or men or any other AMABs who find themselves with any kind of femme aspects in their gender presentation. I’m also fortunate that the dysphoria I did have tended towards removing gendered aspects vs adding them because that also gets a lot of backlash.
I’m also almost entirely uniquely fortunate in that I don’t have any dysphoria that causes me inherent distress based on how others perceive me or how I’m personally acting outwardly. That makes my ambivalence an asset almost, since I can just do whatever seems to make any given situation go smoothest, and I don’t experience any emotional distress from doing so. I’ve noticed that lack of omnipresent dysphoria is almost unheard of in trans communities, especially for someone who got surgery (to the extent that I’m often actively unwelcome for expressing my unusual combination of lived experiences; I’ve actually felt far less welcome in trans spaces than pretty much anywhere else; and that includes on lemmy, a lot of my comments like this get removed with transphobia cited as the reason).
Anyway that’s my garbled post 12-hour-night-shift stream of consciousness that I wrote and re-wrote a couple times on the bus ride home. Hope it was interesting but imma tap out and go nap before I have to go back tonight.
I’m an AFAB egg and I heavily relate to a lot of that. I come off some sort of way to people (I’m also 178 cm, but only 62kg, so I’m tall but not big, maybe that’s related), such that people don’t interrupt me, take credit for my ideas, mansplain to me… I actually experience very little in terms of individual (vs institutional) sexism, and I don’t know how to phrase that without it seeming like victim blaming. People don’t even catcall me anymore, but I may have just aged out of it
I always wanted to be an interesting person when I grew up but now I’m here I rarely find it fulfilling. It turns out 98% of the things that result in an interesting person are highly unpleasant to do or experience.
Fair enough, me and my family been going through a lot of that recently and while I think it’ll be worthwhile in the end, the process is quite hellish. No pain no gain I guess.
AFAB = assigned female at birth; basically because they happened to have a vagina at birth, so they were supposed to like pink and dolls and a lower paycheck and whatever else society has decided the female experience should be like.
AMAB = assigned male at birth
NB = non-binary; a person that identifies neither as male nor as female. They might be something in the middle, or they might be something completely different.
femme = basically the way women have traditionally looked or behaved (long hair, pink etc.)
fundie = fundamentalist Christian; basically very conservative, very eccentric people with world views they claim to be traditionally Christian
bussy = boy pussy; the anus of a man, or it may also be used to describe the vagina of a transmasc person
transmasc = transmasculine; a person who was assigned female at birth, but who rather identifies with masculinity and may have taken measures to be perceived as such (clothing, hormones, surgery etc.)
The short version is, as a pseudo-trans person, being born female makes a lot of it ok to most people. People born male who act more female get a looooot of backlash.
That’s a fascinating write up, thank you for sharing! I don’t think we hear about transmasc or transnb (?) nearly as often as transfem for exactly the stupid social stuff you mentioned.
In a way it is. Im moderately muscular and I present masc, I don’t like to most of the time but it keeps assholes in their place. I wish I didn’t need to do it. Then when I present more feminine it’s like a completely different social reality.
Very thorough and great answer, I’m curious though – what’s a she-wee? Is that the tool for peeing standing up when one isn’t born with the sausage?
Also, that coworker sounds affirming, when he told he thought that it doesn’t count as going after women - that’s kind of oddly sweet?
I also have a lack of omnipresent(?) dysphoria, though do have a bit there and there. Mainly not having the right organ down there and having too much hair, but other than that, it’s pretty much alright.
I LOVE comments like this from people who clearly cared enough about what I said to interact with my comment TWICE in two different ways (downvote PLUS comment) JUST to try to convince me they don’t care, and right below another commenter who has emphatically expressed the opposite. It’s fascinating both in the sense that they might actually internally believe it AND that they’re deluded enough to think I might as well.
Bigot lol that’s funny though. You don’t even know me or how far off you are. My comment had literally 0 to do with the content, but go ahead make your judgments it’s really ok. Same response: nobody cares.
Oh hey I’m AFAB but more or less NB at this point and let my gender presentation flux with both people’s perceptions and whatever seems to be working best in the moment, especially career-wise so I actually have a LOT of thoughts on this. A looot of this discusses societal stereotypes on gender, so while I think it’s shitty, the fact that a lot of people (wrongly) perceive trans people as their birth sex is of relevance to my perspective on this discussion. So, trigger warning: prejudice / transphobia.
Background:
I’m AFAB so most of my upbringing was femme oriented
I also come from an autism / ADHD HEAVY family so I still missed some of the social aspects of gendered upbringing
my parents WERE fundies however, so my attempts at more feminine presentations (makeup, heels, etc) resulted in a lot of sex-shaming from my parents, but there was also a looot of pro-birther nonsense and everything about pregnancy just freaks me out. There’s probably a looot to unpack there as to how I wound up nonbinary, but ultimately I am what I am now, so it is what it is.
I spent the first few years of my career working on a psych unit for criminally insane men so the formative years of my young adulthood were spent learning how to speak from my chest and not look like a target
my current presentation is that sort of “no gendered features” / look like a clean shaven young man / lesbian (vs the beard AND boobs / “aaaall the gendered features” look). The only surgery I’ve had is my tits chopped off + tubes out. So I don’t look ooobviously trans, but a lot of people also can’t really tell what genitals I have at a glance which some people find …distressing. for some reason.
I’m also white which I think lets me “get away with more” than others.
Thoughts:
I usually use the women’s bathroom. Sometimes I bring a she-wee to work but all the unit bathrooms are singles so it’s more just because I work with animals (male and female) who don’t know how to put the seat up when they pee standing / squatting. This is mostly because whether it’s reality or trauma based (see above work history) I don’t trust most men around me with my pants off vs women will be socially awful but I likely won’t have to come to blows over it. I do get some weird looks though, and some have stopped me, but then they just get this really confused / uncomfortable expression and ultimately leave me alone. But as far as your question goes, I do think I would get less backlash as a AFAB going into the men’s room than an AMAB gets doing the reverse, so there’s definitely an aspect of my vagina being inherently less threatening in vulnerable contexts… somehow?
sexually, I can be a top or a bottom (penatrator OR penatratee) and pussy vs bussy doesn’t matter too much to me other than that fitting things in the backdoor takes a lot more prep work (but I’ll talk more further down about how that flexibility is convenient for me personally). As far as gender relations go, I feel like I get more “girl power” brownie points for strapping on and pegging my male partner vs how men who receive anal penetration are perceived despite the fact that I’m essentially letting him do almost the exact same when he fucks my ass. I even typically use a “strapless” strapon (they still realistically need a harness to stay in) so I am actually being physically stimulated by the act, it’s not even (necessarily) a dominance thing.
work / patient care: I work high-acuity psych so every patient has to have their skin checked for injuries and contraband (particularly weapons). I usually count as female for the purposes of keeping things same-sex. As far as your specific question though, it’s also usually fine for me to count as female when searching men, even if the other person is also a woman. I usually try to have a male staff member with me as well, but nursing is pretty female dominated and I’ve noticed both in terms of patient comfort and working policy, two women searching a man is NOT as frowned upon as two men searching a woman. Do with that what you will. Same also goes for care / cleaning of genitals / breasts when patients require that.
In terms of responding to violent patients: it depends and I’ll change my demeanor as needed. If a patient seems like they’ll respect a man more I’ll stand taller, drop the pitch of my voice / speak from the chest, and be more directive. If I think they’ll respond better to me being more gentle / nurturing I’ll do that (although I’m not as good at it) but again as far as your question goes, I don’t think an AMAB person would be trusted the same way were they witnessed going back and forth like that.
That said, this raises the most important advantage to looking / acting masc - the high violence patients who respond better to gentleness are fairly few and far between. Patients who perceive me as more masculine are far, FAR more likely to cooperate with me being directive when I need to be. It’s also in most cases not a fear thing in that they perceive me as stronger / more powerful, it’s that they perceive me as more equal and worth listening to. I’ve had (usually boomer age) dementia patients in particular who gave every female nurse before me absolute hell for every single part of their treatment plan including the stuff the nurse has 0 control over but just went along with me saying the exact same things, then halfway through the shift they tell my coworker that “oh yes that nice young man has been so helpful!” It happens a lot actually, and I have a muuuch easier time with the sexist patients than most of my female coworkers. I recently did have one patient with homosexuality related delusions who targeted me a little, but that’s pretty rare (they commented on him mostly going after men in report last night and I was like “hey he came after me the other night!” and one of my coworkers actually turned to me and was like “I don’t think that counts as him targeting a woman…”)
I guess my ultimate statement on it is thus: my particular combination of transness (including my race) is highly favorable considering, and I’ve heard that’s often true for transmascs which I think is highly reflective of societal prejudices based on birth sex. I still get the weird looks and called mean names, but I’m sitting in exactly the least taboo combination where most people can assuage their prejudices by categorizing me as a “tomboy.” People also often assume I’m a lesbian which is a little less favorable, but much more favorable than being trans (which is closer to the truth, I’m surgically confirmed and actually tend to prefer men).
I’ve actually arguably been able to use my gender presentation to avoid violence in many cases, which almost universally cannot be said for transwomen or AMAB NBs or men or any other AMABs who find themselves with any kind of femme aspects in their gender presentation. I’m also fortunate that the dysphoria I did have tended towards removing gendered aspects vs adding them because that also gets a lot of backlash.
I’m also almost entirely uniquely fortunate in that I don’t have any dysphoria that causes me inherent distress based on how others perceive me or how I’m personally acting outwardly. That makes my ambivalence an asset almost, since I can just do whatever seems to make any given situation go smoothest, and I don’t experience any emotional distress from doing so. I’ve noticed that lack of omnipresent dysphoria is almost unheard of in trans communities, especially for someone who got surgery (to the extent that I’m often actively unwelcome for expressing my unusual combination of lived experiences; I’ve actually felt far less welcome in trans spaces than pretty much anywhere else; and that includes on lemmy, a lot of my comments like this get removed with transphobia cited as the reason).
Anyway that’s my garbled post 12-hour-night-shift stream of consciousness that I wrote and re-wrote a couple times on the bus ride home. Hope it was interesting but imma tap out and go nap before I have to go back tonight.
I’m an AFAB egg and I heavily relate to a lot of that. I come off some sort of way to people (I’m also 178 cm, but only 62kg, so I’m tall but not big, maybe that’s related), such that people don’t interrupt me, take credit for my ideas, mansplain to me… I actually experience very little in terms of individual (vs institutional) sexism, and I don’t know how to phrase that without it seeming like victim blaming. People don’t even catcall me anymore, but I may have just aged out of it
You’re a really cool person. Very few have a story this interesting, wish there were more like you in the world
I always wanted to be an interesting person when I grew up but now I’m here I rarely find it fulfilling. It turns out 98% of the things that result in an interesting person are highly unpleasant to do or experience.
Fair enough, me and my family been going through a lot of that recently and while I think it’ll be worthwhile in the end, the process is quite hellish. No pain no gain I guess.
NGL I’m don’t understand most of the acronyms you wrote and even some of the words you used. I’m too old and 3rd world educated for your post.
The short version is, as a pseudo-trans person, being born female makes a lot of it ok to most people. People born male who act more female get a looooot of backlash.
I was in the same boat as OP, so thanks for the clarification. Your post was enlightening.
Thank you for sharing all this! This has been one of the most interesting posts I’ve come across in a long time.
That’s a fascinating write up, thank you for sharing! I don’t think we hear about transmasc or transnb (?) nearly as often as transfem for exactly the stupid social stuff you mentioned.
I’d never considered this before, but the flexiblity that you get from ambivalence is almost like a social superpower - that’s really cool!
In a way it is. Im moderately muscular and I present masc, I don’t like to most of the time but it keeps assholes in their place. I wish I didn’t need to do it. Then when I present more feminine it’s like a completely different social reality.
Very thorough and great answer, I’m curious though – what’s a she-wee? Is that the tool for peeing standing up when one isn’t born with the sausage?
Also, that coworker sounds affirming, when he told he thought that it doesn’t count as going after women - that’s kind of oddly sweet?
I also have a lack of omnipresent(?) dysphoria, though do have a bit there and there. Mainly not having the right organ down there and having too much hair, but other than that, it’s pretty much alright.
that’s a looot of words
Nobody cares.
It’s an interesting and detailed post.
I think it has brought a lot to the table.
What did your comment bring?
It’s called sarcasm.
Nobody cares.
I care
Alright.
I LOVE comments like this from people who clearly cared enough about what I said to interact with my comment TWICE in two different ways (downvote PLUS comment) JUST to try to convince me they don’t care, and right below another commenter who has emphatically expressed the opposite. It’s fascinating both in the sense that they might actually internally believe it AND that they’re deluded enough to think I might as well.
hey, amab masc nb person here, i appreciated your write up, thought it was interesting, and cared.
No, we do care. What we don’t care for is the opinion of a fucking stupid bigot like you. Please do us all a favor and leave the topic entirely.
You got it, chief.
Bigot lol that’s funny though. You don’t even know me or how far off you are. My comment had literally 0 to do with the content, but go ahead make your judgments it’s really ok. Same response: nobody cares.
Bigot or asshole. Either way, thanks for identifying yourself as someone only worth ignoring.
Yes and a great demonstration of ignoring me thus far. Well done.
I wanted you to see the message before I blocked. Sad you cannot realize that’s all you’re good for.
Oh no! An ignorant stranger doesn’t like me! How will I cope?
Grow up.
Acts like a bratty thirteen year old, tells other people to grow up.