Cis Guys Could Learn A Lot From Trans Men
A celebration of the dudes who don’t get enough love
Trans men are the quiet unsung heroes of the LGBTQ+ community. For years, I thought I hated straight men. But turns out that I actually just hated cis straight men—thanks to a few trans guys who made me realize I might’ve just been a little sexist all along!
Not all trans men are straight, of course. But every relationship with a trans man is, technically, queer. Still, I’ve rarely met a trans man I didn’t like. #notallmen
Cis guys are always asking how to be better men—then turn to other cis guys for answers. When really, I think watching and learning from the ones who had to fight like hell to be seen as men in the first place—and still manage to make space for everyone else while they’re busy spouting off on Twitter—offers a masterclass in real masculinity.
This isn’t to say every trans man is flawless or wonderful, but from my experience, trans men are consistently just better than cis men. They’re more in touch with their feminine side, or at the very least, they actually understand the female experience.
Often, they’re more empathetic and patient than the majority of cis men for this reason, who feel threatened by their inherent feminine qualities that they reject with passion. Femininity isn’t a mystery to trans men—they just happen to identify more with their masculine side and lean into that.
This isn’t to say there aren’t trans men who suffer from toxic masculinity or misogynistic attitudes, but by and large, that’s often not the case. They love women even if they don’t want to be one (or more correctly, are not one, because trans men are men).
Trans men know how to leave a bathroom properly without leaving a huge mess. I’d happily share a semi-unisex bathroom with trans people that specifically excludes cis men who are absolutely feral because society has allowed them to be.
If anything, trans men often tolerate these conditions for the sake of masculine assimilation—which is really unfair to them because masculinity doesn’t have to mean being a slob. And ultimately this still becomes a woman’s problem if they want to ever cohabitate as a couple and he has to be domesticated. This is why the fight to put the toilet seat down is still a fight in every other house. Trans men reduce female labor—and they usually don’t even make a thing about it.
Trans men could be horse whisperers to untamed cis men. I wish they were because cis men could learn so much from them, while also still being dude bros doing dude bro shit. There’s so much hysteria about whether trans people can do everything cis people can. Short of any actual limitations, it’s reductive to assume trans people can’t do everything cis people can.
I don’t always feel equipped to speak eloquently about every part of the trans experience—but I also hate making it sound like they’re always under threat. Looming danger shouldn’t be the centerpiece of their lives. (That said, I do watch a lot of Lifetime biopics, so maybe I’m just desensitized.)
I’ve been happy to see more positive representation of the trans experience and trans people doing comedy because watching Boys Don’t Cry traumatized me and I still get emotional thinking about Brandon Teena and that film.
It’s embarrassing how hard it is for mainstream culture to just treat trans people like human beings. I hate that for them because it just shows how out of touch so many people are with their humanity, even if they’re just ignorant.
It’s been over 20 years since I’ve stepped foot in a high school, so I don’t know what that experience is like for any modern teen growing in a much different world than I grew up in—let alone what that’s like through a trans teen’s lens. I’m like half-informed on puberty blockers and all of the hormonal drugs, and since I don’t have kids and am not trans, have considered it not my business beyond what is discussed between them and their doctors and their right to do so without government blockades—which is mostly just an extension of all the other ways I half-understand my own health as a woman because healthcare is defunded across the board and always hits women’s healthcare first.
That often includes trans health, which falls onto the backs of women’s healthcare, so I think trans people could give women a little grace for misunderstandings—without jumping straight to calling them TERFs given that many of us just learned that perimenopause is a thing like five years ago and barely know our own bodies.
I know that bullying is hard enough. Being authentic by embracing your full self is very brave and not many people will do that generally, even as cis people.
Admittedly I’ve been a little afraid of making generalizations about the trans experience to avoid potentially making any missteps, but didn’t want to be so stiff and serious about it because it’s already hard enough. It’s like why ruin Pride anymore than it has been over the past several years with everything going on?
I think brunch sounds nice, and I hope trans men and women have lots of great brunches where they don’t have to feel on edge, unwelcome, or targeted. It would be a lot easier to get many other things done if everyone just accepted trans people instead of making it such an issue. Yet conservatives keep putting this on the table as the most important issue in this country which is fucking insane considering how often school shootings happen and Flint still doesn’t have clean water.
The in-fighting within queer circles is bumming me out because it’s obviously about a division tactic by conservatives hell-bent on preserving patriarchal power. You’d think men’s rights activists would get on board with the rights of trans men but they obviously don’t (but I think trans men are usually fine with that because men’s rights activists suck anyway).
There’s a lot of trans people in cannabis—something I love because the queer spaces in cannabis are so much more welcoming than the cis straight ones dripping in aggro hedge fund bro energy. I want them to keep having their spaces safe from shitty energy from shitty people with bad bathroom manners.
The irony of these legislators and cis straight men asking women if they feel threatened by trans people in the bathroom is that they’re often completely ignoring and denying women who have noted that entitled cis straight men are usually the ones doing creepy shit and committing sexual assault in bathrooms—not trans people.
I’ve been cornered at least three times that I can clearly remember while in a shared bathroom space with a cis straight man. Meanwhile, trans people usually just use the bathroom. If anything, trans people are mostly at risk from the threat of insecure cis straight men (once again).
Anyway this is just a celebration for trans men because I feel like trans women usually get all the limelight in trans discussions as divas—which I don’t think they mind, but they deserve a little love, too. (Does this mean I still center men as a bisexual woman failing the Bechdel test? Shit. Sorry. I swear I de-center them 9 out of 10 times.)
Trans men tend to chill in the background—the exact kind of energy I wish more cis guys would embrace rather than unapologetically taking up like 3x the amount of space because they never had to learn how to watch out.
Happy Pride to all the trans people out there. 🏳️⚧️
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