I’m not surprised. I have been told this my whole life. Mocked for my deep voice even by family. Use of my given name twisted masculine to continue the passive/micro-aggressive jives from students and teachers alike. (Gee no wonder I want to change it between them and the identity my family assigned to me based on pains and twisted assumptions.)

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Just the same it all started when I was young, as most things do. I had precocious puberty which meant my body was way ahead of my peers. What others one day soon would call blooming, I was jeered into shame for my body’s early progression. Though doctors and nurses didn’t mean to the shots added to it. (Sometimes maybe it’s better to let a body be instead of trying to control it for the mind’s sake, in this case anyway.)

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My breasts started showing which triggered my mother to insist I wear clothing in the sun. Now I know many a being that enjoys the blessing of the sun on their skin. I was touched starved and it was a vital source of that for me. (She didn’t have the time, don’t think bad of her, think badly of the man who raped her and abandoned me repeatedly.) Just the same, I was to wear a top outside/in public now that those sore things lumped up. 

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‘Why,’ I annoyingly asked … like always. 

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She, unsure of how to explain the painful truth, stated simply, ‘Because you have to sit to pee.’

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What did I do? Learned to do it standing. And no, I didn’t leave messes for her to find. I waited until I could, not that she remembers either way. A shirt it was anyway. 

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But what it did was create an awareness in me of differences that no one had yet explained so what did that mean to my little scientific autistic mind? Set me to observational mode. 

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What made ‘them’ different? Ya’ know the boys and men. 

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What I found was a different set of behaviors from verbal to physical rendering new responses that I hadn’t seen to my mother or self. 

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So what did I do? Embody what I had seen functioning in a way that met needs.

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Maybe not as consciously as this written piece may seem. But perhaps it was an automatic response upon witnessing the value a male’s word was given over a female’s. Even as children, even when I was the elder. Especially when horrendous deeds were afoot. No matter how professional the environment or unrelated the authority to the perpetrator. Not even religious reality rendered value of a female’s shared truth over a male’s insistence on righteousness. 

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As I aged people have gotten crueler and crueler with this observation. Once I was found having fun with a wonderful performer. This drag Queen was stunning and I couldn’t help but to get lost in the jam and join in far from the stage with only a few near me. A friend of a fake friend, his nose went up as he interrupted me: look at you, shouldn’t you be on stage with her. This fake friend had many times attempted to ascertain if I was trans. They clearly had not felt sustained by my responses. As if it wasn’t a micro-aggression to even mention. Like he wasn’t gay and didn’t know the respect another’s presentation code. But he did. And he showed me with many people he accepted and valued. But not me. Especially not the moment I felt joy slip in. I left the event. Haven’t been to drag since. I miss it. The empowerment of autonomy. Someone embracing who they want to be. It is so beautiful. 

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But I wasn’t wanted. My truth was cis hetero and passive aggression never seems to end when I attend them. People are hurt, I get it. It’s so easy to assume a single label and stereotypes fit everyone inside (Yes I get that I am assuming stereotypes about every gathering… all I can say is consistency convinces any nervous system, equally in anyone’s defense; we have to be willing to try new even if different is rare.). Not to mention because I am an outsider I say harmful things in unawareness, only knowing it’s wrong by the loss of another and their faces as they get the heck away.

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I am learning, the hardest of ways. I miss the days when part of connection was communicating the hard lessons instead of abandoning another. I know when I try to communicate mine they throw me away so it must not be the way of today. 

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Also, look at how engrained my choice to communicate with assertion is from physical to verbal. I’m a horse of a different color, because I thought it was actions that granted males the treatment they receive. People claim it does in the self help books even now. And yet, my experience has been being met with outright contempt. 

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A man may at first enjoy it only to be dismayed when he cannot take what he wants in a dominance way. This is typically when I am shamed for being a prude in romantic settings. (Better than used, gents with not intention of staying around.) Or they may attempt to claim I seek dominance… like there is no possible middle where both people communicate as equals. I don’t want connection if there isn’t. 

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There’s even a group that has taken to cyber bullying me over this sexist assessment (Is it a connected group or just separately hurt people attacking me for the same thing? Idk too common to tell.). Even to the point of creating fake google accounts to leave reviews with my chosen name and the proclamation of being trans in the yet again new area I attempted to run away to. Thats not to mention the consistent sexist personal attacks on any social media accounts I attempt to connect on.

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So back to the point: do I act like a man? 

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That depends what society and era you define masculinity by. 

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Pink used to be for boys and blue for girls. 

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I spent my life a victim of men who did as they pleased with no accountability systemically held to them. Even when one nearly killed me. 

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Of course, an intelligent young mind would begin to mimic that which society protected. 

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If only I could have become myself unaltered with protective measures like behaviors this society calls masculine that are really just entitlements for being born with a certain body part dangling. A single facet, their safety. Freud called it penis envy. I call it freedom(respect/autonomy) envy. 

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So yea, I ‘act like a guy’ according to this society/era and it hasn’t protected me or provided an income. No matter how boisterous my ‘NO’ it goes unheard when they decide otherwise. My explanations for needs and boundaries villainized as ‘emotional manipulations’ because it’s easier to make me the ‘problem’ than to care about me or address a system crushing us all, men included.

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Just ask all the men’s mental health experts. They will tell you, this system isn’t functioning for anyone. Accountability is part of respectful engagement. When men are skipped by when it comes time, their nervous systems feel the devaluing.

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No one can understand something no one is willing to say out loud for fear of confrontation. That’s what all those dominance behaviors/gestures create. And so the system continues to silence itself…past time for some bravery in the face of failure knowing that footholds are the start to moving moutains.

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Leaving me with a constant need to remind myself that people treat others based on their personal assumptions from their own experiences and educations more often than actually accepting/taking time to know an individual before them. If for no other reason than to remind myself that every person before me is a new chance, not the same old hat.

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And yet, if you think I’m a man, know its a sign of sexist belief systems exposing themselves.