If you’ve ever been in the company of a group of trans-mascs, you almost certainly will have found one who still loves makeup, skirts, talking with their hands, keeping their hair long, and generally embracing aesthetics and mannerisms associated with women.
There’s an unspoken understanding that whether we’re trans men, or trans-masc and non-binary, we are happy to have grown up with girlhood.
But why should it remain unspoken?
In recent years, there has been increased discussion about the trans-masc lesbian experience, which is by no means a new concept as demonstrated by the late, great Leslie Feinberg. Zie talk about how coming into a queer identity that started with centring women informs every aspect of their lives, and how important it is for them to maintain those connections, despite it seeming contradictory at first. That is something I relate to – however, I am not and never have been a lesbian. I have always identified more with ‘gay’.
For me, and many people like me, girlhood was actually a gift given to us by chance that allowed us to grow up with less scrutiny and trauma than all too many of our cis counterparts experience. Which at first can sound backwards – how can you be trans and not have felt like your childhood was “wrong”? Why bother transitioning if you felt fine?
When cis gay men talk about their childhoods, it’s extremely common to hear about the damages caused by trying to remain undetected, about hyper-vigilance and fear dominating every aspect of presentation and every interaction they have with people who may do them harm. And if they didn’t manage to fly under the radar, they talk about experiencing isolation and abuse from peers, family, even strangers. They talk about how the intense shame they internalised from societal expectations affects their adulthood.
In being raised as a girl, and one who liked boys, gay trans-mascs and trans men can straight-pass accidentally. Many of the attributes associated with being gay - especially being visibly, proudly gay – that are demonised in boyhood don’t even get a second thought in girlhood. I didn’t feel pressured to repress the fullness of my being because girlhood gave me freedom to explore my identity in ways that would have been societally unacceptable for boyhood. Essentially, I skipped the closet and all of its baggage just by being me. I loved being a girl, I just couldn’t see myself becoming a woman.
When we expand the narrative around trans childhoods from only feeling wrong, or like you had to hide, to include experiences where childhoods were not only tolerable, but correct, we remove the idea that you have to know you’re trans from the moment you’re self-aware. This allows for people at all life stages to come into their transness without feeling like they’ve wasted or lost years of their lives, or that they’re somehow less trans for not acting sooner. When queer trans men and mascs are at peace with girlhood, we are more likely to be allies to women and we can be active voices against misogyny in gay spaces.
Embracing all of the chapters of our lives without shame and guilt allows for a safer, saner and more vibrant queer community as a whole.
As an adult, I find that due to rising transphobia I’m more wary of how I present myself than I ever was in child or young adulthood. Passing is circumstantial, and I am aware that the more I lean into femme aesthetics, the less I pass, which means giving up degrees of safety. But I owe it to the girlhood I cherish to fight the urge to make myself small. I’ll continue to be exactly who the girl I was always wanted to be - a campy, femme gay, without the hang ups.
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