I am not your bro

I AM NOT YOUR BRO

EXPERIENCES IN SOCIETY PASSING AS A MAN VERSUS AS A WOMAN

BY JUDE SAMPSON

Being born a woman and realizing 18 years into your life that you aren’t one is jarring, to say the least.

It was a lot of confusion, anger and sadness balled up into one, and it began brewing amidst the beginning of a global pandemic. Having to dissect who I was, what my gender was and why I even had to have one in the first place was a battle I had with myself daily.

I fed into stereotypes and gender norms when I was trying to figure all of this out. I assumed that I must be a man since I wasn’t a woman, but calling myself a man didn’t feel right. I figured that because I might be a man I had to quickly gather up a gaggle of boys to call my friends and distance myself from the deep friendships I had with the women in my life.

This all sounds like bullshit, right? That’s because it is. However, it is hard to distance yourself from said bullshit when it’s all you know. We were all born in a world that centers a gender binary. Whether you were raised within it does not matter, because the real world reminds us of it and enforces it every day.

I have never felt as if I fit into the binary, therefore I identify as non-binary. I know most (cis) people think this is a buzzword, but it is a real, legitimate identity (synonymous with sexy and cool). The ‘X’ on my drivers license denotes this, but I would be valid whether it was there or not.

In tandem with this label, I am also transmasculine. This means that while I do not identify as a man, I identify and align myself most with masculinity. I dress masculine; I’ve been letting the hair above my lip grow out, and I have taken up weightlifting to try to broaden my shoulders. I enjoy looking like someone’s big brother in a teen 2000’s movie but just with a softer face and an almost ambiguous voice. I confuse people, and I enjoy it immensely.

However, I do not confuse everyone. Since beginning my social transition, along with my slight physical one, I find that when people do categorize me in their head, I am seen as a man at least 75% of the time. As much as I would love for people to see me as non-binary, I know this is not possible. Since I present masculine, I don’t mind this categorization.

The locations and scenarios for which I have been seen as a man vary widely. In line at the grocery store, an older woman dropped something and I picked it up for her. She smiled and said, “Thank you, young man.” At my old bagel spot, the guy behind the counter called me boss and gave me fist bump every time I was in. In the bathroom at a club, my friends and I gave a stranger the “you’re too good for him” talk and she looked at me like I was insane. Maybe she found it odd a man was telling her how shit men can be. Maybe I enjoy being an oddity to people.

Where my enjoyment of this subsides is the realization I had once I began to pass for a man.

The first 18 years of my life were spent identifying and presenting as a woman. In turn, I experienced what all women do as they grow up and go through the phases of their life. I was catcalled and belittled by men. I was made to feel as if my words and my thoughts were worth less than my male peers. I was supposed to make myself small so that they would feel bigger than me.

The key words here are “supposed to”, because I didn’t do any of that shit. I got into verbal fights with people over politics, human rights and the horrible language that was used on my middle and high school campus. To everyone I was the mean, scary lesbian. I still stand by this label because lesbians are the coolest, and sometimes you have to be “scary and mean” to get by.

This is why my transition and passing as a man has been so jarring. The same men who I can guarantee would have been my opposition in middle and high school are now listening intently to what I have to say. When I was a woman, group conversation was my adversary, but now that I am seen as a man, especially a white man, the floor is essentially mine. My words are now thought-provoking, as opposed to something we can “circle back to later”.

As a man, my body is no longer a spectacle. When I am binding my chest and my one-size-too-big clothes drape over my body a certain way, I look… like a dude. When I am physically unable to bind my chest anymore and it protrudes out more than usual is when I feel eyes on me again. Anyone who has ever been leered at knows what having eyes on your body feels like. For me, when those eyes belong to a man who just a few days prior was conversing with me like a “bro,” I feel as if I want to let the air out of someone’s tires.

The old men who come into my work no longer call me “honey” or “sweetie.” They call me “boss.” It does not take me getting up from my chair and showing them my height to assert my power over them. They simply leave me alone and treat me with respect. When I wear earrings is apparently when I morph back into a woman, because the same men who want to fraternize with me one day find themselves looking me up and down the next, attempting to visually take in whatever part of me they can have.

I wish I could sum up all of these thoughts and feelings in a way that resembles a conclusion. If I could put my resentment towards having to live through this to rest, then I would in a heartbeat. It feels impossible, though. Nothing stokes my anger like my life having to revolve around the way people will perceive me and my gender. This anger is offset, however, by the life that I lead.

My life is one that centers women. A life without women is one that I could not continue. The solidarity with women in my own life, the women in media and literature whose words I cry to and the women who I am crossing paths with for the first time is unfathomable. I can cry in front of them and dance until my lungs give out. I also consider myself lucky to fall in love with them. Being loved by women and loving them in return is something I am so privileged to experience, because they have been my biggest allies since I began my transition.

With women, I’ve never had to work for their acceptance. I am simply allowed to be.