Gender Variations: Social Interactions

I have now experienced life from three variations of gender. Presenting as pure male, presenting as femme male and presenting as all female. It is absolutely amazing the difference in interactions with the public with each variation. I am fascinated with how people treat each other based on their gender. Let me start with male first.

Being Male: Social Interactions

I spent the vast majority of my life trying to be as male as possible. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this is out of a history of survival. As a child I had to pretend to be a boy, just to keep from being beat up. As I became an adult I was pretty much stuck in that male rut and continued it for most of my life. Mostly because I had pushed the male so hard that I had all but eliminated the female I was.

A lot of my jaded attitude regarding human nature seems to have come from my experiences being male. You see, men tend to be aggressive. They are constantly in competition with each other, whether they realize it or not. When you are a man, every other man is a potential opponent. The first competition that might come to mind is sex. And it is true. We are sexual beings by nature, so we tend to find ourselves in competition with others for love interests. But it doesn't end with sex. That competition creeps in to every aspect of our lives from our jobs to how our houses look from the street. It is a constant fight and struggle.

I'm not a fighter. I never have been. So, I never fit in to any male social groups. In most situations (close friends being the exception) interactions with other men felt like I was constantly on my guard. The first thing that most men do when they meet other men (even in very subtle ways) is try to exert some form of dominance. Body language, eye contact and speech patterns instantly go into intimidation mode. If you don't 'fight' back then you 'lose' and they 'win.' Like I said, I'm not a fighter so I rarely even tried. The result being that men basically looked at me as a loser that wasn't worth their time. Which was fine with me because I really didn't want to be part of that kind of social dynamic anyway.

Interactions with women weren't any better. Because of the aforementioned male issues with dominance, most women instantly become defensive when meeting a man. They assume that the man, at best is going to try to seduce them and at worst forcibly take sexual advantage of them. I don't blame women for this. Male privileged is alive and well in our society and the struggle to change that has, historically, been a slow one. But the result for people in my situation is that it somewhat difficult to develop a true close friendship with a women. As a man, I could never fit into the female social structure. I would constantly be an outsider.

This manifested on a daily basis in interactions with the general public: while working, shopping, eating out, taking walks in the park. The general attitude among the people I ran into on a daily basis was representative of issues I have been discussing. Body language, tone of voice, eye contact and other subtle nuances constantly kept me at an emotional 'arm's length' from everyone I came into contact with. What was the result of this? I was lonely.

Don't get me wrong. I have been married for over twenty years to a wonderful woman and I have an incredible group of friends. But in regards to the world in general, I was an outcast. I didn't fit in to the social construct that is the gender binary in our society. Since I didn't fit into the male social dynamic, I was never invited on any outings with guys (wouldn't have liked it anyway) and girls nights out were off limits because, well, I wasn't a girl. I was pushed away at every turn, even if that turn was as simple as ordering food at Denny's. The smiles were always there. The pleasantries were always there. But they were forced. They weren't genuine. For my entire life I thought it was either because of me or it was just that humans were anti-social, self-centered and just plain mean. But now I don't think so.

Being Femme Male: Social Interactions

I started painting my fingernails a while back and carrying a purse. I also got my eyebrows threaded so that when I presented as a women, I would have nice arched brows instead of the giant fuzzy caterpillars I was born with. Bye-bye to pretending to be a man. I started embracing a bi-gender identity, meaning I could choose from day to day what gender I wanted to present based on what I was doing and who I was with that day. But, in all honesty, the male portion of that gender was still pretty femme.

I got looks. Oh boy howdie did I get looks. You know those forced pleasantries I talked about before? They were still there, but now they often hid animosity behind them. I guess a man with a purse and painted fingernails is considered a pervert or something because people were always giving me evil looks and when they were forced to interact with me they tried to get away as quickly as possible. Oh, and the venomous looks I got while shopping in the intimates section were almost physically painful. But the interesting thing is that not all people were like that. As you can expect, the reactions from men were far worse than before, but the reactions from some women changed for the positive. Servers in restaurants began to actually smile at me and engage in conversation that was more than, "How would you like your eggs cooked?" A lot of women were suddenly genuinely nice to me. This was a very foreign concept to me and confused me a lot at first. But that's OK. It was nice to actually be treated as a living breathing human being by perfect strangers. It made up for the evil hateful looks and avoidance I was getting from everyone else.

What was the reason for this? I can't really say for sure, but I suspect that the more feminine I appeared, the less of a threat I seemed to be. But the bottom line is that these positive interactions encouraged me to become far more open about my gender presentation. I started presenting as a woman more and more.

Being Female: Social Interactions

Being a woman has been a real eye-opener for me. Let me start with guys. My guy friends are my guy friends no matter what. They are all amazing and have always treated me with love and respect. But as a woman, guys no longer look at me with competition or suspicion. Some older men look at me with confusion, but that's to be expected. I think that most guys simply don't notice me. The younger and more attractive a woman is the more likely it is that a man is going to look at them. I am neither young or attractive, so I don't catch their eye long enough for them to wonder if I am a 'real' woman or not. I am perfectly fine with this. The less attention I get from men I don't know the happier I am.

The huge difference is with women. Everywhere I go now I am treated with respect. Smiles are genuine. Pleasantries are real. Conversations are started almost everywhere I go and I hear about their kids, and husbands. I am no longer hurried along or pushed through. When I go shopping, sales crew seem like they honestly want to help me instead of it being their job to do so. People call me ma'am. I feel welcomed and embraced. My female friends are inviting me to girls nights out and bachelorette parties. For the first time in my life I feel welcome. For the first time in my life I'm not lonely, and that makes me a very happy women.