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This blog post will mostly be about my thoughts about my gender identity, how it relates to my environment and vaguely related things that I can’t quite explain.

You know there’s actually a lot of things that have changed since I have created my post about “masculinity” and what the real meaning is beyond misogyny/violence. I never really got the chance to talk about what it now means for me. I confess I wrote that post when I was having a lot of dysphoria and needed some way to let it out. Now that I’ve gotten somewhat of a clear head, I finally know how to define it for myself.

So what is masculinity? (Part 2)

One thing I noticed from a man with a stable view of masculinity, is that he has no need to prove how “manly” he is. All the gendered hobbies and objects created by society are just silly things, perpetuated by boring stick-in-the-muds who care way too much about what other people are doing. They have no real power over a man’s happiness if he doesn’t let them. Finding your true calling and sticking to it no matter what others think of you is a sign of maturity. Masculinity is growing up beyond boyish immaturity.

The “Macho Man”, The “Alpha/Sigma Male”, The “Nice Guy” or The “Manly Man” are all archetypes that have one thing in common; they’re shallow displays of toxic masculinity that don't address the vulnerability or underlying issues of a man’s behaviour. They’re just masks meant to hide the insecurity and flaws a man might have. Rather than find happiness and a genuine identity, someone with boyish immaturity cling onto these ideals because it’s been touted as a reference for what makes a man.

You can have all the money in the world, muscles that can crack a truckload of coconuts, a voice deeper than the Mariana Trench, or the biggest dick on Earth. Yet that still wouldn’t really make you a man. There’s nothing wrong with having any of those things, believe me I want to have them. But if your goal is to achieve all that to become a “real man”, that is not a sign of maturity. It’s just a performance of masculinity, a compensation for the problems in your soul that has yet to be addressed in a healthy manner. Masculinity goes beyond appearance and material goods.

Something that had always turned me off from “Manhood” in general, before I really started taking it seriously, is the encouragement of misogyny. I never really got the concept of making your identity all about hating women just for the sheer fact they exist, (I don’t really get the concept for hating a group of minorities either.) especially when they’re just doing the same thing as men. I found it incredibly exhausting trying to justify terrible views, when it really is just about ego at the end of the day. You can go on a whole rampage or whatever about how women are supposedly “the biologically weaker one”, but it’s really just a weak argument to bar women from doing things for themselves. The goal posts are just going to keep moving until the end of time.

Taking all this into account; What masculinity means to me now is self-acceptance, hard work, courage, empathy for others, sincere confidence, and strength beyond the physical. To accept your flaws and acknowledge your shortcomings is one step into encouraging a better sense of self, but you must also put work into improving as a person. Rome was not built in a day nor was it built standing around waiting for something to happen. Self-reflection takes a lot of effort to do, and is not a linear path, but it is necessary to become the best version of yourself.

Being a man is also about having the courage to step up against unfair standards, despite how impossible the odds might be. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions, taking action to become better than you were before. Although we cannot completely eradicate the toxic mentalities that were encouraged generations before us, we can work to create something better. I’m probably just scratching the surface of what makes up masculinity, but I know that I have a lot to learn and my views are open to expand beyond my small horizons

So how does this all relate to me?

I've purposefully been omitting my biographical experience through all this, but now I want to go back to that topic to focus on how much this philosophy has affected me. Despite the fact, in the past, I was fine with the label “genderfluid”, I now identify as a trans man and am happy to be one. Whatever my hobbies and interests are now have nothing to do with my gender identity, and I will continue to be into those things because I genuinely like them.

I think the reason why it took me this long to understand what I really am, was because of the set standard of “The Transgender Experience” I kept seeing around. Something along the lines of Trans people hating the body they were born with, and knowing all along that something wasn’t right with them. The dysphoria kicked in early for some people. Yet for me, I didn’t relate to those experiences. Sure, the signs were there (which I’ll get into shortly), but I didn’t really consider them to be valid enough of an experience to call myself part of the Transgender community. I was fine enough to be called a woman or lady, yet I didn’t really understand what that really meant per se.

I was born a girl, something I really didn’t have much of a choice on the matter. After hearing a certain age and hitting puberty, I was considered a woman by the people around me without much warning. I never had much of a chance to determine what that really meant, just that it was an expectation that I felt I had to come to terms with. It was really perplexing how many unwritten rules I was supposed to follow just because I was apparently a woman now. Everything; from the way I sat, who I hung out with, what I was supposed to wear, how I talked, and how I was treated by others was now criticized as a “something girls/women weren’t supposed to do”. I never really understood why getting your period was suddenly a sign of womanhood either, I found it kinda strange that being able to pop out children was something to celebrate about. I celebrated having my period as a girl because other people made a big deal out of it, which looking back was kind of silly because I know I have no plans of ever having any children.

Whenever I engaged in supposed “girly hobbies”, I never really felt like I was the target audience even if I physically looked like a girl. I think some part of me subconsciously knew that there was a dissonance between my inner monologue and physical body. That’s probably one of the reasons I resorted to becoming a tomboy at first, because it didn’t register to me that it was possible to just change your gender if it didn’t feel right to you. I know it’s a lot more complicated than just taking a few pills and boom instant man, but I thought I had to accept I had one path in life that was force-fed to me by day one. It seems so silly now looking back how I didn’t realize that “Wow being a boy must be great, I wonder what I’d be like if I was one instead?” over several periods of my lifetime, was a huge sign I wasn’t cisgender in the slightest.

I don’t hate the idea of being a woman, I just feel happier being something else instead. That something else being a man. This isn’t to say I’m going to abandon my past, to forget that chapter in my life. Part of avoiding misogyny is to acknowledge femininity and celebrate it, even if it’s something you find doesn’t click with you. Instead, I’d like to forge a future where present me discovers love for myself, and that love involves finding a different gender identity than one I was born with.