Felt small, emasculated at StarBucks when two suits where standing next to me.

[luna nyan]

Hi Evelyn,

I think it's a few things hitting you at once.
Anytime you make big change to your presentation then your confidence will naturally wane a little until you're comfortable with yourself.
I think there is an instinct to size up people you come across, and then your internal hierarchy put you down the tiers that society has constructed.

I'm presenting male, but it's still awkward and uncomfortable around a guys and trying to blend in on the macho thing.

[JamesG]

And some people are just jerks who will try to intimidate and push you around if they perceive you as "weaker".

[Evelyn K]

^^^ or inferior. I've had to up my confidence level since I wasn't tall and I got pretty good at it. I've learned all the womanizing "player" tricks in the book and how to fake everything. Never seeking validation from anyone - ever - and smooth talking and bantering women and just doing my thing. I pretended I was a shark swimming through schools of fish along with the other sharks.

Then I became a fish. lol. Or felt somehow, like one.

Guess I need to become a dolphin.

[Evelyn K]

I have two questions for You to think about.

1. You said their presence affected You to the extent that You wanted to leave. Did You feel so because You felt that they might think that You were not up to some standards of masculinity? Or maybe You just felt so very much different from them and acutely knew that You can never be like them

Was thinking a little more on this. And I found a word I was looking for...

DEFERENCE
def·er·ence
[def-er-uhns]
noun
1. respectful submission or yielding to the judgment, opinion, will, etc., of another.

^^^ That's what it was. Exactly. I felt like because I was not entirely masculine, I was (internally) forced to feel and show deference to two male suits because that's just the natural pecking order of things. Deference to the possibility of their questioning what I am (like I had no right to question if they where thinking weird things about me). Or show deference if they opened a conversation with me and to keep my own alpha-male ego in check, because being alpha-male just isn't congruent with an outward andro-fem appearance. If I did express my ego, it would come off appearing as if I was retaliating to excuse what I am, making everything else all the more apparent. Deference in all things social - hence being emasculated.

Even as alpha female as Hillary Clinton is, she would have to feel deference when speaking to Ronald Reagan.

There is no escaping that men rule this world. If I choose to live in between the lines, then I have to acknowledge I'm letting up on my privileges bestowed naturally with masculinity.

[Evelyn K]

That is quite a fine suit to pick for an example!

(I read through the MTF boards looking for posts such as this as examples of the sort of man to avoid becoming, thank you for sharing and reminding us that what we project can be hurtful to others)

I'm still curious. Can you speak a little on what you mean by, "the sort of man to avoid becoming"? Was it the emasculated type? And what's "projected" that hurts others?

[Stella Stanhope]

1. I felt like I was going to be looked at as being an "effeminate, sissy" guy or something which I'm totally not and don't present or act as such. Even no matter how attractive I am. That their power (maybe that male privilege thing) is above mine - man > andro, man > woman. Like that universal law of absolutes.

2. The thing is, I was like them (I run my own business) and have my fair amount of biz clothes to deal if I have to. But those where forced aside since 7 months of hair growth. lol.

Would I like to be them ... I don't want to wear a suit, I still want to present androgynously (as currently in my transition), but I want to be alpha (if you catch my meaning) in my own way. Where even alpha male suits know they can't intimidate me.

Hi Evelyn!

Wow, there's alot in your post that resonates with myself, its uncanny! I'm sorry that you feel like that. And its tough asserting yourself as anything other than alpha male, relinquishing the male privilege also sucks.

I too have exactly the same issue when I am around a binary male environment, and especially macho men and power-dressing city boys. I hate the idea that I appear as a sissy or a stereotypical effeminate whimp, as:

A. I don't dress femininely to look like an effeminate gay male, I dress to look more like a female.
B: I'm also not feminine simply because I'm a push-over whimp who wants to be emasculated and has low self-esteem.
C:I hate it when people have this smug sense of absolute belief in their judgement about you. You gain personal power when you subvert expectations.

So I'm also very self-conscious when I'm aware that I may be seen as negatively as all of the above by alpha males and even alpha females. I tend to find myself exerting my masculinity as a sort of cloak. Part of it - such as using my deep voice - is genuinely enjoyable, but the posturing tends to be tiresome. I hate feeling emasculated, and sissy culture (forced feminisation, etc) makes me feel very uncomfortable. My non-binary femininity is not an expression of weakness, it is an expression of my own identity and that identity is my own personal power. However, I do regularly feel the need to bolster my masculinity to the world due to expectations, the fact that it currently makes it easier to get what I want and because I don't want to be percieved as weak. It does cause confusion sometimes, as I too wonder if I am causing my self more harm by emasculating myself through wanting to be feminine and increasingly female.

As for suits... well I love wearing suits, have since I was a kid, even on days off. I went off them completely though when I became more accepting of my identity, and also when I realised just how miserably male I was looking. Then after a long time, I suddenly realised I could potentially wear female suits. So I started wearing ones like these, too. And they are much fun to wear, greater style, elegant and yet still a powerful statement

http://oi59.tinypic.com/auv1pf.jpg

[Shantel]

Hey Stella,
        I was thinking Evelyn could use your most personal take on this subject as you and I have both spoken about it so often privately, but you and she seem to be so much more affected by that dynamic than I, perhaps if I wasn't so impervious to their nuances I would notice it more often too, so glad to see you here!

[Evelyn K]

Stella isn't it interesting to be in a situation where you can switch tracks like this yet still look good? I actually do like having this option, but I don't love it.

Long hair no matter how nice your style and face looks tends to look out of place with mens dress clothes.

But I can't do the women's pants suit thing either. The lines are too feminine and I'd be sending a very trans signal, so unisex style is the only way forward for me.

The key for me is a collared v-shape style opening so my straight collarbone length hair can drape around and frame my face.

As my face feminizes a little more from andro -> andro-feminine, I may be able to get away with classic womens point collar dress shirts from like banana republic. No frills and nothing too curvy, but it matches that level of "me".

Currently this is an ideal unisex outfit for me, minus the accessories of course. Maybe a thin charmed chain.

[Seyranna]

Being Alpha has nothing to do with how you look. It's a vibe, a mixture of self-confidence, assertiveness and social skills. You have it or you don't. One does not "want" to be Alpha, one simply realize that he/she is.

Also, much Internalized homophobia/misogyny.

[f_Anna_tastic]

Hmm I think getting used to this comes with self acceptance.  I went through a similar period, I work as a police officer and there are no shortage of alpha males around (who have become increasingly nice to look at)

I've done the whole alpha male thing but for all you know those guys had a pretty pair of panties on underneath those suits