I get referred to as a man more then anything else with my peers and strangers, and it's weird to me, to be honest. I don't have a problem with it and I'm elated whenever it happens, but I can't help getting that strange feeling in my gut.

I prefer to be referred to as a boy, or a young man even, because I don't feel like I've really grown into an adult male yet, even though I'm 18. It could just be me and my emotional/physical immaturity, but I suppose I just want to go through the young boy stage because I never really got to? Who knows.

What do you guys think?  Do any of you guys feel more like a boy then a man sometimes?

RJ

In early transition I definitely felt a bit uncomfortable with being called a man; boy or guy were fine - they fit. I basically felt stuck because I did not go through the right puberty, until that started to happen - my biological clock felt frozen. I couldn't advance in life because I didn't want to start anything before I could start it in the correct gender - college, jobs, relationships, etc.

I'm now 6 years into social transition, 1 and a half years on T - couple of days post op - and I still wouldn't say I feel like a man I'm almost there but not quite, I feel on the verge of late teenager/full on grown up  even though I'm almost 25 I am in my first year of uni with a bunch of 19/20 year olds.

Luckily, trans guys often look younger than they actually are so it allows this sort of catching up to happen

Oh I definately don't consider myself a man just yet. I'm pre-transition, but I consider myself to be a little boy and I certainly act like one.  I'd like to puff my chest out and think otherwise, but nah, I'm such a little boy.  I was whining earlier when I had to get my finger pricked for blood and asked for something to numb my finger with before hand lol.  For me, I am the little boy that never was, and I find it hard to go from adult woman directly over to adult man because I never had that little boy experience that would leap me into manhood.  I just still consider myself a little child for right now and I'm 21.  I really do need to grow up though.  One day I will.

I'm going the other way and a few years older than you guys (I'm 32 in a few months  ) but I thought I stick my 2 pence in.

It's only in the past year or so since starting to transition that I've felt I've matured into anything resembling an adult - in my case I held onto that late teens/early twenties childish boy mindset in an effort to AVOID being seen as a man.  A lot of my friends did the same but grew out of it by 25/26 (which I thik seems to be the standard nowadays), but I held on as long as possible (seriously so, you should see the transformers collection thats going to fund my voice surgery!)

Of course puberty part 2 is shifting me back to that teenage phase (seriously, I swap fashion tips with my friends 13 year old daughter!), but this time with a much more sensible head on my shoulders.

Yeah I also felt like that.

when I think about it it makes good sense. for a normal teeneger entering puperty from there lets say 13 years old they would typically still being called a boy and then 5 years later being 18 they would start being called a man. If you are transitioning at the age of 18 your social puperty makes it only take months or 1-2 years before peope would call you a man, even when the changing you go through are more simular to a 13-14 year old.
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I still look like a 16-17 year old so people usunally use the term "young-man" when they speak about me so I think it fits my age better than just man.

I usually hear people call 18 year olds "boy", young man", "kid", things like that so I think it's perfectly normal to be hearing those things anyway. I've only ever heard people call an 18 year old man if they're greeting them with something like "What's up, man?"

One of things I've noticed about myself is that my concept of age is all out of whack and I wonder if it's because I'm pre-T. There are times when I feel younger than I actually am and even a little immature but then there are a lot of times where I just feel very old and jaded.

People think I'm a 12 year old boy pre T. Being called a man I imagine would be weird.

I pefer young man, I mean just because I went through the wrong puberty doesn't mean I don't have a boyhood, This is why I have bio male friends I'm still a boy they know it to and when I get around my boys we act like normal guys, I get called young man alot, I still have to grow up, When I reach 18 I see it as its time out for being immature, It's time to start acting like a man, Even though a man isn't a man until he's 21 that's the legal

Well I'm legal age for sure!!! I've wondered if it is my non-binary identity or what but I sort of keep from using the word "man" when I can. I'm not a boy or "young man" obviously, so I use "guy", "dude" (esp as in "I am a vertically challenged dude!" or something like that.

--Jay

Well, I'm nearly 35, so I've seen myself as a man for a long time now. 

I've noticed that a great many trans* guys refer to themselves as "boys" and to women as "girls".  I don't like the terms because it seems immature to me, but I realise that the majority of FTMs probably really are "boys" as opposed to men as the younger crowd seems more numerous amongst us.

Quote from: Kreuzfidel on December 14, 2013, 02:17:24 PM
Well, I'm nearly 35, so I've seen myself as a man for a long time now. 

I've noticed that a great many trans* guys refer to themselves as "boys" and to women as "girls".  I don't like the terms because it seems immature to me, but I realise that the majority of FTMs probably really are "boys" as opposed to men as the younger crowd seems more numerous amongst us.

Well legally your not a man until 21

I'd never refer to myself as a "boy" to anyone I know because they all know I am 24...I just don't know any guy my age who would do that. But I know most of the guys I know at my age (cis) refer to themselves as "guy" a lot. I think it takes a lot for any guy, cis or trans, to really feel like a man, because the word is so loaded. I know a lot of cis girls who can't call themselves "women" at my age either because they think it sounds so old and sophisticated, to a level they haven't reached yet in their minds.

Quote from: Brandon on December 14, 2013, 02:35:57 PM

Well legally your not a man until 21

Depends where you are.

I  don't particularly like referring to myself as either "boy" or "man", unless it's part of a phrase, ie we call all the people herewho are really geeky about trains, "train boys". I don't like "boy" because to me that conjures up the image of a preteen boy, but "man" makes me think of someone at least in their late twenties or thirties.

I'm definitely male, but I appear too young to be able to look at myself and say "man", but too old for my idea of a boy.

Quote from: Brandon on December 14, 2013, 02:35:57 PM

Well legally your not a man until 21

What are you using to define that?  Simply that, in the US, you have to be 21 to buy alcohol?  At 18, in the US, you are legally an adult (man or woman).

I'm 22 and I do get referred to as a man because of my age, but emotionally and mentally I feel I'm around 15 or 16 years old. I tend to act like a teenager as well. I see it as that's what people think my age is when they see me. Just the other day I was at work and a guy came up to me and said "How do you do this job if your still going to school?" I gave him a puzzled look and told him I don't go to school anymore. He said "Oh sorry you just look like your barely sixteen, son!" lol

honestly, i think this is the sort of thing that most people do deal with going into adulthood, cis or trans, though it can be kind of confusing when all of a sudden people are expecting you to be on one kind of cusp (girl -> woman) vs. another (boy -> man) because the expectations are so different with regards to both of them. i mean, i feel like women are called "girls" well into their 20s, but there's this expectation that it would be rude to call a guy in his 20s a boy? so i think it can be kind of strange for trans people between 18-25ish to navigate the use of these terms, when before you were dealing with one set of rules and now there's this entirely different one.

the moral of the story, really, is that people will use these words in funny, socially proscribed ways and that's kind of how it is and sometimes that's good and sometimes it sucks, but your identity is never wrong! keep doing you how you like

I have always felt weird about being called either 'girl' or 'woman' because I'm too old to be a girl (I'm 25) but I don't feel grown up enough to be a woman either.

I like that on the male side there is at least the choice of guy or dude which are kind of in between boy and man. Personally I call myself a guy.

Quote from: wheat thins are delicious on December 14, 2013, 06:59:39 PM
What are you using to define that?  Simply that, in the US, you have to be 21 to buy alcohol?  At 18, in the US, you are legally an adult (man or woman).

No your a legally a women at 18 your not legally a man until 21 that's the law

Quote from: Nikotinic on December 14, 2013, 08:02:49 PM
I have always felt weird about being called either 'girl' or 'woman' because I'm too old to be a girl (I'm 25) but I don't feel grown up enough to be a woman either.

I like that on the male side there is at least the choice of guy or dude which are kind of in between boy and man. Personally I call myself a guy.

this is a really good point! i have much the same conflict over girl/woman because there doesn't seem to be a word that covers the time in your 20s that guy/dude seems to fill for men, which i think leads to "girl" being used to fill the lexical gap that exists. "lady" exists, but it's weird in that it only seems to work in some circumstances and social groups. it's a frustrating void and i wish there were a better word to use.

Quote from: Brandon on December 14, 2013, 08:09:17 PM

No your a legally a women at 18 your not legally a man until 21 that's the law

Can I get a source for that?