I've tried to post about this in another sub forum, but I don't seem to find people who are in my situation.

So again-

I'm looking for people who came out early and/or had an early male socialization (hanging out only with boys + few or no female friends + all male groups later on + "male" interests and behavior or speech patterns).
Basically, you don't know how to properly speak "girl", don't understand girl, feel really awkward in all-female groups (even all-butch groups), while all-male groups (either straight or gay) are no problem, etc.

*and* you are not an early transitioner, that is, you have/had to live with a male socialization while people think you are an adult female.

If you know what I'm talking about, please post.

Right here. I fit what you're looking for except I'm now trying to get on HRT.

Here as well.

How can I help?

I fit everything you have said save for the fact that I haven't gone on HRT or had surgeries. I have simply lived male since I was three or four years old and my social circle has always been men.

That's not male socialization.  If you were known to be a girl/woman, you were not socialized as a male.

Quote from: aross1015 on July 01, 2014, 06:43:34 PM
That's not male socialization.  If you were known to be a girl/woman, you were not socialized as a male.

This line of thought frustrates me. Not everyone fits a cookie cutter story. Frankly, I don't post as much as I could because I came from a family unit of men, who let me do as I please including going to the men's room...all in my single digits. Boy clothes, boy name, hanging with the boys. Oh but nooo, I had to be socialized like a girl.

*climbs off soap box* having said that, I think it would be extremely difficult to ever fix that kind of upbringing. Girls are strange creatures. (I said that to my shrink once. He made a face and said "...okay, that I'd have to agree with." )

Quote from: aross1015 on July 01, 2014, 06:43:34 PM
That's not male socialization.  If you were known to be a girl/woman, you were not socialized as a male.

I was socialized to be female and given expectations to fulfill by society, family, friends and school. Remember that not everyone automatically accepts that they are transgendered the moment the thought comes into their minds. For example, I attempted to repress the thoughts and tried hard to act like a girl, hoping the feeling would go away if I gave it time and effort. I realized that was simply not the case, I don't enjoy what girls talk about, I don't like wearing girl clothes and I don't like wearing make-up, pink and having people thinking I'm weak. At one point, it all started to weigh down on me and I finally decided to do something about this before suicide starts becoming the only way out. It has passed by my mind a couple of times.

Quote from: Frank on July 01, 2014, 07:05:48 PM
This line of thought frustrates me. Not everyone fits a cookie cutter story. Frankly, I don't post as much as I could because I came from a family unit of men, who let me do as I please including going to the men's room...all in my single digits. Boy clothes, boy name, hanging with the boys. Oh but nooo, I had to be socialized like a girl.

*climbs off soap box* having said that, I think it would be extremely difficult to ever fix that kind of upbringing. Girls are strange creatures. (I said that to my shrink once. He made a face and said "...okay, that I'd have to agree with." )

The line of thought of "well I hung out with boys/wore boys clothes so therefore I was totally socialized as male" is particularly frustrating to me.  I'm sorry but simply being friends with guys, wearing boys clothes, etc as a child is not male socialization if people know you are a girl/know you as a girl.  If you lived as a male since childhood, then yes, there was male socialization, but simply having been "one of the guys" and dressing in boys clothes which a lot of young tomboys were and did is not male socialization and does not give one all the experiences of actually being socialized as male. 

Honestly how was anyone completely socialized as male before any transition...?

Quote from: Bearr on July 01, 2014, 08:16:35 PM
Honestly how was anyone completely socialized as male before any transition...?

They weren't, unless they began living as a male as a child (meaning literally living as male, no one knowing they were born female). 

Quote from: aross1015 on July 01, 2014, 08:27:56 PM
They weren't, unless they began living as a male as a child (meaning literally living as male, no one knowing they were born female).

Pretty much- or their parents started them on T at a toddlers age.

Quote from: Bearr on July 01, 2014, 08:31:11 PM
Pretty much- or their parents started them on T at a toddlers age.

Well to transition as a child you wouldn't start hormones at birth or anything.  You would do every aspect of transition aside from anything medical and then around pre-teen ages you would be put on blockers and then on hormones at the age of 14 or so. 

Right lol I was just saying in a sense if it could happen that would be the only way.

Quote from: Bearr on July 01, 2014, 08:45:27 PM
Right lol I was just saying in a sense if it could happen that would be the only way.

It would possible if you were to have transitioned as a child, which is possible and has happened a handful of times that I know of, possibly more. 

When most trans guys say they were "socialized as male" however they mean "I was a tomboy who hung out with the guys all the time, dressed as male, etc, but was still known as to be female."

hmm.. this thread seems to have been a bit taken over. I'm interested in hearing what the OP has to say. Everyone has a right to disagree and you've given your viewpoints, so now perhaps we can focus on the rest of what Bunter was saying

QuoteI'm looking for people who came out early and/or had an early male socialization (hanging out only with boys + few or no female friends + all male groups later on + "male" interests and behavior or speech patterns).
Basically, you don't know how to properly speak "girl", don't understand girl, feel really awkward in all-female groups (even all-butch groups), while all-male groups (either straight or gay) are no problem, etc.

I keep erasing what I want to say because I can't find the right wording but some of the responses have me confused. It doesn't take into account that someone could be labelled a tomboy and is truly a transman. I struggle to understand how a person who thinks male, dresses male, behaves like a male, speaks like a male and who's social group is males which have accepted them equally despite their name/body being female is not male socialization. That said person does not know how to be female nor socialize with them goes along with this. A female name and physical form doesn't mean that they can't be accepted as male by other men and treated as such.

Quote from: aross1015 on July 01, 2014, 06:43:34 PM
That's not male socialization.  If you were known to be a girl/woman, you were not socialized as a male.

If you want to split hairs, go head with that but it's not helpful.

--
I was kinda like what you described in the opening post. The only close correlate I've seen is people in some cultures who are raised as male in situations where a cismale was needed but not available. I grew up in a culture where women were not allowed a lot of free will or social mobility, and I was both bullheaded enough and needed by people around me that I was allowed to have an atypical amount of male privilege and socialization.

I'm 33 and only a few years into hormones and name change. I spent a lot of years just arguing with anyone who criticized how I was acting or tried to challenge my place among men. I never consciously shunned women but other people rarely grouped me with them. In a business situation, or a construction project, or a social situation that required strength, I was usually the one given keys/power tools/etc, and I was usually the one expected to make sure everything went well. More than other women at the very least.

Honestly, as a fully-transitioned but effeminate(ish) man, people often treat me more like a woman than they did before I came out. This stuff happens. We hardly exist in documents and entertainment media, so these variations don't become a part of the record.

I gotta agree, I don't think you can really say you were socialized male in those cases. It's very different. I was just thinking about this earlier, but I actually do struggle with my socialization. There's this urge to act like it didn't penetrate into my personality, I didn't develop the same complexes that men develop, stuff like that, but the reality is, it DID affect me. Differently, yeah, but definitely at least to some extent in some way.

(And forewarning: I'm sorry if this sounds preachy or like I'm talking down to anyone. I totally don't mean to be doing that, I'm just giving my perspective, feel free to ignore me if I seem wrong about this lol)

One thing that strikes me about the way y'all talk about it is that you think being treated as one of the boys or given responsibilities is more in line with male socialization... buuut, that's not how it works. Male socialization is being tested, then told you're NOT a boy if you don't do X and Y. Or if you do Z. That is the gist of it.. what I mean is, acceptance isn't a sign of male socialization... being doubted, challenged, questioned, made fun of and accused is.

Female socialization endows every female-perceived person with a certain base level of worth and protections that is hard to increase or decrease. But male socialization tells them they only have the worth and comfort that they earn and prove their way into, which could be infinite, but they will have to constantly prove they are worth it, and they will constantly be challenged and assessed for it. If a typical male sees you as female, being accepted by them is more likely an indicator that they definitely see you as female, because men are socialized to pull their punches around women and just let a woman have her way--then roll their eyes at each other when she leaves. She has her base worth, she can come and go, doesn't mean she's gonna ever be respected as an equal as long as she has a female body. That's what men are brought up to be like. I've talked to males as a male, and grown being perceived male, and I'm pretty sure that a large portion of them struggle to respect anything with a female body as equal. They would say they do, but they wouldn't act like it if you put it to the test. They frequently hold onto misogynistic beliefs deep down and believe that women are objects. I forget, what percentage of men said they'd rape a woman if she was unconscious and they definitely had no chance of getting caught? Like half? (Oh, 35% according to http://www.uic.edu/depts/owa/sa_rape_support.html)

And they'd bottle up a lot of resentment if they were forced to respect a woman as their equal. Because men are socialized to take control of women and be better than women too, and never to be *like* a woman. With all that, for most men, truly accepting a woman as their equal would take some astounding conditions, tomboy or not. I'm sorry if that all sounds ridiculous, but that's what you grow up with as a male. I think female-socialized people generally would find it shocking. Because they spent most of their life getting the "show this nice exterior to females" version. Men don't wear their feelings on their sleeves, and most men have bottled them up so long that they'd have trouble even identifying them in their own head. Male socialization is steeped in shame and pressure, and male socialization doesn't value honesty or transparency like female socialization does.

I'm not really trying to paint a bleak picture or be invalidating here... I'm just giving my perspective because I think it's interesting, and the same topic has come up the other way around. Personally, I think both socializations are awful. Female socialization is a prison with a decent food cart, and male socialization is a deathmatch with a great prize to the lone winner. Both poison.

I do think people get different extents of their socialization, and internalize it differently based on their personality--obviously, nobody is entirely a prisoner to their socialization... but it's true that male-perceived people and female-perceived people are socialized incredibly and shockingly differently except in very unusual circumstances, and I think it's very common and understandable for one group to misunderstand how it was for the other group because it all seems so subtle on the outside.... none of us can probably ever really know what it was like on the other side of it though. How it really felt.

I think you summarized the general male population pretty accurate Sad Panda.

This has obviously gone off on a tangent, and I'm not quite sure why. Is it a sensitive topic?

Socialisation is not a static, monolithic thing, it depends vastly on the environment and culture and that can change too. I know trans people who spent their whole childhood passing until puberty in the "other" gender role, with everybody assuming them to be their internal gender. Their socialisation might not have been 100% male or female because their parents knew about the situation, but nobody else did.
Their socialisation was noticably different from what others have experienced. These people function very differently on a social level, even if they were later on forced to live as their assigned gender.

I also know people who are not trans who have at least partial "cross" socialisation, for example if they grew up with only men or only women.

Children being raised as the "other" gender when there is a social need for a male or female person in the community (families without sons etc), is still very common in rural areas (I'm not from the US). In my family, one girl was raised mainly in the male role because of that. This was accepted and supported by the rural community.
She IDs as female, but functions *very* differently from women on a social level. See also the sworn virgins of Albania who do not ID as trans. They were mostly male socialized.

Another thing is that identification influences your socialisation. Imitation is social learning, and as a child you have a certain control over what you imitate and what not (provided your families gives you freedom to do that).

So I just don't see how you can say it's black or white with socialisation. All socialisation is a mix, some are more common while others are very unusual. 

And now I have forgotten what my initial question was