Sup guys. I have a big chip on my shoulder over being trans. The dudes I hang with don't have any clue Im trans.  And guys love messing with each other like Im sure you know. Sometimes the stuff they say really bothers me. I know they are just messing with me and they don't know Im trans so none of the crap they say is aimed at that. I always shrug off whatever they say and don't let anyone know it bothers me but I still find myself feeling hostile when someone messes with me.  I'm 5'9 which isn't too bad but my friends are all 6' or taller which makes me the shortest dude in the group. So I get the short remarks from them. That bothers me.

What's wrong with you dude? You on your period or something? REALLY bothers me!
You call that a beard? Bothers me a lot.
Dude my grandmother could lift heavier. Bothers me.
You have some tiny wrists. REALLY bothers me.
Your hands are kind of girly. Yeah, let me show you how well I can make a fist with one and bust you in the face with it!
And the WORST of all. Grow a Dick and man up dude. That one makes me wanna shoot someone in the face.
I know my friends are just messing with me like guys do with each other but it makes me really hostile. I can't help it and even though I try to act chill they can tell I am pissed off. Then I get the whole...learn to take a joke man. Don't be such a baby...speech. Do any of you guys find yourself getting really hostile over remarks people have made like that? I really need to get over this. I'm afraid I'm gonna out myself by getting so upset over this stuff.
Something else I do that is really wrong and messed up is get really jealous when my best friend talks about his Dick or some of the sexual stuff he does. For a minute I could just start hitting him in the face. And that's messed up. He can't help that he was born CIS. But I can't help feeling that way. And it makes me feel bad that I'm that small that I would get so jealous of my best friend. Anyone else get those feelings of intense jealousy towards CIS guys?
Lucas

Yeah a bit. It bothers me when the 17 yr old old guy at work can grow facial hair but I can't.  Or that a coworker thought that another coworker was older than me (he's 5 years younger than me). Or when 2 coworkers were making jokes about me being intersex; although I'm stealth and I know they didn't mean anything by it. Apart from those things the guys at work treat me well; they don't make sexist remarks to or around me. They treat me the same as anyone else. I think you simply need to find new friends to hang around with and not excuse their behaviour just because they're cis.

I think what you feel is pretty common for many trans people (both ftm and mtf).

Long time ago I felt way uncomfortable too about remarks that questioned somehow my femininity. Knowing that was pointless (and unreasonable) to feel that way didn't help me either. Neither it helped being conscious that those triggering remarks were just casual/trivial comments, not aimed by any means to make me feel the way I felt.

It was I just haven't accepted completely myself. Nor I valued myself rightly. In that moment, it felt like any masculine trait (physical, behavioural or psychological) may threaten who I was, making me less worth both as a girl and as a human being. I guess that was because I assumed deep down that anything that was out of my rigid concept of "perfect" made me less worthy.

It's curious how ridiculous it can get. Not just because those things we perceive as "failures" (for not being completely gender-conforming) usually don't have any weight in any evaluation we could get. But because many of these "gender atypical traits" (at least that's how we perceive them) are regarded as being quite desirable for many (if not most) people.

You can bet I like masculine men; rugged, rough looking guys. Got a thing for muscle bears. I like body hair and beards (well groomed ofc), bulky frames, and a long number of masculine traits. However there are things (usually regarded as masculine) that annoy me.

For example, less sensitivity for emotions and less empathy may come in handy in certain situations, but you can trust me (bazillion girls support this) IT REALLY BECOMES UPSETTING when trying to figure out (or work out) things with you guys, not just in a relationship, but overall. Another thing (lol I guess this may become a bit of a rant about men so I promise to be brief and if not just excuse me) that often turns out to be maddening is what you guys usually pray as a benefit from T: more ability to focus, more sharp reasoning, etc. But when you actually spend lots and lots of time withdrawn and hyper-focused on something (job, hobbies) it may make us feel irrelevant to you (does it sound you guys? "I feel like you don't care about me", "I feel that I'm not important to you", long etc).

And not to say how dumb you can get to look (and how many times we girls just roll our eyes lol) when your -oh great- manly "hyperfocused sharp (and also linear as hell) reasoning" prevents you from getting the whole picture right or from seeing rather simple details. Even when Im able to admit that those annoying "boys things" may have certain advantages... I honestly would like for my boyfriend to have some more "feminine" traits, such as a big amount of emotional intelligence, a nice degree of sensitivity or a tendency to give things a little thought before acting. And a ton of girls may agree with me.

In spite of everything, first you have to accept (deep down) yourself for who you are (transness included I guess). Then it may become water clear that any of those things can't threaten you nor your masculinity. They won't make feel you less valuable. Once reached this point, you would be so ridiculously confident that the last thing you're gonna think is about nobody outing/clocking you. Just think about how you wouldn't give a crap on what people thinks about many other aspects of you that don't are related to gender/transness.

Just my guess =P

And for what is worth, I can understand jealousy towards cis people, I'm sometimes jealous (though in a healthy way I think) towards cisgirls too. But, in your case... honestly 90% of cisboys should (and you can bet they already do) envy you.

I did once I decided to transition, leading into the transition, and in the beginning of the actual transition. But 3 years on im good. It is what is it. I wasnt born cis. Oh well. I can either sit around and be depressed or get on with it and focus on my transition. To even be able to be trans is epic. I'm just so thankful I'm able to do what I can! What a time to be alive. As a human I compare myself to cis guys, trans guys, all guys. I wish I could grow more facial hair, that I didn't like cake so much and could finally develop my abs. That kind of stuff. The usual. But nothing is gonna change the facts. And I'm ok with it. I look good and I feel good too. I'm fortunate that I'm 5'8. I workout so I look great in a tee. The world sees me as nothing less than a man. I couldn't say that a few years ago. Cis guys and their bio dicks are lucky they won the genetic lottery for sure but that's not my situation. I focus on improving me.

As for the jokes directed specifically to transness from cis guy friends, well that would stop immediately for me. Just not ok.

Hi Lucas,
  Jealousy yeah, of course, it comes  with the territory of being trans. I suspect you want to remain in stealth. You could find new friends, which you probably don't want to do. You could wait til folks grow up a bit. The good news is guys do this stuff less and less as they grow up a bit. You could use humor, maybe fire back at their insecurities. That might take the spotlight off your situation. I think it is a rare individual who can just will himself/herself to not let stuff get to them at least sometimes. All we can do is approach who we want to be, do everything we can do to achieve what we view ourselves as. We can live a very sad life if we are insisting on perfection. It is a lesson I am trying to learn over time. Real self acceptance takes time and a lot of work to get to.
Moni

How different would these friends treat you if they DID know you were trans?

I wouldnt want my friends to know I was trans either, but I wouldnt hang out with people that are typical macho males that rip on each other and would probably be transphobic or treat me differently if they knew. Hell, if they were good friends maybe they would lay off the sore spots a bit. (I personally hate roast humor, it's a way for people to pretend to be joking, while some of them are masking judgemental comments behind a veil of humor, and when you call them out for being mean, they call you out on being a wimp. I think my humor leans towards being more kind to my friends, if anything)


Not saying your friends are dick, you're probably the best judge of them than me, but I think you should let those comments swing by you, they seem to nitpick on them since they know it bothers you. So what you have small wrists, smaller junk, smaller height, etc. A lot of guys do, you're actually just as tall as most guys, it seems. If they rag on you laugh it off and say whatever, man.

If you're going to hang out with cis guys, expect the cis dude jokes, and keep in mind those jokes are meant for someone they believe is already bio male, like any other guy, and it would affect an insecure cis male just the same as you. Instead of being upset about youre insecurities be proud that other men treat you as one of them

Caring what other people say and being offended at their jokes only eats you up inside. There's nothing to gain from it. If you allow yourself to be that strongly and negatively affected by it all the time, it is a weakness you are cultivating within yourself. 

I generally don't experience jealousy toward other people. Maybe because I expect behind every face out there (even the perfect ones) is a ton of neuroses, just different ones than mine. Having the exact body I want or one like theirs won't mean my problems go away, they won't. And most people hate something about their bodies.

Yes like most here I obviously want what they have but the fact is I will never have all of what they have, and that's just the truth. I owned my own frustration with it and work at moving on.

Quote from: Kylo
I generally don't experience jealousy toward other people. Maybe because I expect behind every face out there (even the perfect ones) is a ton of neuroses, just different ones than mine.

So true! Actually that's how it works. Solutions? New problems.

As your friends mature, a lot of that stuff should subside. Once people deal with the struggles and joys of life for a while they realize a lot about themselves and that humor meant to be reductive even to their friends is sort of dumb. We all live in glass houses of some sort.

Getting comments like that used to bother me a lot too, especially early on in my transition. What helped me has been a mix of becoming more secure/confident with myself over time with transitioning and also faking being okay with getting such comments. Not saying it would work for everyone, but for me that "fake it until you make it" has worked for me in some aspects to some degree. Now it doesn't affect me much at all. Sure I still don't like it, but I can quite easily brush it off these days.

Ahh...sort of.

A cis gendered female coworker used to regale me with all the ways that she was more of a man than I am - more vascularity in her arms, taller, facial features, etc. And I felt like I couldn't say, hey, you're really getting under my skin here, for fear of sounding like a whiny little bitch about the whole thing. Some of those things come back to me when I'm judging how well or how slow my transition is going. So aggravating.

OMG, I have to say that I get agitated reading your post!  I HATE the way 'dudes' talk to each other.  I hate all of that weird, pecking order, dick talk stuff.  It has always made me uncomfortable.  Just imagining how you feel, it makes me so angry! 

I present as a cis-male, but I've been questioning if I may be trans, which brings me to these boards.  But in my experience as a cis-presenting-male I have encountered this kind of talk among groups of guys and I have always hated it.  I've tried to avoid guys who talk this way, but it can be tough, especially when they are in groups of other guys. 

Quote from: Deb Roz on May 30, 2017, 03:11:03 PM
OMG, I have to say that I get agitated reading your post!  I HATE the way 'dudes' talk to each other.  I hate all of that weird, pecking order, dick talk stuff.  It has always made me uncomfortable.  Just imagining how you feel, it makes me so angry! 

I present as a cis-male, but I've been questioning if I may be trans, which brings me to these boards.  But in my experience as a cis-presenting-male I have encountered this kind of talk among groups of guys and I have always hated it.  I've tried to avoid guys who talk this way, but it can be tough, especially when they are in groups of other guys.

Yeah, same. Had to keep my comment as lowkey as possible because I didnt want to say his friends weren't good friends, but reading that made me wince a little, I don't tend to hang out with those sort of guys, I had guy friends and when we used to hang out we would do cool and crazy ->-bleeped-<- but we genuinely cared and if we laughed at each other we made it clear we still cared about each other, not in the lovey-dovey homo way but we respected each other. It helped that I hung out with nerdy types so they tended to be less about sports, muscle cars, working out, drinking at bars, and toughness. But I mean...that's just my taste in friendship, I guess. Wherever one feels confident and belonging in works just as fine.

Wolf and Debt, one of them is my best friend. He isn't too bad with the comments. Another guy is a good friend. The other dudes are casual friends. A couple of them act like dicks but I work with them so I have to be around them.

If it bothers you that much you could tell them. Which of course means they will look at you differently, but perhaps with more sensitivity, if that's what you want.

I don't have the luxury of my male friends "not knowing" - they all know. Not necessarily because I wanted them to, but because of the origin of those friendships and how we tend to communicate these days. Turned out fine. I was treated with an inordinate amount of respect before by them anyway, they all know my personality and we've had our ups and downs and crises together. It's interesting how some of them have tentatively begun the "ribbing" since disclosure precisely because I'm part of the "club" now, and I take none of the ribbing to heart because I've known these guys for decades. I know it's "banter" and they would have my back like I have theirs, etc.

One of the "rules" to power as they say is not to take things personally. I used to take a lot of things personally in life and my rage-fits weren't pretty, and they didn't get me anywhere except to win me more enemies or scare the bejeezus out of my friends. It's much better to detach myself from anything said about me, as if they were talking about some stranger. In some ways they are because they don't know the person they're talking about like I do. It takes practice but in the end you'll be better for it, and I'd suggest indifference to things that don't matter like jokes or the physical lot we are dealt in life is a more manly aspiration than to take easy offense. For sure, the various male role models I've looked up to down the years don't get in a flap about being insulted etc.

One thing that's also beneficial is to learn in life not to take your own self or life too seriously all the time. It will wear you down.