What does it mean to be a man?

There are those that go deeper into the mystery of transitioning from female into male. They have information for us. Thomas Page McBee writes about his experiences in the NY Times, and it's an interesting read. Here are some quotes I liked (with commentary):

"I was a man and I was born trans, and I could hold both of those realities without an explanation that could be written on the back of a napkin."

Trans experience invites us to challenge conventional and easy narratives.

"Lost jobs and a slow recovery from the Great Recession created a shake-up of gender roles in homes and workplaces across the country, leading to what some experts termed a “masculinity crisis” — a widening educational achievement gap between boys and girls, the high rate of male suicides and other “deaths of despair,” and single women dropping out of the marriage market rather than partnering with low-earning men. It all led to much gender anxiety and hand-wringing. What, I wondered, might it mean to ask a new question: What makes a man, at all?"

Buyer beware.

"...if we found ourselves at all, it was often in others’ bad translations..."

Who wants that? Seems reasonable. We all want to be happy, minimize suffering. That's a basic connection.

"We are, all of us, in a constant stage of negotiation with the political and cultural forces attempting to shape us into simple, translatable packages."

Yes, yes, yes.

"What might it mean for all parents if “mother” and “father” were not such distinct categories in child-rearing?"

Yes, yes, yes.

"Despite the growing interest in our lives over the past decade, being the trans flag bearers of the “future of gender” usually made us the subjects, not the authors, of our narratives."

We write our own narratives.

About media coverage: "“Don’t look at them as a monster,” suggested the wife of a trans woman in a network TV news story."

Yesh, the media coverage proves how uptight our thinking is.

"Today, only three in 10 Americans say they know a trans person, and experts and advocates twin the continuing epidemic of violence against trans people (especially Black trans women and other trans women of color) with those dehumanizing portrayals of our lives." 

Comment: Remember when Ross Perot said he didn't know anyone who was gay--that is much more prevalent. Gender critical feminists don't accept transwomen in their space because their experience is that they are too pushy and insistent, like a man, and they want women only spaces. I had a similar experience when I was working with male to female trans who insisted I wanted them--I was seeking to work with them as a psychotherapist and whether or not I was attracted to them (I was not) would not be acted on anyway. I was tempted to work with this population, but the accusations and insistence wasn't pleasant. I know intellectually that when oppressed populations try to get out of the victim position, they often fall into a victimizer position. And I did have one patient who seemed present and open to the process. And I felt very strongly for one patient who struggle to live outside jail, away from the privileged position she had in jail as the girlfriend of the top dog. 

Every year they read out the names of all the trans people who died that year in NYC at City Hall. It's quite harrowing, the violence, they don't often die of "natural causes", violence is often present, and the violence of poor medical treatment, and the self violence of suicide. Not a lot of media coverage about that--many people's underlying feeling is probably--"good". We need to confront that aspect of the death cult.

"...violence against trans people continues to hit record highs, with 2020 being the deadliest on record"

Not sure why that isn't the lead in every trans story.

"“Am I sexist?” As a newcomer to this fraught landscape, I reckoned with my own masculinity in a very public experiment: I learned how to box, spending months grappling with other men in a Manhattan boxing gym, learning the rituals of the men’s locker room and asking sociologists and biologists and psychologists every “beginner’s mind” question I had about masculinity along the way. I became the first trans man to fight in Madison Square Garden."

Women box too, but is pugilism an aspect of masculinity? I have not boxed.

“...toxic masculinity” had become part of our national lexicon, and trans and nonbinary artists, advocates and activists were leading powerful conversations about gender diversity, intersectionality and the limitations of the gender binary."

"Dangerous gender-reveal parties sought to reaffirm genitalia as the de facto definition of gender, no matter how many people got hurt or killed in the process"

Yea, that's pretty crazy, right?! As someone who isn't super gender conforming, to witness that is pretty disturbing.

"Trans people who either don’t want or can’t get medical interventions remain vulnerable to both the existential threat of erasure and the often-physical violence of gender policing."

Gender policing is a thing, isn't it. I'm horrified.

"Visibility, of course, is not the same as belonging. Language creates nuance, but not necessarily legislation. Stories save lives and also, paradoxically, endanger them. Seeing ourselves reflected in the broader culture may have given us more models of how to navigate the crushing weight of transphobia, but increased awareness of our existence also inflamed gender fundamentalists, who initiated a moral panic about trans kids duped into gender variance by predatory trans adults. Their rhetoric reminded me of the same sort of anxiety straight people had about gay kids like me in the late ’90s."

Gender fundamentalists is a thing. I'm horrified.

"...supposed “competitive advantage” of trans athletes..."

I kind of believe this one, male to female trans. 

"When I left my doctor’s office that June day in 2011, trans visibility was still a nascent strategy in the struggle for our civil rights. The prevailing advice to trans men on hormone replacement therapy was to focus on “passing” as cisgender men — even if that meant leaving your past behind. According to this myopic logic, being trans was not its own identity so much as a swift journey between two gender poles."

Powerful expression.

[end of quotes]

I read an article that cognitive flexibility isn't measured very well currently by psychology intellectual tests. To me the test in listening to transgender experience is a lesson in cognitive flexibility. I am confronted with something that doesn't slot into my mind easily. Born in the wrong body gender? Is that conception offensive? Why is it offensive, it's not said in the article. What could that even be like? What does that mean? I want to get away from the gender expectations, not rush towards the other one. 

As a man I want to be free to be emotional, dependent, caring, accepting. I don't want to have to assertively thrust myself into leadership and domination. I don't want to be a woman, I just want to be free from the gender police.

I'm OK with people with different experience, and all I want is to hear about other people's experience, not make their experience conform to my expectations. I value different experience, because it tests my cognitive flexibility, proves my empathy. I don't want to be limited to what I can imagine, I want to flow, naturally, unimpeded.

Thank you Thomas Page McBee for sharing your experience and insights!