how to unlearn man

how transition stopped me from talking about masculinity then helped me start again

I used to write about fatherhood and masculinity a lot. In fact, I wrote about it all the damn time. I never shut up about it. I took classes about it, I spoke at conferences about it, tweeted about it, started Facebook groups around it, and then one day, I just didn’t any more.

Why?

I guess I’m still figuring this out too but the short answer is my transition. How do I, a transfeminine person, continue to talk about masculinity and fatherhood without betraying myself? It's been a big question for me and one I didn't acknowledge at all for almost the entirety of my social and then medical transition.

And then one day as part of my inpatient therapy I was talking to one of my counsellors and we started discussing how there is no need to get rid of any pieces of myself to validate transition. I can continue being me and keep all the pieces of me that I would like to because Emme is Emme no matter what.

This lead to an exercise of sorts for me where I started listing pieces of me that I kind of wanted to bring with me and pieces I wanted to leave behind. Was this my how to unlearn being a man journey?

Deconstructing what it meant to be a man and what was just me was a task. It continues to be a task. Because there is no thing that makes someone a man. It isn’t holding back emotions or liking sports or taking out garbage in the morning on garbage day (I guess I didn’t need to add ‘on garbage day,’ it would have been weird to take it out on another day, maybe that’s being a man?).

I like the Pittsburgh Penguins ok? They might suck now, but I liked them before and I like them now.

A lot of the time I just like to wear pants and a sweatshirt. This too, is not man, this is Emme wanting to be cozy and I am allowed to do that!

I realized while a little too intoxicated at our holiday party that I enjoy eating ham with my fingers. Is this a man thing? No. It is something that Emme does because she is weird and didn’t drink enough water.

And more than anything I realized I had stopped talking about masculinity altogether, fearing that talking about it would be the biggest betrayal to a transition and that talking about my masculinity would mean everyone still saw me as one. But I am not a man, I am a non-binary transfeminine person and damn it I will talk about masculinity because it is important.

So is there a way to unlearn man as I transition, or is it about trying to become a better person regardless of transition?

It’s the second piece for me but it’s doing this in the hopes that men also continue to take steps to deconstruct harmful narratives around what it means to be a man. And I promise you that showing more emotions or caring for people openly, or admitting you don’t do as much emotional labour as those around you won’t make you trans. But wow wouldn’t you be so lucky if that was the case?

Man and the traits of toxic masculinity still make the world very scary and dangerous for a lot of people. Men need to do the work of helping other men change those views and without that a lot of fear remains and will continue to remain. We will continue to promote men who preach hate and division and model that kind of masculinity to youth from the day they are born.

If you need a personal accounting of fear, I am very afraid of men when I am wearing dresses and a full face of makeup and on my own. Men have created that fear and only other men can end that fear.

There is no question that I had an impact on those around me when I walked around with a beard and my head down. I looked an imposing figure. There is no question that when I stayed quiet in the face of transphobic jokes I was hurting the trans community and myself. Every time I didn’t listen to lived experiences or thought “it can’t be that bad,” I created difficulty for people and invalidated them.

These are things I need to continue to unlearn in transition and things all men need to continue to understand has huge impact. Simply doing nothing to support queer communities isn’t a neutral stance, it is harmful.

Be ok with losing friends because you don’t let them be assholes.

Be ok with never hearing Joe Rogan again.

Be ok with being wrong and not defending it.

Be ok with just not talking at all.

Be ok with not being in a space.

Be ok with learning new things and then learning new things again the day after that.

Be ok with other people having their own list for you.