Despite the tremendous progress we as a society have been making towards gender equality, ranging from universal suffrage to narrowing the pay gap (both of which are still far from finished), men keep dominating the world they created for themselves. Pushing each other to higher positions at work or in politics, as well as continuing to claim family leadership.
Women might not be openly called second-rate people (at least outside of the manosphere), but the sentiments are still pretty much there. Ranging from the Christian fairytale that Eve was created from Adam’s rib to be his “help meet” to blatant intervention in women’s right to be in control of their bodies, in particular regarding abortion in many developed countries.
Though I’m no longer insecure enough to be even remotely associated with the manosphere, I’ve been exposed to the alt-right sentiments during my uni years about a decade ago. While it was a brief period, it still got pretty ugly, and I’m thankful to have been supported by my friends at the time to regain the empathy I Iost. Sadly, many men I knew haven’t changed since.
Having grown up on the eastern side of the former Iron Curtain, I have seen and been myself subject to the standards that men over there created for themselves. You’re not allowed to cry because you’re a man. You must be able to fist fight because you’re a man.
You can’t be weak and vulnerable because you’re a man.
In Russian culture in particular, you must “plant a tree, build a house, bring up a son“. There are many musts in the region that men, especially those of older age, barely question and keep blindly following. Bottle up your emotions on top of that, because “what if you get backstabbed by your enemies”? No empathy towards your own children either, only discipline.
In other words, a world of animals. What a pathetic mindset. It took me many years of hard work and patience to leave it behind, and I’m happy to have been freed of this ridiculous concept. Life has been beautiful ever since and I keep blooming. None of this would’ve been possible without the help of my friends, most of whom throughout my life have been women.
Since my early childhood, despite being firmly in the boys camp (because of everything I mentioned above) I was interested in talking to girls a lot. Not necessarily romantically – I just always found them to be more rational and empathetic. My behaviour towards them wasn’t always perfect, but they never gave up on me.
I wasn’t particularly interested in boys things like playing football or learning martial arts, though I tried both for some years. My choice of video games were mostly Tetris, Mario and Sonic, not Counter-Strike or FIFA (and I’m still fairly shit at both). I would sometimes cry watching kids’ cartoons while other boys would find my reaction weird.
Fishing and/or hunting, lifting weights, fast cars – I did not care about any of that. That’s not to say everything I’ve mentioned by now are necessarily men’s things, but such are traditional gender roles that you are expected to at least occasionally partake in them. I wasn’t an outcast because those weren’t my interests, though that meant I didn’t really bond with boys much.
My disappointment with men probably peaked around the time I was in the military. Being government property against my will for 11 months wasn’t the only thing that kept breaking me emotionally – it was also being in confinement with other men.
Unbelievably dirty toilets despite daily cleaning by ourselves. Countless motivation from superiors by being compared to “faggots” whenever we couldn’t reach required milestones. Being stuck every night in a room with 10 people whose hygiene was questionable at best, on top of the disregard for others by people constantly taking smelly snus in said room.
That’s not to mention all the “fantastic” conversation topics – from graphic descriptions of what men would do after a successful date with a girl, to straight up nazi propaganda (even our superiors had this nazi occupation period poster hanging on the wall of their office – in free Estonia).
In Berlin, 62% of suicides were carried out by men. In other countries like the US the numbers are as high as 80%. Clearly there are unbearable consequences if you find yourself on the wrong side of male privilege. I’m so lucky that none of my male friends have fallen for this masculinity trap.
That said, women are still the ones I vibe with the most. I’m more comfortable to talk with them about my personal life and struggles growing up. There are more things in common I have with some, like listening to K-Pop, talking about fashion or other aspects of popular culture. Being myself without being judged.
Most of my managers at work have been women and I genuinely think they’re better suited for this kind of job than men. Easier to come to any agreement and much less backstabbing (though I’ve seen a fair deal of that with a certain former employer as well – it’s just that the whole thing was being lowkey run like Hunger Games, by a man of course).
Yet it’s incompetent men who do much less and tend to be much more eccentric in their actions who get ahead of those hard-working women. Bro culture is not limited to personal life and friend circles, and more often than not those men will downplay this fact in order to stay powerful. There is this fetish for power among insecure men which I will never understand.
These life experiences, on top of some feelings I’ve been having for the longest time, led me to believe that I don’t want to be a man.
A few months ago, I started publicly identifying myself as non-binary. Publicly despite the fact that before then, for about 6 years my pronouns have been he/they. I never made a big deal about this, because those who don’t understand the concept most likely won’t want to anyway – at least where I come from. And those who do won’t make a big deal about it either.
Since at least 12 years old I’ve been experiencing gender dysphoria. It kept coming and going and I managed to suppress it during the time my testosterone peaked in late teens (same time when the alt-right pipeline came along), but it came back very strongly after that. I won’t get into the delicate details as to how – that’s not important to this story.
What is important, however, is that during my time in Asia I’ve come to terms that I cannot just ignore it as it keeps impacting my personal life. This is why I have now been transitioning to female for the past few months.
I strongly believe that identity is shaped by experiences, not the other way around. We could have avoided so many wars if more people thought this way. This is also why I still identify as non-binary, as I feel I’ll have to go through some experiences to truly feel like belonging to womanhood. Not all of those experiences are possible, but I’ll settle for what’s out there.
Some people, especially where I come from, will consider this to be some act of perversion. I don’t expect them to understand, nor am I worried about their opinion. Whether it’s someone I know or not – mind your own business. I am a grown-up with no strings attached.
Some may say it’s against nature. Well, so is the average life expectancy of way beyond 30 years, which was achieved with science – but I don’t see anyone complaining. The technology is there to make the transition, albeit with some limitations. That’s good enough to me.
Personally I don’t consider myself to be a “woman stuck in a man’s body” – when I look at myself in the mirror I can see her already, because I take after my mother in more ways than just personality. I won the genetic lottery as well. Perhaps with time I’ll be more open about what any of this means, but what I can say confidently now is that I will look hot – I have the receipts.
(my very high self-esteem and Slavic beauty standards I want to follow won’t let me be ugly anyway – don’t confuse this with internalised transphobia)
And I would like to thank all of my friends for the tremendous support you have given me along the way. All these years but especially now you have been there for me – no matter where you are. You truly are family to me.
For more than half of my life I’ve been waiting for the moment when I could at least try to transition. I might still change my mind like with many things, but at least I won’t die regretting I didn’t do it. The very reason I’m living a happy life is that it’s so rich and eventful I won’t feel bad about passing away tomorrow.
Most people wait for something – I’m not waiting to live.