Recent news of Canadian actor, Elliot Page, brought trans men into the spotlight in mainstream culture. He bravely shared his vulnerable story to Oprah and acknowledged that most trans men are not in his privileged position — to be vulnerable. Why is male vulnerability, and being given the space for it, important for moving the gender conversation forward?

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oming to terms with my own female-to-male trans identity has been a journey. I spent the last nine years academically studying feminist philosophy perspectives of gender and race. During the pandemic I read Brené Brown’s best seller Rising Strong. She argues that vulnerability is not the Patriarchal story we all bought into, i.e., weakness. She says that vulnerability is leaning into risk and uncertainty, but also the only path to bravery, courage, belonging, and joy. Any marginalized person might agree that vulnerability also requires that someone has legal rights and a safe environment to be heard and believed. Having the space to be vulnerable was not my experience in academic feminist writing, but Dr. Brown’s perspective tapped into my own experience teaching a classroom about the vulnerability and boundaries necessary for critical discussions regarding the intersections of gender and race. Of course there is a strong difference in the collaboration of an inclusive classroom, and the defensive armor we have to wear in our day to day lives to combat the uncertainties and assumptions of other people. When I’m teaching, the men in the classroom are given space to learn new information, alongside their classmates, which creates a shared learning experience that allows for vulnerability.

In Rising Strong, Dr. Brown talks about why critically thinking through our emotions is imperative to combat a phenomenon called Confabulation. Confabulation is when people consciously or unconsciously bring in their self-worth issues, traumas, and biases into an interpersonal situation to create a false narrative and reality about a given interpersonal situation. Dr. Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice, argues that we make the mistake of using our positive or negative biases to undermine or give undue credit towards someone’s knowledge. Both agree we are more often making up a story that is only relative to our biased perception because it ‘feels right’ but hasn’t been critically thought through and checked. 

My ‘aha moment’ was to start a conversation between cisgender women and trans men. One that doesn’t rely on confabulation narratives. Particularly narratives assuming that what it might mean to be a man must be harmful toward equity and inclusion for women and gender non-conforming people. Identity politics relies on action bias. This functions in an attempt to quickly solve a social problem — even if there isn’t evidence supporting that the proposed resolution will correct the problem. We often — justifiably — need justice to come quickly before we have taken the time to introspect and have hard conversations with each other. Sometimes we jump to ‘who has it worse’, creating more unintended consequences. If identity politics is based solely on the intersection of ‘man’ conflated to mean ‘patriarchy,’ then that brand of identity politics is complicit in the harm of trans people. To believe or behave so is counterproductive as a trans ally. More work is required.

Trans people are not trying to ‘pass for cisgender’ but are trying to be valued for the gender that we authentically and ethically truly are.

I spoke with other trans men in the New Orleans trans activist community about their experiences with ‘passing’ and ‘cisplaining’ from cis women that would declare themselves allies to us publicly, but in practice have shown themselves to be struggling to remove the cisnarratives from their beliefs. It is important to note that when trans activist and author Janet Mock said, “we’re not passing, we’re being,” she is referring to undermining the assumed moral value that ‘only cisgender is valuable.’ Trans people are not trying to ‘pass for cisgender’ but are trying to be valued for the gender that we authentically and ethically truly are. If I ‘pass’ for white cisgender male, it is only a privilege if the other person in the exchange thinks that perception carries value and grants me respectful boundaries. That is why you will hear trans people speak of trying to ‘pass,’ but there is a double-edged sword. 

The double-edged sword for trans-men: We spent some portion of our lives being treated as women. Sometimes we found understanding from the shared oppression so long as we were closeted about who we really are (men).  Once transitioned and honest about ourselves with those very same women, we lost the tribalism of shared empathy from the similar life experiences.  We were seen as an ‘other,’ something that threatens the bond we once were given by women.  

It may also be small micro-aggressions that are familiar to heterosexual couples. In the discussions with trans men who date women, we shared the experience of our partners sometimes forgetting that we are trans.  Silly things like getting sick and being told “it’s just man flu” or sentences that begin with “ugh, all men do x” when our partners forget that we aren’t cisgender, or those particular men they had bad experiences with. It’s a knee-jerk reverse of undermining a woman’s understanding of her body and emotions based upon believing us to be the men that we say we are. Sometimes it is not so silly and trans men lose women from their lives that refuse to do the healing work with us.  The trauma from the Patriarchy affects us all differently and, in those times, it is Audre Lorde or Dr. Brown that I lean on. 

Trans men are very much seen and believed to be a threat in one way or another by mainstream society whether we meet the cis norms or not. 

There is no hierarchy of oppression, only different kinds.  I try to remember that even while I am being discriminated against and projected upon. Trans men are very much seen and believed to be a threat in one way or another by mainstream society whether we meet the cis norms or not.  No matter what color we are, trans people similarly share the fear of ‘cisgender Caucasian woman’ tears, where people of color are often forced to video to provide evidence that they were not in the wrong.  That is the double-edged sword we are confronted with once we are vulnerable and honest about who we are.

If we are perceived feminine, similar issues of asserting boundaries can occur where a woman then takes the position of domineering over us and disregards boundaries and consent. Friends and I have uncomfortable stories where boundary assertion went awry in those cases. The immediate fear for me was that nobody would believe me because I am a man.  I wasn’t believed when I was perceived to be a woman, but now the culture has switched where men are never believed in sexual harassment or assault cases.  I remember thinking, “I’m trans and I’m already a victim of injustice before I even speak up, so I just need to endure it and get out of here as best I can.”  I want to be clear that there is a difference between taking accountability for bad behavior and confabulation narratives. I’m suggesting that the culprit is Patriarchal and Matriarchal narratives where cisnormativity misguides and traumas remain unhealed.  The irony is that everyone needs to feel that our emotional vulnerability serves a purpose towards the goals of equity and inclusion. 

In trans-feminism we ask, ‘why is cisnormativity the assumed value that should shape the questions and answers to gender?’ That cisnormative route is consistently devoid of inclusion and equitable treatment of not just trans people, but cisgender people too. Women and men will by definition never escape the power structure of patriarchy even if the structure is corrected. The consequence of the dominant feminist argument assumes that men, as a group, are never oppressed by the Patriarchy because men, as a group, are the Patriarchy (rather than the Patriarchy being a system of power structure), which academic philosopher, Dr. Sally Haslanger, argues for. Trans-feminism offers an alternative that can give the equity and inclusion necessary for diversity.

The problems of perception bias and ‘passing’ in gender and race intersections is not new. Human beings are naturally flawed when it comes to making visual perception mistakes. Difference and inclusion require that we can correct those mistakes for each other and still be understood and respected. The problem trans men have is that we are assumed to have “escaped oppression,” and or are now an oppressor, or trans men are not “real men” but rather women that look like or pretend to be men. If all that were completely true, then Caucasian trans men that ‘pass often for cisgender male’ would always be afforded the privilege of being vulnerable with everyone. The truth from our experiences is our ‘male intersection’ does not automatically give us that privilege. 

I have found my biggest growth as the kind of man I want to be by removing the Patriarchal and Matriarchal cisnarratives from my life that prevented me from the integrity of being who I am. It does not stop many of the cis women in my life from telling me who I should be or who they unfairly think I am. If the ‘men are always bad’ ideology has not been unlearned, we will not find equity with inclusion to have these conversations with the women we empathize with and love. Our legal rights and lives are at stake waiting for cisgender allies to be ready for this conversation.