Bathroom rules, new handshakes and a paradox of privilege: what Max has learned as a trans man

I was 17 when I first entered a public men’s bathroom and it was a strange experience.

The silence was disarming.

I thought no one was talking because I was there. He was an alien in a new universe that I had to get used to.

But as I continued using the public men’s bathrooms, I realized it wasn’t me. Something else was happening.

There is a social custom for men to stop talking when they enter, even if you are with your dad, your brother or your best friend. Talking to another guy in the bathroom is considered strange or even insidious. Eye contact with another man could set off alarm bells.

You walk in, you stop talking, you just look at the ground, you urinate and you get out of there.

This is an obvious contrast to public women’s bathrooms, which can feel like joining a feminist support group. The chatting, the laughter, the occasional tears, and the waves of support for those who cry create an encouraging feeling of camaraderie and solidarity.

I could be in a women’s bathroom for two hours and have the time of my life.

The difference between these two everyday experiences is one of my favorite comparisons to highlight the differences in how some men and women live, often directly in parallel, but rarely discussed or thought about.

How did I discover this? I am a trans man. I spent the first 17 years of my life using women’s bathrooms and I spent the last ten years using men’s bathrooms.

The differences are stark, but if you’ve only used one bathroom you wouldn’t know it.

Max says that there are everyday moments that he now experiences in a very different way.(Supplied)

I was assigned female at birth and socialized as female for 17 years. After several identity crises, I met a handsome trans man at a house party when he was 16. He had never heard the term transgender. before and had no idea that medical or social transition was something people could do.

In that moment, hearing this man’s experience, something clicked for me.

It triggered an out-of-body experience in which I quickly reconstructed feelings, experiences and memories from my childhood. In that moment, I realized that this could be the explanation for how I have felt my entire life.

I immediately felt complete despair. However, I also felt a fullness within me. I realized that I would have to make a decision: live like this, truly disconnected from myself, or accept that I could lose everything to live as myself and just figure it out.

A million thoughts ran through my head.

All this before even thinking about social, biological, mental and cultural changes.

I knew I had a long journey ahead of me.

Nowadays, although many people want to know about my personal transition (including wanting to see my before and after photos), I have realized that there is something more about my journey that I can share that could benefit everyone.

Trans people have a unique understanding of how different people experience gender. And I want to share some of what I have observed and understand about living in two very different worlds.

Max wants to share his unique knowledge from living in “very different worlds.”(Supplied)

Handshake protocol

During my transition, one of the things I had to learn quickly was the social etiquette of handshakes.

I went from greeting the men with a hug to shaking their hands. The men began to squeeze my hand with force and intensity. This baffled me and I remember one time I pulled my hand away and said, “What are you doing?!”

We both stood there confused.

It turns out that this is how many men shake hands, and I had a steep learning curve ahead of me to perfect this ritual.

I learned that it is important to look into the eyes of the man you are shaking, initiate the movement with palm-over-palm precision and proper grip strength, and have a clear understanding of the ideal duration.

I’m still working on it.

brutal truths

A more important realization was that now I can be alone at night, without fear.

A few years ago, I was walking late at night and there was a woman in front of me. He looked over her shoulder and she suddenly looked fearful.

A man must have been following us, I thought. Intuitively, I looked over his shoulder as well. She was terrified because she couldn’t see him.

My instinct was to reach out to the woman, to group myself together in the relative safety of female solidarity.

She looked back again; I looked back again and then I understood: I was the man she feared.

It was mind-blowing at the time.

This was also the first time it occurred to me that I was perceived as a potential perpetrator based solely on appearances.

There were other changes too.

I play videogames. It’s something I’ve always loved doing, before and after my transition. It has been a space of escape, but also a place where misogyny and harassment can thrive.

When you play, you have the option to turn on your microphone and chat with other players. Something I noticed during the transition was my increased comfort chatting with other players. Because?

Generally, the response of other players when you chat varies greatly depending on the tone of your voice.

If you have a female-sounding voice, it can cause an avalanche of verbal abuse, harassment and misogyny of online players. Many women and queer people do not use a microphone on open gaming platforms for this reason.

These days I am speechless more often. I often forget that my voice is different now, as I constantly hear men with their microphone on throughout the game.

As a woman, you’re constantly aware of how much noise you’re making, when it seems like men aren’t conditioned to be in tune with that at all.

A less interrupted life

I have also noticed that I am no longer interrupted as much in professional or personal settings.

My opinions and ideas have also ceased to be subject to such intense scrutiny or regular questioning. The responses to my ideas have changed a lot. “Not because“ either “Have you thought in“ to more than one “Yes, and“.

Previously, my experience was that, at work or just in life, I felt like the burden of proof with anything I said was with me as a woman. He would have to have a full case mentally prepared for what he was about to say.

Now I find that I have to be extremely cautious because people may assume that what I say is correct or factual, and not just my thoughts.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that people no longer expect me to organize gifts, food or plans in general.

At work I am no longer asked or expected to organize gifts for farewells or birthdays, morning teas or lunches, or plans such as booking meeting rooms, sending invitations, taking minutes or additional administrative tasks.

In the past, tasks like this were delegated to me. Now if I do any of this, people are really impressed.

I have also realized that in the office, or outside of it, what I eat is no longer talked about.

Sometimes I still have a hard time eating in front of other people, because in the past I received comments about my eating.

Now no one talks about that anymore. Absolutely. People no longer have active knowledge of my diet, or at least they don’t comment on it.

Paradox of privilege

People act as if there are biological and cognitive differences between men and women. Like chemically.

But from what I’ve seen, many of the perceived differences between men and women are social. The differences are what we build.

Things like where and how you were raised, your cultural background and your social class, all of those things would have a significantly greater impact than testosterone.

To me, hormones and biology seem like the fine print. I am more “Max” than “man”, and I know that our values ​​and personality constitute us much more than our gender or sex.

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I know that Max, as I am now, is me being my most authentic self.

However, there are things I valued before that I miss, like the interpersonal flexibility you get with people and the way you connect.

A lot of what is expected of men is super rigid and really stifling. And when you do something out of those expectations, it is often perceived as strange and therefore potentially dangerous.

Men are taught to fear anything outside the rigidity of masculinity, and underneath that is a fear of being perceived as something similar to a woman.

There is a paradox in all of this because, in a sense, I have inherited a lot of male privilege. But isolation happens to me too.

People often misinterpret privilege as a feeling that the privileged person’s life is amazing. For me, it is the absence of certain adversities or obstacles that other groups of people face.

And what I’ve realized is that maybe if more people understood the obstacles that other groups face, the world would be a much fairer place.