A trans man is providing insight into the male psyche after experiencing massive “culture shock” regarding the isolation of male existence.
“There’s a huge sense of social isolation that comes with being perceived as male,” wrote a Reddit user who goes by the username skaldish last month. “Because now people are subconsciously treating me as a potential predator. All strangers, no matter their gender, keep their guard up around me.”
Related
This avant-garde trans wrestling group is the antidote to toxic masculinity
The standing room only spectacles are making the latent and self-loathing homoeroticism of WWE wrestling overt.
The user explained that he’s learned “there is no inherent camaraderie in male socialization as there is in female socialization” and that the experience is incredibly lonely.
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
“You know how badly this would have f**ked my mind up if I had grown up like this?” he said, adding that he has been “mourning the loss of a privilige I didn’t even know I had.”
The user is providing information that a cisgender man never could, since they don’t have something else to which to compare their experience. “This is something I would’ve never understood without living the experience,” he said, explaining that he has realized “most cis men probably experience chronic emotional malnutrition.”
“They’re deprived of social connection just enough for it to seriously f**k with their psyches, but not enough for them to realize that it’s happening and what’s causing it.”
The user wrote about interacting with generally “aloof, cold, and mirthless” women, something he has never experienced before but completely understands as a critical armor to protect themselves from male predators.
“As someone who used to wear it myself, I know this armor is 100% impersonal,” he wrote. “Nobody likes wearing it, and I can say with absolute certainty that women would dump the armor in favor of unconditional companionship with men if doing this didn’t run the risk of actual assault.“
He then expressed a critical perspective on what it may feel like to be a cisgender man: “I only have a complete understanding of this context because I’ve experienced female socialization. If I hadn’t, I would’ve thought this coldness was a conspiracy against me devised by roughly half the human population.”
“Even now, with all that I know about navigating the world as a woman,” he added, “I’m failing to convince my monkey-brain that this armor isn’t social rejection.”
He also lamented that it remains taboo for men to be “platonically intimate” with one another.
“The human species looks so much colder standing from this side,” he concluded. “I can see how men might convince themselves that their feelings of emotional desperation is personal weakness…”
In the comments, many corroborated the feelings, with one person writing, “Peak masculinity is being lonely.”
Some pointed out that all of this is amplified even more when you are both male and not white.
The so-called male loneliness epidemic has long been discussed, though many disagree on the extent of the issue. A recent Gallup poll found that young American men aged 15-34 are the loneliest among all wealthy Western nations.
Conversely, a recent Pew Research poll found that men and women equally reported feeling lonely, though women were more likely to reach out to their networks for support. Like Gallup, the Pew study found that younger people are more likely to feel lonely.
A 2023 report on The State of American Men found that two-thirds of young men feel that “No one really knows me.”
After that study came out, science Journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer wrote aout its “tragic implications.”
“I know it can be easy to scoff at the plight of boys and men today,” she said. “Why are we worrying about them when men have been top dog for so long at the expense of so many other marginalized groups? I hear that, and I’ve felt that way too. But I believe that supporting our boys in the right ways can have broad positive ramifications for society, because many of the world’s social problems are, at least in part, fueled by the toxic and gendered messages boys get throughout their lives.”
“Helping boys, in other words, helps everyone,” she declared.
And based on the Reddit users’ seemingly common experience, it seems listening to trans men may be a great place to start.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.