„In fünf Schritten zum männlichen Feministen“

Eine Besprechung des Videos findet sich beim Doktorant

Transgender über Unterschiede nach dem Wechsel in die andere Geschlechterrolle

Ich hatte hier schon häufiger Berichte von Transsexuellen, die darlegen, was sie als Unterschied nach dem „Wechsel“ in die andere Rolle wahrgenommen haben. Hier ein weiterer:

One day in court, Ward and his opposing counsel were making a big request to a judge. Ward knew their question would not go over well, so he wasn’t surprised when she reprimanded both him and his opposing counsel for asking. What he didn’t expect was for the opposing counsel lean over to him and call the judge the c-word. “We weren’t out the courtroom door when he said that to me under his breath,” Ward says. “He never would have said that when I was female.”

Das könnte sogar stimmen. Weil er dann Rücksicht auf sie als Frau genommen hätte bzw sich weniger sicher gewesen wäre, ob sie es anders auffasst als „seinem Ärger Luft machen“. Einen Mann hätte er eben „Dick“ genannt, dann aber vielleicht auch nicht gegenüber einer Frau.

Many trans men I spoke with said they had no idea how rough women at work had it until they transitioned. As soon as they came out as men, they found their missteps minimized and their successes amplified. Often, they say, their words carried more weight: They seemed to gain authority and professional respect overnight. They also saw confirmation of the sexist attitudes they had long suspected: They recalled hearing female colleagues belittled by male bosses, or female job applicants called names.

“If I’m going off-the cuff, no-one really questions it,” Ward says. “It’s taken as, ‘He’s saying it, so it must be true.’ Whereas while I was practicing as female, it was ‘Show me your authority, you don’t know any better yet.’”

Würde mich interessieren, ob mit dem Rollenwechsel nicht auch tatsächlich ein mehr an Autorität dazu gekommen ist. In vielen Berufen ist das ein wichtiger Faktor, den man häufig gerade als Berufsanfänger schnell bemerkt: Erzählt man selbst einem Kunden, dass man bestimmte Punkte nicht weiß, aber nachschlagen kann, dann hat er das Gefühl nicht gut aufgehoben zu sein und schätzt einen schnell als unerfahren ein (was man ja auch ist). Sagt der Chef so ziemlich genau das gleiche, dann wirkt es anders und er geht mit dem Gefühl raus, ein schwieriges Problem zu haben, in welches sich der Chef einlesen muss, hat aber gleichzeitig das Vertrauen, dass er das auch machen wird. Selbstsicherheit zu verkörpern und auszudrücken erreicht ebenfalls diesen Effekt und das lässt sich häufig mit der männlichen Rolle besser ausdrücken.

Mitch Davis is now a director of organizational development at Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York City, but he’s worked in HR for many different companies since coming out eight years ago. In one previous job, he heard his boss call female colleagues “old cows” and refer to a middle-aged job applicant as “Dame Edna” after she’d left an interview. “Evidently men say things like that to each other all the time,” he says.

Other trans men say they’ve heard male co-workers sexualize female colleagues when no women are present. “There’s some crude humor, some crass humor,” says Cameron Combs, an IT consultant in Olympia, Washington. He says he’s heard male colleagues do “appraisals” of women in the office or observe how female co-workers used their “womanly wiles” to rise up the ladder, conversations he says he never would have heard when he was a woman. “When they saw me as female, it was kind of an automatic stop,” he says. “It’s a little less censored, the jokes I hear, the comments.”

Quasi die Gemeinschaft der Männer. Man weiß eben, dass Männer üblicherweise mit einem etwas raueren Ton umgehen können. Ich denke aber auch, dass viele Frauen untereinander anders miteinander reden.

Some trans men have noticed the professional benefits of maleness. James Gardner is a newscaster in Victoria, Canada, who had been reading the news as Sheila Gardner for almost three decades before he transitioned at 54. As soon as he began hosting as a man, he stopped getting as many calls from men pointing out tiny errors. “It was always male callers to Sheila saying I had screwed up my grammar, correcting me,” he says. “I don’t get as many calls to James correcting me. I’m the same person, but the men are less critical of James.”

Das wäre dann wohl der „Mansplaining Effekt“

Dana Delgardo is a family nurse practitioner and Air Force captain who transitioned three years ago. Since his transition, he’s noticed that his female patients are less open with him about their sexual behavior, but his bosses give him more responsibility. “All of a sudden, I’m the golden child,” he says. “I have been with this company for 6 years, no ever recommended me for management. Now I’m put into a managerial position where I could possibly be a regional director.”

Auch hier würde mich interessieren, ob er gleichzeitig sein Verhalten geändert hat. Gerade wenn eine Hormonbehandlung dazu gekommen wäre, wäre unter der Wirkung von Testosteron auch ein anderes Auftreten geradezu zu erwarten. Ein weiterer Faktor könnte der Schwangerschaftsaspekt sein.

Trans women have long observed the flip side of this reality. Joan Roughgarden, a professor emerita of biology at Stanford and a transgender woman, says it became much more difficult to publish her work when she was writing under a female name. “When I would write a paper and submit it to a journal it would be almost automatically accepted,” she said of the time when she had a man’s name. “But after I transitioned, all of a sudden papers were running into more trouble, grant proposals were running into more trouble, the whole thing was getting more difficult.”

“As a man, you’re assumed to be competent unless proven otherwise,” she says. “Whereas as a woman you’re presumed to be incompetent unless proven otherwise.”

Da wäre es interessant zu sehen, welche Schriften wann erschienen sind. Roughgarden hat nämlich eine Vielzahl inhaltlich nicht haltbarer Sachen geschrieben, bei denen es ein Wunder ist, dass sie überhaupt veröffentlicht worden sind und das sie eine Professur für Biologie hat. Ihre Schriften sind religiöse und radikaltranssexuelle Ideologie und entsprechende Wunschträume, die mit Forschung wenig zu tun haben. Ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass dies auch gerade nach dem Wechsel deutlicher geworden ist.

HOW MEN THINK

Every transgender man interviewed for this story said he wasn’t just treated differently after he transitioned—he felt different, too. Those who had taken testosterone treatments said they noticed psychological changes that came with the medical transition. Most trans men said that after they took hormone treatments they felt more sure of themselves and slightly more aggressive than they had been before the treatment.

Was insoweit auch nicht weiter verwunderlich wäre. Es sind typische Folgen von Testosteron. Interessanterweise wurde die oben quasi nicht thematisiert. Sie fühlten sich anders, sie benahmen sich vermutlich auch anders und man hat deswegen auch anders auf sie reagiert.

“After transitioning I was able to think more clearly, I was more decisive,” says the radio newscaster Gardner. He says the shift has affected his daily routine, even for something as ordinary as a trip to the grocery store. Before he transitioned, he says, he used to spend 45 minutes debating which pasta sauce to buy, which vegetables were the freshest. “I would stand there and look at the different varieties of yogurt,” he recalls. “Now I just grab one. I’m looking for utility, I don’t second-guess myself.”

“As a female there was black and white and everything in between. When I started taking the hormones, it was more black and white,” he explains, adding: “If I get into a disagreement with someone at work, I don’t have that feeling afterwards of, ‘I hope I didn’t hurt his or her feelings.’ I’m not a worrier as much as I was in the female body.”

Auch hier wieder klassische Unterschiede.

Of course, Gardner’s story is unique to his own experience, and not all trans men who take testosterone have noticed quite so dramatic a shift. But men’s testosterone levels do have a significant influence on some traits and behaviors that are associated with masculinity. A small recent study on trans men taking T therapy showed changes in the brain structure of those undergoing medical transition—though whether those changes lead to the effects trans men described to me is not yet proven.

The changes in patients taking testosterone are strikingly consistent, says Dr. Joshua Safer, director of the Endocrinology Fellowship Training Program at Boston University. Dr. Safer has treated hundreds of people with testosterone for more than a decade, and says he observes his patients becoming more decisive and more aggressive under testosterone treatment, though he laments the lack of data to back up this observation.

“I feel a sense of urgency, like I just want to kind of do it and get it done,” Tiq Milan says, adding that he was surprised at the personality change when he transitioned at 25. “I wasn’t expecting testosterone to have such an effect on how I think.”

Also eine sachlichere Herangehensweise, weniger Sorgen um die Gefühle anderer und das Gefühl, dass man handeln und es abschließen will.

WALK LIKE A MAN

Most trans men I spoke to also identified another commonality: Once they transitioned, walking became easier, but talking became harder. To be more specific: walking home after dark felt easier, casually talking to babies, strangers and friends felt harder.

“I have to be very careful to not be staring at kids,” says Gardner. “I can look at a mom and her baby, but I can’t look for too long. I miss being seen as not a threat.” Ditto for kids on the playground and puppies, multiple guys said.

And to a man, everyone said they’d experienced a moment when they were walking at night behind a woman, and suddenly realized that she was walking faster or clutching her purse because she was scared.

“If I start to get too close, I can feel her fear, I can feel that she’s getting upset,” says Milan. “And it’s really just an indication of how dangerous this world is for women.”

Aus Angst oder Gefahrenabwehr auf eine tatsächliche Gefahr oder auch nur eine sonstige Gefahrenlage zu schließen ist ein verbreiteter Fehlschluss. Gerade in diesem Fall, in dem die Männer sich ja eigentlich bewußt sein müssten, dass sie keine Gefahr darstellen, ist es erstaunlich, dass sie annehmen, dass eine reale Gefahr besteht.

As a trans man of color, Milan says he feels that the world perceives him as a menace, and his interactions with police officers have gotten much more fraught. “I’ve had people make assumptions that I was dangerous or I was a criminal. I’ve been followed around stores. I’ve seen white women who look physically scared, visibly shaken if there’s just the two of us in a elevator,” he says. “You can’t even ask a cop for directions as a black man.”

He says that before he transitioned he was catcalled on the street, but he didn’t feel like people assumed he was a criminal. “When I walk down the street no one knows that I’m a trans black man, people just see me as a black man,” he says. “So when we’re looking at all of this horrible police violence, it’s scary.”

Der Mann als falsche Gefahr wird – ganz intersektional – nur in Bezug auf Rasse wahrgenommen. Dass auch die meisten weißen Männer keine Gefahr darstellen wird zwar kurz oben angedeutet, aber nicht in dem Sinne thematisiert.

Dana Delgardo also says that being a man of color comes with new problems. “I bought a Porsche convertible and I’m afraid to be out late at night after having one cocktail driving that car,” he says. “It deters me from doing things that I think a Caucasian male could probably do without fear of being pulled over by the police.”

Many white trans men said they felt it was easier to walk through the world, freed from the myriad expectations placed on women.

“As a female I felt I had to smile all the time, just to be accepted,” James Gardner said. “As a male I don’t feel a sense of having to be pleasant to look at.”

Interessant, dass er das nun so empfindet. Tatsächlich kann ich mir vorstellen, dass man sich als Frau mehr Gedanken über sein Äußeres macht, weil man wesentlich mehr danach bewertet wird, aber auch als Mann wäre es mir durchaus recht positiv wahrgenommen zu werden oder gutaussehend gefunden zu werden. Es wäre interessant, wie sich das sexuelle Interesse verändert hat, wobei das vielleicht nicht so stark auffällt, wenn er auch als Frau bereits auf Frauen stand (oder jetzt auch auf Männer)

Many also noticed a shift in their friendships after they transitioned, with some struggling to make friends with cisgender men, unsure of the social cues of male friendship.

“I’m still trying to figure out all of the different secret codes that guys use to talk to each other and to make friendships,” says Mitchell Davis. “But I still I don’t know what the language is. I don’t know what that punch on the arm meant.” He says he doesn’t know what a close male friendship looks like, only that it probably looks different than a close female friendship.

Das spricht dafür, dass es sich bei diesen Verhaltensweisen um kulturelle Ausgestaltungen handelt, die sich entsprechend entwickelt haben. Sie beruhen insofern vielleicht auf biologischen Grundlagen, etwa darauf, dass Männer Freundschaften anders formen als Frauen, aber die genaue Weise, die daraus folgt, ist eben kulturell geprägt.

For Milan, male friendship has been mostly positive, but occasionally alarming. While he says most cisgender men he meets are fairly respectful of women even behind closed doors, he’s also noticed what he describes as a culture of toxic masculinity. “I’ve heard men say things about slapping a woman or cheating on women in the most brutal ways and think it’s okay,” Milan says.

“Being privy to the conversations that men have amongst themselves really does give me an indication of how they think about women,” he says. “And sometimes it can be really scary.”

Es wäre schön mal einen Artikel zu lesen, der keinen feministischen Hintergrund hat und Begriffe wie „toxische Männlichkeit“ nicht verwendet, sondern unabhängig davon darlegt, was die genauen Unterschiede sind. Es ist ja nicht so, dass Frauen nicht fremdgehen würden und das ihren besten Freundinnen dann erzählen. Hier kann man natürlich wenig sagen, weil die Einzelheiten fehlen.