On Male Social Isolation

I thought this whole Tumblr post by @skaldish was fascinating. The author is a trans man¹ who has experienced social situations presenting as both a woman and a man.

There’s a huge sense of social isolation that comes with being perceived as male, because now people are subconsciously treating me as a potential predator. All strangers, no matter their gender, keep their guard up around me.

It made me realize that there is no inherent camaraderie in male socialization as there is in female socialization — unless, of course, it’s in very specific environments. And the fact I don’t ambiently experience this mutual kinship in basic exchanges anymore is an insanely lonely feeling.

You know how badly this would have fucked my mind up if I had grown up with this?

And then later:

When I’m out in public and interact with women, all of them come off as incredibly aloof, cold, and mirthless. I have never experienced this before even though I know exactly what this composure is — the armor that keeps away creepy-ass men.

As someone who used to wear it myself, I know this armor is 100% impersonal. 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. (Trust me when I say women aren’t just being needlessly guarded.)

But 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 of the human population. Even now, with all that I know about navigating the world as a woman, I’m failing to convince my monkey-brain that this armor isn’t social rejection.

I found this via @danximenes.bsky.social (via someone else I don’t remember, sorry!) and the conversation in the thread is interesting as well.

1. From the context (“the culture shock I’m going through”, etc.), it sounds like he was newly out as trans when he wrote this.↩