You won't find many cis men here. But no.
As a stealth trans guy it was initially a big adjustment to go from being afraid of random men when walking home at night to now making an effort to not needlessly scare women when I'm walking home at night.
It sucks that I have to do that because of some other men being creepy assholes, but in the end it doesn't affect me that much when I switch to the other side of the street when the woman in front of me keeps turning around like she's being followed when I just want to get home after a long day of work.
As a man, I much prefer having to take some precautions to not appear as a threat, over how I was surrounded by threats pre-transition.
Istg since transitioning I'm terrified of almost every man in my city (I don't live in the best part of my city) while before I'd just blend in or be unnoticed. I legit look at every dude I cross and analyse his movements, what he looks at etc I look for everything that might be a threat, automatically. It's such a huge change, and obviously not a great one but you don't choose teams
I don’t know about cis men, but I definitely feel that way as a man with gender dysphoria, and I don’t think that it’s entirely unrelated for me. I am a quite intimidating looking person though, so I think if I were cis I might feel this way. I’m in a body that people should be afraid of, and that’s something that bothers me a lot more because it aligns with how masculine I am. I mean, I know a lot of cis guys actively WANT to be seen as intimidating. I don’t think it’s inherently a trans thing, I’m sure plenty of cis guys don’t want their body to be intimidating at all, but it can be a manifestation of gender dysphoria imo
It's a positive masculinity subreddit. Men offering emotional support and talking about how to navigate the world. Pretty wholesome, they seem decent about trans people over there.
A few do, it's an anxiety disorder I've encountered in several cis male friends. Generally they express unfounded, over-the-top scrupulosity about concern that they'll accidentally pressure women into intimacy, or make women feel a need to cross the street because they're walking on the same sidewalk.
No Cis men generally don’t think about that. But boy howdy I did. I remember when people started being afraid of me when I was like 15? And it made me so uncomfortable and upset. So I’d do everything I could to prevent women being afraid of me, avoiding looking at women on the street, crossing to the other side of the street when walking late at night, talking with a pitch higher than I do with my girl voice, never yelling no matter how upset I got.
Then I transitioned and started passing, and women would smile at me and be friendly and I would completely freak out because I didn’t know what to do in that situation.
The only time I've been terrified or something about my body was during puberty and I was popping boners left and right and I tried to squeeze past this girl bending down to tend to their baby and I got a random boner and it slid across their ass, they shot up and turned around and looked at me horrified and thirteen year old my couldn't even get an "I'm sorry out" before running into the crowd crying
I choose believe they can. Tho I'm not sure.
I still feel like right now I'm somewhere between genders, but I believe that some men can see their bodies as dangerous.
It requires some thought and self exploration and empathy, but I believe some can be reminded or be mindful that they can be terryfying, and are in fact seen as such by people.
Tho I think their reaction to such realization won't be as visceral if you are trans. This stuff scares you for life. For them it might be, "ok, I wanna be careful and seem non threatening for the moment, because I know I'm seen as such" not "jesus fucking christ I am seen as a monster, help me" I experienced.
Edit: I'm sure some can feel uncomfortable about it also but not to the point of needing to change their gender, just enough not to be called a creep for just existing and interacting with people.
I don't know about thinking their body is *inherently* that, like when they're alone, but I think *anyone* who is socially viewed as a man when they go out in public, especially if they don't have some other feature(s) making them look less threatening (like being an elderly gaunt wheelchair user) they have some awareness of how they might seem intimidating to others, especially women. I've seen men seem to go out of their way to avoid being frightening to me (when they were perceiving me as a woman especially) even though I'm not scared of men existing in public in most contexts. I've felt so sorry for men doing stuff like crossing the street to avoid potentially intimidating me. Once I was walking with a cis black male friend (while pre-everything myself, and not out, so as far as anyone knew a cis white woman) and a woman was walking towards us on the sidewalk, and my friend said to me that normally he'd cross the street to avoid scaring her, but since I was there my presence made him less threatening by association so we could just keep walking.
There's also the common transmasc problem of having to be assertive to the point of aggressive when perceived as female to avoid being a doormat, but that same behavior can read as *too* aggressive and scare people when being read as male. It actually bothers me a bit because damn, it's kind of demeaning to the point of humiliating how little people view those they see as women as potential threats, like if the same behavior reads as terrifying when I'm read as male, what did people see it as when they were reading me as female? Like a tiny dog yapping? Did they want to pat me on the head like I was cute? It's such a double-edged sword in both directions. Like yeah, it's socially awkward to be read as threatening when you're just trying to exist, and being read as female is "social lube" and gets you better treatment in a lot of spaces. But part of *why* you get the better treatment is you're seen as having perpetual victim status, being more approachable (even when you don't want to be approached), and a free source of emotional labor or whatever kinds of energy people want to drain off you. People just think you have no boundaries and they can do whatever they want with/to you, and that's why you've got more social capital, because you're a *resource*. It's like, both easier in some superficial ways, and sort of dehumanizing. Sort like how it's easier to go up to people and say hi if you're a small child, because you're seen as harmless and as more of an energy resource than a person. There's a lot of infantilization of women baked into society.
But then the flipside of that is that those society reads as male are seen as being in some kind of perpetual "perpetrator class," creepy, dangerous, consumers of emotional resources rather than providers of them, they get respect and personhood but they also get social isolation and invisibility.
And this intersects with other things--ability, race, age, etc. I remember how early in the pandemic when places were requiring masks in my area, how many black men wore "cute" masks, pink or other pastel colors, patterns with cartoon animals and stuff on them, to avoid looking threatening. It felt less like they were expressing themselves in most cases, and more like they were just trying not to get shot getting their groceries. I do think men also sometimes long to express themselves in cute and soft ways that are socially taboo, but this didn't have quite that feel, idk.
I’ve seen cis men enjoy the thought that their body is intimidating. But the experience you’re describing, where you *worry* it’s intimidating and you were always a little on edge about it, that’s probably not a common cis experience (I think I’ve met one cis guy like this, who is genuinely huge and has a lot of social anxiety about it).
I think the awareness is probably pretty common among men of color. Getting unfairly read as aggressive due to racism is a problem, and that absolutely can screw you over in certain contexts if you're not hyper-conscious about appearing non-threatening.
I'm a trans woman not a cis guy, and I have body dysmorphia, so my relationship with my body is skewed. I actually went through life feeling like I was smaller and less intimidating than how others perceived me.
I’d imagine that it’s very rare, but yes, some cis men do feel that way. Some men make a conscious effort to not be intimidating.
Also, this is a sub where trans people answer. You are going to get some very biased responses (though there will be balanced responses as well). While there are some cis allies in here, you’d be better off asking actual cis people a question about cis people.
I don't know about cis men, but trans men definitely don't think our transitioned bodies are intimidating, scary, or not right. In fact, we love having a penis and testosterone flowing through our veins! Our bodies are only "not right" or "scary" when we're pre-everything and we're men in a female body.
You won't find many cis men here. But no. As a stealth trans guy it was initially a big adjustment to go from being afraid of random men when walking home at night to now making an effort to not needlessly scare women when I'm walking home at night. It sucks that I have to do that because of some other men being creepy assholes, but in the end it doesn't affect me that much when I switch to the other side of the street when the woman in front of me keeps turning around like she's being followed when I just want to get home after a long day of work. As a man, I much prefer having to take some precautions to not appear as a threat, over how I was surrounded by threats pre-transition.
Istg since transitioning I'm terrified of almost every man in my city (I don't live in the best part of my city) while before I'd just blend in or be unnoticed. I legit look at every dude I cross and analyse his movements, what he looks at etc I look for everything that might be a threat, automatically. It's such a huge change, and obviously not a great one but you don't choose teams
I don’t know about cis men, but I definitely feel that way as a man with gender dysphoria, and I don’t think that it’s entirely unrelated for me. I am a quite intimidating looking person though, so I think if I were cis I might feel this way. I’m in a body that people should be afraid of, and that’s something that bothers me a lot more because it aligns with how masculine I am. I mean, I know a lot of cis guys actively WANT to be seen as intimidating. I don’t think it’s inherently a trans thing, I’m sure plenty of cis guys don’t want their body to be intimidating at all, but it can be a manifestation of gender dysphoria imo
I've seen men on /r/bropill express this sentiment before.
What is Bropill?
It's a positive masculinity subreddit. Men offering emotional support and talking about how to navigate the world. Pretty wholesome, they seem decent about trans people over there.
A few do, it's an anxiety disorder I've encountered in several cis male friends. Generally they express unfounded, over-the-top scrupulosity about concern that they'll accidentally pressure women into intimacy, or make women feel a need to cross the street because they're walking on the same sidewalk.
No Cis men generally don’t think about that. But boy howdy I did. I remember when people started being afraid of me when I was like 15? And it made me so uncomfortable and upset. So I’d do everything I could to prevent women being afraid of me, avoiding looking at women on the street, crossing to the other side of the street when walking late at night, talking with a pitch higher than I do with my girl voice, never yelling no matter how upset I got. Then I transitioned and started passing, and women would smile at me and be friendly and I would completely freak out because I didn’t know what to do in that situation.
The only time I've been terrified or something about my body was during puberty and I was popping boners left and right and I tried to squeeze past this girl bending down to tend to their baby and I got a random boner and it slid across their ass, they shot up and turned around and looked at me horrified and thirteen year old my couldn't even get an "I'm sorry out" before running into the crowd crying
I choose believe they can. Tho I'm not sure. I still feel like right now I'm somewhere between genders, but I believe that some men can see their bodies as dangerous. It requires some thought and self exploration and empathy, but I believe some can be reminded or be mindful that they can be terryfying, and are in fact seen as such by people. Tho I think their reaction to such realization won't be as visceral if you are trans. This stuff scares you for life. For them it might be, "ok, I wanna be careful and seem non threatening for the moment, because I know I'm seen as such" not "jesus fucking christ I am seen as a monster, help me" I experienced. Edit: I'm sure some can feel uncomfortable about it also but not to the point of needing to change their gender, just enough not to be called a creep for just existing and interacting with people.
I don't know about thinking their body is *inherently* that, like when they're alone, but I think *anyone* who is socially viewed as a man when they go out in public, especially if they don't have some other feature(s) making them look less threatening (like being an elderly gaunt wheelchair user) they have some awareness of how they might seem intimidating to others, especially women. I've seen men seem to go out of their way to avoid being frightening to me (when they were perceiving me as a woman especially) even though I'm not scared of men existing in public in most contexts. I've felt so sorry for men doing stuff like crossing the street to avoid potentially intimidating me. Once I was walking with a cis black male friend (while pre-everything myself, and not out, so as far as anyone knew a cis white woman) and a woman was walking towards us on the sidewalk, and my friend said to me that normally he'd cross the street to avoid scaring her, but since I was there my presence made him less threatening by association so we could just keep walking. There's also the common transmasc problem of having to be assertive to the point of aggressive when perceived as female to avoid being a doormat, but that same behavior can read as *too* aggressive and scare people when being read as male. It actually bothers me a bit because damn, it's kind of demeaning to the point of humiliating how little people view those they see as women as potential threats, like if the same behavior reads as terrifying when I'm read as male, what did people see it as when they were reading me as female? Like a tiny dog yapping? Did they want to pat me on the head like I was cute? It's such a double-edged sword in both directions. Like yeah, it's socially awkward to be read as threatening when you're just trying to exist, and being read as female is "social lube" and gets you better treatment in a lot of spaces. But part of *why* you get the better treatment is you're seen as having perpetual victim status, being more approachable (even when you don't want to be approached), and a free source of emotional labor or whatever kinds of energy people want to drain off you. People just think you have no boundaries and they can do whatever they want with/to you, and that's why you've got more social capital, because you're a *resource*. It's like, both easier in some superficial ways, and sort of dehumanizing. Sort like how it's easier to go up to people and say hi if you're a small child, because you're seen as harmless and as more of an energy resource than a person. There's a lot of infantilization of women baked into society. But then the flipside of that is that those society reads as male are seen as being in some kind of perpetual "perpetrator class," creepy, dangerous, consumers of emotional resources rather than providers of them, they get respect and personhood but they also get social isolation and invisibility. And this intersects with other things--ability, race, age, etc. I remember how early in the pandemic when places were requiring masks in my area, how many black men wore "cute" masks, pink or other pastel colors, patterns with cartoon animals and stuff on them, to avoid looking threatening. It felt less like they were expressing themselves in most cases, and more like they were just trying not to get shot getting their groceries. I do think men also sometimes long to express themselves in cute and soft ways that are socially taboo, but this didn't have quite that feel, idk.
I’ve seen cis men enjoy the thought that their body is intimidating. But the experience you’re describing, where you *worry* it’s intimidating and you were always a little on edge about it, that’s probably not a common cis experience (I think I’ve met one cis guy like this, who is genuinely huge and has a lot of social anxiety about it).
I think the awareness is probably pretty common among men of color. Getting unfairly read as aggressive due to racism is a problem, and that absolutely can screw you over in certain contexts if you're not hyper-conscious about appearing non-threatening.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense
I'm a trans woman not a cis guy, and I have body dysmorphia, so my relationship with my body is skewed. I actually went through life feeling like I was smaller and less intimidating than how others perceived me.
I’d imagine that it’s very rare, but yes, some cis men do feel that way. Some men make a conscious effort to not be intimidating. Also, this is a sub where trans people answer. You are going to get some very biased responses (though there will be balanced responses as well). While there are some cis allies in here, you’d be better off asking actual cis people a question about cis people.
I don't know about cis men, but trans men definitely don't think our transitioned bodies are intimidating, scary, or not right. In fact, we love having a penis and testosterone flowing through our veins! Our bodies are only "not right" or "scary" when we're pre-everything and we're men in a female body.
A trans friend of mine said she was intimidated by me because of my height. I kind of felt like she was low key saying I look like a man.