Same here. Cissexual straight (as far as I know) men make me nervous if I’m ID’d as male, resentful if I’m ID’d as female, and this doesn’t happen as much with cissexual straight (as far as I know) women. I don’t really know why. Perhaps because I only truly came out a few years ago and have to weigh 72% of my life spent identifying as a girl and 82% spent interacting with the world as a girl and only, respectively, 28% identifying as a boy and 18% attempting and sometimes succeeding in interacting with the world as a boy. That’s a pretty big margin in favor of female socialization.

Maybe I want acceptance from males as a male, so I’m nervous their reading of me will change, or resentful that I won’t get it because they see me as female. And have more practice interacting with women as either male or female so I’m not as nervous.

In trans and queer spaces I don’t have much trouble asserting correct pronouns even with straight cissexual (known in this case) allies, and don’t care as much if they are thinking male, female, or tranny.

It is, indeed, a phenomenon.

I was wondering if you could/would say more about masculinity/femininity and some of these other identifier adjectives as they relate to male/female gender presentation…

OK, I’m flying my cis privilege flag here I know. Please don’t feel obligated to respond. In an attempt to educate myself I’ve run across these terms more than once and I’m struggling with the difference between these identifiers:

masculine
butch
macho

I have experienced that these are all stereotypically equated with “male”, but how do they relate to one another? What is the difference, specifically, between them? (Is there a difference?)

I “feel” a difference when I read these words but I can’t articulate it, and I guess what I’m trying to understand is what they mean to someone who uses or recognizes subtleties between them as identifiers in hopes that I can sensitive to those expressions of gender and identity.

PS – Thanks for the link in your blogroll.