There was a cis woman with a very full, luxurious beard who had a social media presence a while back and among other things she’d talk about what it was like being a woman with a beard and how that challenged and completely upended some people’s notions of gender and sex.

And this also makes me think of an interview I saw with an Afghani cis man who didn’t grow a beard and would wear a prosthetic beard to keep the Taliban fashion police off his back.

Folks do be policing gender, even when they’re informed and trying to be supportive and well meaning.

I think there are people in very similar circumstance who label themselves broadly as trans masc but also lots who don’t.

Second Stone Butch Blues if you didn’t already read that. Also coming to mind would be Ivan Coyote who is a great performer so youtube is recommended. I recall Hannah Gatsby mentioning a very similar experience in their ?second netflix special.

In terms of non-famous people, I feel that we all know people like this in our lives. There are lots of cis women who are non-conformists to femininity in many ways. It’s been deeply explored in sub-cultural spaces like by butch lesbians and radical feminsits, but also there are many heterosexual types who area doing their things without a lot of pomp.

Caution is warranted because it is also a way of leading into really vile anti-trans stuff of people way over-extrapolating from their own experience. Don’t get recruited into that. It’s a great position from which to be a trans ally.

It’s why the term “gender diverse” is used instead of trans, because it casts a much wider net. It acknowledges that people are existing in infinite varieties without being prescriptive.

you could go back and change it to a maybe if you want to answer the rest of the questions. i do think its interesting you like hy/hym pronouns online only though, why is that? there are groups that can help you get on T, i could refer you to some. totally recommend reading Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, its a story that touches on similar vibes, though giant cw though theres a lot of trauma in it

regardless, thats valid

Kinda curious why you feel the attachment to the woman label. Imo, gender only exists to be restrictive, so I don’t want anything to do with it. But I’m amab - there’s no reason for camaraderie there.

Did you read Stone Butch Blues or anything epse by Leslie Feinberg? You might get a kick out if it. Leslie Feinberg and them all had a much less stringent definition of transness than the one we seem to have developed all this time later, you just had to break out of or push the boundaries of the culturally defined hegemonic strict binary in some way - Feinberg counted butch lesbians as being under the umbrella of transgender or cis women who passed as men for safety/work, for example. If you don’t vibe with the label you don’t have to take it, it’s definitely changed meanings from that much wider umbrella.

Edit: lol everyone else suggested Stone Butch Blues already, sorry

I see your point 100%, and tbh reading Judith Butler’s work on gender and performance really helped me understand better what it means to be gender non-conforming in today’s world, ideas-wise at least.

it feels like people are trying to limit what woman are and are not allowed to be.

I’m also cis woman, half feminine, half tomboyish and the worst part, I act like a kid. People gave up telling me what is “real” woman or how she behaves or what she needs to do in order to be a true woman, but I get a lot of “grow up”. I don’t want to grow up and as I get older, I know I’m fitting my body less and less. Only when I feel feminine I’m comfortable with my age and the way I look. But a child in me wants to jump, show when she’s happy, sad, dance, giggle… Imagine a forty year old woman talking to flowers on the road. That’s me. You have no idea how people are restricting me. Calling me crazy, stupid. Even online. When I say I’m 40 I get a lot “you talk like an edgy teen” and I know it’s an insult. I try not to get insulted. And with men, it’s so strange. They all like every aspect of my character, but me being childish is inconvenient to them. Or when I refuse to be stereotypical woman, especially if they aren’t capable of playing their own masculine role. And as much as I feel awesome in sexy outfit, I hate doing it for men’s satisfaction because it’s their vision of feminine.

It’s all just odd.

Most of the time I’m attacked and questioned by traditional people. I don’t know why are they so uncomfortable with nonconformism and when things don’t fit their learned patterns. It’s not like they’re all alone on this planet and that they’re the rule, although they are a norm.

I saw few women like you and honestly I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with looking like you. Do we all have to look like virgins from males’ imagination (fuck you, Petrarca and all those stupid poets and philosophers and prophets who made their definition of us by making us their objects of lust and desire 🫵)? And when people comment… Like why do you care?

Sorry, I’m stoned, I’m just typing my incoherent thoughts.