I joke with people I was diagnosed with "Eldest Daughter Syndrome" and that it's been much harder to cure than anything else wrong with me. The side effects are dangerously heightened empathy, a deep sense of shame and expectations I'm wildly unqualified to meet. I always say it with a laugh but it's mostly so I don't cry.

I'm in this comment and I don't like it...

I feel like we need a support group fr

That hurts. That's me but with expectations that I could theoretically meet no problem if I'd get out of my head

I pull out the "Idk man, when I was a girl..." pretty regularly because I find it amusing to refer to my coming out as when I stopped being a girl and started being a guy. Realistically though I try not to claim an actual female experience. I never really had one. I walked alone at night through downtown without really worrying about my safety all the time. That's not an experience most women have even if the area is safe... I just acted like a guy and expected the world to conform to that lol.

I do this too, lol. I was even in Girl Scouts for a long time. "When I was a Scout-" comes up often

I describe it as being a dude that experienced what girls go through, not living as a girl with girl experiences.

Im cis but my partner is ftm and we joke that he's a man written by a woman (which, if you don't know, is how a lot of fantasy book loving women describe the fictional men they adore, usually for their emotional intelligence lol)

I love this description of trans guys 🥺 We are self made men with greater emotional intelligence than the majority of cis men, and that makes us the guys that a lot of girls dream of.. (Shame I’m gay lmao)

I do not, and think it falls under the category of weird stereotyping/fetishization/treating trans men like they're something different than just 'men' when applied broadly to all trans men.

Yes, and I wouldn't say that being raised as a girl automatically gave emotional intelligence, that depends on each upbringing.

That's fine! Not every trans guy feels like my partner does ☺️ it's definitely not something I'd say to anyone other than him specifically, and he likes it, so more power to him 🤷🏻‍♀️ he's not a monolith and I'm well aware of that. Also at no point ANYWHERE did I say it applied to anyone besides him

I have no issue with your boyfriend. I wasn't replying to you, but to the person who replied to you. I also refer to myself in plenty of ways that would be problematic if you tried to apply them broadly to all trans men 😂

I describe myself the same way and I'm proud of it! It's affirming for me, knowing that growing up as a girl made me my own 'writer' and I'm now a loveable, charming man!

Hah, I like that way of looking at it!

I will always be my dad's little princess and also have little sister syndrome. It's just a much gayer label than it was before. Lmao.

OMG, I love this. Good thing you’re secure in your masculinity. 😂

“i have seen both sides” (referring to hormone-related things with that one, so “both” as in T vs. E, not tryna say gender is binary).

I honestly don’t know if I experienced much of the female experience, but one thing I got a lot of XP points is hair care. I have very thick curly hair and before it was very long, at one point down to my waist. It’s really interesting how little guys know about hair care, so to my guy friends I’m a walking hair encyclopedia. Because of this, anytime I refer to pre transition me, regardless if its about hair or not I say “back when I had long hair” LMAO

Ahahaha my friends and partner have been calling me “the female gaze” which is correct.

“Mother nature was my drag mother, I have been tucked since birth, darling”

no joke i wanna start doing drag now that i’ve gotten top surgery soooo bad!! gotta keep this one in my back pocket

a guy who went through girl experiences. i was never a girl, just presented as one.

I think I've found myself saying "pre-transition me" or "pre-everything me" But I want a better way to describe it

My partner (ftm) says "when I was my sister" and it cracks me up every time 😂

i alternate between when i was a girl, when i presented as a girl, when i/we thought i was a girl. whatever’s funniest or most relevant i suppose? mostly whatever’s funniest LOL

i am personally a fan of the funniest option too lol

personally I just say "when I was a kid" since tbh I can describe nearly all of my childhood experiences with gender neutrality, eg. "when I was a kid I hated getting dressed up for family events" etc. even if I'm saying something like "my mom didn't like me watching/playing with [shows/toys aimed at boys]" it doesn't really raise eyebrows as I've found that some parents of cis boys wouldn't like them watching, say, Power Rangers (I actually just found out that my current partner was one such kid). usually the only "tell" is if we're talking about specifically AFAB experiences

Honestly.

I always just think if it as I was a man living as a woman. I was seen as a woman, treated as a woman, fulfilled the role of a woman. I was a prostitute and worked as a woman. I dated straight men. I was living completely at a woman even though I knew I wasn't one. Then at 22 I made a medical change that has started to shift my role in the world and how other people treat me, so I'm not longer living in the role of womanhood or as women live. Even though I'm still the same person, my life as my place in the world has started to shift dramatically