To All the (Straight) Boys I’ve Loved Before
Written by: Seth Katz
I’ve been living as a man for the past several years. To grossly oversimplify, this meant coming out to my peers, legally changing my name and gender marker, and starting hormone replacement therapy. I’ve never been more fulfilled than coming to terms with and living confidently in my authentic identity as a man. One could rightfully argue that I’ve always been a man, these steps just made it more apparent. But I also recognize it is more nuanced. I don’t mean to imply that I was once a girl who woke up to realize or decide otherwise. But throughout my childhood I was socialized as a young woman, despite any incongruities. Although I am my parent’s son; I was also once a girl scout, a girlfriend, and a daughter. Those experiences and memories, although often dysphoria-inducing to recall, are not to be invalidated.
Even though I knew myself as a boy, society and the outside world still interpreted me as a woman for quite a while. I was raised as a girl and socialized as one throughout my childhood, adolescence, and into my early 20s. Different lived experiences require context and don’t exist in a vacuum. For example, my identity as a transgender man does not discount or invalidate the times I experienced misogyny, attended mother-daughter events, or was someone’s girlfriend before coming to terms with and coming out. I understand and I agree with the narrative that trans men have always been men. But when you take into account internal and external experiences it can become more complicated.
I’ve heard other trans men say that they have never lived as a woman. That, due to our trans identity, our experiences are all fundamentally trans. Although we are assigned female at birth, that doesn’t mean we inherently experience the world as women even if we were never to come out. Which I agree with. I think it can be dangerous to state, as a trans man, that I know what it’s like to have lived as a woman just because of my gender assigned at birth. I understand that this could allude to cissexism. But like all lives, trans experiences are unique to each individual. It is nuanced because, although I recognize that I have always been trans, I do feel I have had experiences that both myself and society’s standards would recognize as that of a young woman.
All the contemplating on my past experiences as a ‘woman’ were sparked by a conflicting turn of events. I realized that several of my straight ex-boyfriends were being mocked for their history with me. Most, if not all, of the ridicule that I caught wind of was based on a toxic concoction of transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny. But it all came down to that these men were being labeled as gay because of my past relationships paired with my current identity.
Like all of this, it was complex to reason with. My instinctual reaction was hurt and disgust. Of course, these men weren’t gay for dating me when I was socializing as a woman. They were using both identifying as gay and sleeping with me as insults: of course, I was offended. But the more I thought about it, the more intricate it became. I wanted to simplify it down to ‘I was a girl when we were together, so don’t worry about your reputation’ but the common narrative ‘trans men have always been men’ replayed in my head. If I admitted to ‘being a girl’ in that framework, was I also admitting to not authentically being a man?
But as I started to reflect upon my past, I recognized other situations in which context and outside perspective complicated my perceived and authentic identities. For example, if—as a trans man—I never experienced the world as a woman, I supposedly never should’ve experienced institutional or societal misogyny. But, of course, I have. Or maybe because I’ve supposedly never lived as a woman, I’ve never experienced what it’s like to be a daughter, an aunt, or the only (perceived) girl on a sports team. But I have been all these people and that history shouldn’t be disregarded by the fact that I’ve transitioned. I am the same person yet a son, a boyfriend, and a man. I still lived those experiences and that shouldn’t be diminished. Even though some experiences are ones I didn’t necessarily want to live, and sometimes remembering them can cause me debilitating dysphoria, they still come together to construct my life. I’ve learned and grown from them and that isn’t up for others to invalidate.
But also none of these experiences are inherently that of a ‘woman’ or ‘man’, so I cannot objectively say if I was ‘always a man’ or not. But what I do know is that it isn’t anyone else's call to make or use to invalidate myself or anyone else. When I was in high school or college and having relationships with straight men, society objectively viewed me as a woman. Was I a woman then? I was still trans then so obviously it’s much more complicated. But what is important to this conversation is that in those heterosexual dynamics I communicated myself to these men, myself, and society as a cis woman.
This definitely wasn’t due to somehow purposefully withholding my inner trans narrative because, at this time in my life, I hadn’t come to terms with it myself yet. I couldn’t ‘trick’ anyone with my identity because I didn’t quite understand it. Also, it’s pretty narcissistic to believe I would use my entire gender identity just to troll some dudes into thinking that they’re gay. You’re not that important, sweetie.
In the grand scheme of things, I don’t think it’s important to know if my adolescence was more cohesive with that of a man, a woman, or somewhere in between. I am trans, have always been trans, and will always be trans. Which means surviving and thriving through all the struggles and triumphs of being trans. And it doesn’t make me less of a man to recognize (although sometimes uncomfortably) the times in my life and frameworks of my past that aligned with society’s views and expectations of women.
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