So it’s just like that, except it’s not like that at all because you are not a trans man! You are a heterosexual white male who isn’t very masculine. Boo fucking hoo. You really need to stop trying to co-opt the legitimate difficulties and discrimination trans people have because kids were mean to you in high school.
Get over yourself.
Speaking only for myself, not really. I understand (in general concepts and in many practical scenarios) what the transgender man is looking for from society. I still have no idea (in general concepts or practical scenarios) what you are looking for from anyone.
The problem IMO is not the idea of your identity. I can conceive on additional identities beyond what are currently accepted even if I can’t grok all the particulars. The problem is that you haven’t articulated enough specifics to allow people to form a meaningful response to this identity. It’s amorphous and without further detail just seems like a slight variation on many aspects of traditional gender roles. To me, all I keep reading is you saying that you’re different with an extreme lack of reason why I should pay attention since there’s nothing for me to do in response.
Missed that.
Is it fair to characterize you an effeminate hetero male and further qualify that by saying you find it easier to relate to women? Or have I missed some important nuance in your previous posts?
That’s because all he wants is for people to acknowledge that feminine men exist and yet he fails to understand that everyone already knows that and it’s not some special thing.
Yeah, I tried the “get over yourself” approach too, a while back. It didn’t seem to have any impact.
AHunter, I’m curious if you have taken any of the criticisms you’ve received here to heart.
Re wanting to be understood. That’s cool and everything, but I think if your sole intention is to be understood–especially by people who aren’t already enlightened–you’re going to need to work at speaking like the “average schmoe”. That doesn’t mean dumbing down your language, but rather using economy of language. And maybe simplying your message by keeping the more TMI aspects of your identity to a minimum (like, it is fine if you think of yourself as a girl, but telling us this hella distracting.)
Do you think this is fair advice that you can envision yourself following? Or do you think following this advice would impede what you’re attempting to do? I’m just trying to figure out where your head is after this enormous pile-on.
These are the very same questions I asked myself back when I entertained the same sort of ideas Allan is espousing…
…But I never found the answers to them. This, along with admission of my bisexuality, necessarily impelled me to question further.
Even after I’d finally come out to myself and admitted I was outright trans, for the first several months or so, I honestly had no idea what, if anything, to do about it in practical terms. I even started a thread here on the Dope to confess I didn’t know what to do. I did understand that I had to keep pursuing it. I went to a gender counselor every week. Finally I realized that nothing short of full transition would do, and I took hormones and got my name change and the F for female on my ID, and voilà. Tremendous relief. At that point I quit posting about it here because my new life was actuated and I didn’t need to keep deliberating it.
But in the months leading up to my transition, the discrepancy between my womanhood and the gender role society had assigned me became excruciatingly painful, unbearable. By that point I’d left the AHunter3 sort of lifeplan far behind and in fact I was desperate to move on from anything resembling it as soon as possible. It was painfully clear that genderqueer had become impossible for me.
So the questions you pose are the right ones to ask, questions I found both inevitable and unanswerable. How does AHunter3 make his life work then? I have no earthly clue, that’s why I read his explanations and work at understanding. I understand him crystal clear up as far as our two paths diverge—and then I’m as stumped as you cis folks are.
and therefore my situation isn’t on your List of Real and Relevant Gender identities™?
No. I’ll be doing this forever. Get used to it.
It’s probably useful to think of me as having the maneuverability of the Queen Mary II. Advice I’ve received here may have impact that isn’t immediately apparent but has an eventual effect.
Some of it more quickly though. I was really struck by your comment that my blog posts do not solicit input from my readers, and that that makes the flow all one-way. Check out my current post in IMHO (about visual sexuality, looking at sexy people and being looked at etc) where I’ve tried to evoke feedback.
Perhaps you can help explain why (or why not) the term “effeminate male” seems inadequate in OP’s case. Understanding that “effeminate male” is a spectrum where some are more femme than others. I’m asking you because it doesn’t seem like OP is willing or able to address it succinctly.
So your issue is with the stuff I put the thumbtack in (post 235). You understand in loose general terms “what it is that I want from people” but not the gender identity itself and therefore not the specifics of what the heck it is that I want you to understand?
First of all, the word effeminate is derogatory and I recommend not using it. I explained why such is inadequate for me, in fact a dead end street. I can’t speak for Allan, though. These are the questions I never found the answer to for myself, so I’m curious as to how he works it out… and I keep reading, expecting the light will dawn eventually.
He seems to be implying the opposite of what you’re inferring.
I’m not ignoring you, but you think the question is clear and self-explanatory and it’s not.
I’ve used terms of that sort over the last 37 years: “heterosexual sissy”, for example. I haven’t found any specific term inadequate in the sense that some better term would not be. Are you asking why simply using the term and ending there, full stop, doesn’t suffice?
Really?
So if I said “I’m an effeminate male”, you’d immediately recognize the ways in which that makes my life experience different from that of other males and other effeminate people who aren’t males, and you’d realize the ways in which our society doesn’t accommodate effeminate males in their collective imagination, and you’d see what needs to change in that respect? You’d know what it’s like?
Or maybe you mean something else when you ask this. You come across to me as dismissive of the need to tell folks anything. I don’t know if you do indeed think everyone already gets it. Maybe you don’t mean to come across quite as dismissive as it seems to me. (Admittedly I’m in a position here where I’m wont to take things a bit personally).
Fair enough. I certainly didn’t mean to use it in a derogatory sense. What would be a better word?
it appears we all have that in common. 
No. I have no idea what you want AND I have no idea of the specifics of your gender identity.
It appears to me that you’re seeking to establish acceptance your gender identity without first going through the steps of specifying what that identity is, how it differs from other well established and accepted gender identities, and how this gender identity would be treated in practical concrete terms.
The thumbtack idea is fine, but you then have to go back and get some agreement on what is being held up by that thumbtack. Right now it’s like trying to thumbtack jello to a wall. As expressed so far, your gender identity is so nebulous and generic as to be indistinguishable from any number of people that fit in currently accepted gender roles.
And even then, without explaining what different treatment you expect from society I feel the whole process is uninteresting.
People keep asking “why can’t you JUST say you’re a _____” and the emphasis that keeps jumping out at me is “JUST”. As if it’s no big deal.
Several folks have said “The world already knows that there are feminine male people”. Or “The world already knows that there are feminine male heterosexual people”.
The world actually knows damn little about us. There’s only a fuzzy ill-formed notion of our existence, very little of which concerns itself with our experience of being us, and most of which is contemptuous and derogatory.
There’s a sense that, yes, we have some difficulty getting it on with women – usually coupled with a rolleyes-flavored sentiment that we should become more masculine in order to address that – but not much of a model or mental movie-script in people’s heads about how it does happen when it does happen.
The world knows we get harassed and picked on especially as juveniles, but does the world have a sense of how we feel ABOUT that? We’re often portrayed as people who wish we were more like the masculine males but just can’t pull it off. (yeah right). We’re sometimes caricatured in ways that show us envying women, looking over the cultural dividers wistfully, but how often do you see us shown as confident and proud?
We’re sort of sketched as inert specimens, weak, with no objectives and goals, as diluted wimpy creatures who just wish nothing would be asked or expected of us. You think this is the be-all and end-all of how we experience ourselves?
I’ve chosen to talk about it.
If I come across as dismissive it is only because you don’t give your audience sufficient credit in understanding the spectrum of human experiences that they may not know first hand but still manage to be sensitive and accepting of.
FWIW, I’m fine with however you are or see yourself in this world. That’s not an issue for me or most of the people (AFAIK) who have contributed thus far to this thread.
Now, if there is a reason that you don’t think that most of us actually get it, you’ve yet to make that reason clear - at least to me.
Yeah, I don’t care for “effeminate”. “Feminine” is ok. “Femme” is better in print but when spoken aloud people go 
and ask what word I said.
Actually “effeminate male” does make me realize how our society doesn’t understand or accommodate these type of boys/men. From an early age we learn that ideal boys are tough, good at sports, unemotional, etc. There are virtually no positive role models for boys who don’t fit the stereotype. I suppose it’s better now than it was for previous generations. But the term “effeminate” definitely works for me and makes me understand your plight.
People are getting stuck on you wanting a new classification when existing ones seem to describe you–at least from the outside looking in. I think if you focused more on the negative impact and harm that gender stereotypes can cause, you would get more understanding and sympathy.
We probably all blur the lines between “masculine” and “feminine” in different ways. Hell, just today people at work were ribbing me because of some fancy face moisturizer I was excited to get from Amazon. Yet, tonight I’ll be drinking beer while watching an NBA game.