TW: Discussions of violence, mentions of sex or sexwork in the articles.
A question that I see in many of the circles I move in has been whether trans masculine people (trans men and masculine leaning non-binary people as well as others under the trans umbrella) can experience and even perform toxic masculinity. Hopefully the links below, as well as the discussion of my own experiences as a trans masculine person, can help clear some of that up.
Starting off by stating I’m a trans masc non-binary person who tends to just use the term trans man when describing myself outside LGBTQIA2S+ circles.
So the short answer to this is that yes, trans men can be the bearers of and perform toxic masculinity. In some cases it’s done as a survival method, where when they come out they’re expected to perform the same forms of masculinity as their cis peers, or in some cases it’s to try to “prove they’re man enough” to be considered men.
When I first came out, I was told by multiple cis men that I would need to not only get better at fighting, but that I would need to prepare to fight and constantly be ready to assert my dominance through beating down another person if they tried to make me submissive to them. They told me that I would need to constantly be ready to “throw down” either verbally or physically to prove I’m really a man, and that by showing signs of submissiveness I would be considered to just be a woman wearing manface (they used a few slurs, so I’m…
