Gender Euphoria: Five Things that make me Feel Empowered and Embodied as a Trans Man

I’ve always been a happy person. Like anyone else, I’ve dealt with my share of doubts and insecurities and challenges, but overwhelmingly, since a young age, I’ve been quite a happy person. This is probably due to many things–genetics, the way I was raised, mindset, chance. But when it comes specifically to my gender journey and what has helped me feel empowered and embodied as a trans man, a few things stand out.

I am not writing this essay as a prescription assuming that what has worked for me will work for other transmasc, nonbinary, or gender expansive folks. I am simply sharing the tools I’ve picked up along the way in my journey, because while I was navigating my gender identity I would have found it very helpful to have access to more positive and constructive narratives. So, without further ado, let’s talk about the five most impactful (and positive) things I’ve learned to rely on in my gender journey. Some of them I am confident you have come across elsewhere. Some might be new.

Working Out

Image credit: Emmett Preciado

Let’s start with what is probably the most commonly cited one. Working out. Well, it’s listed everywhere for a reason. Working out has a positive impact along multiple vectors simultaneously. It literally makes you feel good from the hormones that are released, it can reconnect us to our bodies (many of us can err towards dissociation from the body, and regrounding in it can be immensely helpful), it can make us feel strong, impact the presence of musculature, and the exhaustion from working out can improve sleep, lower anxiety, and add to a general sense of well being.

For me specifically, long before I started medically transitioning, being in the gym was one of the few places where I felt some form of control over my body. In early adolescence I was overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness, that my body was changing, betraying me, and that I had no say in the matter. This is painful on two levels at once: it is painful because of the physical, dysphoric changes that were taking place, and it was painful psychologically, because I felt I had no control. Working out was the exception to this rule.

Now, it’s worth noting that there is also a dark side to working out (for gender queer and cis folks alike), and then taking working out too far can be extremely damaging to your physical and mental health as well. But for me, operating within a moderate middle ground (I ate well but didn’t pay close attention to what I was eating or try to limit caloric intake, I went to the gym 3-4 times a week), the activity was overwhelmingly positive.

I have been working out so long now that I can’t remember what it was like to not have it be a part of my life. The form of exercise has changed–I’ve oscillated from pure weightlifting to bodyweight HITT to sports and joining a rowing team to crossfit. My strengths have shifted as I’ve focused on different aspects of training. But for over fifteen years now, a consistent exercise regime has been a part of my life, and I attribute a great deal of my emotional equilibrium to it. It also doesn’t feel like work anymore–it’s just what my body is used to, because I have been doing it for so long.

Feeling Desired in my Gender

Probably one of the most complicated and challenging aspects of being trans for me was getting to a place where I could trust in the ‘accuracy’ of a partner’s desire for me. Growing up, we didn’t have the language around transness, being nonbinary or gender queer, that we do today. I imagine that if we had, it would have made the contours of my experience easier to navigate, but that’s all hypothetical/I’ll never know. What I do know is that growing up I was faced with a seemingly insoluble problem: I was attracted to girls, I was in a girl’s body, and I definitely wasn’t a lesbian. Sure, I dressed like a boy, I played sports with (and often beat) the boys, my friend group thought of me as kind of abstracted from the whole notion of gender, that I was neither a girl nor a boy but just ‘Becca.’ And yet, when it came down to it, when I was navigating attraction between myself and another human, I couldn’t square the circle of my identity. My solution, for a long time, was to find the straightest girl in a given context and pursue her. At the time, everyone around me found this amusing. I was extremely ‘successful’ at seducing straight women, and developed a reputation as a kind of faux-lesbian lothario. But of course, something much simpler (and emotionally fraught) was happening for me, and the actual experiences with these girls/women solidified my insecurities rather than alleviated them. I felt that I was forever ‘almost’ a boy, that I could study and learn the ways of being a boy, lose all of the negative aspects that had hurt these girls/women in the past, and play out the perfect boy for them. Of course they fell for me, but how did they desire me? It was a catch twenty two: if they desired me as male, then I felt I ultimately always failed them, that at the end of the day I was in a body, that body was female, and that my ‘magic trick’ ultimately wouldn’t work. But if, on the other, I suspected them of coming to desire me in a more queer form, actually being attracted to my body as female, I felt even worse. I didn’t want to be desired as a woman. I wanted to be desired as a man. I lost either way.

Figuring out over the course of (literally) multiple decades a way to be in my body and the kind of partner that makes me feel perfectly desired in my form has been a long and extremely complicated process. I attribute the comfort I have now to a few things: first, and perhaps most simply, to transitioning. Putting a name to my identity, undergoing physical shifts, having the world read and respond to me as male, has stopped me feeling like I am ‘pretending.’ It has built a space for me that is defined, understood, and not only accepted, but desired by partners I’ve been with since transition. At the very beginning of transitioning, one of the biggest fears/insecurities I had to get over was this idea that I was approximating a cis man, but that I would always fall short. That I could get so close, but ultimately never reach it, and that I was therefore pitiable.

I honestly never thought that I would get over that insecurity. It has been a wonderful and life-affirming thing to move through that, and while I wish I could point to a single solution, a magic pill, the reality is that like most things of true value, the process has been slow and multi-faceted. I still have moments when my body feels foreign to me, when there is a sense of incongruity, a longing for the ‘normal’ cis archetype I was so focused on in my youth. But for the most part, I have come to see my identity and my body not as an approximation (and therefore a failing) of a cis male body, but as an alternative version of maleness. I see the version I am as magical, powerful, desirable. In many ways, I think this positionality sums up what I have philosophically grappled with in my transness: the tension between masculinity as something predefined, something I am aiming for, something that is static, already exists, and that is defined enough that I know what I identify with, and on the other hand, identity as something that is constructed, something ever evolving, something fresh and exciting and magical.

Another key part of this shift in me is finding a partner I am deeply compatible with. Again, I’m not sure how much the shift in vernacular and cultural exposure to different varietals of queerness and desire have impacted our compatibility, but I have ultimately found what I thought I would never find: someone who makes me feel seen and desired exactly as I am, with nothing lacking. I feel incredibly blessed to be with a partner who gives that to me–as anyone, irregardless of their gender identity or sexuality–should be. This is another thing I have realized as I have grown older: I used to think that desire and sexuality was simple for cis het people. There was a basic logic in operation that was their birthright. Now I realize that it is a complicated process for everyone. Realizing that has been extremely healing for me.

High Quality Basics

If you haven’t read about the founding story or impetus behind Both&, it essentially grew out of my own frustration of never being able to find clothes that comfortably fit and felt like an accurate representation of myself. I dreamed of the simple, delicious euphoria of having a pair of jeans and a white tee that were perfectly moulded to my body, that would make my shoulders look broad, accentuate the muscle on my arms, and that wouldn’t cling to my curves, bunch around the hips, or be far too long.

There has always been something very attractive to me about a simple wardrobe. While I think it’s wonderful that queer folks so often have the most stunning array of clothing, I sometimes wonder if that style has partially come about because we haven’t had access to basics that actually fit. Everyone’s style and self expression is different, but to me, there is something very empowering about having staples in my wardrobe. That I can wake up, open a drawer, and have crisp white tees perfectly lined up next to pants that fit. Compliment that with a nice jacket and boom, that’s the perfect outfit for me.

Part of the reason I love a basic-filled wardrobe is because of the much talked about phenomenon of simply clearly out headspace. We can only make decisions about so many things in a day. When it comes to appearance and feeling comfortable, I would argue that trans and gender queer folks end up making far more decisions on a daily basis. For me, this can lead to decision fatigue. So if I have my basics simply taken care of, if I know that I can have a baseline wardrobe in which everything goes with everything, everything will fit in exactly the way I want it to and I will look good in it–that’s a great, empowering baseline to my day.

If you are interested in this feeling, I would check out our kits. They are a great way to get that basic, full outfit feel of Both& and see whether that can be as empowering and relaxing for you as it has been for me.

Intellectual Engagement

Here is one I don’t see mentioned in blogs around gender journeys very often (or at all). I include it, however, because it is an absolutely core part of how I maintain a high quality of life and an overwhelming sense of meaning day to day.

All of us have different topics that interest us, and different mediums with which we engage. One of the early challenges for me in transitioning was that social media was really the hub by which I navigated and got information about transitioning. On the one hand, it was undeniably helpful and hugely impactful: I was able to see thousands of different trans men’s experiences, and that exposure alone really helped me work through some of my initial fears and insecurities. On the other hand, I found that social media often boxed me in to certain arguments or lines of thinking that were very one sided and/or negative. In essence, there wasn’t the depth or nuance around thinking about gender that I wanted, and that gave me a sense of claustrophobia. I think this is less the fault of people actually on social media–many of whom are incredibly intelligent–and more the fault of how social media is built: it is specifically engineered to be an echo chamber that prioritizes and rewards reactivity over nuance.

For me, feeling a deep sense of meaning and the joy that comes from curiosity and self-exploration requires highly stimulating intellectual engagement. This can come in many forms, from books to podcasts to great conversations to journaling to sitting in silence. It is, like most things in life, a muscle to train. Seeking out intellectual engagement comes more and more naturally the more you do it, and it is a process that is self-sufficient in its own right: yes, it makes me feel like I understand myself, others, and the world better, but also it doesn’t need to aim towards or deliver anything in particular. It is something that is good, just as itself.

Diverse Friends

Somewhat following on from the last section, a really key part of my feeling as comfortable as I do comes from having a wide range of very different friends, from all backgrounds, identities, and walks of life. I’m friends with other trans and queer folks, friends with tall white cis-het men, friends with people who live in New Mexico and people who live in New York, people who are earning $40,000 a year and people who are earning $500,000 (to list just a few categories). I have forever been somewhat who is suspicious of limiting myself, of binary choices or either/or thinking. I believe that diversity, that both-and thinking, makes how we think, act, and engage with ourselves and the world infinitely more interesting and informed. Actively seeking out friendships with people who have had a very different life to mine also helps me get out of the rut of self-pity or the calcification of convenient narratives that are simply not true–this goes back to my fixation on how I just wanted to be ‘normal’ in partnership and how I superimposed an image of cis-het couples having an effortless intimacy.

One of the beautiful things about being trans is the unique position it forces/enables us to operate out of. As I have said to countless friends over the years, “On the one hand, I have to construct my identity as a man. On the other hand, I get to.” It’s a both-and situation. Some days its exhausting, some days it’s the most precious gift. Ensuring that I am rich in community, that I am surrounded by loving, interesting and interested people who all have their own stories, their own successes and set backs, their own hopes and dreams and fears and doubts, reconnects me with a larger, universal sense of being human.

On the one hand, I have to construct my identity as a man. On the other hand, I get to.

What have you found helpful?

Both& is many things. Yes, we are a clothing brand, but we are also a purveyor of stories, a community space, a mission to bring more joyful, diverse, and empowering narratives around gender identity into the world. We always want to highlight and elevate the extraordinary breadth and depth of wisdom this community has to offer. If you would like to share your story and/or things that have been helpful to you, we would love to pass that love along. Reach out to us at anthony@bothandapparel.com.