So, back when I was “still cis tho”, there were a lot of aspects of male gender norms that bothered me deeply and of course I totally understand why now. Even though these days I obviously have a clear reason for feeling that way, I’m still curious if cishet men also have issues with how norms or expectations around gender and sexuality impact them in a negative way.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how those norms impact you, whether good or bad.

Also, I should mention that since this is a bit of a sensitive subject we’re talking about here, please be thoughtful and sensitive when discussing with others in this thread. Thanks! <3

EDIT: Much thanks for all the great responses here! I know it’s a difficult topic of course, so I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/feelings like this.

Speaking of which… I just looked at /c/menby and some of the posts on the front page there are over 2 years old. I see a lot of the discussion here centered around not being able to share feelings and/or not having the spaces or support to do that in. /c/menby seems like the perfect place for that, just sayin’.

  • Carcharodonna [she/her]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    23·
    2 months ago

    Thanks for sharing and I’m sorry you gotta deal with that meow-hug

    I’ve never been good at sharing my feelings for many other reasons on top of it, but not having any kind of emotional support also always hit me pretty hard as well. One of the many great things that’s happened to me since realizing I’m trans is both being able to get rid of that shame/mental block around expressing my real self as well as having positive spaces to do it in (thanks tracha!). Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me like even in relatively positive male spaces there’s still a lot of discomfort for men around expressing certain feelings openly in the same way. Not sure what it takes to break that, but it at least seems like a good thing to bring up that stuff more often like you’re doing right now.

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      20·
      2 months ago

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me like even in relatively positive male spaces there’s still a lot of discomfort for men around expressing certain feelings openly in the same way.

      Yeah there’s still a lot of shame involved with being open as a man. Though I have seen a recent change in people’s perceptions of what you can say/do in regards to feeling while being masc so that’s a positive. We just need to de-brainworm more people.