some self proclaimed leftist tme trans people really do need to go back to gender lessons 101 because wearing dresses =/= flagging yourself as a woman like guys i thought we covered this 10 years ago

Ive heard some people say that "masculinity is the default for everyone so thats why people dont recognize you as your assigned gender" and idk i gotta disagree?? Masculinity is the default, yes- but is it the default for everyone? Id say its the default for what the default type of person is considered, which is often a cishet white man. The default for those whom have womanness pushed on to us is dresses and heels. I am subverting expectations somewhat when i dress in pants and a button up shirt, but thats old news, thats what feminists did back in the day, however, its that exact association- the association with the cis girl feminists who rebelled against the norm, thats been locked in with ppl afab. When i wear pants and a pixie cut and act more masculine- im seen as a subversive, cool, hip, feminist woman. Thats the most that im allowed. Its not the default for afab people, but its accepted at this point, and is now more or less a default clothing style for everyone however its originally designated for the "default", cis men. If it were the end all be all default, though, we wouldnt still have tradwives about, now would we? Plenty of people still think women should be in the kitchen wearing dresses with their mouths sewn shut. That is still the default many people *want* me to end up in. So now, me wearing pants is just me being "a rebellious woman". That is the two extremes to many people and they only ever allow themselves to see me on either end of each spectrum. They never allow themselves to see me creep over to the spectrum of man. Im only either a traditional woman or a woman thats "trying to be different" to them. Unless im capable of passing as a man and they dont know im trans by default and i have to reveal it to them for them to realize "women" can become men, but id think only extremely passing trans guys could ever get away with that, and even then, when they find out, theyll start eyeing you up and down and pretend to notice parts of you that actually reveal that you're afab, in spite of not seeing it there before, as if i said the magic words that suddenly *unveiled* my "disguise". And once again im locked in the role of woman for them. And once you're locked in that role for a lot of cis men, you cant get out of it, because theyve found a million excuses to not listen to anything "women" say. You minus well be mute. Ive only ever been treated like a human by cis men like this when they dont know that im a trans man and think im cis too.

No matter how hard i try to prove my masculinity, when i dress as a man people have to dismiss it as me being butch. I can never be a man but just a female version of whatever man they think im trying emulate. Im a masculine man? Then im a butch. Im a sporty man? Then im actually just a cool tough tomboy sporty girl actually. Im an expressive and artistic man and it shows in the way i dress? Then im just an eccentric alt woman whos more willing to bend my gender expression. I can never just *be* a man. I only get to be the "female" version of whatever man they think im trying to be. Im allowed to dress like a man, im even allowed to be a butch woman in plenty of cases for cis men, but im never allowed to actually identify as a man. They see it almost as me playing pretend and playing dress up when i dress masc and when i cross over that border of manhood then suddenly i crossed over into accepting my life as being a half goat demon man or whatever. Suddenly thats when things get serious and its code red and everyone has to hit the deck and start doing their best effort to get me to Not start identifying as a man and stop living as if i am and stop trying to get ppl to recognize me for who i am. Im allowed to dress however i want insofar as people can think im just playing pretend.

And bc its old news for afab people to wear pants n shit, I also sort of feel like a lot of cis people see amab people becoming feminine as more dramatic of a change than it is for someone like me to be masculine, which makes me seem like a tomboy or whatever to them. Me dressing with pants and button ups and such is seen as this ~whatever~ thing because im allowed to explore my gender expression so long as i dont try to claim to be an entirely different gender. However, since it is such a dramatic shift for amab people in cis ppls eyes, and because masculinity is seen as so prized, people will assume that if an amab person decides they want to be a woman then that means she really means it, because "no truly masculine man would do that" or whatever.