Carcharodonna

It’s difficult to think of a world with clearer gender roles than the Old West, or at least the Old West as we know it from movies, television shows, and genre novels. But when historian Peter Boag studied the real nineteenth-century American West, a different narrative emerged. For one thing, hundreds of people lived as the opposite gender from the one they were assigned at birth—and that’s just counting the people whose stories were reported in newspapers.

In many cases, Boag writes, cross-dressing served practical purposes. It was a disguise for criminals on the lam, a safety device for traveling women, and a necessity for taking jobs reserved for the other gender. But, he argues, in many cases Old West “cross-dressers” were probably people who we would identify as transgender today.

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'.

I heard we're posting underrated Smashing Pumpkins songs :D

She's talking about my people!!