Fragility, Elliot Page, and Me

Reckoning with trauma, hegemonic masculinity, and my transition

This shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone, but I am a man. My broad shoulders and sharp jaw. My tits that I may-or-may-not cut off. And my pussy that Schrodinger’s its way around different conceptions of self. My hairy, dark and greasy parts. My smooth, red, and trembling parts. My alligator tears and biting bark of anger. All 5’ 3” of me.

I am a man. I am a (transgender) man.

I have hesitated to say these words. I have opted for the terms that – I believe – are perceived as softer and more reputable. Boy. Enby. Masc. Trans. Twink. Fluid. Queer. Them.

I am these things. Vibrantly. Obnoxiously. They give me a light, an energy, a twinkle. I bloom every day in new floral prints. Right now, I am looking at myself in a mirror wearing a boy’s large tee-shirt hoodie and a brightly colored cap. Here, I can make true unflinching eye contact with myself and feel a wholeness. I have the courage to look myself in the eyes.

But I am a man. I keep catching the man that is me between my fingers. I look down. I don’t know where to put him. So, I place him in a cup under my heart. He is a flame that I leave oxygen-less.

I cannot situate him in my fleshy parts. He is gasoline hot on fire. He is sexy. He is a red iron. He is deadly. He is a whip lash lashing out at… I fear him. I adore him. I lust for him. I am broken because of him.

I have seen and sustained physical, emotional, and societal violence from men and masculinity. Men have abused, manipulated, and shamed me. My body is vulnerable to it. My body is traumatized by it. I don’t know what to do with it. The heat. The appendage of it. The truth of it.

Reading Elliot Page’s coming out post struck many chords. I’ll be honest. I sobbed while eating a PB&J sandwich. That sort of chord pluck which is really a wrench which makes your body pliable. You know.

About his transness Elliot said: “My joy is real, but it is also fragile.” This was the first time I had connected transness with fragility. It has always been expressed to me as an act of radical strength. (Not that the two are incompatible). Expression of one’s true gender is not simply an act of bravery (it is, it is…) but also one of vulnerability.

My masculinity is new, although deeply rooted. It has been cast in the flames of hemming and hawing and angstily scrolling through my adolescence. But, delicate too. The first fluttering of onion skin. A precarious china teacup. Easily ripped and chipped…

My masculinity is fragile.

That fragility is rooted in myself but contextualized by the cultural creation of masculinity itself.

As we understand it today, fragile masculinity is the “anxiety felt by men who believed they are falling short of cultural standards of manhood.” This is often followed quickly by the idea of toxic masculinity, or the performance of these standards via harmful or abusive behavior.

The “cultural standards of manhood” are informed by the idea cultural hegemony in which the normative culture is created to uphold and reinforce certain dominant social, economic, and political orders by those who benefit from them. This is to say, the traits of dominant culture have been created to uphold capital, racist, and colonial systems of oppression. Fragile and toxic masculinity as we know it cannot be understood without this context. And those same traits of masculinity (and beyond) work to disadvantage and abuse not just women but any individual outside of the approved hegemonic realm.

If there are these dominant cultural standards of manhood, there are also “cultures of manhood” which exist outside of the dominant narrative. Subaltern populations. Queer fringes. Circles of neurodivergence. Manhood that may be capable of exerting resistance.  (This is not to say “not all men” but to provide space for fluidity, agency, and a general beyond.)

I am keenly aware of the ways I diverge from the hegemonic cultures of manhood (and beyond). I don’t have a flesh dick. I intentionally inhabit the effeminate and am deeply in touch with my feelings. And yet, there are also moments of alignment with the norms. I have to keep my mansplaining tendencies in check. The line between assertion and aggression is not always one I know how to navigate. My whiteness irrespective of gender immediately gives me enormous power.

My moments of manhood are always refracted by the fact I am unmistakably AFAB. Any “masculine” trait I have is colored by most of society as “feminine.” Assertion and aggression are recalibrated as bitchiness. The emotional expression which separates me from toxic traits of masculinity gives me power as a white woman to exploit and manipulate my whiteness at the expense of people of color.

And despite the outside view of me, I am trans. What refractions does my fluidity and multitude bring to my behavior. I do not know how to place the inconsistent legibility of my transness in terms of my actions. If I ever pass and am observed to be a cis, white man, then this story will require new expanses of reckoning. But now, to be a man still requires me to be a woman. My awareness and consideration much traverse both.

Regardless of where I situate my manhood, inside of me it is anxious and fragile. And up until recently, I have held it captured and hidden, as it ruminates on and on and on.

It scans the messaging it receives. Inside I feel the thrum of its (his?) desire of acceptance. Parts of him (me?) desire to be “one of the boys” and I sit uncomfortable with those implications. But most of all, I am anxious. I want to be accountable to the communities I am in. The “standards of manhood” I have true anxiety about upholding are not the hegemonic ones, but rather those that I have created. I have rigorous expectations for the men who surround me. The stakes are higher for me. I need to be accountable to the young girl who exists, vulnerable and harmed, inside me.

Sometimes I worry that my trans* body dually inhabits the traumatized and the creator of trauma. A desire to take T(estosterone) is punctured by the fear that I will become my worst nightmare. Can I fully be myself without triggering myself? Would it not be better for the world to not have one more white man?

Recently I got to wondering if my journey into masculinity could act as repair and healing. Can my transition into a man who (hopefully) embodies the safe, kind, and just expressions of masculinity rewire pathways of trauma and anxiety which exist in my body, like a wholly internal exposure therapy? Is there potential to become a more generous, nourishing, and compassionate version of myself as I am able to shape this manhood with more intention? I see strength in my trans-body situated in its co-embodiment, while its reach is still limited.

Elliot ends their coming out post with a call for self-love. He states: “The more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I dream, the more my heart grows and the more I thrive.”

It’s not that simple, I know. I cannot guarantee that any transition I go through will erase toxic masculinity on my fluid body, both as a receptacle and an output. Nor does the transition disentangle me from other powers of cultural hegemony which I benefit from or am harmed by. Nor does my transition, whatever path it takes, change the fact that I am wholly a man now as well, even though I sometimes refuse to acknowledge it. I will do my very best to dream, care, and nourish this person into an existence that I am proud of.

I have decided to remove cup from the flame and take a shaky breath. When the smoke clears, I hope to notice that the ember is in fact a seed, generative instead of destructive. I will hold this seed of self with the same care I hope to hold my broken parts who are wandering through my body lost and confused.

Soon it will be growing, small-stemmed with one open leaf and another curled. Soon it will be establishing roots. I am still figuring out what is the right combination of sun, soil, and water will be. I am building myself in a communal ground, so feel free to nudge and trim any not-so-nice branches. And as you walk, please look before you step.

PS. I am compiling words/definitions about masculinity. Please add, if compelled.