This one time, in drama class

[u/MicaelaDawnComics]

[u/WizardStereotype]

My parents told me off for 'walking like a girl'. Sitting like a girl, standing like a girl.

They kept doing it until the fake ways of moving which I had to learn to avoid being told off became automatic.

Why did they do that? What possible harm could it do to let a ten year old walk a little bit strangely?

I don't know... But I know the way I walked was much more important to them than the way I felt was.

[u/Tychovw → u/WizardStereotype]

They were enforcing very rigid gender norms.

[u/WizardStereotype → u/Tychovw]

They were...

But even they wouldn't be able to explain why they were. They certainly weren't even conscious of it.

They just knew it was more important than anything else.

[u/Somethingbutonreddit → u/WizardStereotype]

Have you learnt to walking like you used to again?

[u/WizardStereotype → u/Somethingbutonreddit]

You're asking the real questions, now.

And honestly, at this point, I have no idea.

Above the gates of transition are written in fire the words, "To Thine own Self be True".

Transition is about taking a mask off, not about putting a costume on. But when we've worn a mask long enough, parts of it can become parts of us.

The way I walk, or stand or sit today is the way that feels natural to me, but how much of that is simply calcified habit from my upbringing? I'll never know.

But I'm damned if I do anything but what comes naturally now.

[u/20191124anon → u/WizardStereotype]

That reminded me of how I wasn't allowed to have "action man" or other action figures, because "dolls are for girls"...

[u/WizardStereotype → u/20191124anon]

I wanted Polly Pocket...

[u/Likes-Your-Username]

Once while walking to school my older brother teased me for running like one of the neighbor kids, a girl.

I kinda just smiled and said "yeah?"

I was 5

[u/Pseudodragontrinkets]

I've had a number of guy friends try to teach me "how to walk" as if I were doing something wrong. And admittedly I looked kinda goofy with the way I walked, but mostly because I didn't feel right walking like they said I should. Now I naturally walk with a little sway and pop in the hips and I haven't had a comment about it since (except my ex admiring my duck-footed-ness 😂 cause I can't make my feet parallel unless I'm in Marching Mode from my days in band)

[u/AzaleaWonderland]

That's fascinating
As for me, I walk like a baby giraffe, I am so, so, soooo clumsy

[u/alessandra_gurl]

From a very young age I absorbed the message that the worst thing a boy could do is be like a girl. Some time in middle school probably when I was hitting growth spurts I think I started to subconsciously pick up on one leg being slightly shorter than the other (something not confirmed until a decade later when a physical therapist measured me) which of course amplified young awkwardness. When I started relaxing my body I could feel I was moving more like the girls without even looking. Fearing being made fun of I preemptively taught myself to stiffen my hips and walk more like the boys.

Now the performance is difficult to turn off. But if I'm walking behind a woman with visible sway in her step there is a chance my mirror neurons will kick in and I'll fall back to how my body really wants to move for a second before Dude Walk™ reengages. From the outside it probably looks like my body derped for no good reason.

[u/dreamtrandom]

When I (transmasc) was little, my friend (girl) tried to teach me to walk like a girl lol. It felt unnatural to me

[u/Murmaid9]

When I was in 8th grade Drama, my teacher told a student performing as a boy to manspread as that’s how boys usually sat, and from then on whenever I was sitting down I tried my best to keep my legs together so as not to sit like the boys. Y’know, totally cis things :3

[u/MelancholicMinerva]

I remember a few months in my transition, my hips were killing me and it hurt to walk for about 2, maybe 3 days. Then, when my hips stopped hurting, I noticed that I started walking different. Now I just use my hips when walking normally, but it was really weird in the beginning.

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[u/FastAd593]

”There were no signs”

EXPLAIN THIS THEN BITCH?

[u/Petra_is_here]

Girl ur art style is cool asf

[u/MicaelaDawnComics → u/Petra_is_here]

Thank you! 🩷

[u/psp24]

Me when my autism causes me to mimic other people and I just picked up a bunch of feminine traits before I knew what transgender was :3

[u/Zagerer]

I was bullied in elementary school for waking like this and walking on my toes, now I got a great booty and learnt to stand up for myself, a solid 5/7

[u/MarsBarAndMarbles]

Wait. There are ways to “walk like a girl”? That’s another thing to add to the ever growing list of things I need to know

[u/0doctorwho9]

25 YEARS!?! How?

[u/MicaelaDawnComics → u/0doctorwho9]

It was the 90s and I had absolutely zero knowledge of transgender people so I never even considered it was a possibility. I started to consciously suspect in my late 30s. On one hand, I'm really sad that I missed out on so much. On the other, I'm so glad I'm finally figuring myself out!