Body Language For Trans People

When I first came out as trans, resources for trans people were full of advice about body language. Men sprawl and take up space! Women gesture when they talk! Men speak with a monotone! Women touch their hair a lot! Men don’t smile! Women walk like they’re on a tightrope and sway their hips but only a little bit!

This was not great. It made early-transition trans people far more self-conscious about their voice and mannerisms, which is a feat, because early-transition trans people are already the most self-conscious people on God’s green earth.

Today, it seems to me that the pendulum has swung the other way, and resources for people early in transition have almost no information about body language at all. That’s a shame, because congruent body language is one of your most useful tools for getting people to read you as your preferred gender.

Unfortunately, one-size-fits-all body language advice is terrible. Male-typical and female-typical body language are dependent on age, ethnicity, class, neurotype, and subculture. For example, in many cultures, men don’t gesture much. But in other cultures they do—as the joke goes, you gag an Italian by handcuffing him. If you slavishly follow some body-language guide you found on the Internet, you will likely come off as incongruent. Your gestures and posture don’t match the people around you or the rest of how you present yourself, which feels awkward and draws attention to you—exactly what most trans people don’t want.

Further, not everyone has the same transition goals. Some trans people want to blend in smoothly with their identified gender; others want to stand out as visibly trans. Body language can help either group, but they will need to move in different ways.

The secret is people-watching. Take yourself and a notebook to a place where people who present the way you want to present hang out: bar, restaurant, coffeeshop, tabletop RPG store, whatever. Discreetly watch how they move. What do they do with their hands? How do they hold themselves? What is their tone of voice like? How do they walk? Write down your observations.