On The Gender Socialization Of Trans People

~~nuance~~

Sometimes I say “female-socialized people” and people are like “oh, so people who were assigned female at birth?” and I’m like “no! Obviously trans women can be female-socialized!” and then they look at me with a mystified expression. So I thought I’d write about what I mean.¹

In this post, even more than usual, I’m working from my own experiences and observations. I’ve found studies of trans people’s gender socialization to be shallow and not very insightful. But I’m always interested in recommendations from a more academic perspective.

Gender socialization is the process of learning the norms, behaviors, and preferences that your culture considers appropriate to your gender.

Before transition, trans women are normally treated like men, and trans men are normally treated like women. As such, they have different gender socialization. For example, a trans man might be taught to apply makeup and to cook, while a trans woman might be taught to win fights and use power tools.² They’re also rewarded and punished for different behaviors. For example, parents might tolerate a trans girl’s rambunctiousness and criticize her for crying; a trans man might have the opposite experience.

Trans people are often not treated the way that gender-conforming members of their assigned gender are treated. The dark joke goes you were peer-diagnosed as gender dysphoric at seven and treated with a punch to the face. But nevertheless the punishment of gender-non-conforming children (by peers and adults) isn’t cross-gender socialization; it’s punishment for being a deviant member of your assigned gender.

At the same time, gender socialization involves internalizing particular values, preferences, and norms. Trans people often fail to internalize the norms of their assigned gender. You can imagine gender socialization going like this:

Girls are like this. You’re a girl. You should be like this.

Cis girls also reject their gender socialization, to be clear. They might say “you’re saying girls are like that, but I see lots of girls that aren’t like that. I don’t believe you.” They might say “girls are like that, but I’m a girl and I don’t want to be like that. I’m not going to.” But trans men (even before they realize that they’re trans) often object to the second point: “you keep saying I should be like this because girls should be like this, but I’m not a girl.”