I Think I’m Passing As A Gay Man? And It’s Weird. (a genderqueer journey with testosterone)

by mike morse (they/he) 4/21/2024

I never had specific goals for the outcome of my medical transition, other than to be happy with how I looked and felt. The first year I took testosterone (T), I quite possibly could have said my dysphoria and happiness with myself was worse than before I started. It made me feel even worse to get misgendered after starting hormones, and I had some concerns that the behavioral changes and “second puberty” I was experiencing were so bad that they didn’t outweigh the desired physical changes, which, at that point, weren’t particularly positive. After a year and four months, I decided to take a break from the hormone. I was at a place where I needed to focus on gaining control over my life again, and going through a second puberty didn’t help with that.

I stayed off T for another year and four months. The physical changes didn’t revert, which I was glad about, but I was feeling more in control of my behaviors and emotions. Once I was approaching being off the hormone for just as long as I had been on it, I knew it was time to start up again. I was feeling like my life overall was relatively stable, and the State of Florida was getting closer and closer to outright banning medical transitioning. Knowing this was coming, I had my doctor start writing me prescriptions for the hormone a few months earlier, as I had already been anticipating wanting to return once I was feeling ready and stable.

When I started up again, I was on a dose about 25% lower than my dose when I had stopped to ease back into it. This seemed to be perfect for me — I didn’t seem to be having any of the mental health and behavioral side effects I hadn’t liked before. I stayed on that dose for about 6 months, and eventually I increased back to the dose I had previously been on (and I’m here currently). I still have had none of the previous negative side effects since increasing.

The biggest difference I’ve noticed since starting again are the social changes in how I’m being perceived. Now, 8 months being back on T, the physical effects that weren’t as pronounced before are coming in better. My voice doesn’t crack as much and has settled in more at its lower pitch. My facial hair is darkening as is my arm and other body hair. I’ve gone through two major social introductions recently and both have led me to conclude… I’m now physically passing enough that I am socially being read as a cis gay man.

My effeminate mannerisms don’t allow me to pass as straight (fine by me), but strangers definitely perceive me as a man. When I’m out and about in my home area, I do try to be perceived as a cishet man if possible, for safety. I believe I am successful in short interactions, but the more I’m required to verbalize, the more my effeminating socialized verbal cues come out, and I am shifted to the category of queer man.

The first time I really noticed this was as I was training for my new job. I am a court reporter, a field historically and still predominantly filled by women. My first tell that something’s “different” about me comes in the spelling of my name, Michal with no “e”. The first three months of training for my new job were all completely remote, but I was continually he/him’ed by everyone who referred to me, and as far as I know only a handful of people who have access to my HR information are aware I’m trans (I haven’t legally changed my name yet, but Michal is my middle name so I can get away with a lot of loopholes).

When I finally met my trainer in person, she only used he/him pronouns for me and in all ways she talked to me, she engaged as if I were a cis man. As we got more comfortable, I began telling her about my partner at the time (we are both nonbinary, my ex’s pronouns are they/them and mine are they/he), using their pronouns.

In response, my trainer continually defaulted to he/him pronouns when referring to my partner. It hit me that she thought we were a cis gay couple. I didn’t correct her because I was (and am) still cautious about who I disclosed our trans identities to out of safety when I am afforded the opportunity, and this was a new coworker I did not know well yet.

This was the first time ever that I believe my partner and I had been considered cis gay men by anyone, as far as I knew. Shortly after this exchange, I began taking jobs on my own. I tried to pay attention to how I was treated in different settings. For in-person and remote settings on video, I am treated as a man, called sir, Mr. Court Reporter, etc.

I do occasionally notice some microaggressions during in-person assignments when I encounter a lead attorney on a case who is a man, who will leave their assistants, typically women, to communicate with me. I haven’t been in the profession long enough to know if this is typical behavior of lead attorneys towards all court reporters, or if it is because, although they do see me as a man, they see me as effeminate and therefore meant to communicate with the women.

The times I get misgendered the most are when we have telephonic (over the phone only, no video) jobs. During these, I try to deepen my voice as much as possible, and introduce myself as Michal (pronounced the same as Michael). Around 90% of the time, however, I am referred to as “madame court reporter”, a phrase that likely flows off the tongue of most attorneys as, like I said before, the profession is historically dominated by women. When we have video proceedings at least, while my voice sounds exactly the same as in the telephonic jobs, having my facial hair and facial structure visible is enough to be gendered as a man.

The other new environment I have entered lately is an urban gay sports league. I have played two weeks of kickball on this team so far, and I can tell without a doubt that the group is engaging with me as if I were a cis gay man. It seems, unfortunately to me, that the league as a whole is predominantly cis. My team demographics are roughly split two-thirds cis gay men, and one-third cis lesbian women. And then there’s me (the transmasculine agender genderqueer genderfuck) who gets clumped with the cis gay men.

I didn’t expect to be gawked at as the gender non-conforming “other”, but I did expect our interactions to feel more queer overall. I haven’t been able to talk to many people from other teams, but by my observations, I have only seen less than five other people who I believe are likely trans and/or gender non-conforming in total across the kickball teams, which probably have over 100 people.

My realization of my place as one of the gay men came to me at the bar after our games the past two weeks. Every week we are given a free drink ticket for the local gay bar, and since I travel a distance to play each week, and paid the fees of the league, I typically find that the free drink is worth my while. The first week, only some of the guys on my team were going to the bar. I went along, played bingo, and won.

Without knowing what prize I was getting, I brought my bag back to the table. The guys asked me what I got, and I embarrassingly responded “oh, I didn’t know if I could look in the bags or not, so I just grabbed one — looks like it’s a g-spot vibrator.” “Oh man, sorry dude,” a few of the guys sympathized, which is when I realized for the first time they really thought I was a cis man. I tried to shrug it off, laughing “I’ll find a use for it somehow,” and tried to redirect the conversation.

The next week, more teammates seemed to be planning to go out after the game, including some of the lesbian women on the team. I, for one, had been excited for the girls to join us this time because honestly, the conversation the week before with the guys was a bit dry! I haven’t been used to being social with cis gay men in a while, and I didn’t have much in common with my teammates who were at the bar the first week.

I got to the bar first, and two of my teammates who are men arrived next. We grabbed a table with enough chairs for the others to join once they got there. When the girls first arrived, they came up to us, said their good games, and made extremely minimal small talk. They made their rounds between the three of us very quickly, but then we were given “sorry to bounce on you guys, but our other teammates are here too so we’re going to go check in on them!”

We knew the girls all played in the weekend competitive kickball league as well (our weeknight league is more recreational), but I immediately noticed that the table they were approaching was entirely cis women. It started to sink in that this space was the most binary gendered gay (I can’t say queer for this crowd) space I had been in I think since going on hormones, and from a physical perspective, I had officially reached the point of “switching genders”.

This was all very weird to me because when I look in the mirror, I see a hot, queer, masc-presenting person that doesn’t necessarily easily fall into either binaried gender box, aside from the fact that I have a mustache (although, even this alone doesn’t keep certain transphobes adamant on she/her-ing me from doing so.)

I’m also coming to appreciate how privileged I’ve been to be in so many queer circles and spaces, as opposed to the gay crowd that is this sports league. I’m used to pronouns being shared openly, and co-mingling between all people in a room, not separations by gender that we see in cishet culture.

To a degree, there is definitely a lot of gender euphoria that comes from being seen and understood as being a man. Simultaneously, it makes me question how I want to present myself, and if passing as a cis man is really what I want to be aiming for in my expression. For safety reasons, I do appreciate that in stranger interactions I can pass as a man.

I still get extreme anxiety entering men’s restrooms 90% of the time, but at this point I do it and I’m working through learning how to manage that better. Being in a gay space though, passing as a cis man is not necessarily what I want to be doing. I don’t want to be misgendered, but also it might be nice to try to implicitly point out the rigid gender lines that this league is imposing. I’m still brand new, and I’m only a part of one sport (the league runs around 5–6 sports at a time), but I have a feeling that similar dynamics would be found across the league.

At this point, I’m not planning to get top surgery, I do plan to continue to stay on T for the time being, but I honestly don’t know if I will forever. There are things I like about how my brain functions without T, but there are other things that I hate. I might just continue to keep my dose relatively low, because I don’t have the goals of reaching the T levels of a cis man. Non-binary and genderqueer people struggle to find proper medical support in our journeys because often our narratives and our medical goals are different from those of binary trans people, and doctors don’t like that we don’t fit in their boxes.

As a personal experience, my previous doctor (I had to switch because of Florida laws, not the doctor being bad) looked at my bloodwork while I was on my lower T dose, and was concerned that my levels were “too low”, and was recommending that I increase my dose. I was concerned about increasing my dose because I was feeling fantastic physically and mentally, things in my life were stable, and I did not want to rock the boat.

For the time being, I did not change my dose, because I knew I was going to be seeing my new doctor just a couple weeks later and wanted to ask for a second opinion. My new doctor informed me that my T levels were on the low end of the range where your levels can be, but that it’s not a bad or harmful thing. He said I’m not going to start having the effects revert, and I shouldn’t have any physical harm to my body for having my hormone level at that range.

I just won’t continue to progress as quickly and as extremely with the physical results as someone who’s T levels are higher and therefore closer to that of a cis man. This was music to my ears. I did not mind at all what number came up on the test results so long as I looked good (to me), I felt good, and I was healthy and not hurting my body by having my hormones at the levels they were at.

I’m not really sure how I want to move forward at this point after thinking about all these things. I do want to be seen as a man when I have to interact and engage with strangers in the cishet world. It’s easier for me and safer at this point, at least when I’m within Florida. But when I’m in gay environments, I think I want to push myself to be more intentionally gender bendy and trans.

I consider myself agender and genderfluid, and I want others in the same boat as me to feel comfortable expressing themselves however they wish without feeling pressure to choose a binary gender box to fit into. It’s easier in queer spaces, but I need to push myself in gay environments. I don’t want to be tokenized or objectified, rather I’d like to make a point that there are trans and gender non-conforming people that are a part of the league, and maybe make an impact on others in the league who are worried about expressing themselves truly.

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