The Times I Have Been a Man

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

First of all, let’s get one thing straight (even if I’m not):

I’m a cis woman. I am gender non conforming in many ways, but I have an F on my birth certificate, use she/her pronouns, and consider myself a woman.

But what I’m going to talk about here is my personal experiences being a man. Online, that is. (I’ve never done drag. It’s too much work).

A College Experiment

My first venture into being a man was out of sheer curiosity when I was in college. I used to (technically still do, but the pandemic was the final death knell for an obsolete hobby) play real time, text-based RPGs online. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to find out what it was like to be a man.

I don’t mean I was questioning my gender (or maybe I was questioning my gender). At the time, I wanted to see how people treated men from the inside. Was it actually different? I was at the time identifying as a “grrl,” a form of radical feminism. So it was about exploring the patriarchy. I also thought, rightly, that it would help me write male characters better.

So I made a male character, consistently used he/him pronouns, and watched how people treated me. It was quite subtly different, but it was different. I suspect my masquerade was seen through but respected.