My mom says back in her time trans males were called tomboys. I tried to explain to her that trans people actually feel like a different gender than what they were born and tomboys are just girls who wear pants and play sports but she doesn't get it. Has anybody else seen people confusing trans boys and tomboys? What do I say to her?
Yeah, they're not the same thing. Trans men actually know they are men (and can even be feminine). Trans women can be tomboys. People confuse the two all the time, especially cis-straight people. They are so wrapped up in gender roles, it's sad.
yes i have. i suppose there are even lesbian women who say they will date trans men because they believe deep down trans men are just tomboys...well they are wrong. maybe ur mother is a transphobe so there won't be anything u can say to her to make her "get it". but i'd try telling her that tomboys are still GIRLS, they are just masculine girls/women. whereas trans boys/men are BOYS/men, not girls/women and they can be feminine or masculine. but they are NOT a girl/woman. it's as simple as that. if your mom refuses to acknowledge trans dudes are dudes, then she's a transphobe. back then people called trans guys tomboys why? because of transphobia or lack of knowledge, which is still something that is around today unfortunately. hopefully that will get her to understand tho.
I know right? My mom has no idea what it's like to be trans yet she says we're all just tomboys. I'm a trans boy and I like My Little Pony. If I were a girl, I would not be a tomboy, I would be a very sad, very girly girl.
I agree with the rest of the posters on this thread. Maybe she would she understand better if you explained the difference between gender expression and gender identity to her? Or do you think that would confuse her as well...? I don't know. Sorry. People who aren't part of the LGBT community sometimes have a hard time understanding us.
I think you explained it as clearly and simply as you possibly could. I think some of the resistance isn't an inability to understand. It's an unwillingness to understand.
Aw yeah, my mom had problems with this too when I first came out to her. But then I started wearing more dresses and makeup and she figured out that me being a boy had nothing to do with how much I liked cargo shorts in 6th grade. I agree with Rainbow Lantern! I think you'd be able to find some cute pictures of the GenderBread Person online and maybe that'd help your mom explain stuff?
I haven't, since I don't think anyone around here knew trans people existed until certain celebrities came out. So no, trans men here aren't confused with tomboys.
People always called me a tomboy when I was growing up, which is funny because I hardly played sports and I didn't really "run with the boys" around the neighborhood. Really, almost nothing about me was tomboyish except for the way I dressed/expressed myself. I think people picked up on my masculine self and that was the only way they could make sense of it. When I came out- My mom told me she thought I should just keep being a tomboy and that grown-up women were allowed to do that. My dad looked at the way I was dressed (male presentation when I came out), said "you know, you've always looked like this. You just never explained why" and rolled with it. I've met plenty of adult women who still behave like tomboys and are perfectly happy being women. That's just not me. I think maybe your mom needs some time to come to terms with things. I had to keep reminding mine of who I was and that I was going to keep expressing myself as a man whether she liked it or not. To this day, I don't know if she actually believes it or if she's just humoring me, but she respects my name and pronouns even when I'm not there, so we manage.
Well... As your mom said... "in her time" or whatever. In her day, that's what they were. I'm sure in her day, FTM people were considered "tomboys" by society, because back then there wasn't really a better word for it. My mom said the same. It's different now, because now people know better.
Just to point out that not all trans men know that they are men. I have seen several people on here who spent much of their life thinking they were tomboys and it took a lot of soul searching and asking question for them to understand why they still felt different from everyone. But back to the issue at hand When I tried to come out as trans to my bro he said he couldn't see it because I was to feminine. But as a kid I made a comment to a teacher about how I should be with the Boyd and she said i was just a tomboy. But back in 1997 trans issues weren't really talked about so that I was a tomboy probably made sense.
