Something else I've been mulling over for a while. This is more a ramble than anything else. Everybody's free to chime in.
To help me pass as a guy, I've been watching my cismale peers at college, most of which are white and spoiled. (i.e. Mummy and Daddims are paying their way through. Oi.)
It could be for a multitude of reasons, I'm sure, but it finally dawned on me: the peers I "should" be emulating in order to pass are nothing but sexist, rude, over-privileged, narcissistic jerks. No, this isn't really a surprise to me since I've been studying blind privilege and senses of entitlement for so long, but I guess it finally hit home for me.
Granted, I'm from lower-middle class (a far cry from most of these guys), but it seems that even if you don't come from money, you should act like it. So I'm getting the message that, in order to pass like my peers, I'm supposed to act this terrible.
Well I'm not doing it. I'm a gentleman and a nice guy. I take care of my appearance when I know it'll matter. I watch my language and conversation topics in front of mixed company and children. When I find myself in conversations that demean women or minorities, I speak up in their defense (provided I'm pretty sure I won't get the crap beaten out of me for saying so). I open doors for ladies, the elderly, and anybody that has their arms full. I don't leave my messes for other people to clean up. When somebody needs help, I help them. I view the world with equality; nobody is below me, nobody is above me.
And I know all of this is hurting my passability. But I simply can't function like a "normal" guy my age. I wasn't born with the blind privilege that I'd be treated better than everybody else for unfair reasons. And since I wasn't given that privilege, I won't and can't take it for granted.
I know the world itself seems to be at a loss for manners anymore, but I also know in my unfortunate female past that when I did the above kind things, it was just expected of me. I was supposed to bow down to the "elite" of the world. Now as a guy, I get weird looks.
I'm really, really hoping this whole jerk issue is just a temporary product of sex, age, skin color, class, etc. Because if it's meant to be a permanent fix, I'm screwed.
But I'm still proud of being a polite boy. So there.