Emery says:
OKAY BEAR WITH ME FOR A SECOND BECAUSE I’M ABOUT TO GET REAL MAD. Not at you, but at a society that is so androcentric that men think anything even SLIGHTLY feminine makes them ‘less of a man.’ You identify as a man, therefore you are one. Femininity is NOT weak and is NOT lesser and does NOT diminish your manhood. Femininity is fucking badass as hell. Femininity is fierce and tough and sparkly and could kick a muscular athlete down the street in stilettos. Femme men are my favourite men. Rock on, FEMMEMAN. (Doesn’t that sound like a superhero?)
The way this is worded makes me really happy. I think people forget quite often that just because someone is binary trans, that doesn’t mean they have to incorporate femininity or masculinity into everything they do. In our society there’s definitely a pressure for them to do that because (terrible) people often say ‘well, you’re not really putting any effort into being trans, so i dont think you are.’
Just because you are binary trans doesn’t mean you should have to feel pressured to present extremely masculine or extremely feminine.
Cis girls aren’t told that they’re ‘not really cis’ when they don’t wear high heels and tons of makeup, so why should trans girls be told that? It is true that (however stupid they may be) there are societal expectations for men and they are often criticized for ‘not being manly enough’ etc. This isn’t fair to anyone. It’s not fair to women, because that implies that being a woman is somehow lesser than being a man. It’s not fair to men, because just because they don’t want to karate-chop a redwood tree down and then bench press it with their chest hair while wearing a plaid shirt they’re told that they’re not good enough.
tl;dr: The way you present doesn’t change your identity. If you’re a trans man, congratulations! You are a man. If you’re a trans woman, congratulations! You are a woman. How you act does not change your identity, and if it changes someone’s PERCEPTION of your identity, that’s a sign that they’re probably not a great person for you to be hanging around with.