The "Manliest" Thing I've Ever Done

Choosing Softness, Joy, and Femininity in a World That Taught me to Hide it.

This summer, I attended my first girly garden party.

I couldn’t believe I was getting an invite.

My friends have always been incredibly supportive throughout my transition, and I love them dearly for it. However, if you’ve ever had the privilege of transitioning genders, you’re familiar with the inevitable awkward moments where everyone is trying to figure out how to re-relate to one another as things shift.

It’s incredibly honest, gloriously vulnerable, and painfully beautiful.

Because I’m still often perceived as male, I don’t always expect to be included in things that feel so distinctly feminine and joyful: You know, like a girls’ only garden party. So sometimes, when people actually include me in gender affirming ways, it almost catches me off guard. When that invite came, I was thrilled.

It was the kind of event I’d hear about, or maybe even casually scroll past the next morning on Instagram and wish I got an invite. A dreamy little gathering that I’d admire from a distance, never imagining I’d be the one getting ready for it. Immediately, once i recieved the message, I started planning what I’d wear, wondering who else might be there and imagining how good it would feel to belong in that space.

And then… just as quickly as the excitement came, it was replaced with a wave of shame.

I felt silly.

Embarrassed, even.

How could I, a broad-shouldered, nearly six-foot, still-somewhat-masculine-looking human, be this excited about a girly garden party? What would people think? Should I play it cool, pretend it didn’t mean that much? Or should I risk being honest? Admit that inside, I was jumping up and down because someone saw me, included me, and thought I belonged there?

Above all, I just felt shame and wanted to hide.

In the weeks since, I’ve thought a lot about where that shame comes from. Why do things as simple as softness, whimsy, joy, connection and beauty often feel so off-limits to me?

For a long time, I wrote it off as internalized transphobia. I thought the residue of growing up in a world that told me being visibly feminine would make me a joke, or worse, a target.

This thought circles my mind more often than I’d like to admit. Whenever I express my femininity, shame and embarrassment seem to follow close behind. Out of frustration, I finally posted about it on Instagram, just a passing thought, and was flooded with hundreds of replies from women who all responded:

“I feel the same way.”

It’s led me to some deep reflection. I always assumed that my trans-ness was the source of my shame. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was something more universal? What if the collective shame that these women could relate to was about femininity itself?

It kind of made sense to me. Femininity is expected, but never too much. Never too loud. Never too proud. It’s supposed to exist for others, to please, to comfort, to soothe, but never to take up space for itself. Underneath all that, femininity is often equated with weakness. Cue all of the references to the monologue from Barbie.

The irony is that coming from someone who was raised as a boy, allowing myself to express femininity is quite possibly the ‘manliest’ thing I’ve ever done. Let me ask you what takes more strength: hiding behind a beard that allows me to blend in? Or expressing my softness in a way that draws eyes of scorn and disgust from others every time I walk through a grocery store?

I think it takes strength to walk into a room (or a garden party) and choose to be exactly who you are, especially when the world taught you to hide it.

Is there a unique layer of my story being trans? Of course. Because femininity isn’t actually expected of me in the same way that it is from people who were assigned female at birth. There’s also risks I am exposed to because of my transness that are tied specifically to this political moment. But the thread that connects our experience is precisely why our stories matter. Because the tension I feel between self-expression and safety, joy and shame, isn’t just mine. It’s connected by the same system trying to convince all of us that softness is something to be ashamed of.

But it isn’t.

Softness is power.

So maybe what I’m learning is that femininity isn’t something to earn or perform. It’s something to reclaim.

Not for approval, not for validation, but for aliveness.

And maybe the next time I’m invited to a girls’ garden party, I’ll let myself feel it fully:

the excitement, the gratitude, the joy.

Because that joy is mine, too.