I am a white cisgender heterosexual man. Between the ages of around 12 to 15 years old, I grew out my hair; by the time I cut it, it was past my shoulders. During this time I was also skinny and had no facial hair. There were a few times when I was misgendered by strangers, such as one instance I remember when a Starbucks barista called me “ma’am.” In many cases, the person quickly corrected themselves. Additionally, I was occasionally mocked or bullied by peers and strangers for “looking like a girl.”

This was in the early to mid-2000s, almost two decades ago, in a predominately white and suburban area of the US. Trans people were not accepted. Queer people were gaining acceptance, especially within my generation, but to allies like me, well– to speak for myself, I was barely aware of trans people at all. If I knew any trans people back then, they were in the closet.

My impression is that many cisgender people like me, who have at times worn nontraditional hairstyles or clothing, have been misgendered at least once in their lives. This experience is not at all the same as being misgendered as a trans person. It does vary a lot from person to person. I have never related to traditional masculinity, and the prospect for 14-year-old me of being mistaken for a girl was not in itself very distressing. What made me embarrassed and uncomfortable in such situations was how other people reacted. I don’t blame a random Starbucks employee– who themselves could have been a teenager at the time –for feeling awkward and embarrassed after mistakenly calling a boy “ma’am.” Looking back, I barely even blame the bullies, who had very little in the way of life experience and were not exposed to much diversity of any kind within their communities.

Still, it was these other people’s reactions, as if misgendering me was an incredibly grave insult, that bothered me. When it comes to a person with an intent to bully, virtually any feature or behavior can be turned into an insult, even when it doesn’t make sense. A person can have an ordinary name and be made fun of for their name, or have very normal interests and be made fun of for their interests. I am often reminded of a scene from The Simpsons in which Nelson tells Bart to roll around on the floor like a baby, then mocks him chanting, “Floor baby! Floor baby!” At which point Lisa says to Nelson, “You’re making fun of him for something YOU made him do.”

Often this perspective is limited to the bully themselves. Other peers, adults, etc. in such situations typically see the subject of mockery as not inherently bad, shameful, or insulting. It is distressing, however, when others (non-bullies) around you treat that feature or behavior as genuinely shameful or inherently insulting. As a matter of speculation, people I interacted with at that time of my life may have felt awkward or like it was a very sensitive matter because of the reactions (real or imagined) of other boys and men being misgendered. Traditional masculinity is so fragile and so sexist that any implication of femininity is a grave insult. A classic insult is accusing someone of doing something “like a girl.”

So I, as a boy, was being treated as if I were at risk of exploding with rage upon being misgendered. That made me extremely uncomfortable, and it was confusing. It felt like there was something wrong with me– not for looking like a girl, but for being a boy. And I did have outbursts of strong emotions including anger as a child. I have long struggled with emotional dysregulation. I understood as a teenager what toxic masculinity looked like, and I didn’t want to be that. But if people expect me to feel angry or ashamed and then I do feel angry or ashamed, are their judgments about me being proven correct?

I spent much of my teen years and young adulthood privately terrified of being the monster I thought everyone else thought I was. I was wrong, and I no longer feel like an impostor, but like all cishet men in my generation, I developed certain schemas about gender and sexuality as a young person that continue to haunt me. Even though I don’t consciously believe sexist ideas, I may still at times act as if they were true. This is the difference between personal beliefs and learned schemas.

I imagine there are at least some other men who have had similar experiences. It can be shameful to be told that something you are doing is sexist, and it can prompt defensiveness. I think this “modern” male fragility is very much like the white fragility of middle-class liberals in the US. The conclusion is not “it’s not our fault, feel sorry for us,” it’s “regardless of fault, we have work to do.”

Shame loves secrecy. The most dangerous thing to do after a shaming experience is hide or bury our story. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.

Brené Brown