{"id":23935,"date":"2023-05-03T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T16:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23935"},"modified":"2023-05-02T11:14:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T18:14:47","slug":"open-space-terms-fem-presenting-and-masc-presenting-need-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/05\/03\/open-space-terms-fem-presenting-and-masc-presenting-need-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Terms \u201cfem-presenting\u201d and \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d need to go"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often hear people use the phrasing of \u201cfem-presenting\u201d or \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d as shorthand for women and feminine people or men and masculine people. However, this phrasing still tends to flatten gender to one of two categories, while also being insensitive to the way non-cis people are treated based on how they are perceived, regardless of their identity.<\/p>\n

Firstly, using \u201cfem-presenting\u201d to describe women and feminine people puts all women and all feminine people in the same category. In theory, this would include all women (feminine, masculine, butch, trans, and androgynous women) as well as all feminine nonbinary people. But where does this leave masculine women? Are they \u201cfem-presenting\u201d simply because they are women, or are they \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d because they don\u2019t perform femininity?<\/p>\n

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This story originally appeared in our May 3, 2023 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Similarly, \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d would include all men (masculine, feminine, trans, and androgynous men), as well as all masculine nonbinary people. Are feminine men \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d because they are men, or does their femininity count as \u201cfem-presenting\u201d?<\/p>\n

As much as I understand and love broad terms, this case should be an exception. The terms \u201cfem-presenting\u201d and \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d suggest homogeny in how these groups present, how they are perceived, and how they experience that perception. However, such a wide range of people cannot possibly all be perceived in the same ways.<\/p>\n

For example, a feminine cis man and a masculine trans man are both arguably \u201cmasc-presenting.\u201d However, the cis man is much less likely to be interrogated about which washroom he uses. How either of them presents is irrelevant; how they are perceived (often how well one can pass) is what matters.<\/p>\n

When talking about trans peoples\u2019 lived experience, how one is perceived certainly can be influenced by how one presents, but not always. For example, a trans guy can take hormones, dress masculinely, change his name, do all the traditional steps of transition (although medical transition may not be a goal for all trans folk). None of those steps guarantee that he\u2019ll pass as a cis man in every scenario. Lumping him in with cis men as \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d assumes that he\u2019ll have the same level of privilege afforded to cis men, which is just untrue.<\/p>\n

Not only are different \u201cfem\/masc-presenting\u201d people perceived differently within the same group, but many people are perceived differently day to day. A trans guy with long hair may bind one day and be perceived as a feminine man, then not bind the next day and be perceived as a masculine woman. Should he count himself as \u201cfem-presenting\u201d or \u201cmasc-presenting,\u201d or should it change with his appearance (or perceived presentation)?<\/p>\n

The terms \u201cfem-presenting\u201d and \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d just replicate the gender binary\u2014I\u2019ve never heard anyone say \u201candrogynous-presenting.\u201d That\u2019s not to say there aren\u2019t androgynous people: there are, but they are often forced to choose a side (or a side is chosen for them).<\/p>\n

If these categories have so much diversity within them, and arguably more overlap than consistency between categories, are these terms more harmful than helpful? To me at least, they seem to be just more politically correct ways of saying you think someone is mostly a woman or mostly a man, regardless of their identity or lived experience.<\/p>\n

The terms \u201cfem-presenting\u201d and \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d just aren\u2019t useful. These terms, which allegedly promote inclusion, ultimately reinforce the gender binary and create more confusion than clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often hear people use the phrasing of \u201cfem-presenting\u201d or \u201cmasc-presenting\u201d as shorthand for women and feminine people or men and masculine people. However, this phrasing still tends to flatten gender to one of two categories, while also being insensitive to the way non-cis people are treated based on how they are perceived, regardless of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-may-3-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23936,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23935\/revisions\/23936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}