Credit: SWNS
A trans man claims he "gained privilege" after transitioning and is treated better now than when he lived as a woman - despite "daily transphobic online comments".
A trans man claims he "gained privilege" after transitioning and is treated better now than when he lived as a woman - despite "daily transphobic online comments".
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00:00 There were a lot of things that I noticed about living a man versus living 21 years
00:03 of my life being perceived as a woman.
00:06 Society ultimately treated me better because people were reading me as a young, white,
00:11 straight, cis man instead of a woman.
00:15 My name is Samuel Avery Jardina.
00:24 I am a trans man and I'm just here sharing my story with you all.
00:28 I actually grew up a majority of my life thinking I was a cis, straight female.
00:33 I ended up taking a gender and sexuality course, which I learned a lot from.
00:37 I started looking at YouTube videos online and through social media I realized a lot
00:43 about myself.
00:45 And that's when I officially came out as transgender in April of 2020.
00:56 So there were a lot of things that I noticed about living a man versus living 21 years
01:00 of my life being perceived as a woman.
01:03 Once I started passing, I immediately was treated differently.
01:06 Society ultimately treated me better because people were reading me as a young, white,
01:11 straight, cis man instead of a woman.
01:15 And the difference is for me, I recognize that privilege that I have in society now.
01:20 Prior to coming out, I forced femininity on myself so much that I dressed a lot more feminine.
01:25 I wore dresses, I did my makeup, I had my hair down.
01:29 So I experienced a lot of sexism from men who looked at me like an object.
01:33 Like at bars, they couldn't even keep their hands to themselves.
01:36 They would make degrading comments about my body.
01:39 And for me, it was a lot harder at the time because that was a body I didn't want to be in.
01:46 Having comments being made about that made me feel even more disgusted with how I was living.
01:54 And now it's so entirely different being out around men and it's like they treat me with respect.
02:02 And I've never gotten that before.
02:05 It's very, very weird, to say the least.
02:11 And it's sad, honestly, to know that that's still happening to girls.
02:15 I mean, it's not like that hasn't stopped.
02:18 I'll have a man, like they assume that I can help them with everything.
02:22 They never used to.
02:23 They just thought, "Oh, you're a woman, you can't help me."
02:27 So I try my best to make other women feel a lot more comfortable around me now that
02:32 I do present as a man.
02:35 The feeling of confidence is very, very different.
02:39 I've never felt confidence like this before, especially comparing it to dressing up in
02:45 a dress back in the day when I thought I looked beautiful and I was like, "Yeah, this is how
02:48 I'm supposed to look."
02:49 But now if I'm dressed up in a suit, this is how I want to look.
02:53 [music]
02:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]