"I'm a trans man but I experienced more discrimination as a woman - I've gained privilege"
Credit: SWNS / Samuel Giardina
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".
Samuel Giardina, 24, came out as transgender in 2020 aged 21 - after previously thinking he was a bisexual female.
He came out to his family and close friends, started testosterone, cut off his long hair, changed his name - from Samantha - and adopted male pronouns.
He had top surgery so he could finally bin the chest binders - and he has never looked back.
Samuel says an unexpected part of his transition is he "gained male privilege" -compared to when he was still living as a woman.
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".
Samuel Giardina, 24, came out as transgender in 2020 aged 21 - after previously thinking he was a bisexual female.
He came out to his family and close friends, started testosterone, cut off his long hair, changed his name - from Samantha - and adopted male pronouns.
He had top surgery so he could finally bin the chest binders - and he has never looked back.
Samuel says an unexpected part of his transition is he "gained male privilege" -compared to when he was still living as a woman.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There were a lot of things that I noticed about living a man versus living 21 years of my life being perceived as a woman.
00:06Society ultimately treated me better because people were reading me as a young, white, straight, cis man
00:14instead of a woman.
00:22My name is Samuel Avery Jardina. I am a trans man and I'm just here sharing my story with you.
00:28I actually grew up a majority of my life thinking I was a cis, straight female.
00:33I ended up taking a gender and sexuality course, which I learned a lot from.
00:38I started looking at YouTube videos online and through social media. I realized a lot about myself
00:45and that's when I officially came out as transgender in April of 2020.
00:50So there were a lot of things that I noticed about living a man versus living 21 years of my life being perceived as a woman.
00:56Once I started passing, I immediately was treated differently.
01:00Society ultimately treated me better because people were reading me as a young, white, straight, cis man instead of a woman.
01:09And the difference is for me, I recognize that privilege that I have in society.
01:13Prior to coming out, I forced femininity on myself so much that I dressed a lot more feminine. I wore dresses, I did my makeup, I had my hair down.
01:20And so I experienced a lot of sexism from men who looked at me like an object, like at bars,
01:25they couldn't even keep their hands to themselves. They would make degrading comments about my body.
01:30And for me, it was a lot harder at the time because
01:34I was a woman.
01:37I was a woman.
01:39And for me, it was a lot harder at the time because
01:43that was a body I didn't want to be in.
01:46Having comments being made about that, it
01:50made me feel even more disgusted with like how I was living. And now it's
01:56it's so entirely different being out around men and it's like they treat me with respect and I've never gotten that before.
02:05It's very, very weird to say the least.
02:10And it's sad, honestly, to know that that's still happening to girls. I mean, it's not like that hasn't stopped.
02:18I'll have a man like they assume that I can help them with everything. They never used to. They just thought, oh, you're a woman,
02:25you can't help me.
02:27So I try my best to make other women feel a lot more comfortable around me now that I do present as a man.
02:35The feeling of confidence is very, very different.
02:39I've never felt confidence like this before, especially comparing it to
02:45dressing up in a dress back in the day when I thought I looked beautiful and I was like, yeah,
02:48this is how I'm supposed to look. But now if I'm dressed up in a suit,
02:52this is how I want to look.