Why It Sucks to Be a Femboy — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00You wake up and the first  thing you do—before coffee,
2. 0:02before opening your eyes—is calculate risk.
3. 0:06Where am I going? Who will I see?
4. 0:08What's the likelihood someone will call me a  slur or decide my existence is a debate topic?
5. 0:13You're a femboy. The obstacle course is everyone.
6. 0:17You sit up. Stretch.
7. 0:19Look at your painted nails and  wonder what it would feel like to
8. 0:22exist without constant threat assessment. But you can't think about that too long.
9. 0:26You've got an outfit to engineer. You open your closet—Hot Topic meets Sanrio,
10. 0:32raised on spite. Thigh-highs?
11. 0:34Check. Skirt?
12. 0:36Obviously. Oversized hoodie to obscure your silhouette?
13. 0:40Check. But here's what people don't
14. 0:42understand: You're not choosing an outfit. You're constructing a defense system.
15. 0:46Every piece is a calculation: Skirt  short enough to feel like yourself,
16. 0:51long enough to not "invite" assault. Makeup authentic enough but subtle enough to
17. 0:57not get clocked from across a parking lot. And then there's the tucking.
18. 1:01You spend fifteen minutes in complicated  origami with your own genitals,
19. 1:06using medical tape that costs $18 a roll and rips  out body hair like a wax you didn't consent to.
20. 1:13You're taping your dick between your legs  with hospital-grade adhesive so the "feminine
21. 1:17silhouette" doesn't get ruined by anatomy. One wrong move and you're bleeding.
22. 1:22Or exposed. Or both.
23. 1:24You do your makeup like you're  preparing for psychological warfare.
24. 1:28Contour. Blend.
25. 1:29Shape your eyebrows with sniper precision. Your hand shakes because you know what's
26. 1:34waiting outside. Look in the mirror.
27. 1:37You look incredible. And you know—you absolutely know—that
28. 1:42looking incredible makes you a target. You leave the house.
29. 1:46The calculations intensify. Main street or back route?
30. 1:49Headphones in or out? You choose the main street because fuck them.
31. 1:54Half a block later: A car slows down. Window rolls down.
32. 1:58"YO! Are you a girl or a guy?" You keep walking.
33. 2:02"Hey! I'm talking to you!" You keep walking.
34. 2:05"Fucking f—" You turn the corner before the slur finishes.
35. 2:09Heart hammering. Hands shaking.
36. 2:12Face neutral. You've perfected the art
37. 2:14of looking confident while your nervous  system screams evacuation protocols.
38. 2:18You go into a store. Just to buy something.
39. 2:21Normal errands. The cashier looks up.
40. 2:24Their eyes do the scan. The what-am-I-looking-at scan.
41. 2:28Their mouth opens to say "sir" or "ma'am".  the algorithm in their brain is processing.
42. 2:33skirt (ma'am) + jawline (sir) + voice  (processing...) oh god... ERROR ERROR ERROR.
43. 2:41They abort mid-syllable. Their face does this micro-spasm of panic.
44. 2:46They've been trained to gender  everyone, but you're a system crash.
45. 2:49So they try again: "Hi,  how can I help you today?"
46. 2:53The "you" comes out weighted with  the effort of not guessing wrong.
47. 2:56You say "just this, thanks"  and hand them your card.
48. 3:00Now they have to hand it back. They have to say SOMETHING.
49. 3:03You watch them calculating in real-time again. They land on: "Have a nice day!"
50. 3:09No sir. No ma'am.
51. 3:10Just pure grammatical gymnastics to  avoid the question your existence poses.
52. 3:15You say thanks. You leave.
53. 3:17Outside, you breathe. That interaction happens fifteen times a day.
54. 3:21Coffee shops. Grocery stores.
55. 3:24Banks. Fifteen
56. 3:25strangers doing the sir-ma'am-system-error face  at you like you're a CAPTCHA they can't solve.
57. 3:31Fifteen little moments of watching  someone's brain short-circuit.
58. 3:35Fifteen reminders that your existence is a  fucking pop quiz everyone's afraid to fail.
59. 3:40And the worst part? The absolute worst part?
60. 3:43You've started playing the game too. You modulate your voice based on
61. 3:47who's working the counter. You adjust your posture.
62. 3:50You calculate: Is this a "sir"  store or a "ma'am" store?
63. 3:53What will get me through  this transaction fastest?
64. 3:57You've become fluent in reading  micro-expressions of gender panic.
65. 4:00The eye twitch that means they clocked you.
66. 4:03The vocal fry that means they're  overcompensating with friendliness.
67. 4:06You can predict what they'll  say before they say it.
68. 4:09And some days you just want to buy fucking  oat milk without being a philosophical crisis
69. 4:14for a teenage Target employee. You open your dating apps because
70. 4:17you hate yourself, apparently. Profile says "curious" = fetishist.
71. 4:22"Straight but..." = sexuality  crisis you'll manage.
72. 4:25Blank profile = married man's secret phase. You match with someone.
73. 4:29Art and hiking. No red flags.
74. 4:33Three messages in: "So what do you have? Like, downstairs?"
75. 4:37You're a configuration of body parts they're  categorizing before deciding if you're fuckable.
76. 4:42Another match: "I've never been with a guy  before but there's something about you..."
77. 4:47You're not a person. You're an experience.
78. 4:50A story they'll tell like that  time they tried escargot.
79. 4:53You close the apps. Open Instagram.
80. 4:56Other femboys posting photos. Some look untouchable, perfect, safe.
81. 5:01You know three of them personally. One got beaten so badly he
82. 5:05still has nerve damage. One can't go home for holidays.
83. 5:09One posts thirst traps between therapy sessions. Their Instagram looks flawless.
84. 5:14You perform invulnerability  while quietly drowning.
85. 5:16You post your own photo. The comments: "are you a boy
86. 5:20or girl lol" — "this is what's wrong  with Gen Z" — "I'd hit that no homo"
87. 5:25You need to track the threat level. You need to know if someone's
88. 5:28found your location. It's happened before.
89. 5:31You go to a queer event. Someone asks: "Why don't you just transition?"
90. 5:35As if your gender is a half-finished project. Later, someone says you're "reinforcing
91. 5:41gender stereotypes." You can't exist without being
92. 5:44everyone's philosophical problem. You walk home in the dark.
93. 5:47Lit streets. Fast pace.
94. 5:50Keys between fingers. Because you know the statistics.
95. 5:54You know femboys get targeted. The ones who got followed home.
96. 5:57Cornered. Corrected by men who
97. 5:59decided their existence was a personal insult. You know about the "gay panic" defense—still
98. 6:05legal in some states—where a man can claim he was  so surprised by you that he had to assault you.
99. 6:12Your fault for confusing him. You make it home.
100. 6:15Lock the door. Three locks.
101. 6:18Check them twice. You peel off the clothes.
102. 6:21Remove the makeup. Unstick the medical tape, wincing.
103. 6:25Red marks. Irritation.
104. 6:27You in the mirror—bare, exhausted. You'll do this again tomorrow.
105. 6:31And the day after. And every day after.
106. 6:34Because this is who you are. And the world has made it a contact sport.
107. 6:40You see a younger femboy asking  for advice on coming out.
108. 6:43The comments: "Be yourself!" "It gets better!" You know the truth:
109. 6:47Some parents don't come around. Sometimes it just gets different.
110. 6:51Being yourself might cost him everything. But what are you supposed to say?
111. 6:56"Stay hidden"? So you say nothing.
112. 6:58You scroll past. You think about the ones who stopped.
113. 7:02Who put the skirts away. Who went back to pretending.
114. 7:05Some got tired. Some got hurt and couldn't
115. 7:07afford to get hurt again. You don't blame them.
116. 7:10Some days you think about stopping too. You lie in bed.
117. 7:14Set your alarm. Calculate tomorrow's risk.
118. 7:17Where will you go? Who will you see?
119. 7:19What's the likelihood someone will remind you  that you're not supposed to exist this way?
120. 7:24You close your eyes. And feel that familiar exhaustion
121. 7:27settle into your bones—an exhaustion  that isn't physical, but existential.
122. 7:33Because being a femboy isn't just a style choice.
123. 7:36It's a daily act of defiance against a world  that demands you pick a side and stay there.
124. 7:41It sucks to be a femboy—not because you're weak,  not because you're confused, not because you're
125. 7:47"doing it for attention"—but because the  world treats gender like a prison and you
126. 7:51showed up with bolt cutters wearing thigh-highs. And you live in that contradiction every day.
127. 7:57You survive in it. You endure it.
128. 7:59You carry it quietly. With no one watching.
129. 8:01And no one listening. And no rescue coming.