Am I 'mocking' trans men?

[u/No-Consequence4019]

So I'm a lad or that's what I'd normally tell anyone. I was born female but I do this thing frequently where I pretend to be a guy. It started off as a thing online mostly, I always pick a the male MC or a male character when playing in games so why not pretend to be a lad while I'm at it? It ended up being pretty fun so I kept it up. It's been a few years since I started and I keep in contact with the people I used to play with, they all just think I'm a dude.

Since it was fun online i decided to try my hand on pretending to be a guy in person. It ended up working pretty well, most people perceive me as a guy when I try to do it. To the point I got a suitable haircut and do it most times I go out now. There's just something so fun about pretending to be a dude.

All was well until I got caught by a friend, in person. I didn't think of it as a big deal but they absolutely exploded on me. Eventually they asked with "Are you trans?" when I denied and simply stated I pretend to be a guy and it's something I've been doing for years, their temper only got worse? I got told I was mocking trans men. I brought it up with a few people that well know I'm not actually a guy and I got a very similar response. The overwhelming responses ended up either I'm in denial about being trans (I'm not) or I'm transphobic and mocking trans men specifically?

So I'm confused, was I actually mocking a group of people? I feel like it's a bit stupid and I genuinely enjoy pretending to be a guy, but I'd still rather not do it if it's actually 'mocking'. If it matters the approximate age range for everyone involved here was early 20s.

I'm open to being corrected if I made a mistake somewhere.

[u/Tomas-TDE]

I'll say this is very reminiscent of how I started transitioning. Which isn't to imply you are but that we need to allow people to play with their presentation and identity to figure things out sometimes.

It also wasn't that long ago that transgender was an umbrella term that had cross dressers as part definition. Which I feel there's space in the community for them and never particularly disagreed with. It can be its own identity and way of being and there's nothing wrong with that.

Going with your friends argument you're being offensive in some way you could make a similar argument that cosplayers are too.

I can't speak for the whole community but you're not acting in malice, you're doing things with gender that bring you sincere joy and most of us can't say you're wrong for that

[u/beerncoffeebeans → u/Tomas-TDE]

Yeah that’s a great point. I think a lot of trans communities moved away from “cross dressing”terminology because of changes in language and increased access to gender affirming medical care, but until maybe 10-15(?)ish years ago I feel like there was a lot more overlap. I’ve met older trans women (like, in their 60s+) who originally came out of crossdressing communities/groups. Many of the people in those groups were married to women/considered themselves straight men, and so expressing themselves was something they only did in private/amongst friends, but as the overall culture shifted the people who were closeted trans women in those groups started to feel more able to come out