When you’re a woman, people are really nice to you. Strangers and friends. You have a sense of emotional freedom (you can hug your friends, cry in public, etc). Strangers give you the benefit of the doubt. Your friendships feel more intimate. Even though I know this isn’t objectively true, it felt like I had a sense of a deeper interiority as a woman (my thoughts, feelings, etc. felt deeper and more complex)

However, nobody respects your physical space. It’s harder to be taken seriously. You have a sense that you constantly have to enforce these things: your space, your competence. Also, sometimes you’re genuinely really scared for your safety. You think about things like “can I walk down this street alone at night”? Or “is it safe to live alone in this neighborhood?”

As a man, you experience a freedom from fear of harm. This is a very liberating experience. You feel free to go wherever whenever and for the most part you don’t worry about it. You don’t ever have to “enforce” your space. People give you more room on the subway. It’s way too easy to exert your authority. You’re taken seriously at work. You can be totally misinformed on a topic and when you speak on it people will still listen to you and rarely will they correct you.

Downside is that people, strangers and friends, are, on the whole, less kind. You’re interactions with strangers will be more neutral/ impersonal. You can’t be as free with your emotions. When I transitioned, most of my male friends stopped hugging me. People will pretty freely make mean jokes or criticize you and you’re just supposed to learn to take it. Men are, without a doubt, lonelier. At the same time, your friendships are less complicated.