r/asktransgender • u/FX114 • 1d ago
Problems with "man"-spreading
I find it hard to keep my legs closed, and it sometimes makes me dysphoric. I don't know if it's something about my hips, my thick thighs, or the fact that I don't tuck, but it's genuinely uncomfortable to not sit with my legs in their natural, splayed position, and I know it doesn't look feminine at all. Plus, it's actually inconvenient in certain situations.
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u/ComplaintOwn9855 1d ago
I feel you, deeply.
As a pre-teen, I would naturally cross my legs when sitting because it felt natural. I also had a somewhat feminine gait. Afters years and years of little brats mocking me for it, I "unlearned" it because of peer pressure, and started manspreading and walking like a manly manbro.
And now I feel like an idiot because I have to relearn it all over again.
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u/HannahLemurson closeted boymoding transbian 💊May '24 1d ago
Hehe, something similar with me. Don't worry, the instincts will come back if you let them, just let the layers of imposed masculinity gradually peel away. It's a lot easier to do once you can stop worrying about threats to your masculinity.
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u/ComplaintOwn9855 1d ago
Thanks for the kind words.
I'm still a babytrans filled with doubts and fears and trying her hardest to work on her internalized transphobic prejudice, you have no idea how reassuring this kind of answer is <3
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u/Amaria77 1d ago
Ah jeez that reminds me of when I was in middle school in the late 1900s and my best friend had to literally sit down with me to teach me how to sit, walk, and even greet people as a boy. Still cis though.
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u/TropicalFish-8662 trans woman, HRT 05/2023 1d ago
I have the same problem, and I don't know the answer. I don't know how so many people (cis women, trans women, and even cis men) manage to cross their legs with one on top of the other. I don't know if it's due to me being a plus-sized girl? (Because I can't actually remember seeing any cis women who are big as me crossing their legs in that way, either.)
When I'm in my trans group, and we're sitting in a circle, everyone else is sitting in the appropriate way for their gender. The trans men are sort of slouched and sprawled out, and the trans women have their legs crossed, one over the other. And then I'm sitting more like how the men are sitting, than like how the other women are sitting. I at least try to cross my legs at the ankles, even though my knees are apart, because that makes it a little more feminine.
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u/Lanoree_b 1d ago
I have that issue too. Even the trans guys and enbies in my group can cross their legs like that, but I can’t.
My solution is to tuck the bent leg under the other one. I think it’s a bit more femme and definitely more comfortable than crossing my ankles.
I’ve also been doing hip and groin stretches to try to loosen up a bit. It’s helping, but I’m not there yet.
The issue with man spreading is that you haven’t trained those muscles. I found it difficult to maintain having my knees close at first too, but I kept at it and now it’s much easier.
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u/Kelrisaith 1d ago
Hip joint angles and joint flexibility mostly, I've been able to do that all my life, hell I can tuck my leg UNDERNEATH the other leg and hook my ankle around the opposite ankle doing it. I realize that's confusing as hell to read, I can cross my leg on top of the other and hook it around the back of the leg it's resting on, ending back on its original side with my toes touching the ground.
I'm hypermobile though, I can do things with my joints and spine that make other people uncomfortable, like bending my knees backwards and damn near bending 90 degrees backwards from a standing position. I can make my knees look like they've been beaten backwards with a sledgehammer with zero effort or discomfort.
I've also been overweight for a long time, working on it, but even at my heaviest around 300 pounds I could still cross my legs like that because my joints are extremely flexible and my hip joints connect in the right way to allow for it.
No HRT and a plethora of health issues, it's all down to genetics and how flexible you are. Which CAN actually be trained, I just have a headstart because of the hypermobility if I ever decide to do it and can more than likely go further than most if I do train it.
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u/AnxietyExtension7842 23h ago
I have that issue too. Leg crossed over ankle is most comfortable. I used to be able to cross my legs both sides when I was younger but now I can only cross my legs on the side. Learning keep them together is very difficult at 52!
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u/klackbryar 1d ago
I have the same issue but I've been forcing myself to for less spread and it gets easier. I think that you just gotta build the muscles to home them together. It also has l helps a bit to written my feet a bit.
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u/GenderfluidArthropod 1d ago
I crossed my legs from a really early age, had no idea why at the time but realised quite recently it just felt more natural. Practice will make it easier to become your default, but if it helps to tuck then you could try that to avoid discomfort.
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u/PandaStudio1413 Transgender-Asexual 1d ago
I use an elastic belt to keep my legs together, but I can get away with it easily since I’m disabled and it was literally prescribed to me.
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u/TheVelcroStrap 1d ago
I notice many cis women do not clasp their legs fully together, some keep them wide, I try to not jut me knees out too much, but don’t often make my knees touch, I can’t physically do that.
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u/LinkleLinkle She/Her/Hers 15h ago
Yeah, I've known plenty of cis women that sit with their legs spread wide out. Some clearly out of habit while others just don't have the thighs to be keeping them close together.
Also, I feel like 'manspreading' is one of those things that gets used so broadly that we forget the original intent behind the coining of the term. Which it's not meant to state that ONLY men spread their legs wide while sitting and ONLY women sit keeping their legs as closely together. The term was coined to point out cis men who grew up believing they're the center of the universe by virtue of being AMAB to the point where they either spread their legs out of a refusal to acknowledge other people exist who may need that space or explicitly do it as a power move to assert dominance.
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u/Spacegirl-Alyxia 1d ago
I wonder why that is. I have been sitting, sleeping even standing with crossed legs all my life. Way way before I came out to even myself other guys would mock me for it and even called my seating position the nut cracker seating position.
I didn’t mind and now after surgery nothing has changed in that regard - only no more itching when I had no foreskin. Now it’s all protected again :)
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u/LinkleLinkle She/Her/Hers 15h ago
What amazes me is how early this is ingrained in our psyche as gendered behavior. I remember the earliest moment of being criticized for how I cross my legs was in preschool. I was literally 4 or 5 when a classmate asked me why I sit like a girl. I remember when I said that boys sit like that, too, he just pointed out that boys aren't supposed to fully cross their legs like I did.
As an adult I look back on that memory and think how insane it was that a 4 or 5 year old would already have it ingrained that 'boys sit this way, girls sit that way, and Linkle is weird for not following that paradigm.'
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u/EGGINDENIALLOL 1d ago
For me it was just a matter of doing it tbh. I was sitting in church with my family one day years ago and realized it was super annoying when my brother spread himself out across the seat. So from then on I spent every Sunday holding my legs together for as long as I could lol. Eventually it just became my default
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u/CatoftheSaints23 1d ago
I find myself being hyper aware of this these days. When I find that I've unconsciously sat down and splayed my legs, I quickly put my legs back together. It's easier to remind myself to do this when I am wearing skirts. And even then it is not a worry about exposing myself as I always wear mid calf or longer skirts and tights underneath them. In doing so I am just doing my best to adopt a new sense of physicality, a new way of presenting myself to the world. I am not worrying about morality and less about what others might think of me. Rather, my thinking is more that I want to fit in and know that at this stage of my transgender journey it is more about mimicking long observed behaviors and developing the muscle memory that will allow me to seamlessly to be seen as, to be one with women. So much to learn! All the societal things that were me as a man I am doing my best to jettison, a tall order at 67! Love, Cat
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u/mothwhimsy Non Binary 1d ago
I don't think anyone really cares if your legs are slighty apart when you sit unless your underwear or genitals are being displayed by doing that. Which is why cis girls are trained to sit with legs pressed firmly together or crossed. It's a holdover from when everyone only wore skirts.
Man spreading is when a man takes up more space than allotted by spreading his legs more than he needs to, often touching the people next to him and forcing them to be smaller. If you're in only your seat and not the one next to you, you're not doing that
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u/Gadgetmouse12 1d ago
Tucking shouldn’t matter for your leg position if you are doing it right, though if you do tuck properly you can spread without showing.
The cross ability of your hips is directly related to your hip thigh fat distribution. People talk about it being a bone thing. It’s a fat thing. At 3 years my fat has moved from inner to outer thighs and I can cross fairly easily. Yoga hip stretching helps too.
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u/wizard-of-loneliness Non-Binary/Queerdo 1d ago
I'm afab so I don't personally have this issue, but I learned from The Princess Diaries that the most feminine way to cross your legs is actually one ankle behind the other, not one leg on top of the other.
I dunno if that actually helps but maybe it would be more comfortable?
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u/finallyfematfourty 1d ago
God this makes me so dysphoric too! I hate how no matter how hard I try, my legs just spread back to the default.
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u/Fast-Nose-4809 1d ago
I've never really manspread tbh. It blew my mind when I heard the phrase the first time because I always thought it was dudes being annoying.
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u/Xx_PxnkBxy_xX Homosexual-Transgender 22h ago
I'm a binary trans man and i used to cross my legs before coming out and stuff, but now i feel more natural to lay back with my legs sprawled in some way, i guess it depends on the person 🤷♂️
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u/AJbear1224 1d ago
I think a lot of it may originate from expectations of how a particular gender is expected to sit, and how that strengthens certain leg muscles over time. If you grow up always keeping your legs together, your adductor muscles with be stronger. If you are more used to splayed legs, your abductor muscles will be stronger. Learning to switch to a less common sitting position may require some getting used to until the related muscles adapt.