I’ve read a lot of accounts from transmen who talked about how differently they were treated pre-transition (as a woman) and post-transition (passing as a man), but the one account that always sticks out is Ben Barres, who was a neuroscientist at MIT:

Barres described experiences of gender discrimination in MIT. After solving a difficult math problem that stumped many male students, his professor charged that it was solved for him by a boyfriend. He was the top student in the class, but found it hard to get a willing supervisor for research. He lost a scholarship to a man who had only one publication, while he already had six. While earning a PhD at Harvard, he was told that he was to win a scientific competition, which was evidently between him and one man; the Dean confided to him, “I have read both applications, and it’s going to be you; your application is so much better.” But the award was given to the man, who dropped out of science a year later.

After transitioning, he noticed that people who were not aware of his transgender status treated him with respect much more than when he presented as a woman. After delivering his first seminar as a man, one scientist was overheard to comment, “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but his work is much better than his sister’s [believing Barbara to be his sister] work.” In 2012, he recollected the events of his sex change as:



“When I decided to change sex 15 years ago I didn’t have role models to point to. I thought that I had to decide between identify and career. I changed sex thinking my career might be over. The alternative choice I seriously contemplated at the time was suicide, as I could not go on as Barbara.”

Barres was critical of economist Lawrence Summers and others who have claimed that one reason there are fewer women than men in science and engineering professorships might be that fewer women than men had the very high levels of “intrinsic aptitude” that such jobs required. He speaks and writes openly about being a trans man and his experiences transitioning gender identity in 1997, and his experiences of being treated differently as a female scientist versus a male scientist. Barres directed a series of “open questions” to Steven Pinker and Harvey Mansfield in a formal address at Harvard, challenging the data supporting their arguments.

