u/AutisticClown1

I (29 y.o.) was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. I have always known I was a boy. Even though I was born a girl. The first time I remember thinking of myself as a boy is when I was 4 years old. This feeling has never left me. From 14 y.o to 17 I looked very androgynous and wore unisex clothes, so I was passing as a cis boy. All our neighbours thought my parents had a son. Whenever gendered as He in front of my parents, I had to awkwardly correct strangers and pretend to look disappointed. Many girls at school had a massive crush on me. My friends were calling me He, I had a different name I was using. I had a social media profile where I was posting as a guy who liked American alt rock, I built my own community based on that interest. I was lowkey popular, people thought me handsome. I had a cute girlfriend, we were in the same class, she loved me a lot, and we had sex all the time. \*But\* I was always afraid of what it would be like if people found out. And I was also more into boys. But no boy would want me the way I were (another boy). I had to “grow up” and try to fit in. I dated men but they abused me. As much as I tried to look like a proper girl I never fully succeeded and the attempts were making me miserable. People in Russia bullied me for looking masc, others who didn’t thought me a freak or mentally ill, very few actually accepted me.
Years passed and I fulfilled my dream and moved to Europe, to Berlin. But the fear of being different and not being understood was still taking over the way I behaved, I still looked very androgynous but would try to make sure everyone thought of me as a girl with a masc style.
I’ve lived in Berlin for 5 years. And I know I can be openly non-binary or trans. I can get a top surgery and finally not have tits on top of my masculine physique with abs which I’m very proud of. All the guys who wanna date me are bi anyway.

My parents are still in Russia. They don’t speak English. I never go to Russia because it’s not safe for me as I had stated my political opinion very publicly in the past, and I have a friend who’s a russian fugitive, so I could be interrogated or detained if I cross the border, and this could harm me or my friend or both. I’m not in touch with my family except for my mum. We have video calls regularly and we meet in other countries once a year or two. She is very liberal for a Russian. I tell her everything. Except for well, me being trans.

Two days ago I decided to stop living in the closet and start living as they/he and never have to pretend to be in any way feminine against my will again. I’m very close with my mum so I couldn’t keep it a secret without getting distant with her. I video called her and came out. She reacted very negatively even though I don’t even have plans on doing HRT. She stated saying that she’s afraid it’s a sign of mental illness and it’s gonna get worse and worse until my delusions will take over my life to the point where I will completely lose my consciousness. I went over everything and explained to her that it’s not that, and also assured her I won’t do top surgery without talking through this with a therapist for months before booking the surgery. We talked for the entire night till 7am in the morning. She seemed to understand and volunteered to help me pick a new name, she said she’d start calling me my new name choices so I could see which one feels right. But she was still misgendering me the entire time, in russian all verbs subject of which are a person, have gender. So every other sentence has gendered verbs aimed towards me and they’re all “she”.

Next day I checked on her to see how she was doing, she said she’d had a question, I offered to jump on a call. The question was that she’s afraid that it’s a mental illness sign, that something started and I can’t tell but it’s gonna get worse. We were back to the starting point. I got angry because I hadn’t slept all night explaining everything and apparently she wasn’t listening while pretending everything was fine. She started sobbing. She told me that she has severe depression (I really didn’t know, she always looked fine in the calls…), and that she misses me but I keep getting further and further away, and now there’s not even my name left, nothing… and she started saying how sometimes she doesn’t even know why she’s sad, but she just wants to jump out of the window. I told her to seek psychiatric help but she’s afraid they’ll report to her job and she’ll get fired and will never find another job (it’s fucking Russia, not sure if that’s true but it could be). She’s saying that now I’m not alright and she knows I’m so miserable and I’ll only get more miserable (I’m actually not, I have a nice life). She went on and I’m afraid for her, I didn’t know she was unhappy and unstable otherwise I wouldn’t have come out to her. I obviously really rattled her, I’m really worried, I’m so far away in another country and I can’t check on her and I can’t help. Also ngl she did make me feel like a freak even though I know it’s not true. The whole thing is so messed up. Later she told me not to worry about her but I obviously worry, I’m scared shitless. And I feel so so guilty. But I just wanted to feel whole again like I did in my teens. I just wanted to stop pretending, there’s no point to pretend, I’m in Berlin, I’ve lived here for so long I barely remember what it was like in Russia outside of blurred memories and nasty flashbacks.

UPD: 20:00 at Pawn Dot Com Bar (Torstr. 164).

Hey, It’s my Birthday today (I’m in my 20s), I finally wanna come out and live my life freely as myself, but I know that my “friends” wouldn’t really accept it. So I don’t want to invite them and thought it would be amazing for me to have a small coming out party in a safe space of supportive strangers. Let me know if you could come, it would mean the world to me if we could make this happen!

Hey everyone! It’s a very exciting time for me, I’m moving to the UK and I can finally change my gibberish of a first name to something that I like.

For the past 5 years people have mostly called me Kate (which isn’t my legal name), and I like it buuuut. I’m trans masc, living as non-binary so why keep a girls name if I’m changing it anyway and starting a new life.

So I need some cool name that sounds good with my last name (Ellis) and that will sound like a unisex name for people in the UK. I don’t want a predominantly male name because I haven’t come out as trans masc so it’d make a lot of everyday situations awkward for me.

Pleeease share some options 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Hi Reddit. A throwaway account because this is obviously private. I haven’t even shared this with my best friend, because of how disgusting that makes me feel. I’m 29F.

Sorry for how long this is but please bare with me, I just want to paint the full picture so you guys can be objective. I’ll do my best to make this engaging.

I’m on the autistic spectrum. How that affects my behaviour:

1. I often just say what I think
2. The way I learned to interact with people without them cringing or getting offended is by carefully observing their reactions and tailoring my behaviour in a way that most of the reactions are very positive.
3. I still say what I think. But I say it in a way that is most likely to get a positive reaction from the person on the receiving end.
4. I hate being different, I just want to fit in. Joking is a good way to make people like you. It took many years but I got consistently good at it and even grew to like it.
5. Yes, I’m a blunt people pleasing clown. What a combo!

So, one month ago I started taking video lessons with this tutor twice a week. It was going ok, I like the subject but the exercises in the lessons are gruelling, so I subconsciously would get distracted all the time. I’m a bit like a kid in that sense. I know I’m an adult and if I’m in the lesson I should be learning but I really hate those exercises, I’m not sure if they’re helpful but I prefer giving teachers space and just trusting their process. But yeah, I get distracted and make a jokes to make the lesson more bearable for me.

Because of my neurodivergence and my remote work, I rarely talk to people as I enjoy spending time alone and prefer that over hanging. When someone wants to tag along on my favourite activities I usually decline. I can spend weeks without talking to anyone and it feels good. But apparently humans are social animals and deep down I’m incredibly lonely, as I do seem to be very chatty when placed in social situations (including lessons) as I have a lot of unused social energy.

I’ve only been taking these lessons for 1 month and for that month the tutor was the only person I talked to, lessons are 50min twice a week. He’d always stay in the call 10-20 minutes after the lesson just to chat with me, at first it was just random fully appropriate convo topics like music, literature, languages, etc, so I was onboard with it. I’m well educated and a chronic people pleaser so I can sustain engaging conversations on various topics. I tend to laugh a lot, I’m just like that, everything is a joke to me. I also think that it’s probably one of not many emotions I actually know how to show without causing negative reactions from people. I wonder if that was misinterpreted. Also info: the lessons are for English accent improvement (mine is very neutral and all over the place but I’m curios to learn British accent). The tutor is British, so I considered engaging in extra conversations being very useful as well, and that’s why I was happy to chat on unrelated topics.

It was all going great. Until it wasn’t. First thing that happened was on the third lesson or so - he was reading the lecture quickly and misspoke by almost saying “sexual” instead of sensual. Like a properly immature kid in a classroom I quietly sniggered while he stopped mid word looking mortified. I thought he’d just say the correct word instead and move on but instead he corrected himself again saying “obviously I misspoke, not SEXUAL, but sensual. I know how mortifying it is to accidentally say something like that in a totally inappropriate setting especially when it’s a lesson and you’re a teacher. I was a bit uncomfortable that he gave this more attention than it deserves, but since I was the one who sniggered at that, I didn’t want him to feel bad about it so I just said “it’s okay, I know that wasn’t the word you meant, it was just funny obviously, please continue what you were saying”. I tried to make myself look very chill about this so as to not make this more embarrassing than it already is. But a part of me was afraid that by giving this a seemingly positive reaction, I might’ve just invited sex jokes into the lessons.

I’m 30 next year but I somehow look younger and in the UK I can’t go to any bar or buy alcohol without being firmly asked to show my id. The tutor looks 60-65. And me, well, people usually think I’m 24. Older people think I’m 19-21. And well, while I’m obviously an adult person, I do kinda feel like a kid when talking to much older people as if I’m actually 19-24. So ngl it still felt unpleasantly awkward to hear him saying that word. But I grounded myself, and thought that well, the tutor is clearly an intelligent well-mannered man, he surely sees me as a kid, and understands that sex jokes would be fucking weird, so I have nothing to worry about. I also don’t perceive myself as attractive for cis straight men, because I look very boyish: cut my hair very short, dress in men’s clothes, very flat chested, muscular androgynous physique with visible abs and also act a bit like a guy. I never felt like a woman. I also think that my face is weird. But that could be a self-perception issue, since many attractive straight men told me that I’m very hot. I also have plenty of attention from gay men trying to match with me on Hinge, they’re probably thinking that I’m a twink since the gender is set to “non-binary”. Anyway, somehow I was 100% sure that I was safe and a straight married old fart who’s more than twice my age wouldn’t even perceive me as an object of possible sexual interest. Right? - Wrong.

In the next lesson he said something that deeply offended me, it will be important later. He gave me a semi-nationalistic “advice” and when I brushed it off, he kept pushing that I should follow it until I got so pissed I couldn’t even speak. I thought I couldn’t come back from this. I searched for other tutors but couldn’t find anyone competent for a similar price. I decided to write to him explaining how that came off and hoping he was just a boomer and didn’t understand. He explained how he didn’t mean it that way and I found the strength to let it go. I am an immigrant from a third-world country, and you can imagine how this stung. I moved to Berlin 5 years ago.

Soon after that I made another grave mistake. As always, the lesson didn’t end on time and just naturally transitioned into a conversation. I’m moving from Berlin to the UK and I mentioned that I’m really looking forward to it and said something like “as much as I like Berlin, there’re certain things that I never learned to appreciate, like the clubbing culture. The most popular clubs can get really crazy and I’m just not into that but it’s omnipresent and lots of people go there every weekend, so being not into that is lowkey considered lame. I haven’t even been to any famous club yet.” He asks me “Crazy? Do you mean drugs?”. I reply saying that “Well, that too, but that’s ok, drugs are not the reason, that’s not what I meant. I’m sure you well know what Berlin’s night life is famous for…” he made a confused look and said he had no idea what that was. Again, I am on the spectrum, so if someone asks a question I just answer. It felt a bit weird but I said it anyway “well… I mean… every famous club in Berlin has a room where people have sex and in some clubs it’s allowed to just have sex everywhere and people do that eagerly.“ He says “And how do you know this if you’ve never been to those clubs?” I say “Most of the people I know went to some of them multiple times and I heard many stories from them, it’s common knowledge here”
He: “I see. But don’t you find it freeing? Coming from your conservative culture”
Me: “I I’m shy about these things and it makes me really uncomfortable, so I’m sad that here it’s as normal as going to a bar and I’m viewed as a weirdo for not doing it.”
Him: “You don’t strike me as shy.”
Me: “That’s a false impression. And things that people do there sometimes are quite extreme and bizarre, and I don’t like that going to places like kitkat has become a part of what people here think every normal person should do, even my coworkers talk about how they go to kitkat. It’s not the most extreme of places but even that makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t know why in this city it’s not valid to feel this way.”
He: “Oh let me google that, and I do think you should go and see that for yourself before you move away. You don’t have to participate.”
That’s what everyone I know says because that’s our reality in Berlin so without thinking I just started making excuses to explain why this is not something I should experience. Me: “They don’t let people in unless you are dressed APPROPRIATELY which is also why I’m not comfortable with that”
Him: “Appropriately? Do you mean kinky?”
Me: “uhm yeah”
At this point I was already feeling so uncomfortable from this conversation that I don’t remember what he said next, I just went very quiet and he politely ended the call.
Why did I not stop this while he was poking? - I don’t know, I guess as much as this was uncomfortable, I just really wanted to complain, I hoped that a person from a different country would understand how upsetting this is. I should’ve cut this right after he started asking but I was oblivious, I froze. And I didn’t know how to react, all my social interactions are just me trying to act how I think I’m expected to act and make sure I’m not upsetting anyone and being polite. I think I was also nervously laughing during that convo as a coping mechanism just to help myself get through it. But afterwards I did think that I shouldn’t have talked about it, shouldn’t have answered.

Some other time before or after that he absolutely randomly told me that when he was younger he was posing as a naked model for drawings. As much as it sickened me to be forced to picture the old fart naked, I tried to stay polite and brush it off with a joke “why? were you jacked?” he said “no” and I immediately turned the convo to sports saying that I’m kinda jacked and that I look forward to the gyms in the UK.

After that It got even worse. Remember that situation when he made a nationality related comment that really offended me and that I had to speak up? He later referred to this situation as “our first big fight” while smirking. I let it slide, I hate making a scene. But I was like WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. It sounded as if in his perspective we had some relationship outside of lessons. Mind you, we don’t interact between the lessons even though he keeps insisting I write questions to him or anything because he likes when students write to him, but I never do. I never do. I thought back to all earlier interactions and started seeing more subtle hints as well, in his smirking, the tone of voice, etc. And I was mortified and sick to the stomach, like… does he think I was flirting with him? Or what? Wtf… If he did think I was flirting, how would he even justify this to himself? I’m 35 years younger than him and not hideous. Why would he assume me being into him was even a possibility? Because I laugh? Because I don’t mind staying longer and talking? The mere thought of that made me wanna gag. I tried to ground myself, I could be just spiralling and overthinking it, and probably he doesn’t think that about me. And even if he was, I blamed myself and my neurodivergence. I always tend to blame myself if there’s a misunderstanding. But I’ve never had situations like that before with any other teachers neither men nor women even though I was funny and friendly with them too. It was also common for some other teachers to stay 10-15min after the lesson to have a friendly chat or relax before their next lesson. I never thought it was bad or wrong. But maybe it is.

So, I went to the next video lesson with this tutor in again. Why? I thought I’d just try to smile less and this would go away. I wish I didn’t. It was okay until there was the exercise, where he said it would help me if I gesticulate. I said I was, but my hands were on my lap and the camera was aimed at my face. He asked me to place the hands where he could see them. I tried that but I had an upper body workout shortly before the lesson. Part of the workout was 100 pull ups (multiple sets but still quite a lot) and it was only the first 25 min of the 2.5h long workout… it’s normal for me, I train a lot but raising hands at that moment made me feel sore and tired. It’s not a fucking music lesson, gesticulating is not related to the subject. So I refused and told the truth “I can’t, I was working out earlier today, I literally did a hundred pull ups today so my arms are sore and I just want to have a lesson in peace”. He said “then turn the camera the way that I can see your hands” mind you, as I told him earlier my hands were on my lap and the camera was very close since I was using a laptop. But I’m an idiot so I obediently started tilting the camera downwards but when my head was already out of the view, my hands were still not visible, I cringed before I could give the feeling a name so I hastily returned the camera to the original position saying “No, no, no, this just feels WRONG, I’m sorry, I’m not gonna do it”. He roared with laughter, and due to the intensity of the reaction and the tone of the laughter, I immediately realised that it could only be something immensely inappropriate. So I put two and two together and realised that he thought my reaction was a virt sex reference/joke. I was mortified. For a fraction of a second my brain exploded with visualisations, I immediately made myself think of something else but that didn’t help very much and my brain was just screaming “NO NO NO NO NO”, I wanted to fucking disappear. But all I managed to say was a nervous “this wasn’t at all what I meant” I didn’t know how to react, so I just sat there, made myself unfreeze and just acted like nothing happened. I guess I coped by thinking that the joke would indeed had been funny if that weren’t a lesson and a man laughing were a good friend of mine and a peer. But that was a lesson and the old fart was neither my friend nor my peer. I didn’t even know him, I only had 7 lessons in 4 weeks time.
I know I absolutely can’t continue this even if I never find another tutor for this budget. I think back to the way he was smiling during the last couple lessons and the words he’d choose to address and describe me, and it just makes me feel like I’m covered in slime. I feel like a fool for only seeing this now. Whether it’s my fault or not I can’t continue this. But I can’t stop thinking: is it my fault? Is it something I did?