u/Cute-Individual69

My boyfriend and I live in central PA, Huntingdon/Mifflin County area, and we were wondering of some abandoned buildings and areas within this general area we could explore. We’ve already visited the old Turnpike.

I’m from a very small town in PA, and it actually has quite the history. I want to see if anyone can take a guess where I’m from based on it.

My town used to be very well-known for both brick and leather production. We had two big factories for both things, and we were known world-wide as “Bricktown, PA”. We had a major railroad system for transporting bricks which is now a historical hiking trail for tourists and natives, we used to have a hotel, movie theater, and sooo many more cool things here before we fell off the map, due to steal production becoming more popular, and more needed. The original streets here were built out of brick, and you can still find them under the pavement.

So, I wanna hear some cool things about the small towns y’all are from, and I wanna see if anyone can guess where I’m from!

Am I a bad person for not wanting to look at all of the violence and all of the missing people in our community because it makes my heartache and it makes me feel sick? I’m just so, so fucking tired of our people being a direct target for violence, and also being framed for being violent in the same breath.
My heart hurts for all of our trans siblings and I’m not straight up ignoring what’s happening, I’m still raising awareness on my socials, but a lot of times when I see repeated posts about one of our people getting hurt, I just scroll past because if I read too far into it and all of the details, I start spiraling.

I’m a newcomer to this subreddit, and I wanted to share one of my favorite, most positive experiences being openly transgender in high school.

For context, I’m a 21y/o FtM feminine presenting trans man (i didn’t get comfortable in my femininity again for a couple years, though), and I started slowly coming out in late 7th grade, to a few teachers in 8th grade, and then I was fully out by my freshman year.
When I came out in 7th grade, it was only to 1 class but one of the boys mentioned in the title was in that class. (I feel it’s relevant to mention that.)
Skip to my freshman year, we’re a few weeks to a month in the school year by this point. At lunch I had been sitting with the band kids, because they were really the only people that I knew and got along with, because my school is in a small town, red area, with a LOT of hardcore conservative rednecks.
One day at lunch, the same kid who was in that class I came out in in 7th grade, walks up to me and asks me to sit with him and his boys at lunch.
I look at him, look at everyone at his table, and see that it’s full of popular, cishet (except for one closeted gay boy), white stoner boys and one girl, and my first thought was, “This is absolutely a setup.” Still, I said, “Fuck it, we ball,” and decided to sit with them.
Long story short, those boys ended up being my biggest allies and best friends throughout the next couple of years of high school. They were the main reason I managed to get through it and stopped giving a fuck about the people who wouldn’t respect me, and they were the main people who would defend me when everyone else fucked up on my name and pronouns, and even though I’m not close with the main 2 boys who treated me like one of them and helped me get through a lot, they’re still very important to me and I will forever be grateful for their kindness and acceptance.