u/Moss-Lark

I was at an event recently where I meet a lot of new people and there was this one girl in particular I noticed cause she was really pretty and had a bubbly extroverted personality which I’m drawn to in general. When making friends there’s normally a thought in the back of my mind “what if I end up liking them?” cause I’ve been single forever and I’m dying to experience a romantic relationship, but it’s usually not something I think upon first impression yet I did this time. Maybe I was going into it thinking I might potentially meet a future partner, but I noticed her more than anyone else probably because of her looks and I know I get along with that personality type. It sounds like attraction on paper, but I don’t think I actually felt anything beyond curiosity which I have for anyone I’ve just met. Idk I’m confused what constitutes romantic attraction since it’s often equated with crushing and I do know it’s not a crush or I would have been at least been a little flustered. I know there’s obviously aesthetic attraction there, and no sexual attraction, but romantic? I don’t know…

I’m a fashion student and I started an internship today helping with costume design for a big local theatre. It was first day of rehearsals so everyone was introducing themselves and a couple people introduced themselves with they/them pronouns. It’s clearly a very accepting environment yet I still felt too scared to state my pronouns too. I’m not really out in general because of my paranoia of my parents somehow finding out, but theres actually no possibility of that happening here. I was just scared they somehow wouldn’t accept me. Maybe because I’m too masculine? I don’t really like that I preemptively judged them like they think masculinity is bad. They probably don’t, but I often don’t fit in with other queer people because they’re the flamboyant types and well… theatre. Then again I don’t have the biggest sample size. The play they’re putting on is literally Cabaret. I’m being ridiculous. If this was high school I would have jumped at the opportunity to use my chosen name and pronouns.

Basically I just had this depressing realisation that I’m not as proud and brave as I used to be and the current state of the world just terrifies me. I feel sick. Idk if I’ll ever feel secure enough to fully be myself. I’ve even stopped being open about my orientation cause I’m scared of making people uncomfortable ugh. I feel isolated all the time and I’m desperate to not give people reasons to ostracise me further, but it’s just making me close up and self isolate anyway.

I’m 23, my friend is 24. I don’t know how to approach this situation without coming off as ungrateful or something. He’s been giving me presents on Christmas and I think he thinks that’s enough? But I don’t see it that way. The first year, complete mistake a lot of shit was going on it was understandable. Second time he seemed genuinely sorry he forgot but didn’t get me anything til Christmas. This year I reminded him about it at the beginning of my birthday month cause I thought that would help he does genuinely have memory issues, and I specifically brought up how he forgot the last two years but maybe I didn’t sound serious enough.

He sent a birthday text but nothing else. My birthday was in April. Its July. He got me a present yesterday for a regional new years event but I don’t celebrate new years like, at all, ever. I only care about my birthday and Christmas honestly. And I was prepared to tell him that until the present turned out to be hand made and I felt like such a jerk I didn’t say anything. I’m guessing he was maybe working on it around my birthday and he was too busy to finish it in time… but I would have rather he just got me a substitute instead because being on time feels more important to me at this point. And it doesn’t have to be on the day I’d accept a week before or after.

I’ve been making excuses for him but then he does something that proves it wasn’t really an excuse. Money problems? While we were hanging out a couple weeks after my birthday he spontaneously bought a gift for someone else when there was literally no event coming up soon warranting one for them. Too busy? He went out his way this new years to come over after working over time. Why couldn’t he have just done that in April when it was also a less busy time?

It’s not crazy for me to want my birthday to be celebrated at least near my birthday I think. It feels like my whole life my birthday hasn’t been that important to other people since it’s near Easter so I haven’t bothered with trying to throw a birthday party since I turned 18 and in my teens I only invited like two people including him. I wasn’t doing that cause I don’t care about birthdays, I was doing that cause I didn’t want to be set up for disappointment yet I’m disappointed anyway. This is supposed to be one of my best friends and I’m so frustrated. I just wanna feel like they remembered and did a little planning. I had to remind him just so he would send a text.

I’m afab and 23 and really the only transition goal I’m certain on is getting my uterus chopped out. People call babies parasites but I feel like my uterus itself is a parasite. I have terrible periods and I’ve been planning to go get it checked out by the doctors for years (complicated home situation delayed me I don’t wanna explain), but I realised I’m scared they won’t find anything wrong with me and I’ll be stuck with it.

Whenever I bring it up people always say I should just take the pill but I don’t think they get it. I don’t want birth control and I got a list of reasons but I find it ridiculous and exhausting that people wanna argue with me about what I put in my body. Men don’t get pressured to take birth control they don’t even have a pill cause their version had one little side effect. Is it that crazy that I don’t wanna experiment with it? I’d rather feel bad for one week out of four than four out of four. Just knowing I own a uterus is enough to make me sick whenever I remember it. I don’t wanna be reminded by a pill every day or a patch on my arm and I don’t like the sound of IUDs either sue me. I’m asexual I don’t have sex so I don’t even need it for that. And am I supposed to just take birth control forever until I reach menopause??? That can’t be good for you long term. Sounds like an utter nightmare.

I don’t wanna think about it. I don’t wanna worry about periods ruining my plans and making me feel suicidal the week before too. I don’t wanna just take a pill for the period so I can be an incubator for some imaginary man in the future. I need it GONE. It’s not even about kids. I don’t want kids, but if I ever changed my mind on that, I still would NEVER want to be pregnant. Have a year of my life stolen by misery, my body changed permanently, potentially causing all new health problems, just to pop out a kid who I’d probably resent just because I grew it? Makes me nauseous thinking about it. I always hated the idea of being pregnant even before I knew how much could go wrong and how difficult being a mother is. It’s pure body horror I have nightmares. Men get to want kids without being pregnant, why would that be so crazy for me?

I just can’t see a way this will go smoothly for me. Doctors won’t wanna give a 24 year old a hysterectomy even if it would improve my life immensely just because of what some imaginary man might want to do to my body. Rapey vibes. Then I don’t know how I’m going to tell my parents. I keep lots of secrets from them, they don’t know I’m trans or lesbian, but getting a major surgery without their knowledge feels so different. I wouldn’t know how to explain it but I’d want their support during recovery. I wouldn’t be able to lie about it forever. I’ve just been hoping they’ll never ask me about grandkids I don’t wanna break their hearts. If I could just get uterine cancer so I had full permission to get rid of it without judgment and even some sympathy that would be great. And that’s how you know I’m mentally ill 💀

The future feels bleak sometimes. I feel worse every single month and life turns into a painful crawl. I’m so jealous of cis men never having to deal with any of this. Hell I’m jealous of every other animal on the planet who didn’t evolve the most useless counterproductive feature possible. It’s such a curse.

If you read all of that, thank you for your time

I am so tired of our own trans community constantly excluding and belittling us. So much of the trans community thinks we don’t even count as trans, and then cis people think we’re the worst kind of trans people. We cannot possibly simultaneously be a transphobes worst fucking nightmare, and somehow be more accepted in society than binary trans people. Nonbinary people don’t even have the option of being stealth we either have to stay in the closet or be an open target (unless you’re trying to pass as the opposite binary gender but that’s really not the same thing as being fully yourself). Like the queer community can even understand how a feminine cis gay man can be discriminated against because of his gender presentation, but as soon as its a nonbinary person we suddenly have no fucking problems and we’re just cis lite. Yeah, sure.

I saw someone comparing the straight passing privilege bisexual people have in a man/woman relationship to the nonbinary experience insinuating that the trans community ostracising us further isn’t really a big deal since they’re not our main oppressors and we have more privilege than they do. Umm that’s not comparable at fucking all. I am not fucking half trans. I am trans AND nonbinary and I will never be able to introduce myself as my chosen name with they/them pronouns without being a fucking target. Nonbinary people need support from our own community that is not a wild ask. And I get that other trans people aren’t the ones killing us in the street but it still hurts that they throw us to the wolves to save their own skin. People get the concept of how it’s bad to exclude trans people from the queer community, but somehow excluding nonbinary people is okay? I can’t be myself even around other trans and gay people and I feel so so so so isolated.

I do have a couple supportive friends but they’re so rare to find I just wish it was a little easier to build community. Sometimes I also feel like maybe they’re waiting for me to like become a “real trans person” and ditch the they/them start T etc and I know that’s my own paranoia talking but maybe I wouldn’t feel that way if nonbinary exclusion wasn’t so rampant.

I’m just trying to be myself and I’m a freak and an embarrassment to the trans community but oh no I have cis passing privilege so I don’t need fucking support apparently. Doesn’t matter if we get killed too. Like it’s inherently dangerous to not pass and I can’t fucking pass as nonbinary that’s impossible so I’m stuck in the closet and it’s suffocating. I don’t have the option of being stealth. My country is relatively safe, but conservatism is on the rise here too so I never feel safe ever. Nobody ever defends us whenever it comes up in conversation it’s like if something were to ever happen to me it would be my fault for daring to be myself. And it wouldn’t even get labeled as a hate crime.