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#and also straight people completely out of the loop of lgbt stuff are so WEIRD and bad
nicolodigenovas · 3 years
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Coming out is SO EXHAUSTING. A bit good but exhausting. Like a very long run that leaves you good tired but you realise you’ll be always far away from the end
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flesh-into--gear · 3 years
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whenever I see my lgbt dudes on here posting things about modern lgbt shows, movies, music, etc, I always begin to feel kinda like a failure as a trans/lgbt person. I haven't seen any of these things. I'm barely immersed in the lgbt culture at all; most of it that I know is all either from my birth-through-early-teen years, which really only consists of the middle of the riot grrrl movement which was the early 90s, and whatever misguided but extremely important at the time (read: Will and Grace, Xena was on the way out by the time I was able to watch it and this was before you could really just watch reruns whenever you wanted) was on television later.
(I really can't tell you what Will and Grace secretly meant to me, as a young teen, in a time when that was pretty much the only show that didn't have lgbt people specifically as a punchline in a straight narrative. even when I didn't understand what I was feeling. sure, it's dated now and it definitely has its issues, but the context of the media environment at the time was so abysmally straight and mocking of lgbt people... you had to be there to understand it I guess.)
I didn't have the exposure to a lot of that stuff. I only had cursory exposure to the RG movement; I only recently started digging back into that after playing Gone Home which made me bawl like a baby and being reminded that that was around the time I was born.
I'm so happy that all of you now have so many artists and pieces of media to watch and listen and read and enjoy. and I say you guys because for some reason, despite being a trans person, I... have a really hard time actively getting into anything lgbt centric that isn't music, nor do I really seek it out. and I think it's because I'm scared of what that means for me.
because I still feel like an outsider. I still feel like an imposter, despite the fact I've been on estrogen and blockers for three months now, and all my friends and select family know that I'm trans. a part of me... I spent many, many years being completely emotionally and mentally shut off, in a severe depression, and was suicidal. I knew I didn't feel normal. I didn't know what I was. I knew I felt nothing. and would often say "if I could chose, I would have been born a girl." I didn't know what that meant. I grew up in a small backwater ass rural southern town in Virginia. "trans" wasn't even anything I knew was a thing until I was 19 at college. and that sent me spiraling even further. because I didn't know if that was me, but I knew it felt right and I knew people would hate me because of it. especially all of my friends at the time, save for two. and so I pushed it back down and forgot about it, but it kept getting harder and harder to hold back.
I spent another five years actively closeting myself because I didn't feel like I deserved it, like I didn't belong there either. like I was making it up. basically just reinforcing a lot of the things I hadn't necessarily been told, but had been suggested to me with other events in my life that we won't get into here. and when I finally came out to myself and my friend who would eventually become my partner, I had a full on break. and when I came out to my sister, I had another full on break. I'm awful at doing anything that benefits me, another byproduct of my upbringing, and this to me was so hugely personal, clearly I couldn't deserve it and I was just faking it for attention. I was an ugly bearded hairy dude who is still (some of it is coming back) losing his hair. I would never be a "real" girl nor did I deserve to be because of it. it was selfish and stupid and I should just keep being a boy like I was told when me putting on my sister's recital costumes started getting a little weird once I wasn't 5.
I've been on tumblr since 2010, when I was 18. off and on sometimes, but overall, consistently on since 2010. and this site was my first true exposure to my community. and who I was as a person. and so I started looking into it on here. finding trans people (which was kinda hard at the time still?), and a lot of lgbt people. and it was kinda like coming home. I discovered myself here, really. I did. and that's stupid to say, but this was my first real exposure to who I was. and I still felt like an imposter, despite what every bone in my body was screaming at me.
and so cut to current me, sitting in a bathtub, extremely hormonal, watching @rozecrest (I'm so glad you made that post on antipollenkids letting people know you switched, thank you! I hadn't seen you post anything and I was hoping nothing had happened to you) and @ezurad and @numawaffle and so many others on my feed posting these modern pieces of media that I would have killed to have had when I was younger. I kinda wonder if I would be different if I had had them, but that's another thing for another day.
and despite you guys constantly posting all of these amazing things I love reading and seeing, I still feel undeserving of consuming them. I also get hyper-emotional, and stuff tends to stick with me months after. I still have only partially recovered from Gone Home because that hit so personally and that was six months ago. dont even get me started on "just a phase". and I don't know if any of that is problematic, I'm too out of the loop on that because I'm from the before-times but hoo did it shoot me right through my poor heart because that really was it. and in that respect I'm also terrified of it. because I know what it means for me. I'm 28, but I still have a good 14 years worth of untapped, stunted emotional development to go through because I didn't have a support network or parents willing to talk about things like that then.
I guess I'm just afraid that by diving in head first, I'm going to traumatize myself. I'm scared of the emotions and the weight that come with things like Moonlight. I'm scared of what it'll make me feel and what really it'll do to me. because I'm still extremely emotionally compromised because of my laundry list of mental health issues, and I still feel like an imposter in my own skin.
I don't know what the point of this was, but it felt weirdly cathartic to write out.
if anyone has any.... lighter? lgbt media recs please give them to me because I really am desperate for some. maybe get myself adjusted to actually allowing myself to feel emotion again. maybe it'll help me regain a piece of what I lost when I was suicidal.
also: I really want to say this. I see all of you in your own skin, fiercely defiant and unafraid of who you are and what you feel, and I just want you guys to know that that makes me so immeasurably happy and proud. I know I don't know really any of you, but I'm proud of you and I hope you all never lose that.
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