#and suddenly i feel like i'm undeserving of calling myself gay

[gloria-a-las-plagas]

i'm gonna talk about it here because i'm not ready to talk about it on other platforms where more people will see it. but this is about being trans and gay. from the perspective of a trans man.

coming to terms with your sexuality is hard for everyone, but i don't think cis people quite understand how excruciating it is for trans people. when i was 15 and first came out, there was a plethora of people, mostly cis queers and transmeds, who were very adamant about the idea that a trans man "can never be gay" and we're "secretly just straight women trying to invade gay spaces". of course this is all bullshit, but when you're a kid and have nobody to look up to, except those cis queers and transmeds, you very quickly internalise these transphobic ideas.

day after day you're being told you will never be a real man and you can never be gay because you don't have a dick between your legs. you feel shame and guilt, for even thinking you could be gay. you feel fear of using that label because are you even allowed to do so? you feel no pride in who you are, just hatred and pain. you tell yourself "hey, maybe i am attracted to women? i can still be bi, then" because you know you're not straight, but being gay is not allowed when you're trans.

so you trick yourself into believing you're bi, you never feel any attraction towards women, but hey! maybe you just haven't met the right one for you yet! and you grow up, find more like-minded people. people who aren't transphobic, people who don't try and convince you of horrible lies.

but they think attraction towards men is disgusting. they think that it's shameful. they make you believe you have to be attracted to women, otherwise your feelings, your love, is disgusting and shameful. they don't even realise it because it's all a "safe space". and you understand their hatred for men, you really do. after all, you've been a victim of cis men yourself. but you start to feel insecure, weird. you think to yourself "hey i can't be gay because that would mean only liking men and male-aligned people and that's bad, right"? you don't notice the internalised homophobia rearing it's ugly head.

and just when you thought you escaped the clutches of transphobes and their nonsense, you fall into the arms of homophobia. and it hurts. because you know it's not true. you know being gay is not bad. you know being mlm is not bad. but you feel once again that guilt of calling yourself gay. you feel that fear, that shame. so you don't. you keep pretending. because hey, if they don't know, then they won't hurt you, right?

and that's how you're living your life. you know you're living a lie, but what else can you do.

#there is always that nagging voice in my head that asks what if you fall in love with a woman one day #and suddenly i feel like i'm undeserving of calling myself gay #i don't know my future #i only know my present #and i know i've never felt the same attraction for women as i do for men and male-aligned people #and yet #i feel undeserving and guilty #my only escape is through fiction #pretending i'm in a different reality #a reality where i can be trans and gay and deserving of love #trans #trans male #lgbtq+

[macarensesangles]

cringe DID talk ahead

not to have a random vulnerable moment but i kind of hate that i hate having DID so much. like it's at the point where i see people openly calling themselves "systems" or "plural" without incredible self-flagellation and my instinctual response is rage because how DARE they not be ashamed of this thing they Really Ought To Hate!

and i know it's wrong to push that on other people, so i do not, but like, jesus christ i am just really tired of not only feeling so much shame and self-loathing but feeling like i would be a bad, undeserving person for not fucking hating myself for having a trauma disorder. or like i would suddenly be romanticizing it and putting on some kind of act for attention and cool kid points if i just like...didn't even EMBRACE it, because i don't think i could ever really be HAPPY with having DID, but stopped feeling like the Morally Correct thing to do is remind everyone how much it sucks and how shameful and vile it is and how much i hate me.

it's just like...i don't know, i feel really alone about it sometimes because even though there are plenty of parts of having DID that aren't bad or that i'm even happy with (like, i get along well with maer obviously), i just completely like...i think i would be happier not to have it, i would rather not. the idea of people seeing me as "a system" or "plural" instead of just myself makes me feel terrified and sick. i want to be normal. i feel really ashamed of myself that i'm not, and that i know people have all these like....Ideas about DID, i guess. i don't want stereotypes being applied to me whether it's ableist shit OR stuff from the wider like, "system community" or whatever. i don't want to be different from other people. and the fact that i AM just makes me so angry and upset and ashamed.

and like...at the same time i feel sometimes like such a liar and fake because nothing that happened to me is "bad enough" even when objectively it is, and because i'm not diagnosed. and ALSO i feel, like, alienated because it's "too bad" and nobody else could relate to it or understand me. i feel sometimes like it's not severe at all so i'm clearly an attention-seeking child, and other times like i'm so unbelievably fucked that i get jealous of and angry at other people who make DID look fun and easy.

i don't know. i know a lot of this is like, i feel like it's kind of mean, almost. but i am just so fucking sick of it, and ironically enough i feel better posting it here because it feels more private and the last thing i want is people taking away from it like, "oh he's a system with internalized pluralphobia and he will feel better if he embraces and enjoys having DID and calls himself a system" bc. it just feels like missing the point, i guess. i'm ashamed of all of this but i don't want it to be my identity either, having DID is not who i am and i do not like those terms for myself bc they feel like they frame it as a positive and like integral thing on par with being gay or trans. idk. aughhhh

#tag for complaining #society if i could just keep maer and delete DID