ATTN ATTN ATTN ATTN I AM NOT A MAN STOP THINKING OF ME AS A MAN I NO LONGER ACCEPT THIS PROJECTION MY PRONOUNS FOR THE TIME BEING WILL BE THEY/THEM/THEIR

Fucking makes me sick honestly when I think of all the people on here who probably wrote me off because they thought I was just some guy mouthing off about gender shit that didn’t directly affect “him.“ FUCK YOU.

I wish so many things had been different about my life, so that I could have a healthier relationship with my gender identity. I wish I hadn’t grown up in the conservative shithole where I spent my childhood. I wish I hadn’t been sheltered from queer alterity.

I wish men would have left me alone. That they hadn’t mocked me, bullied me, befriended me, punished me, raised me, influenced me. I’ll never know who I might’ve been had they not been present in my life — or, at least, if I’d had any say in the matter

One last thing before I go to bed — and thank you all, again, for putting up with my ridiculous overactive brain — there was a day of spirit week or something in high school that they were calling Gender Bender Day, but it got cancelled because of “controversy” iirc

So what did I do? I showed up to school on the day in question wearing makeup, cute little boots, and...idk, a waistcoat seems like the closest description I can find? Sorry, I don’t actually know much about this stuff

More complex reflections today. I am beginning to notice how deeply buried my feelings about my gender identity have been historically, and how I’ve needed a strong external excitement to bring them to the surface

Experiencing a breakup is one example; going to Hong Kong and listening to a new favorite song was another; discovering feminism in college for the first time too; finding a gender spectrum chart where I could plot my own feelings

Over the years I’ve been here, I have taken great pains to present myself in a way that elides gender. How many of you ever knew me by Michael, my birth name? When I have ever called myself a guy, a man, or even once having been a boy? This was all very intentional.

I realize that the meticulous, painstaking way I write reads as masculine but seriously fuck you, I was socialized into maleness, I’m autistic, and I have learned to be EXCEEDINGLY clear about how I feel as a child of emotional neglect.

Now that I no longer identify as a man on here, I feel like I want to be more upfront about how vulnerable I really am. I struggled a lot with shame when I felt like people on here would judge me for being a “typical guy” wallowing self-importantly in his own feelings

That’s not me though. I’m not a man. I’m small and sad and afraid. I’m lying in bed in my comfy clothes, two pillows, and a blanket I’m snuggled up against. I need kindness and patience and care because I received very little of that when I was younger, and it’s really hurt me

I’m alone on an unfamiliar mattress in a room that doesn’t feel welcoming to me, that doesn’t even feel fit for human habitation because it was “the cat room” before I moved in. I’m not trying to be whiny or passive-aggressive about how we’re managing things. I’m just really sad.