insecure guys
After coming out to family (fear of rejection) and coming out at work (feat of discrimination), I think my personal worst is coming out to exes, because I never know how threatened they'd feel in their sexuality and how that would manifest. Specifically, if they'd become violent.
Case in point, the guy from yesterday felt so insecure that he found it necessary to show up at my mom's place at 11 pm last night to call me outside, and then to proceed to shout for the whole neighborhood to hear that I'm a woman, I'm nothing but a woman and that my transition might *feel* like it's important to me but actually *he's* the one who's truly affected by it, because it makes him gay and he's totally not gay and how dare I undermine his masculinity like that... Which are totally valid feelings but there's a good way to process them and a shitty way to process them, and this was the latter. And I love this dude to death, he's still a really good friend, but he also has abusive tendencies, which both me and other of his previous partners have been subjected to... If he reacts in such a volatile way, then I don't know just how violent others might get.
Not that I make a point of coming out to every dude I've ever dated. However, I'm on friendly/speaking terms with a number of them, we keep in contact, and these things come out.
That just makes me angry in some way... why are a lot of men so concerned about their masculinity? It's not like it's gonna change your sexual orientation just because you dated a person that went through with transition. It's your personal decision and you went with it. End of story. It does not concern any of your exes (be it male or female) that you feel and identify as a man now, what's it to them anyways? Gosh sorry but I hate the argument that it "undermines" his masculinity.
I get that it's hard and that there are probably a lot of feelings to work out, esp. with ex-intimate partners. Some people probably have a hard time dealing with it because they're not familiar with the concept and all. And it must be heartbreaking to get screamed at just because of that, given that you still love those people and want to maintain contact and communication...
But at the end of the day, it's your decision and it simply should be accepted by people who love you!
It must be hard at this time, but hang in there, you got this!
P.S.: loved the story about your mom btw! Although she didn't like you being a man, she still went with it and accepted it (to some extend that is). And I think that's a) really fucking great to hear and b) how people should treat you, even if they got a problem with it
you definetly dodged a bullet with this guy. What a honk.
I feel what @noxeo said. I don't understand what this should change about when this guy had feelings for you. He had them for YOU. For MARBEAR. He loved probably a lot of things about you. None of these things are less you or less legit because you're transitioning. I really don't understand this binary thinking and most of all this focus on gender. It's the people you love. What is between their ears and not between their legs.
Also I am sad that your positive streak of coming out didn't continue. I wish you all the best with your sister 🤞
@noxeo Ngl, getting screamed at was hurtful and I got the feeling that I had made a great mistake and had misplaced my trust.
To his credit he called me over a few hours ago (after I posted this) and had thought things over, and we actually had a good talk about both me and him and why he felt so threatened. He actually made a lot of effort to use masculine language about me. So in the end things worked out, but my original point still stands - I just never feel quite safe coming out to exes.
@noxeo But just the way he spoke last night about me and other trans people, and women too - it was some Red Pill bullshit straight out of the incel textbook. Fucking scary.
@noxeo And thank you for the support :) In general I'm doing quite well. I think the way my mom handled it really helped me feel a lot more confident. Just knowing that somehow she ended up on my side really gave me so much more strength than I had expected! ❤️
@oneeyed Haha, he did throw a "I should have married you back then when you were into me", which is a whole mood 🤣 We worked it out tonight, but wow, that was something.
@ver0nika I'm super naive in that respect and it always throws me off when people do think in a very rigid binary way. Or insist that I'm suddenly a different person, while my perspective is that I am finally comfortable just being. Just existing.
Anyway, I took the dude out for dinner tonight, he had slept over it and thought about it, and actually made an effort to be respectful and to understand, and even to examine his own reaction and biases.
@ver0nika Which makes me happy because that's the person who's my friend, and I really didn't like feeling like my trust in him was misplaced.
I wrote about coming out to my sister yesterday. That was definitely not the coming out I expected and she really didn't want to have a conversation about it, other than "Sure, if that what you want for yourself", so I have a lot of confused feelings about it. But it's a process. Thank you for always being kind to me! ❤️