Posted June 24Jun 24 Figuring out who you are can be empowering, and exhausting. How has your mental health been affected by your journey with gender or sexuality?
July 7Jul 7 For me it's been liberating to be my true self, but of course it's had challenges, push-backs and struggles along the way. I lost a lot of friends when I first came out, and I have lost others since then because of being trans, and that was hard to take. It's an unfortunate reality for any LGBTQ+ person, of course, no one wants to lose people just because of who they are. It's also not very nice being the new "hot button" topic that people feel the need to have strong opinions on, but aren't really that educated on. Trans isn't about playing dress up and saying look at me I'm a woman/man because it's how I feel. It's so, so much more than that, and the mainstream understanding is lacking a lot of basic education about what trans truly is, so when you're out in the world and people discover you're trans...it gets messy. Not ALL people, of course, there are people that understand and are accepting, and welcoming, and that's fantastic! We need more of that in this world. But for every understanding person it feels like there are two or three people who don't understand and don't want to understand that make you feel like a monster, try to intimidate you and even threaten you. I've been down that road before, it's scary! The average trans person is just a normal person looking to live their lives except that they happen to be trans. It's not a choice to be so, and the vast majority of us would much rather not be. But that's not a luxury we have. You also have to just accept the fact that no matter what people are going to deliberately misgender you, and as much as it hurts you can't react to it because that's what they want. I hate being he/him'd, hate it, but it's a constant part of my life. If you don't want to accept me as a trans woman, at least do the me service of dismissively calling me an it or a they rather than he/him. It's cruel and hurtful. When friends do it I politely steer them in the right direction, I've never had issues after the first time, but I get people that do it deliberately to me and having to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen is hard. Petty as it sounds, I struggled to be the person I am today, I think I've earned just a smidge of a right to not be misgendered.These are all things that play on your mental health as you try to navigate the balance of LGBTQ+ life. It's always a struggle, always some new challenge.
July 7Jul 7 I come from a Catholic family by background and was told from a young age that being gay was one of the worst things you could do. I also grew up in the 00s so before gay marriage was legalised as I honestly think that was a turning point slightly in rights. My school still remained pretty homophobic and the school didn’t do enough about it. I didn’t realise I was into girls until I was around 14 years old. Due to my upbringing and seeing how gay people were treated at school, it made me feel depressed. I told a friend who took it well and life went on. There was no way I could be openly gay at school though.So, I became a bit more comfortable with telling people who weren’t at school that I was gay at around 16 years old. That helped and having those surroundings helped me to process it and accept it. I couldn’t let my family know though but I told myself I would say it if I was ever directly asked. Ages 16-18 were definitely years of trying to understand my sexual orientation. I knew I didn’t like guys as I had only ever really felt feelings for one in my whole life and I don’t know if I would call it that looking back. Again, felt sad about it but tried to focus on my life. I would say age 18-21 I grew a lot more comfortable about being gay. I became out to more and more friends that I met but found it awkward to address with certain people. But I felt happier and more free, especially at uni. I told my mum I was into girls when I was like 20 or 21 maybe as she directly asked after finding out my sister had a girlfriend. That didn’t go too well for me but she came around a lot before her passing. I think having her come around like that made me find a lot of peace in it actually. Not to say that my internalised homophobia was solely due to her. It was a mixture of things. Me today, I have grown a lot. I still have to stay closeted in certain situations but I’ve gotten better with it. I don’t have that internal hate toward myself anymore but I can feel fear when I think about certain people knowing. So yeah, be you and be proud.
July 8Jul 8 Coming out to people that don't understand or don't approve is very hard to do. My father, sadly, is an extreme bigot, and has been the one family member that I just can't have a relationship with. I also grew up with a brother who hated and abused me because he didn't want a...well he used the pejorative, but we'll censor it here and say "queer person" for a sibling. Anytime he caught me watching "girls shows" or playing with "girls toys" he would beat me. You can't reason with people like that, sadly.I'm glad you managed to find some peace with your mother as she came around a lot, that's good news! I never got the chance to tell my mother before dementia took her brain away, so she never got to know me as me. I don't know how she would have felt.
July 8Jul 8 At the end of the day, we’re the children. My mum was Polish and was born in 1960 so you can imagine what views she was presented with. She said that she was taught that was how she had to think about gay people but ended up realising that why does it matter? Let people live. Even if you don’t get your closure in that sense, she still knew you. Of course sexual orientation can be a big part of yourself but there’s so much more to you as a person too.My parents definitely can’t tell when someone is gay or not. They thought my older brother may be gay because he’s quite ‘camp’. However, he is married to a woman! I grew up wearing a lot of guy’s clothes and my parents were totally fine with it. I don’t think my mum even realised they were men’s clothes sometimes and saw it as cool. Just goes to show what exposure can do hey?If someone isn’t going to be in your life because of sexual orientation then that’s on them. It must suck to lose contact with people because of that, especially when they aren’t willing to come through. Keep being you though, there isn’t any shame.
July 9Jul 9 I completely understand, my mother was born in 1946 and my dad in 1955, so their views came very set in stone. My mother, thankfully, had an older daughter with a different husband who was very much a hippie and very much a free spirit, and that caused my mother to re-evaluate many of her preconceptions about things, so she wasn't as closed minded as many of her generation. I know she would support me if she were still in her right mind, but that's not possible anymore. My father, though, is exactly the same person he always has been. Spiteful, rude and callous. So there's no hope there.I understand completely on the parents not being able to tell, lol, I was able to make it through most of my school career without raising too much suspicion, though of course internally I wished I'd had the strength to be me and transition, I just...couldn't handle it then. I regret that so much. Leaving it later definitely made things harder. But either way, I did a decent job of sneaking through as just an invisible nobody and that was fine with me. Neither parent was any the wiser, lol. You're absolutely right, it's their loss if they're going to miss out because of who and what I am. I can't change it, it's me. We are who we are, and that's beautiful.
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