Sprinkles
Elmo rules the world!
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2022
- Posts
- 20,259
- Reputation
- 41,773
I don't know if there are any other autistic trans men around on this sub, and if anyone can relate to this, but I really need to get this off my chest and vent for a second. I've been struggling with certain aspects of social transition that I've never seen anyone have the courage to bring up because the nature of this issue seems...almost too taboo to talk about or something? If anyone has anything negative to say in response to my long vent, I'm just going to ignore you by the way. These are my personal experiences and I'm allowed to feel hurt and confused and angry at society's hurtful social norms, no matter where you choose to stand on certain political matters and possibly fuss over the language I need to use to describe my own life. I'm not interested in arguing, and those inclined to can take that attitude elsewhere.
A lot of people assume that transitioning to a man earns you more respect and privilege but in my experience so far as an autistic man this has been the total opposite.
I don't intend to make this into a whole women's vs men's issue, or to take way from women's issues in any way, but I need to talk about how much more painful and violent a lot of the social rejection I receive has gotten post-transition. I've grown very confident with myself and my transition's progress, and finally started to try and come out of my shell more. But recently, I found myself suddenly struggling socially once again the more I've started to pass. I'm afraid of becoming a shut-in again because I inevitably have a social blunder every time I go out. Somehow I manage to get publicly humiliated all. the. damn. time. which has started diminishing my confidence again.
I've experienced a huge uptick of harassment in recent years compared to an entire lifetime of non-confrontation. I get a surprising amount of harassment and snarky comments from women a lot too, even moreso than men, which has been really stressful and a total shock since I never knew men experience this much passive aggressivity from apparently everyone on a daily basis. When I bring this up with other dudes, it seems to just be a regular occurrence that most guys have learned to become desensitized to, which is really fucking sad. It really makes me empathize with the bottled up resentment a lot of men build up towards society after spending a lifetime of being walked on by people and acting like it doesn't hurt/matter when it really does. I've caught myself becoming...more reserved, withdrawn, less expressive, etc. out of a need for self preservation. I can't be too eccentric or goofy, or show any of my other positive and vulnerable personality traits because I instantly make myself a target for harassment. I'm having to build an armor around myself that I don't want and that shields others from my true self. It's really damn tragic and depressing and makes me view men's issues on a whole new level. I've always known they were bad ( despite many annoying people's efforts to downplay it ) but never this identity-crushingly bad.
When I used to be female, people just brushed my odd behaviour off as me just being quirky or cute, which fine, it's infantilizing and annoying, but I'd take that any day over being photographed/filmed for stimming, stared at, mocked, publicly humiliated and physically assaulted in front of everyone with everyone acting like that's just part of everyday life for a guy. This has been really hard on me mentally and I could theoretically just force myself to accept this and move on...but that is the same as admitting defeat and letting society silence me and turn me into another resentful angry dude who's out of touch with his feelings. I just can't turn a blind eye to such a pervasive issue that apparently we all go through and never have the courage to process, and so instead we shut all our emotions out in order to avoid becoming insane. If others have their own stories to share or just want to vent their own frustrations in the comments, go ahead, I'm all ears. I don't know if I'll leave this post up, but if it helps others connect and feel less alone then maybe I'll leave it...
A lot of people assume that transitioning to a man earns you more respect and privilege but in my experience so far as an autistic man this has been the total opposite.
I don't intend to make this into a whole women's vs men's issue, or to take way from women's issues in any way, but I need to talk about how much more painful and violent a lot of the social rejection I receive has gotten post-transition. I've grown very confident with myself and my transition's progress, and finally started to try and come out of my shell more. But recently, I found myself suddenly struggling socially once again the more I've started to pass. I'm afraid of becoming a shut-in again because I inevitably have a social blunder every time I go out. Somehow I manage to get publicly humiliated all. the. damn. time. which has started diminishing my confidence again.
I've experienced a huge uptick of harassment in recent years compared to an entire lifetime of non-confrontation. I get a surprising amount of harassment and snarky comments from women a lot too, even moreso than men, which has been really stressful and a total shock since I never knew men experience this much passive aggressivity from apparently everyone on a daily basis. When I bring this up with other dudes, it seems to just be a regular occurrence that most guys have learned to become desensitized to, which is really fucking sad. It really makes me empathize with the bottled up resentment a lot of men build up towards society after spending a lifetime of being walked on by people and acting like it doesn't hurt/matter when it really does. I've caught myself becoming...more reserved, withdrawn, less expressive, etc. out of a need for self preservation. I can't be too eccentric or goofy, or show any of my other positive and vulnerable personality traits because I instantly make myself a target for harassment. I'm having to build an armor around myself that I don't want and that shields others from my true self. It's really damn tragic and depressing and makes me view men's issues on a whole new level. I've always known they were bad ( despite many annoying people's efforts to downplay it ) but never this identity-crushingly bad.
When I used to be female, people just brushed my odd behaviour off as me just being quirky or cute, which fine, it's infantilizing and annoying, but I'd take that any day over being photographed/filmed for stimming, stared at, mocked, publicly humiliated and physically assaulted in front of everyone with everyone acting like that's just part of everyday life for a guy. This has been really hard on me mentally and I could theoretically just force myself to accept this and move on...but that is the same as admitting defeat and letting society silence me and turn me into another resentful angry dude who's out of touch with his feelings. I just can't turn a blind eye to such a pervasive issue that apparently we all go through and never have the courage to process, and so instead we shut all our emotions out in order to avoid becoming insane. If others have their own stories to share or just want to vent their own frustrations in the comments, go ahead, I'm all ears. I don't know if I'll leave this post up, but if it helps others connect and feel less alone then maybe I'll leave it...
