ChristianChad
Kraken
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2021
- Posts
- 11,720
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I apologize ahead of time if I sound all over the place, when I joined this sub I originally joined because I'm a 5'3 transgender man who is new at experiencing life as a short man. I never realized how hard it can be until I transitoned and started to look and identify as male. It has made me realize the reality of height discrimination. Along the way I've made friends who are part of this sub, and many of us are in the same discord server, and gotten to know each other. u/Redturtle3425 is one of them, he was one of the first people on this sub who befriended me and I've gotten to know him, talk to him on discord, and we became friends.
Maybe some of you will remember, but u/Redturtle3425 (who is 5'5) has posted on this sub before, he's spoken about his parents (6'5 Dad, 5'0 mom) are heightist and treat him with disappointment because they wanted a tall son but he is short, or blame his lack on height on not eating or sleeping enough, or doing drugs that stunted his growth even though he's never done drugs, or how his family are racist and look down on Latino people saying things like "They are more violent because they are shorter on average and have a Napoleon complex" and comparing them to chihuahuas. He's spoken about being bullied in school for his height and having to fight, or the struggles with dating.
Recently he's been going through a lot too, He got into a severe argument with his parents over the height thing that escalated to a fist fight between him and his dad, the police got called, he ended up moving out and living with a roommate, became estranged from his family. Recently, he was dating a girl and the girl really liked him, but she got social consequences from dating him, her family and friends kept teasing her for dating a short guy, infantilizing her and not taking the relationship seriously, and she eventually was embarrassed to continue dating him and broke up with him over that. He was tried of encountering heightism even among his body positive friends, or having his feelings dismissed or gaslighted over this issue, and just a lot of bad luck, and unfortunately some days ago Redturtle3425 posted on suicide watch, he couldn't take heightism anymore, he ended up selling his things, and withdrawing his money and donating it all to a children's charity. He also spoke about how every time he looks in the mirror all he sees is a Man*et, that it was a word that hurts him deeply, but he couldn't help but see himself as that word. This just shows how hurtful that word can be, especially with it becoming the popular way to refer to short guys.
Some of the people on this sub who are friends with Redturtle3425 tried out best to reach out to him, a good amount of us have his discord and phone number, but he didn't pick up. Eventually one of the users here who kept calling all day finally got a hold of someone, and the roommate informed him that Redturtle3425 had hung himself.
I miss him a lot, me and him had a lot in common and I wish I could have done more. I do hope the world can learn to be kinder and take male body shaming seriously in the future. I just wanna say wherever you are Redturtle3425, I love you and I miss you.
