I (22M, American) was raised by a conservative family and taught traditional gender roles. I was told multiple times that that “gay” men (men who didn’t conform to traditional masculine gender expression) were ruining society and literally deserved to die, and that people out in the real world do the dirty work of disposing of them through stochastic violence.
Unfortunately, I turned out almost exactly how I wasn’t supposed to. I wanted to embody a cute and delicate masculinity, my true personality was caring, affectionate, and emotional, and I loved cute and pretty things. Ironically, I was so in love with feminine energy that I developed an emotionally intense heterosexual attraction to women, though in a way that was nothing like the typical straight model.
Long story short, I faced an entire childhood of ridicule and isolation and eventually developed an autoimmune disease with disabilities as a souvenir. I wanted to take my own life, but the Internet existed, so I numbed myself with endless slop content instead.
The progressive side of the Internet taught me that there are a lot of ways of being beyond the “conform or fucking die” model I was raised with. I learned that a minority of women actually could be attracted to me despite my utter disregard for the manliness rules, something I was blackpilled on before.
But I am still too scared to leave home. It is hard to motivate myself to do anything because the source of my fulfillment is to make people happy, but I can’t meet anyone because I’m frozen in fear. I still feel like everyone will hate me for being too feminine, and that the occasional stray vigilante will try to put a bullet in me. Even if I could defend myself, it feels too risky: I have to win every single time, while they only have to win once. On top of that, I am now visibly disabled, so I have to deal with ableism on top of everything else.
I can’t function this way. I’m not motivated to take care of myself or put effort into online college because I see no point to life if I can’t be social and authentic IRL. I literally just want to make people smile and feel cared for, but it feels like I’m too alien for people outside of a progressive echo chamber to accept me, and life will be full of constant gender policing, harassment, and threats of violence (especially because this is the U.S. we’re talking about). The most productive day of my life happened when I thought for a moment that I had a chance, but I fell back into my old habits once I started having doubts again.
It could be worth noting that I live in central Ohio, somewhat close to the city, so it’s not like I live in the middle of a rural hellscape. I also saw a non-binary androgynous person working at a clinic the other day, which seems like a good sign? I went to school in a more rural area, but of all of the people who seemed to like me, most of them were closer to the city.
If you have faced a similar situation, how did you make it through?
You’re strong for not masking your whole life. Things will get better (especially once Trump keels over) and you’ll find “your” people. A group of friends who love you for you. Your chosen family. I’m not a feminine male, but we all have our things, and I found my people.
I’m worried for my nephew who is in a similar boat to you at the age of 6. Growing up a sensitive, sweet boy in a bigoted community. I have to have faith that he’s gonna be okay… or he can come live with my family.
Move to a liberal area. Bay area, Portland or Seattle areas. No one cares if you’re fem or masc in west coast cities. Live a happy life.
My (f42) partner (25) of almost 2 yrs is a feminine man, and I love him because of it, not in spite of it.
I grew up in a “they deserve to DIE” toxic conservative household too tho, so I understand how it makes you think the whole world is like that. I can only recommend exposure therapy to help drive home that the average person is by and large loving and accepting and would rather you be your authentic self than have you jump thru imaginary hoops leftover from your childhood.
I still refuse to wear dresses and skirts bc of the gender role trauma I experienced tho, so hopefully you can do a better job than me by the time you’re my age of shrugging all that off and being exactly the kind of human you want to be, regardless of how you were raised to do or be or not do or be certain things.
I’m glad to have met you on here, see you around!
Real talk, no one out in public cares what you do or how you act until you inconvenience them. If you mind your manners, you’re just an NPC to everyone else. You’re an adult now in an adult world where everyone else has their own stuff going on. Can you remember the personality of the 2nd to last random person that held a door open for you?
Our insignificance gives you permission to be who you want to be and the freedom to do whatever you want. No one thinks more about you than you do. Your experience with your family left a strong impression on you about the world you’re in, but that’s their experiences not yours. It’s now your time to have your own & build a worldview on your terms as you. No one has the authority to tell you to act a certain way. You are who you are & everyone else will have to just deal with it if they have a problem. It sounds like the only person attacking you right now is you.
Learn how to make small talk. Read How to Win Friends & Influence People and pick out the tricks you think would work.
Real talk, no one out in public cares what you do or how you act until you inconvenience them. If you mind your manners, you’re just an NPC to everyone else.
True until you’re visibly disabled. People can’t handle being reminded life isn’t fair, and they take it out on you.
Well, if there’s one thing that should drive you, it should be getting some form of education or vocational training and forging your own path forward, ideally someplace chill. There’s many places on the west coast where being effeminate is totally normal, and people are totally fine with that. I like it when people get to really be themselves, and I LOVE men who wear cute things. We need more cute apparel!
I also think therapy would genuinely help you. If you put in your location, hit “all filters” and you can choose what type of therapy you want, and there’s also a separate section for Bisexual/Lesbian/LGBTQ+ (even if you are straight, filtering by these might get you a really thoughtful counselor.)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/oh/columbus
Just to make this post too long, I was in a similar boat coming out years ago. Not quite the same, I think girly stuff is cute, but I also don’t go out of my way to wear it. Anyways, I was really stuck in a rut over sexuality, conflicts with religion, and my confusion with cute women, but also cute men. My life really turned around when I started talking to close friends about what I was going through.
I went deep, no holds barred, we talked hard about everything and life. At the same time, I called my doctor’s office and got a referral for a therapist, who was excellent. That man really helped turn my life around, and recommended the site I linked above. Honestly, his help was all I needed. I’ve met someone I truly love, and everything all worked out in the end.
The hardest part for me was calling that clinic and telling them that I needed help, and why I needed help. It was hard, but life slowly got easier after that.
It does sound like the US…
Not trying to dismiss you here at all, but my genuine advice is to get some therapy and not take advice about serious stuff like this from strangers online.
I know you said you can’t leave because of family and stuff, but you do need to be somewhere that will get you away from the abuse you are getting. Get an apartment in your town, that’s a good start. And travel to the closest city to you. Central Ohio? I was in Columbus recently and was really digging it out there. Take a day trip or two every so often. Get out of that atmosphere.
I’m a somewhat feminine man myself, and man I hear where you’re coming from. And truth be told, you’ve managed to accept yourself the way you are earlier than I did. It took me a while to accept myself.
I also get the impression, though, that you have a traumatic response to the whole situation due to your upbringing. And it seems to me that that is something that you’ve accepted on the surface, but deep down, you’re still fighting with it. Which, by the way, is OK and normal. This shit takes time and work. If you have access in any way to mental healthcare, use it. You need to work through what you’ve experienced and learn how to deal with it better.
And I’m not sure I quite understood the situation completely - but if you’re still living with your parents, pull out all the stops to move out. As soon as possible. Otherwise, it will only keep dragging you down. As you’ve alluded to, despite all the shit happening today, there’s still a brighter world out there than what you’re experiencing with your family. It will be worth it, I promise.
Being closer to the city will definitely help
Find people who value your expression. People like you. People who love people like you.
I wanted to embody a cute and delicate masculinity, my true personality was caring, affectionate, and emotional
I believe that this is the better way of being a man.
They who told you that this were a bad thing, they were wrong. Very wrong. And their concept of patriarchal men is not just outdated, but bad, really bad, bordering at criminal.
I learned that a minority of women actually could be attracted to me
Or maybe a majority.
Definitely agree with this. I’m a very “soft” man, I don’t yell, anger is very rare for me, I care deeply for others, all that jazz. My wife loves that about me and it’s a big reason she agreed to marry me. Imo a woman (or man or enby) who sees softness as a plus, that’s a massive green flag.
Or maybe a majority.
100%. People (not just women) are attracted to confidence. A cute, caring, and confident man who doesn’t give a fuck about toxic masculinity definitely checks off a lot of boxes as an absolute stud. Modern day women with any sort of self respect are done with patriarchal bullshit.
Yes I would also say a majority. The majority of women are attracted to nice men (i.e. "cute[,] … delicate[,] … caring affectionate, and emotional)
I want to believe this is true.
But because I have such a hard time talking to people I know, talking to people I don’t know is just… Not in the cards. I can’t just pass notes to women in a bar or a coffee shop, that would probably be weirder than anything I can think of.
So even if it is true, I won’t ever get to experience it.
I was in a similar spot - hated that I was so poorly skilled socially, felt like I couldn’t read a lot of social signals (I suspect I’m somewhere on the autistic spectrum), and hated that I felt like I was destined to be alone.
Couple of things helped me with this. First, I researched how flirting works. As in, I started reading research papers about it online. This was a few decades back, so I’m afraid I don’t have my notes anymore (and they’d probably be a little out of date now anyway); but I do remember that I got comfortable enough I could start experimenting with conversational approaches.
Next step was to practice. Any time I ended up in a socially comfortable setting with someone I didn’t know, I’d try to do some small talk. Keep it low stakes, try it out on people you don’t expect to see again, and see if you can get them to chat a bit. If it works, great! You’ve found a process that might work with others, and brightened someone’s day! If not, well, they’re not likely to remember you in two hours anyway.
After that, I started looking at online dating sites, and would practice the same process that I found worked for me - lighthearted jokes and expressing an interest in whatever they brought up, or what was on their profile; and following up with conversation about that. I have no idea if the same thing would work these days; I understand that the dating sites I used back then have gone downhill since. In my case, I had several first dates, ended up hitting it off with someone, and now we have two kids together!
I think the main thing is, to echo blarghly, see if you can get yourself comfortable interacting with people platonically. It’s likely something you’ll need to practice, and like anything else, it will be uncomfortable at first. Think of it as developing social muscles - it’s painful and intimidating, but if you stick with it, you’ll be able to do more and more with it.
(You mentioned you’re interested in speaking with women - if you’re a man, you might have an easier time if you know another woman who’s up for playing wingman for you. A man who’s already comfortably hanging out with a woman has a very different social profile from a “lone wolf”!)
The woman playing a wingman is probably easier anyway.
My guy friends suck at being a wingman and I suspect the autism has something to with that too.
The reality is I’m going to need to find someone neurodivergent that compliments my autism in order to have a chance at a healthy relationship and I have a strange relationship with numbers, probability, and an inability to accept things as they are.
I can’t just pass notes to women in a bar or a coffee shop, that would probably be weirder than anything I can think of.
Confirmed, that would be super weird. Don’t do that.
Instead, work on improving your ability to talk to people generally. First friends and family that you trust. Then work on meeting new people in structured social situations - new coworkers, hobby clubs. Then in unstructured social situations - bars, concerts, public events in the park, hiking on nature trails. Then, if you really want to, you can make typically non-social situations social - striking up conversations with cashiers at the grocery store, saying hello to neighbors walking around your neighborhood, saying hello to someone who looks like your kind of person at a museum.
This work is best done in tandem with working on yourself internally. Learning to love yourself and love your life unconditionally. The more you love yourself and love your life, the more people will like you, and the less any rejection will hurt.
As you become more comfortable and confident interacting with the world platonically, you can then start taking some baby steps into flirting. I don’t recommend thinking about it too much right now. Work on improving at talking to strangers first.
Yeah I’ll let you know how that goes.
I’m 34.
Sweet, so you still have 2/3 of your life ahead of you where you can improve!
I guess. There’s just too many sensory things going on during conversations for me to be able to focus enough on generating the words that I intend to come out of my mouth.
Most of the time I talk, I have to go on automatic, and people tend to get really pissed off because I tend to ignore the social rules mandated by neurotypicals. I don’t want to say I can’t improve it, it’s just something that hasn’t been impacted by anything I’ve tried with it.
The only real advantage I have now compared to any other point in my life is that I know I’m autistic.
Knowing is half the battle. The other half is believing you can improve and putting in the work.
There’s just too many sensory things going on during conversations for me to be able to focus enough on generating the words that I intend to come out of my mouth. Most of the time I talk, I have to go on automatic, and people tend to get really pissed off because I tend to ignore the social rules mandated by neurotypicals. I don’t want to say I can’t improve it, it’s just something that hasn’t been impacted by anything I’ve tried with it.
What you said here reminds me of one of my favorite books - The Inner Game of Tennis. I don’t play tennis, but I still like the book. What you’re describing is the central problem of the book - how do you improve at a complex, fast paced skill like tennis (or conversations)? You don’t have time to think about the position of your elbow when the tennis ball is coming over the net, you just have to do it. It’s intuitive. But how do you improve at a skill that is intuitive?
The reality is, no one who is good at conversations is “trying” to say the right things in response to the other things they are seeing and hearing. They, just like you, simply act automatically.
Most likely what you need to do is to have more conversations where you just relax and go into automatic mode, and then notice how the conversation goes. And (as I mentioned before) work on loving yourself unconditionally.
I’m also in central Ohio.
You need to get out into public. Start small, just little steps. Go someplace that attracts a diverse crowd, buy a coffee and leave. One Line would be perfect. Dip a toe, try more later.
Get the same coffee and then take it to goodale park. Watch the chaos of unleashed dogs and note that nearly nobody is looking at you.
You will come to realize that leaning into that fear is paralyzing. Most people don’t pay mind to others unless you give them a reason to. If you want to just blend in, it is wildly easy.
If you need a sherpa for your early expeditions, let me know. I’m a jobless bum right now and have time on my hands.
I’ve always got on better with women than men. Always found more enjoyment in typically female pastimes. Decided not to show my power level. Never been happy with myself or my life as a result. I never enjoyed being something I’m not and all the friendships I made were based on a lie. Now at almost twice your age I figured out that maybe I was exposed to a wee bit much estrogen in utero. And that the reason I was infinitely more comfortable in the presence of women is because (at least mentally) I am one.
People always misunderstand gender as something that is either solely biological sex or solely a societal construct. There are actually a ton of weird endocrine, genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors that contribute to the baseline state of the brain. All things considered it makes perfect sense that gender would be a spectrum of states with clusters around male and female. You should read a bit about it. Even if you aren’t some sort of atypical gender it’d still be interesting. And you might find that the LGBTQ community is more accepting of your unique brand of masculinity. Even before my revelation most of my friends were some flavour of queer, just because they’re largely nice people.
Also I grew up rurally (I’m pretty sure more rural than 99.9% of people here) and the people back home are largely fine with queer folk if they know them personally. Like a family member came out as bisexual and didn’t loose any friends over it. And it’s a really small place so if one person knows, everyone knows. I’m not going to assume it’s like that everywhere though. One key difference is that my particular rural community is approx 70% atheist.
But yeah make gay friends and look into the whole gender thing. It’s perfectly normal to question these things.
Decided not to show my power level.
Are you a Z fighter ?
Kinda. But instead of a kamehameha, I just sleep with my opponents mother.
You kinda answered your own question in the OP… you got this OP. If you’re not going to kiss your parents’s asses for inheritance, then cut them out and move on; the faster you do that, the better it is for you.
Hey, it’s me, the you that grew up in Kansas!
I’m 32 this year and I can tell you first hand that it’s not as bad as it looks. I’m so comically flamboyant and feminine that the trans girls at the high school I worked at were coming to me for hair care and outfit advice, never once have I been threatened by some ass backwards bigot. I even spent my mid 20’s hitting on them whenever they creeped on my gal pals.
Despite teeth like a meth house, ears I can glide with, and the worst case of psoriasis one dermatologist ever saw, my guy friends were always baffled by how my geek ass could land some of the women I dated. The answer is that intense heterosexual love you feel. Every partner I’ve ever had has been genuinely wholly the focus of my affections and they feel that.
Now I’m married to a fem presenting Non binary who’s not sure if she can call herself ace anymore now that she enjoys sex. I don’t care what she calls herself, she’s my person and I wake up next to her and grin like a loon.
Sorry for the life story, but my point is that guys like us can make it out there. It can be rocky, especially when it comes to unpacking the damage, but you can thrive. Get your ass to that city, reach out to friends and make some new ones along the way. Don’t let anyone tell you not to be you.
Hit me up in the DMS, I’d be happy to add you on Discord. You sound fantastic
You and your partner sound awesome. Just wanted to say though that enjoying sex has absolutely nothing to do with being ace. There’s lots of us that like it and many others who feel neutral or repulsed by it. You can enjoy the cake without craving any specific cake, and that’s just as valid as the person who doesn’t crave the cake and don’t want to eat it.
That’s exactly how we’ve been playing it. I’m not one to pick at peoples titles, all I care is she’s happy.
