Originally Posted by
Jimmy Floyd
I don't want to get all Owen Jones on you because that's not my outlook on these things at all, but you've just informed me that it is no big deal, and then told me I am due a 'weird sixties living arrangement' and called me a faggot, both in the same paragraph.
Everybody deals with it differently. Some people will have found it a lot easier than me. Others will find it even harder than me and hide it for life. Unlike most of history I don't have a legal imperative to hide it so I'm quite relieved with my lot. That said, you can only deal with it using the resources you have. If you're not an extroverted, self-confident person anyway (and I am not) then I don't know how you would magically acquire these qualities for the purpose of dealing with one of the bigger existential issues that a person will face. I am smart so I can rationalise it very effectively and not hate myself for it, but I don't have a way of easily projecting that into the wider world. Maybe other people do (although with this issue there will be a lot of confirmation bias involved), in which case I'm very happy for them.
You have to drag yourself over social and psychological coals in a way that I don't think straight people ever have to. On each of the three occasions I've told real people, and even for the first two or three posts I mentioned it on here, I have felt sick with nerves both before and afterwards. People may talk a very good game, these days, and the chances of being beaten up or called things are far less than in the past, but there are still soft signals all around you that tell you you're not welcome in the mainstream of lived experience. Then there is the reality that the facts of life, relationship/reproduction wise, actually are against you. All these things need to be conquered and it isn't just a case of jumping out of the proverbial wardrobe, like Alan Partridge in that episode but this time dressed as a princess.
This isn't meant to be a misery-me victim whinge. What I'm going through is far easier than, say, what Magic is going through, or what Mellin went through, or anything like that. But I can tell you that it very much is a big deal.