I want to speak up about what my personal experience is with men as a trans woman, but also feel I don't deserve to speak here as I was masculine in the past

First, hi, Ive lurked here for a few weeks now. You all seem like a lovely bunch, so nice to have those around that I can feel protected around. <br><br>I am an mtf trans woman. I'm going to tell you a bit about my life with men. I feel I really want to share this, because it's really important for me to express it. I also feel I don't really "deserve" to share it here as I didn't grow up as a girl/woman. I do understand that. But I really want to though, so I'm just going to. I won't speak to you ladies much, I just want to kind of put this out there.<br><br>I was a smart kid, relatively athletic, really shy, not an outcast or anything. I hung around mostly with a group of guys in school. I was a masculine guy, but I didn't talk as much as they did. In fact, when I was around 13 and my voice started cracking, it became an issue. I kind of just couldn't speak anymore. I couldn't say a word. <br><br>I've always felt like I broke something, like I broke my own voice box or something, though I didn't. The guys I was hanging around started to make fun of me for it when I tried to say something, or when I couldn't say something. This lasted for almost a year. I felt alone. I was a masculine guy, but kind of just... alone. If I tried to speak, they'd really make fun of me, so I didn't try anymore. They'd often ask me to say things just so they could laugh at me, then stop and say "are you alright man?" when I would just cry silently.<br><br>I have been called a "pussy" around 10,000 times in my life, not counting when they were asking me to do something (like "pussy, go get me a sandwich"). Most of the time it was more like "shut up pussy". Little things like that all through my childhood. I started to just avoid other people, especially boys around 7th grade. <br><br>I got a job when I was 16. It was hard, because I couldn't really speak to my coworkers. They didn't make fun of me much, like, they would sometimes, but nothing compared to the kids at school. But I always instinctively felt they were just waiting for me to slip up and then they'd jump on it. I was so afraid I'd start crying at work. It really was hard. I worked in retail for about 8 years and I don't think I ever once had a conversation with a coworker that wasn't about an item a customer was looking for on the shelves.<br><br>When I was in HS, I broke up with a girl I was dating. There was no real reason, I just didn't feel like dating anymore. I'd been dating her for a month or two, and my friends were really into it. They were like "awww, but isn't it so cool when you get to fuck her and then just dump her?" I was like "uhh, kind of..." but they didn't care. One of them brought up how I was so weak I couldn't even dump a girl, and the rest of them laughed at that. I was such a pussy I couldn't even break up with a girl. I didn't want to break up with her, but they still made fun of me for being too scared to break up with her, even though I didn't want to break up with her. I was just weak and didn't want to do it. The reaction from them was like "well, you pussy, if you can't even do that then you're just a bitch..."<br><br>In college, I started smoking weed, and that really made me more confident. I was able to kind of just talk through the whole thing and my voice was fine. But I still couldn't around the dudes I worked with. Looking back, I'm sure they would have been perfectly fine with it, I was just so hurt by all the times people made fun of me for talking.<br><br>I've always had an issue with expressing myself emotionally around men. I really just avoid it. I can't even remember an instance where I ever felt comfortable expressing myself emotionally around men. I think they instinctively sense that you are vulnerable, and just attack because they know they can.<br><br>For almost my whole life, I've been afraid of men. I've been afraid of how they'd react if I... expressed something, showed weakness, spoke wrong, whatever. I've been afraid of being called pussy and bitch and slut and whore. I've been afraid of them telling me I'm unable to do something because I'm weak. I've been afraid of their laughter. I've been afraid of their judgement. I've been afraid of their opinions. I'd try to avoid making them angry, even if it meant I did something wrong or bad. I've been so afraid of hurting their feelings that it would make me do bad things. I've been afraid of just being wrong around them.<br><br>I've always thought that if I could do things over, I really would never be friends with any men again. I would never hang around them or talk to them more if I could avoid it. I'd be afraid of them finding out I'm trans.<br><br>I was so afraid to be trans. I knew I had been a woman this whole time. I knew I broke something, like my voice box, when I was 13. I knew. But I didn't want to be trans. I didn't want to be a woman, I didn't want to be trans. It makes me so angry that they reaction of men shaped my actual personality, my actual life decisions. I didn't "deserve" to be trans, just because of how shitty I felt about myself being a man. I didn't want to be a trans woman. I didn't want to be a woman. I didn't want to be trans. I just wanted to be a person. But men made me feel like if I ever actually *was*, that would be a bad thing. <br><br>I've always been afraid of men. I've always been afraid of them finding out about me. I've been afraid of them calling me out in public. I've been afraid of them finding out I'm trans and calling me out on it. I've been afraid of men my whole life. But they could just call me a bitch and make me afraid of them, so they must have known that I was a bitch, because every time they called me a bitch, I acted like a bitch. And so obviously I was a bitch, you could just tell.<br><br>I know that I've internalized a lot of their mentality, even as I've started to transition. It's hard sometimes. But hey. At least it doesn't affect me that much anymore. This has really been something that I think about a lot. Looking back, I was so afraid to be trans because they made me feel so weak and bad about myself. But also, I don't think I'd ever even thought about the idea of being trans if I hadn't been treated so poorly by them. It's hard sometimes, but I'm really proud of myself for doing it.<br><br>I'm really glad that I got to live inside a man's head for a while and see how they think about things. I've learned a lot about myself and I think it's really important. But I'll never really be able to put into words what I've learned, but I know it was good for me. It's funny that the end result was that I stopped being a guy, but really you yourself can only really know what you know. I was able to see more clearly when I started transitioning. I was able to see how they speak to each other. I was able to see how they speak to women. I was able to see how they treat women. I was able to see how they treat themselves. <br><br>I was able to see how they treat trans women, and that really led me to finally start transitioning. I just wanted to feel safe, and I felt like if I had any chance of feeling safe it would be as a woman. Right now, that's how I feel. And hey, at least I'm a woman now, so it's okay if I think I'm weak. I'm just an emotional bitch anyway, right?<br><br>Anyway, just wanted to kind of put this out here. I just wanted to share this.