I like to think that's the sound she's making in her head

Really glad you're doing well! Sorry to hear about your digestive issues, I hope it goes away soon and that its not related! I'm glad the surgery worked out for you, the surgeon I spoke with today strongly recommended that I don't go with an oopherectomy because I'm a trans/genderqueer person and she was worried about me having access to HRT of any kind in the future, which is something that has been on my mind as well. I'm still not sure what I want to do but I really appreciate your perspective!

I know this is old but can I ask how you are doing now? I'm thinking about having a similar procedure and am having trouble finding experiences from younger people.

Writing dark fics and having morality OCD is also a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone

There are a lot of people that just don’t know that covid is dangerous, or that maybe know it logically but can’t really consolidate that fear in their head. I’ve actually managed to convince friends to start taking some precautions and to look into covid cautiousness on their own, but it took several months of me talking about it for them to get to that point.

How I’ve decided to go about dating is be open to people who may not be covid cautious but who are willing and eager to accommodate me. I think if you open yourself up to those sorts of people, there’s a good chance they may adopt at least some covid cautiousness on their own after a while. Because I’ve found that the people who are willing to accommodate you even if they don’t totally understand your perspective are also people who are likely to really try and see your perspective, and who may end up developing similar values around covid and masking.

I will say for me though, I’m willing to accept some mismatch when it comes to the level of precautions. Even in the covid cautious community its near impossible to find someone who has the same level of precautions as you, and for me life would not be worth living if I cut out everyone who matters to me for the sake of not allowing any sort of risk. That’s just how I feel though.

I just want to say that I love how insightful and empathetic this comment is. I feel very similarly about it, I also think that we are all pretty damn traumatized by Covid and different people react to trauma in different ways, and I think this whole conversation is a pretty good example of that.

This is a good reminder to WEAR A MASK! Kn95 or better! Not just to protect yourself, but also to protect the people around you! Masks work, and we are still in a pandemic. Our institutions have abandoned us and we need to protect each other ❤️

A little bit of hope for the people reading through the comments, two of my close online friends started masking in their day-to-day lives after hearing me talk about covid. For the past 4-5 months that I've been talking about covid, these friends have been very receptive to hearing me talk about it and my feelings of abandonment and betrayal, even though they weren't taking precautions themselves.

So my advice OP or anyone else struggling with friendships would be to focus on any relationships where the people are willing to listen to you, and are able to respect your personal boundaries around covid cautiousness. The reality of it is that wearing a mask is hard. It's isolating, it makes you stand out, its uncomfortable, its inconvenient. People really don't change their opinions overnight, much less their actions, but I've learned that the people who I really value and who value me are the ones who are listening to me. It may not seem like they are at first if they aren't masking but I think sometimes people just need time and grace. Listening to you and validating your experience and pain is a huge green flag imo, and the people who aren't willing to do that may be people who you want to take a step back from so you can focus your energy on the people who are.

It can’t hurt to go to the doctor and get your labs checked. I think dyspraxia/ADHD can cause fatigue but if this is a new development then it’s at least worth looking into. If you’ve had a covid infection recently also keep in mind that long covid can cause fatigue. I have fatigue as well that comes and goes but I think for me its more so tied to my anxiety and depression. I hope you’re able to figure things out!

Hey I have the same issue, I’m very androgynous but people gender me differently based on what clothes I wear. I don’t have any answers for you but it sucks. Tbh I like dressing feminine more even though I hate being read as a girl (or a boy). But I’m trying to accept that the people outside my circle of friends probably aren’t going to see me as I really am. I’ve started dressing more how I want to dress and not worrying too much how other people perceive me. I can’t control how strangers think of me, and their opinions and perceptions of me don’t define my identity. It still hurts to be misgendered every day, but if that’s going to happen anyways I may as well dress in a way that makes me happy.

I wasn’t trying to attack your personal experience, but I still stand by what I said. Not wanting kids or sex in a relationship doesn’t make it not a romantic relationship. OP explicitly stated in their post that they wanted a romantic relationship, and to tell them that they don’t based off descriptors that have nothing to do with wanting a romantic relationship just struck me as a little presumptuous. I definitely wasn’t meaning to start an argument and maybe I should have made that more explicit in my tone.

A romantic relationship is not defined by sex. Plenty of asexual people have romantic relationships where sex is not involved. Sexual and romantic attraction often overlap but that doesn’t mean everyone wants or experiences both in their relationships.

Entrapta from She-Ra. So many people seem to hate her but it makes sense that she helps the horde. Even after she re-joins their side the princesses treat her like either an annoyance or some sort of weird pet. She was just looking for a place where she felt accepted and loved.

I just wanna say that I really understand where you are at covid wise and I’m in a pretty similar place! I don’t eat indoors but I do take risks with people who aren’t cautious or who are less cautious because the alternative is to be completely isolated from my friends and family. I know that a lot of people have to live like that because most people won’t take the simplest of precautions.

Anyways I guess I’m trying to say that its nice to see that I’m not the only one sort of “in the middle” when it comes to my precautions. I’m much more cautious than the average person but a lot less cautious than a lot of the CC community. My area has a pretty big CC community, but after being a part of those spaces for a little while I’m realizing that I don’t connect with most of the people, and being CC isn’t enough to form a relationship with someone.

Have you had any luck making friends who still mask? Even in queer spaces I am usually the only one, I feel like Im crazy when I talk about Covid not being over 😭

I think that was sort of what the joke was, that the treatment for OCD is basically just learning to live with the fears OCD causes. It sucks but it you’re right, it works.

I like to think of it as more “be okay with loving myself no matter how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ of a person I am”

It helps that I don’t really believe in “good” or “bad” people. And even then moral perfection OCD kicks my butt sometimes 😭

I think everyone on this sub is also driven mad by these types of comments. My dad has seen how OCD has literally ruined my life and still makes them.

The jackson duckbill is the most breathable I have encountered! I also use the breatheteq kn95 and I love its breathability

Hot take: I don’t want a squishmallow. They feel cheaply made to me and I don’t like that they don’t really have a discernible shape. If you like them then that’s cool! But they definitely aren’t for me.

You just know this person wouldn’t say that to a cis person who had OCD that convinced them they were trans lol. I agree, we should take people at their word first and foremost, and its so frustrating to have cis people constantly butting in with their ideas about our identities.

I mean everyone thinks about what they could have done differently in hindsight. Idk how much it means coming from a stranger, but I’m proud of you for taking care of your health now

Idk, sometimes you have to cry a little over spilled milk before you go clean it up

As a genderqueer person I have always aligned with animals because they aren’t held to the same gender standards that humans are. If you asked me why I wanted to be an animal so bad as a kid I couldn’t tell you that this was the reason, but after exploring my gender identity I now understand that the kinship I feel towards animals is, at least in part, due to my disconnect from the gendered expectations that come with being human. I have a distinct memory as a 12-13 year old of my therapist asking me if I ever felt like I should have been born in a different body. and I wanted to answer yes so badly because I felt I should be an animal, but I knew she was asking in terms of me being transgender, and I didn't feel like a boy, so I said no.

All of these things, combined with watching a lot of anthropomorphic disney animals as a kid, made me identify strongly with animals to the point where I would have given anything to be one. This is just my experience and I suspect at least some people who identify with fae feel similarly. I still feel that way to some degree, but it is a lot more muted now that I am able to live as a genderqueer person and be recognized as one by my friends and family.

That said, I still can't fully explain why I wanted so badly to be an animal as a kid, or why I even felt some aspects of dysphoria around my human-nes that felt identical to gender disphoria. I don't think you need to understand something though in order to respect it. I don't fully understand my own experience, and yet I respect that it is a very real part of my life and my identity. I try to offer the same grace to other nonbinary people who conceive of their gender in ways that I don't understand. I agree with what someone else in this thread said as well, I don't think gender is as based in biology as we think it is. I don't even really have any clue what gender is based in, if I am honest, but I know that it is a very real and very diverse part of our experience.