[metamicah]

I share in your pain. This world is openly cruel to men that don't follow gender norms, and we often have to wear uncomfortable masks to keep ourselves safe from all the jerks out there. It is exhausting to wear those masks all day, and sometimes we just can't take it anymore and have to withdraw from everyone.

But there are also lots of people out there that know better than to mistreat someone for their gender expression. There are people out there that even find it worth celebrating. If you there is a community of nonbinary/gender nonconforming/genderqueer organizers near you, that can be a good place to start looking. And maybe someday, with enough help from your community and possibly therapy, you can learn to celebrate yourself for how you express yourself too. You are worthy of it.

[monadgonad]

> If you there is a community of nonbinary/gender nonconforming/genderqueer organizers near you, that can be a good place to start looking.

I think this is completely the wrong advice for who you're talking to. From the sounds of it he's complely, unquestionably a man who wants to present as completely, unquestionably a man too, but doesn't for whatever reasons.

It seems like you're saying "yeah you're a girly man, that's what you are now, better learn to embrace it" rather than "learn to express yourself how you want".

[metamicah]

> It seems like you're saying "yeah you're a girly man, that's what you are now, better learn to embrace it" rather than "learn to express yourself how you want".

It's true, I am saying that. I think the root problem is how the parent comment author is being treated, rather than how he is acting, since his main motivation for changing how he acts is to be treated differently.

He's free to reject my advice, but I know that when I was a younger person going through the same thing, it was exactly this advice that helped me survive after many years of only being ineffectively told that I needed to "man up."

[monadgonad]

Same, to some extent. It helped that I have a lot of queer friends and did when I was a teenager too. Some things I don't like about my expression but can't (easily) change, I've learnt to accept. Qualities which I once thought of as feminine, such as emotional expressiveness, I now see as gender-neutral and they fit a lot more comfortably into my masculinity... but I have also cultivated a lot of traits that are seen as traditionally masculine as I've grown into my 20s.

I did "man up", just in a very positive way aided by having a lot of female and queer friends, rather than the regressive 4chan way I was told to when I was a teenager. Your comment read not as encouraging that, but as, "you might as well accept your fate now and start wearing a dress."

[i_cant_speel]

I think it depends a lot on where you live. I live in a bigger city and, while I don't personally act in an overtly out of the ordinary way, there are tons of people here from all walks of life acting in all sorts of ways who are generally accepted by society. Of course there will always be the occasional asshole, but it certainly doesn't stop most from being the person they want to be.