So, back when I was "still cis tho", there were a lot of aspects of male gender norms that bothered me deeply and of course I totally understand why now. Even though these days I obviously have a clear reason for feeling that way, I'm still curious if cishet men also have issues with how norms or expectations around gender and sexuality impact them in a negative way.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how those norms impact you, whether good or bad.

Also, I should mention that since this is a bit of a sensitive subject we're talking about here, please be thoughtful and sensitive when discussing with others in this thread. Thanks! <3

EDIT: Much thanks for all the great responses here! I know it's a difficult topic of course, so I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/feelings like this.

Speaking of which... I just looked at /c/menby and some of the posts on the front page there are over 2 years old. I see a lot of the discussion here centered around not being able to share feelings and/or not having the spaces or support to do that in. /c/menby seems like the perfect place for that, just sayin'.

  • Carcharodonna [she/her]
    ·
    12 days ago

    So that is probably the other big one. I'm still embarrassed about it. I'm not embarrassed about my emotions though. That's something I've accepted and grown to love about myself in a weird way.

    That's a massive hurdle you were able to overcome, so congrats on doing that! I still have issues myself with expressing emotions related to depersonalization/derealization stuff, but I'm also working on it and have made huge strides towards fixing it. Also, like you though, I still have to mask most of the time. :/