The agony was not the identity itself; the agony was the hatred I internalized from a world that mirrored your current expression of disgust. The agony was the self-loathing that festered every time someone—every time you—made a joke, a comment, a subtle dig that reinforced the lie that my truth was somehow a choice, a phase, or a deliberate offense.
I fought for years. I clawed my way through therapy, through breakdowns, through the endless, scarring work of self-acceptance. I reached a point—a truly beautiful, fragile, terrifying point—where I could finally breathe. I could look in the mirror and recognize the face staring back. I achieved a state of peace regarding my identity, my presentation, my name, my self. I was finally, unbelievably, gloriously comfortable.
And then you came along, or rather, you decided that my comfort was inconvenient to your worldview, and you started chipping away at it.
Do you have any idea the monstrous cruelty of dragging someone back to the edge of the abyss after they have just escaped it? I have came so far from that dark, blood-soaked state. I have scars that are fading, but the memory of the desperation is still sharp. But because of your comments, your dismissals, your sanctimonious judgements about what is ‘normal’ or ‘natural,’ I am slowly, quickly, slipping back. I feel the familiar, sickening pull toward the darkness. I feel the urge to retreat, to hide, to punish myself for being too loud, too visible, too authentic. I feel myself questioning the validity of my own existence again, and the sickening irony is that this time, the poison is being delivered by someone who supposedly cared about me.
It is genuinely sickening. And I want you to feel the full, crushing weight of that regret. I want your actions and your words against our community, specifically against me, to become a physical ache in your chest that reminds you of your moral failure every morning. You have actively contributed to the pain that pushes vulnerable people, people like the person you claimed to love, toward suicide. You have weaponized shame. You have weaponized fear.
I am tired of it. I am exhausted by the constant battle for basic human decency. So, I am telling you, in stark, undeniable terms: Stop.