Do you think the word man as used in general conversation is an insult, or is it that as applied to you that you feel it to be insulting? Maybe insult is not the right word. Insults carry intention, either to anger or put down or to needle someone.

Men simply are not monsters. Some are. Some women are. Some pet cats are monstrous. Some aren't. You can not realistically see all men as monsters unless something else, within you, is going on.

Why do you think people call you a man? As you say, you don't pass. So, would you say that people see you as you physically are? If, as GC people contend, man and woman refer to the two and only to specific body types by which our species reproduces itself then it must be reasonable for other people who do not see your sense of your gender to see you as and refer to you as what they do see. You have to accept that it is not rational to expect people to not see you as you physically are and to view the world as it has always been viewed. You should strive to be rational about the way the world reacts to you, because I suspect the world is being rational about it. If the world is having an irrational demand made on it, it will react badly. (this is as much true about the environment or about oppressive governments as it is about our social world)

I think you have to ask yourself a question: how has reacting to the way the world sees and addresses you been working out for you? I can't imagine taking some inner aspect of myself and demanding people see that, when instead they see a guy who shows up late or clearly fakes his way through some situations, or any of the many things I do in my own life.

You really have to accept yourself as you are. That includes, and I would argue primarily is: 1) your physical self which really only changes through exercise, or maturing and aging, or through major injuries, or through physical alterations like tattoos or piercings or surgeries; 2) your emotional state; 2.5) your mental state; and 3) the state of your health. I have health problems I can, to my detriment, ignore. When I acknowledge them and live like I should in dealing with them, I feel much better and get more done. So much so, I can pretend I don't have to do all the things I have to do, and I'm all ill feeling again.

The thing is, the only thing you have power over is yourself. You can most easily change your mental and emotional state, this can be done very easily. There are so many ways, some very ancient, some very new. None work though if you are unable or unwilling to accept yourself as you are. You may start down the path of one of these ways, you may find ways to take steps to become "okay", how far you go along that path is up to you though. You may find things about yourself you are unwilling to deal with or correct, some "confessions" to yourself and perhaps only to yourself that you are unwilling to make. You will be stuck there. But, regardless of which way you might choose if you were to choose one of these ways forward, you will find the path to being OK there and not waiting for the world to behave as you wish. I've seen too many people start looking for ill-intentions or insincerity when the world does give them what they want-- because the root of the problem is not outside the self.

The thing we can most easily change is ourselves in terms of our inner self and our outlook and how we interface with the world. We can not change the world around us. Take Ghandi for example. He certainly changed the world a lot, yes? He freed India from England. The divisions in India are still very extreme, farmers committing suicides, religious tensions within, religious and political tensions 'without' with Pakistan and China. So many things that one could say the more things change the more they stay the same.

None of us here on SaidIt can change the world like that. But we as individuals can change ourselves and our mental state and our outlook. It is maybe the most important aspect of humanity, that our minds are malleable and our brain has a kind of elasticity and we can rewire it to fit our needs. We should do that, but we should not rewire it to fit our desires.

Accept your physical reality, accept your self exactly as you are. You have great qualities and things that need to be worked on, like everyone else including men and including women. Turn off and tune out all the BS around you. Don't put expectations on others, don't even put them on yourself. Drop all the judgement you have about all these ideas, men or women or yourself or monsters or anything.

Please try this: Just start with a single most basic, simple, and observable fact about your self and accept it. ("I grew up in (name of city/town)" or "I have curly/straight/wavy/sparse(whatever it is) hair" really something simple and bland) Just try being at peace with that thought, like your mind were a blank slate. Anything a thought wanders into your head, as they always always always do, do not be judgmental or frustrated, do not agree or disagree with the thought or the hundred of them before you realize they are flooding your mind, just erase them and be at peace like your mind were a blank slate again and go back to that thought (I find it easier to have a thought, like a cheaper version of a mantra, than to really try to think of nothing). The thought should not even be a thought but just a set of syllables in your mind being repeated. If this gets going, slow them down. Breath evenly. The breath can go with the thought, the can be in phase with each other. Do this regularly throughout the day for short periods of time. A minute, 8 times a day. Maybe more of either eventually. Eat when you are hungry, stop when your hunger is gone (not when you are done eating), sleep when you are tired, get up when you get up even if the alarm clock says you have another hour or whatever it tells you. Step back when angry, or insulted or insecure or attacked emotionally, and breath. Let it all go. What ever the problem is, it can not be your focus until you are OK on a regular basis. You might want to drive across country, but you car has to be capable of making the trip. In that analogy you're being OK is making sure the car can handle the trip.

Please try this for like a month. If you don't exercise, start something simple-- not even a "workout", just do something simple. Let me know how it goes, please. You might say "I don't want to do that, I don't want that, I don't want any of that". But, life is not about what we want unless we're very rich and very spoiled, and I would argue that's not life anyway. We're given pictures of fake lives and fake ideas handed down to us by people with no better idea than anyone else. This is where a lot of our wrong expectations come from. All we are are creatures that must eat, breath, sleep, clean ourselves, move around physically, be sheltered from harsh weather, and when those are met and when we are OK we can be social and perhaps even loved somehow within our actual communities and perhaps in life.