My peaking happened many years ago. More than half my lifetime Ago.

Before the age of 12, trans was just whispers of men who dressed like women, that’s really all i knew about trans stuff. Until an acquaintance came out as trans.

At 12: We were sitting as a group of friends in the hallway of my middle school. A Girl in the group said she was trans, then said that she was now a gay. I was confused since gay meant male x male and female x female. Deep down I knew she had meant gay as in male x male, which I found very homophobic. A male would never date you, I thought. But we weren’t close at all, in fact I can’t remember speaking to her past that one time. So I forgot about it kinda. Trans was just beginning to become a topic spoken about on Facebook, I never forgot that I felt her remark was homophobic. My intro to the trans culture was that it was dilution all young people.

Onto age 14: I was catfished by a male of unknown age who claimed to a 15 year old girl. I had a serious crush on said girl, but was heartbroken to find out it was just a man, someone I’m not actually sexually attracted to.

Age 16: it happened again, catfished. I thought I found a girl with the same interests as me that wasn’t all makeup and pink. I thought I had found a friend I could confide in, but I had found a 13 year old boy pretending to be a 18 year old.

At 18 I spoke up in a lesbian Facebook group about how I wouldn’t want to date a transwoman. I was harassed, called transphobic, called a fetishist, called all sorts of horrible things. Then one of the men said “yeah we know you wouldn’t want to date us but it makes us sad when you say that” I think that moment was when I actually peaked.

At 21 I was yet again catfished by a boy pretending to be a mute girl,

At 22 I tried out identifying as a man at a party but found it weird being called “he” why was I a “he” just because I liked masculine things. I thought it was very misogynistic of me.

I found r/gendercritical that year.

At 23 I had a class with a man pretending to be a woman, he was the first one to class on the first day, I was the second. His nyan cat T-shirt and single dreadlock instantly made me think “oh no, you’re going to be trans huh”. I was right, worse I was right in my assumption he’d be one of the bad ones, but he peaked some people in that class.

I happen to have a very masculine way of dressing, I’m a bitch lesbian after all. I peak every time someone asks me my pronouns due to my androgynous look and favor of masculine clothing and aesthetics. It’s happened too many times.

Sorry if this post is a bit messy, I’m no writer.