Having recently come out to my friends and family as an empowered woman, I feel it would be cathartic to share one of my experiences as a stunning and brave lesbian trans lady with you. Deep down I always knew I was different. As a white male, I was disgusted in myself. Looking in the mirror each morning I was confronted by a toxic symbol of oppression. For the past few years, the media have bombarded us with tales of the evils of white men. History is not kind to them, and rightly so. Young white boys in universities and colleges have been told it is only a matter of time before they rape a woman unless they address their ingrained misogyny. They have been informed that the stains of their inherent racism shall never be washed away and that they must repent the actions of their ancestors, even if their forebears were the lowliest of working class people who saw slavery as abhorrent, they were still WHITE. The knowledge of all of this has weighed heavily upon my shoulders. I felt depressed. I felt as if my very existence as a white male was damaging to those around me, and that no matter how much I tried to understand how vile and toxic my nature, it would be futile to continue to apologize for what I am. 
I HATED who I was. Looking in the mirror every day and seeing a white man staring back at me with those entitled eyes exuding the evils of patriarchy made me feel sick to my stomach. Then it struck me. I understood. What I was feeling was dysphoria. I hated my biologically assigned gender! How did I not see this before?! It was an epiphany. Everything suddenly made sense to me. I was a woman! I embarked on a journey into gender transition but after one week on hormones I had to stop because they disagreed with my digestion. But in current year, there is no real need to make physical changes. I FEEL like a woman and that’s all that matters. No longer do I need to apologize for who I am. No longer can I be accused of ‘mansplaining’, or of oppressing anyone. I feel like I can finally achieve anything! I’ve put my name down for my local women’s amateur boxing club, and I cannot wait to start training. A world of new opportunities has opened up for me and I intend to grasp every one of them with my huge fists.However, one thing that has become a little more difficult for me is the issue of relationships. Earlier on today I penned the following heartfelt plea on the British parenting forum Mumsnet:‘I recently came out as trans to my friends and family which was a BIG DEAL for me as you can imagine! I took hormones for a week but they gave me terrible heartburn and so I was forced to stop. Personally, I believe that anyone can “look” like a woman because imo the “aesthetics” of gender is an insignificant detail in 2019 and so I am not overly disappointed that I do not “present” as female so to speak.‘However, this has proven a real bind when attempting to date other lesbians. No matter how well we seem to be getting on, the moment I reveal to them that I am trans, they either insult or block me. A couple of times I threatened to call the police and report them for transphobia, but even this did not change their minds. What am I doing wrong?’The replies my post received were a mixture of cookie icons (?) and general disdain, before the post itself was taken down for some unknown reason.
Unfortunately, this is a typical reaction towards someone who merges the boundaries between gender identities, and one I will have to get used to. Mumsnet is notoriously full of bigots. Being oppressed is a new feeling for me, but I am SO ready for it! Come at me, TERFS!
