The Little Prince and the Fox

It’s snowing hard outside and the temperatures are dropping drammatically again before plummeting well below freezing tonight and tomorrow. Everything is coated in white and I’m glowing inside. Today I got picked up at the climbing gym. By another queer person. 

I haven’t experienced this kind of simply fun, uncomplicated mutual attraction in so much time… and with a queer person very rarely. And it feels so damn good! It would be nice if it led to “something” but it’s also fine and fun and welcome even if we just go out only once and realize it’s not going to go any further. It’s wonderful to see that this kind of thing can still happen to me. It’s really reassuring and relieving for me. And healing after all these years of complicated or impossible relationships and heartbreaks. 

I’m also reveling in the pleasant novelty of the circumstances and feelings of something like this happening to me with — I think I can safely assume — a lesbian. 

Since my own changes and shifts in gender-identity and gender-performance, since the ways I have been presenting and behaving have been changing more and more explicitly, the reactions or behaviors of the world around me have also been changing towards me. I’m no longer getting that “male gaze” that I had gotten so used to — whether I liked it or not. Within the social circles that I am mostly in, straight cis-men now seem to fall in one of two behavior groups towards me: they either (pretend to) ignore me or they connect with me more easily/spontaneously like a buddy, like one of them (this is the dynamics that I’m experiencing and loving so much with my climbing buddies). On the other hand, though, there’s a whole new world of people who seem to find me attractive and to whom I’m also more and more attracted myself: other queer persons. It’s as if my “queer radar” had gone on and I were exuding a “queer vibe”… And honestly, I don’t mind it at all. I realize that the more I’m coming into my own masculine, queer, and non-binary gender identity, the more my own “gaze” on men is changing. I’ve always interacted a lot with men, my entire life, and enjoyed it and very often sought it out. But my relationships with men have rarely been completely platonic (except for mentors, father figures, and professional situations). Whereas my exposure to, and involvement with, the queer world had always been quite limited and restricted mostly to gays and lesbians with whom my relationships were totally platonic. I have had a couple of crushes on women, which I’m pretty sure were mutual, but nothing ever came of them. Now, instead, while I still feel some kind of almost visceral or primordial physical attraction for some men or for some “types” of men, I often find myself looking at them more with a genuine and detached curiosity, wondering whom I will/would resemble thanks to my HRT — or wishing I could resemble this or that guy. Wishing I could resemble them, wishing I could look like them: not wishing I could go to bed with them. My romantic and sexual desires or curiosities are turning, instead, more in other directions, more towards queer, trans, and non-binary people. 

Before starting the medical steps of my masculinization process, some of my trans/non-binary friends who were ahead of me in these processes had warned me, “Your dating pool will very likely change”. And in fact, to be honest, that was one of the things that worried me a little: that nobody would feel attracted to me anymore or that the people to whom I usually seemed to be attracted (cis-men) would not feel physical/sexual attraction for me anymore. Now that I’m getting deeper into my masculinization process and more and more comfortable with my multi-faceted, non-conforming, queer identities and preferences, the changes in the “attraction landscape” don’t scare me as much anymore. I’m actually finding them interesting, fascinating, and in some ways very welcome. It wasn’t until today, though, with the teenager-like excitement of that mutual attraction, that I felt the sheer glee of all the new possibilities opening up to me (forgetting those that are closing down).

A good omen on Winter Solstice?!?

I had years, over three decades, to get used to my female body, to make compromises with it, to put up with it, to try and love it or, at least, appreciate it — whether I liked it or not, with a mixture of positive and toxic messages from society. 

As I was washing my hands last night, hairs that appeared a little longer, a little darker, and a little thicker than usual on the outer side of the back of my hand, from below my pinky finger towards my wrist, caught my eye. And I honestly freaked out a little. 

So far, I’ve mostly enjoyed being on testosterone these past months and HRT has been very good for me: I’ve gotten even stronger and, especially, my relationship to food and body shape/image has gotten healthy, at last, after having been unhealthy for almost two decades. However, my feelings towards the increase of body hair with testosterone have always been mixed. 

I stopped plucking my eyebrows and shaving my legs & inguinal areas long before starting HRT: those were just spontaneous actions I took as I gradually started acting more and more authentically towards myself and caring less about society’s (& partners’) opinions, which I find to be extremely biased towards body hair on women. 

Since starting HRT, changes in my body hair have been the slowest and most recent. Other changes like my voice deepening, my body getting stronger and leaner, and my sex drive increasing even more, came sooner and almost immediately. Lately, however, the changes in my body hair have been getting more and more noticeable (at least to me): the little blonde mustache above my upper-lip has been thickening; a few little hairs are appearing on my chin, although they’re so sparse and, especially, so fair as to make them hardly visible; the hairs on my shins (which have been happily growing since I stopped shaving them over two years ago) have started getting longer and a little thicker; longer, darker hairs have been making their appearance around my groin and on my upper thighs, which are definitely completely different from the short, extremely sparse and very fair, almost invisible, hairs I’ve had on my thighs my entire life until recently. I’ve been noticing these changes and registering them. Accepting them, for the time being. Not necessarily liking them but taking them in a positive sense as proof of HRT working in the direction that I’ve chosen: to uncover the boy that I feel I am. And maybe also accepting them more easily because they’re visible only to myself but not to the outer world. 

But what about these few new hairs on the back of my hand and outside of my wrist? Are they really new, or am I imagining it? Either way, they’re visible — or they might be soon enough. Do I like them? Do I like myself with them? 

I know for sure that I don’t want to turn into a hairy man. I’m neither attracted to that type nor do I see myself as one. I don’t want a hairy chest nor a hairy back. I probably won’t take HRT that far, but anyway I know that electrolysis hair removal is a viable option and until now I’ve imagined having to think about and/or deal with extra body hair as something very remote in the future. 

But what about these little hairs on the back of my hands now? 

I don’t mind hairy forearms on men. I can still picture, in my mind’s eye, the golden hairs on the forearms of one big crush of mine: they were beautiful. But they were beautiful on those forearms, on his forearms, on the forearms of a 6-foot tall, strong and athletic young man with a matching beard — someone that I had never seen or known as anything else than a (handsome) cis-male. And, I must honestly admit, the hairs on his forearms were blonde, golden: had they been just as thick but dark, I might have not liked them. 

So what about myself? Can I see myself, like myself, with hairy hands and hairy forearms? And would I like it even if those hairs turned out to be darker than expected, darker than my ideal? 

[Trigger warning: explicit language about mammogram and, especially, breasts.]

Today I had my first (& hopefully last) mammogram ever. 

I had it done three hours ago and I’m still feeling all emotional and confused about it. 

I cried a little in the clinic and wish I could cry some more now: cry more fully, more deeply, letting it all out, although I don’t know exactly what “it” would be. 

Somehow the mammogram felt more upsetting than the gynecological visit I had ten days ago. Probably because of my upcoming top-surgery and my complicated relationship with my breasts. 

I’ve never liked them. I’ve never hated or disliked them, either. I’ve always sort of ignored them or put up with them and acknowledged their presence only because of society. 

I developed relatively late and slowly so at age fourteen I was still running around without wearing a bra (& dressed in boys clothes), ignoring my small breasts that were definitely there and had gotten to a point where they could have used a bra but not enough to make it absolutely necessary. They never really got to a size that made a bra absolutely necessary. 

I started wearing bras in my second year of high school, at age fifteen, but only because of the social pressure I felt. (Same for shaving the hairs on my legs, by the way: I didn’t start shaving my legs until age seventeen, I think, and even then only because of the social pressure I felt, and I always only limited myself to shaving below the knees, never my thighs.) Social pressure coming both from the girls in my class — more directly, I think, from comments in the locker-rooms — and boys — more indirectly, I think it was the eyes I felt on me as I started realizing that I was attractive to boys. But it took me years before I really went out to buy myself bras: at first I just used hand-me-downs from my mother; and when I was left to my own devices and choices, I always instinctively went for sport bras — which anyway were more practical for me since I was an athlete already back then. 

It’s been the same as an adult: left to my own devices and choices I’ve always defaulted towards sport bras or simple, comfy bras, and then since moving to California more and more often going completely bra-less. 

When I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I got to have enough breast to benefit from using bras. But for over a dozen years now my breasts have been small enough for me to not really need a bra except for when I exercise. And since bras have always felt so uncomfortable, so constricting to me, why wear one if I don’t really need to? 

I’ve always defaulted to going topless at the beach and wearing bras as rarely as possible and as sporty and flattening as possible. It was boyfriends, and one partner in particular, who forced me into very “girly” or feminine or even “sexy” bras — something I really really hated. 

But I don’t hate my breasts — “my tiny tits”, as I call them affectionately. I came to put up with them, especially because they weren’t much of a nuisance, they didn’t “get in the way” too much, and they actually could (& still can) give me some pleasure to the touch. On the other hand, though, they’ve always felt somehow alien, extra and out of place on my chest. Which is probably why doing masculinizing top-surgery was the first “active” procedure I decided to undergo when I fully acknowledged my non-binary/trans-masculine gender identity. Once I realized that having a flat, “empty”, masculine chest was an achievable reality, it made no sense to me to have to continue putting up with “my tiny tits”. Indeed, for months now I’ve been feeling that I cannot wait to have a flat masculine chest, I cannot wait to go around bare-chested like my buddies, I cannot wait to see my fully masculine torso, my fully masculine upper-body, in the mirror. 

And yet, I know there will also be a sense of loss, at least at the beginning. And I think it was partly also that sense of loss, or a taste of it, that I felt at the mammogram clinic today. A sense of loss, almost of betrayal towards “my tiny tits”, mixed with gender-dysphoria. As I sat there in the examination room waiting for the mammogram expert to come in, I almost felt like I was doing something mean to “my tiny tits”: getting them squeezed into the mammogram machine, almost tortured, to just chuck them off in less than a month and a half. 

Also, this mammogram felt like the first real Goodbye to “my tiny tits”. When I had the visit back in August with the surgeon who will perform the masculinizing mastectomy on me, all I felt was excitement and exhilaration. And it still felt like a dream, almost unreal, probably because the actual surgery was still almost six months away. Now that the surgery is less than six weeks away, though, and that I’m getting all the balls rolling in order to get it done, now it’s really hitting me that it’s actually going to happen. 

Last Thursday I got my pre-op assessment and “green light” for the surgery from my primary care physician. Last Monday and then this past weekend I talked about it from a more practical and logistical viewpoint with two of my non-binary friends. Moreover, both my counselor last Tuesday and my non-binary friend this past weekend started to gently, nicely bring up the more emotional aspects of the upcoming procedure, poking me to think about how I’ll feel about it, what I’ll be looking forward to, and how I’m feeling about it now, in a gentle way nudging me to start preparing myself for this. To start to really think about it. 

And I agree: now, maybe just as of today because of the mammogram, I realize that a new, important emotional phase has started for me: the “pre-top-surgery” phase. Which is happening in parallel with the phase of uncovering what kind of boy I am and want to be. And I don’t think it an accidental coincidence that these two phases are coinciding…

I think that one of the biggest, or most important, phase of my “gender journey” is starting now… 

Despite my recent concerns and waking up feeling really worried and lonely yesterday, at the end I had an absolutely wonderful weekend. 

The first aspect that made it so wonderful was that I spent both days, almost wholly, in company of very good friends: a relaxing afternoon & evening going for a walk, enjoying downtown, and then chilling and chatting at my place (my housemate was away) with one of my non-binary friends on Saturday; another fun and physically strenuous (in the good, satisfying sense) adventure with one of my best climbing buddies all day today. 

This it itself would be enough to make it a lovely weekend for me. 

But there’s more. It’s not that I “just” saw and hung out with good friends and did relaxing and fun things — I’m not saying that this wouldn’t be good enough, I’m just saying that there was even more! 

Both of these friends are extremely affirming of my non-binary/trans-masculine identity, each in their own way, and both in ways that are extremely important and nurturing for me. 

Both of these people made time for me, to spend basically a whole day with me, both of them making it clear that they enjoy spending time with me as much as I do with them. 

Both of them made space for my needs, the practical/logistic ones as well as the emotional ones. I’m still afraid every time I state my needs, I’m afraid it will make people — even friends — turn away from me, so it always requires a big effort or a lot of courage for me to ask for what I need. With both of these friends this weekend I did so, worried that it might make them change their mind about making plans with me, but fortunately it didn’t. And their availability, their forthcoming generosity made me feel so heard and so held...!

For example, my non-binary friend confirmed their availability to be with me around my top-surgery and helped me brainstorm ways to coordinate with other friends and/or acquaintances in the local trans/non-binary community who could offer support. 

My climbing buddy, instead, took me ice-climbing: I had never done it before but expressed some interest when he told me about his many fun adventures ice-climbing; so he lent me not only ice-climbing gear but also extra clothes to keep me warm; he came to pick me up and drove us to a beautiful National Park. And when I said, “I might not be able to climb anything on ice”, he replied, “Oh no, I’m pretty sure you’ll love it and be great at it” — and indeed, I loved it! 

In addition, with both of these friends through in-person interactions (which are so vital for me), I had the opportunity to reconnect to, and express, some of the most important parts of my identity: my non-binary/trans-masculine identity with both of them; the roles of power, my dress-style preferences and the “hippie me” with my non-binary friend; the strong, adventurous athlete with my climbing buddy. 

Finally — last but not least — the activities and time spent with my two friends this weekend gave me proof of the recovery and good health of my respiratory system. While there undoubtedly is some real asthma (I’ve also received confirmation from several medical doctors that many people have been left with asthma after their COVID infections, i.e. it is a REAL permanent “side effect”), a lot of the chest tightness and/or shortness of breath that I often experience is due to a specific type of anxiety due to loneliness: in fact, as soon as my non-binary friend came over yesterday and we started on our walk and I was able to talk with them & listen to them, the chest tightness that I woke up with in the morning was gone; and with my buddy today, apart from climbing ice for over three hours at an altitude of 10,000 feet, we hiked in & out for a total of at least 6.5 miles with over 1,000 feet elevation gain, a lot of it in fresh snow or ice and carrying a 20-pound backpack of gear, at below-freezing temperatures, and I hardly had any shortness of breath. 

More proofs and good reminders that I don’t need a pill to keep me off anxiety or depression: I need human interaction, preferably in person and as much as possible with good, sincere friends; I need to be physically healthy so I can be physically active (& thus express the athletic, adventurous part of my identity); and I need my non-binary/trans-masculine identity to be seen, appreciated, affirmed in words and actions. 

I guess like most of us, I need to be seen, heard, and held. And I need to feel and see that I’m not always doing it all on my own.

Once again this morning I was awake at 5 o’clock and couldn’t fall back asleep — same as yesterday. What is worrying me now, and thus disrupting my early-morning sleep, is my upcoming masculinizing mastectomy. 

On the one hand, I can hardly wait to do it and can’t wait to go bare-chested at the swimming-pool and climbing outdoors as soon as I’ve healed and it’s warm enough. 

On the other hand, though, I’m also starting to get really worried for many different reasons. 

First of all, I’ve never had surgery in my life so I simply don’t know what to expect and I’m terrified of the risks/side effects. I’m also very concerned about the recovery, the forced inactivity, and what all that might entail for my (mental) health. 

Moreover, with this particularly bad flu season and COVID rampaging again and all the other illnesses going around, I’m extremely worried and afraid — reasonably — of getting sick again, which would not allow me to have my surgery at all. 

But what has been keeping me awake the past couple nights is another concern: it’s the worry of not having the support that I thought I would have for my surgery. I’m afraid that the friends on whom I was counting for practical, logistic, and emotional support might not be available or as fully available as they were a few months ago. 

When I first made the decision and started all the legal/practical procedures to get my top-surgery done, I had a solid support network of three local friends and one or two very close friends who could have come in from California: i.e. a total of five people on whom I could have counted to actually be with me, at my place, at the hospital, before, during and after surgery. On top of all my “remote” friends, of course, who are there for “online” emotional support. 

Apart from one exception, all my “remote” friends are still there and I know they will be available on the phone, via email or to video chat. But for my local friends and the two who could have flown in from California the situation has changed and for different reasons none of them will be able to actually come and stay with me before, during, or after my surgery. And I haven’t found anyone who will be able to do so. I don’t even know who will drive me home from the hospital after the surgery — which is something I absolutely have to figure out because I won’t be allowed to drive myself home after the general anesthesia. 

There’s two aspects of all this that is keeping me awake in the wee hours. 

One is practical: who will drive me to and back from the hospital on the day of the surgery? Who will help me with the practical things like food and lifting things around the house in the first, hardest days of recovery (when my housemate will be away on vacation)? Who will stay for the night after the surgery to make sure I’m okay?    

The other is emotional: how can I have failed to have a support network around me? How can I have failed at this once again? How can that support network that appeared to be present a few months ago have disappeared now? What did I do wrong? What do I do wrong, time and again, when it comes to close relationships? Or maybe it’s simply one question — the same old problem of mine: I do have plenty of wonderful, loving, supportive friends; but each and all of them have other more important things and/or persons in their life, other things and/or persons that they have to prioritize ahead of me: they have their own families, jobs from which they cannot take time off (or from which they understandably don’t want to take time off for my surgery), or their own issues and struggles. For each and all of them there is something/someone else before me. Understandably so because that’s how they have built their lives, based on their choices, and how I’ve built my life based on my own choices. 

But this lack of support for my surgery now brings back the question to me: have I been making the “wrong choices”? Where do I keep failing at close relationships?  

(And of course I have similar worries for the upcoming holidays, too, in particular for New Year’s which means so much to me, but those worries are “just” emotional, not practical.)

Tonight I took myself out on a date. 

Just a few days ago, I discovered that one of the cafes in town has live music on Thursday nights. So this evening, despite the freezing temperatures, I decided to take myself out and go check it out. I was anxious and doubtful because I’m still feeling very uncomfortable and fearful of being indoors with many people (especially since nobody except for me wears a mask), but I decided to give it a try anyway, telling myself that if it was too crowded I could just leave. 

Fortunately for me, the cafe was almost empty, both downstairs where the food & drinks are served and upstairs where the jazz quartet was playing. So I was able to indulge myself with a hot chocolate and a piece of cake and live jazz. 

It felt so good! 

As I melted into the little couch in the corner farthest away from the musicians and the half-dozen other people present, I finally felt myself relaxing and coming alive again like I hadn’t done in ages. I soaked it all in: the music, the hippie/queer/cozy/inclusive atmosphere, my hot chocolate and cake — all of the warmth from the music, from the food, from the other people. 

And then, the music became irresistible for me to listen to while sitting down. I had to get up and dance, even if just quietly in the corner. And that, too, felt so good! The extra anonymity given to me both from being knew & unknown in town and from the N-95 mask covering almost my whole face was a huge liberation. I could feel my eyes smiling, reflecting the smile on my lips under my mask, while I could also feel my whole body soften, loosen up, let go of accumulated tension, and come alive. 

When the musicians took a break and I felt I had had enough “social risk” for the time being, I decided to take myself for a walk in the pretty downtown. So pretty with all the holiday lights — and even prettier in the freezing (literally!) cold weather. So cold but so dry and as such not unbearable, on the contrary, enjoyable and enlivening. It reminded me of all those winter evenings I spent — and enjoyed — walking around in different towns in Europe, often in the mountains and/or cold regions. Towns or cities with a proper winter, with really cold but dry cold weather, and snow, for weeks, for months. How I used to enjoy it (if I could then get a real, hot summer, too)! 

I suffered so much cold when I was living in coastal California: cold because even if the temperatures are in the low 50s (Fahrenheit) it’s f***ick damp. It’s wet. And it’s often cloudy/foggy. And it’s precisely that terrible, thick moisture that gets into your whole body and makes you cold in a way that no moving around, no activity, no hot food can really keep you warm enough. It just seeps into you. 

But dry cold is completely different and I had forgotten how much I can enjoy it. I was reminded of it tonight: after the music and small social interactions enlivening me and bringing back a relaxed smile to my face, the dry, crisp cold woke me up fully and broadened the smile on my face even more.  

I guess that taking myself out on dates like this more often could be good for me..!?

How can it be that people still keep misgendering me so much, so often??? 

It’s gotten worse lately — or, at least, that’s how it feels to me. Probably it feels worse to me, on the one hand, because I’m feeling more and more masculine, more and more like a boy and therefore having people refer to me as “she” or “her” is more alienating than before, more alienating than ever; on the other hand, because having been sick and now trying not to get sick again has reduced my social life almost exclusively to interactions with strangers instead of with my friends & buddies who were so affirming of my boyish identity, not only using my chosen name & correct pronouns but also actually treating me like a boy. 

But how can it be that I still come across to strangers as a female or woman without a shadow of a doubt (on their part)??? 

My voice is deeper than months ago. When my speech therapist measured its pitch a few months ago, my voice was already in the non-binary range and even into the higher part of the male range, technically. 

I have always had a naturally angular, quite masculine face with a strong, squarish jaw. And although I don’t have proper facial hair, yet, the hairs above my upper lip have thickened to the point of being a fair, teenager-like, little mustache. 

My hairstyle is a particular undercut that is most often seen on (male) climbers and/or queer persons and/or boys/young men; and often in public places I wear a beanie anyway. 

Realizing, also thanks to suggestions from other non-binary/trans-masculine friends, that sometimes my clothing could give me away as a “female”, I finally went to get some men’s clothes yesterday and wore them today: very masculine (albeit not too baggy) clothes that over my binding bra completely hide any residuals of evident feminine body parts on me. 

And yet, despite all this, at the library this evening one employee referred to me as “she” when talking to her colleague about me — despite my men’s clothes, despite no “feminine body curves” showing, despite my big shoulders and narrow hips, despite my mask and beanie…

Is it the mask I wear — does it cover the most “masculine” parts or attributes of my face (square jaw, little mustache)? 

Or is it my voice, or the intonation of my sentences or the wording I use, that still give me away as a “non-male”? 

Is it the lack of an Adam’s apple? 

What is it? What the heck is it that still makes people automatically and undoubtedly take me as a female/woman and thus misgender me? 

It’s driving me nuts. I hate it. It frustrates me, makes me angry, infuriates me. But also, more and more, it makes me feel alienated and depressed. Alienated from the world that apparently sees me in a completely different way form how I see myself, a world at odds with me. And depressed because I feel unseen and misunderstood, over and over and over again. 

Now I really, fully understand why so many trans and non-binary people get so deeply, acutely depressed even to the point of not wanting to leave their house or be seen in public… 

Oh, the memories brought back by this song [“Hot & Heavy” by Lucy Dacus]… 

Being back here makes me hot in the face

Hot blood in my pulsing veins

Heavy memories weighing on my brain

Hot and heavy in the basement of your parents’ place

You used to be so sweet

Now you’re a firecracker on a crowded street

Couldn’t look away even if I wanted

Try to walk away but I come back to the start

Led me to the floor even though I’m not a dancer

Ask me all the questions that your parents wouldn’t answer

How could I deny it, diamond in the rough

You let me in your world until you had enough

You knew that I wanted you to bend the rules

How did I believe I had a hold on you?

You were always stronger than people suspected

Underestimated and overprotected

When I went away it was the only option

Couldn’t trust myself to proceed with caution

The most that I could give to you is nothing at all

The best that I could offer was to miss your calls

Being back here makes me hot in the face

Hot blood in my pulsing veins

Heavy memories weighing on my brain

Hot and heavy in the basement of your parents’ place

You used to be so sweet

Now you’re a firecracker on a crowded street

Couldn’t look away even if I wanted

Try to walk away but I come back to the start

And it happens over and over, and over and over again

Over and over, and over and over again

I wish I was over it, over it, over it, over it

A hidden gem, my own goldmine

You had the wide and wild eyes

You were a secret to yourself

You couldn’t keep from anyone else

Now you’re the biggest brightest flame

You are a fire that can’t be tamed

You’re better than ever, but I knew you when

It’s bittersweet to see you again

[Trigger warning: trauma (re)surfacing]

I’m feeling very lonely and scared. Terrified, actually. Terrified by what might be surfacing to my conscious mind, terrified of what I actually feel pushing, pressing onto my conscious brain. I can feel it pushing almost physically. It’s there, something terrible and dark, something pushing to come up from some unfathomable, terrifying depths. I’m getting inklings of it at night, inklings from my dreams, but also clues from daytime triggers, like the instinctive and partly new responses I’m having to (unwanted) attention, to behaviors that indicate that some person is seeing me as an attractive woman. 

One the one hand, I crave human connection, in-person interactions, and even intimacy — and the increased risks related to COVID and other seasonal illnesses are terribly frustrating to me, an extremely irritating obstacle for me. On the other hand, though, on top of the reasonable fear of getting sick (again), which holds me back from many social interactions, there’s also a deeper, maybe darker fear I feel towards closeness and/or intimacy — which maybe explains why despite apparently (i.e. according to so many people) being and having always been attractive and “hot” and fun and funny and interesting and smart, I have so often failed at healthy and/or long-term committed intimate relationships. 

As the bodywork practitioner Licia Sky said, “Just as you can thirst for water, you can thirst for touch” , I often feel, and often have felt, a “hunger” for human touch, i.e. a super intense and sometimes almost unbearable craving for human touch and closeness and intimacy. And yet, I often also feel a strong, instinctive, gut-level rejection for attention and/or closeness when it comes from certain persons or certain types of people or certain patterns of interactions. I particularly feel this strong rejection or repulsion when the attention I’m getting is “attention towards an attractive woman”, i.e. when the person(s) giving me that attention see me as an attractive woman/girl/female: this feels painful, irritating, frustrating, and even threatening to me. 

Is this “only” due to my gender-dysphoria and/or being a non-binary/trans-masculine person, or is there, instead, something deeper/darker going on?