Thread:Lowkey done with life/@comment-37869175-20181224194711/@comment-37841075-20181228234018

It's no issue! I always try my absolute best to be as kind as possible to people, regardless of where we disagree. Spreading hate is just too much effort for something that does nothing positive, when I can redirect my energy towards doing something good.

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'DISCLAIMER: I cannot and will not speak for everyone of the LGBTQ+ community when I talk about my experiences. This is mainly the voicing of my beliefs and what I have learned, both from taking a look at studies and by observing others of the community. But I am not the spokesperson of the community, so I do not speak for all of us.'

I'm going to start with gender identity, because this one is ultimately very personal for me.

Gender dysphoria is honestly the worst, and I'm not surprised it's classified as a mental illness. It's been probably the driving reason I've been depressed for a very long time.

See, I believed, absolutely truly, that I was a girl for a long time. But I was never like the other girls. I used to think I was just a tomboy, and my parents explained I didn't have to fit female stereotypes, I was my own person. But ever since as long as I can remember, I know that people see my differently than I see myself. Where other girls were elated when they were called "pretty" or were complimented on their more feminine features, I always felt upset. I started hating my body when I was 8. I wanted to rip off all of my skin. When I looked in the mirror, I could name every part of me that I hated, and they all had to do with being female. I wished my chest was a different shape, that nobody could tell if I was a girl or a boy, I always felt pressured to be someone I wasn't. I was super disturbed by female behaviors. Gender roles were and are stupid.

My body today still physically hurts me just to think about. I shattered a mirror when I was 12 because I hated looking at myself so much. You have no idea how much hatred it took for me, a quiet, submissive, passive, nonviolent person, to destroy a mirror because I couldn't stand myself that much. I avoid mirrors wherever I go, and I'm thankful that where I live I have none situated.

Dysphoria became a shadow to my life, and it eventually became a huge factor in my depression. The older I got, the worse I got. I started failing my classes. I wanted to "fit in" so much I put aside everything else. I obsessively tried to be a girl. I flirted with boys, I wore feminine clothing, dresses, high heels, I bought dolls, I tried makeup, I grew out my hair. It took every bit of conscious effort to tell myself every day "I am a girl, I am a girl." But that never fixed it. And trust me, I tried for much longer than I'd like to admit.

Eventually I was introduced to the idea of transgender. I was apprehensive, but I explored it anyway. I started with female to male trans.

I was absolutely, utterly convinced I was female to male trans. No doubt about it in my head. I immediately started acting like a boy. Online, I lied, saying I was a guy. I did everything I could to present myself as a boy. I tried to make my voice deeper and I wore baggy clothes that made me appear more androgynous. I cut my hair.

Nope. "He" and "him" weren't any better than "she" and "her." My dysphoria felt even worse, because now I was disappointed. I looked up the stories of FtM trans people. I tried to connect to them. The only common thread was I feel like I was born in the wrong body. But I didn't feel like I wanted to be a boy.

Then I stumbled across agender. That clicked in a place that I once believed FtM did. At first I was elated. But then I fell into the mindset "You can't be neither" even though I wanted to believe so definitely that I could be.

I tried different labels, but I always came back to agender. Over the course of a few months, I eventually finally gave up and guiltily submitted to the idea. But I hated it. I tried to tell myself I was just confused. I wanted to tell myself the oh so common "it's just a phase." I read articles about why agender didn't exist, I watched videos about "non-binary cringe." I spent entire nights writing down a list of reasons of why agender was impossible, of why I was a girl.

It never, and I mean it, it never worked. For one second I couldn't get that desperate part of my mind to tell myself I was a girl. This is about the time I entered my worst stoup of depression I ever experienced, and I'm ashamed to say it lasted 2 years.

When I saw everything I did to try and convince myself I was a girl, just a tomboy, just a bit masculine but not outside of what's normal, that it failed, I saw no other option. I almost attempted to commit suicide. I say almost, because I couldn't stop myself from messaging one of my closest friends (bless her soul) and telling her I couldn't take it anymore. She dedicated the next few hours to talking me out of it, and when I told her about it in the disturbing details I had never previously admitted, she convinced me it was okay. I wasn't just "in a phase" when it got this intense.

She, as well as some other super supportive friends, helped me experiment around, taught me about the LGBTQ+ community. When I asked them to use gender neutral pronouns and words to describe me, I never felt better. After years of struggle, I concluded, for good, that I was agender, and for the first time I told myself it was okay.

And I felt great. It was incredible, the feeling of relief, the feeling of being free from the shackles I had the keys for for a long time but never used.

I'm 100x happier now than I ever was at any other given point in my life. I'm serious. I cannot describe it in words. This has honestly been the best time of my life. After a truckload of denial and forcing it away, it took a swing and a chance at letting myself accept myself, and it's... it's so amazing.

Yes, there is transphobia. I've been called slurs a thousand different times, slapped, yelled at, called a liar, an attention seeker, confused, and other things I'll never repeat. But this is a fight I've committed to. Maybe it makes me suicidal to take this banner and run with it. Steadfastly supporting my own identity like this causes me a lot of pain, but it's laughable compared to the amount I was in when in denial.

I'm not the only trans person, either. I know many other trans people, and we share the experience of being much, much happier when we accepted ourselves as opposed to when dysphoria and depression wrecked havoc on our lives. Go and find any trans person and ask them if they're happier now that they know who they are. I guarantee the answer is yes.

Our lives feel like dams sometimes. Against all the misconceptions and ignorance, but we continue this fight. For our right to exist. We won't be ignored, not anymore.

Just remember, it's either me being me or suicide for me. This is no exaggeration. Feeling trapped in an identity that isn't yours is honestly the worst feeling. The only time I have ever felt disconnected from reality is when I'm misgendered when I have already stated I am they/them or when I was in denial.

As for sexual orientation, yes, gay men and lesbian women can't reproduce unless they're bisexual. This is called the Darwinian Paradox, linked to Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection. ''If homosexual relations doesn't contribute to reproduction, it would eventually die out. ''But it's not as if homosexuality is limited to humans in any sense. Roughly 1,500 species of animals practice homosexuality.

Homosexual practices have been maintained in both humans and the animal kingdom for a long time. The answer is the "balancing selection hypothesis," which accounts for reproduction. Female relatives of homosexual males have more children on average. If the account is true that being gay is genetic, than the genes continue to be passed down. Nature makes up for homosexuals' lack of reproduction and the famed "gay gene" persists.

Also, homosexuality is not always just sex. It's genuine love, the same between any man and woman. And when it comes to same-sex adoption, that child can have a female role model that isn't simply their mother. When they have sincerely caring parents, gender should not a factor. Parenst are not the only models in a child's life, even if they are the most important, but two people of the same sex are not determined to be the same as much as two people of the opposite. If anything, I'd say it's beneficial to have multiple figures in life to follow. Overall I believe that having a support group of close, caring people is more important than what they have between their legs.

I know several people who have had two amazing dads or two amazing moms. They turned out just as fine as anyone with a loving mother and father, and find the same qualities in any mother/father in their parents.

HOWEVER!! I am very thankful that you still love LGBTQ+ people. It seems too often that religion makes it so that people hate my guts with not even the slightest bit of love to compensate. No tolerance. So to hear that you still love us is welcomed.

Finally,''' I'd like to thank you deeply for being so well mannered in your responses. I promise it does not go unappreciated. I'd like to apologize if I ever seemed aggressive towards or dismissive of your beliefs, because that's not what my intention is. This is mainly meant to be informative and insightful, and I end up getting passionate when discussing LGBTQ+ rights.'''

I truly hope that you have a great day and an incredible ending to your year, as well as an amazing one to 2019.