Hi Jeanette,

I experience the same sense of isolation — in that I’m a minority category [bearded male femme and seen as […name your negative from incomprehensible to confused to lost to a weirdo by most others, while I am actually just a little different. I am as you are perfectly happy as me. I am clear that being a mirl [male girl] is not weird- I am just a minority.

We are both experiencing ‘minority stress’- people not understanding us- essentially not seeing us although we are not disguised. People feeling we are not quite right because we don’t fit the norm, even when that norm is also a minority with respect to the larger population.

We will be struggling forever with the norms- and will have far fewer potential long term partners. I’m married, and my wife is also still struggling with some combination of fear [of social retribution for staying with a strange husband] and disgust [she wants to be with a man not a woman]. In your case, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by signaling in other ways your queerness- but many of those who you want will not want you- or at least let themselves get close enough to find out they do.