Recently I can't shake the feeling that I'm just a gross straight guy who fetishizes lesbian relationships. That thought was one of the big barriers when I was questioning my gender, that stopped me from realizing trans, and still it's just been plaguing me. Nowadays my OCD and dysphoria have all but ruined sex for me, but I do still read and enjoy lesbian romance stories and shows and stuff, since I need cuteness to distract me from my horrible mental health, but when I'm consuming it I just feel like the male gaze-iest male who ever gazed.
I recently showed up to an event at my college's LGBTQ center and I decided to present female as best I could, and like I felt reasonably good about my outfit; people I'm out to have complimented it, and I think it's cute, and if you don't look at me too hard I think I can actually pass decently in it. But then I came into the room and there are cis lesbians there and my confidence just fucking evaporates. Like I introduce myself and it's my horrible deep voice saying I use she/her pronouns, and I sit there with my shoulders straining in this women's jacket, and I desperately wanted to contract into a ball.
I guess I know intellectually that I am a lesbian and have a place in lesbian spaces, but it really doesn't feel like that. I lurk in
r/actuallesbians and even though it is a trans-friendly sub, I still feel like shit because it just feels like, "here I am, just a guy doing a bad caricature of femininity". There's a group on campus for queer women and I've been wanting to go but I know I'd stick out and make people uncomfortable. I can't even write the phrase "I'm a lesbian" without feeling like a gross catfisher trying to infiltrate lesbian spaces.
I am currently on HRT (a month in), and maybe someday I could actually pass as female, but even if I do it feels like I'll never be a 'true' woman. I know that's not right and I've probably been paying too much attention to TERFs and such but like there is always going to be a difference between me and a cis woman, no matter how well I can pass.
I read about people in like happy lesbian relationships, and getting married, and all, and it just makes me feel so bad since it feels like it can never be like that for me. On a podcast I listen to, they released a recording of a live show, and in it a lesbian couple proposes to each other and I just had to fucking tear out my earbuds because I couldn't bear to listen to it. I just want to be a girl so fucking bad, and have a girlfriend who sees me as a girl and hold her hand and get married someday. I want to be like the girls kissing in romance novels, or proposing to each other at conventions, or anything, but even disregarding the fact that like actually dating people is hard, I had to be born with this godawful chromosome and have those dreams be out of the realm of possibilities for me.
I don't know, I know that's my brain being mean to me, and like I do have hope for my transition and my future; I'm only in college and I'm just beginning HRT, and I have a lot of stuff ahead of me. And like I guess I know that I am a real and valid woman, but I don't know, knowing that doesn't make me feel any less like shit. I've just been in a pretty bad mental health slump for the past while and kinda needed to rant about some of my feeeelings