I’m still in contact with and regularly see a lot of old friends from childhood (we all grew up in the same neighborhood and most of us still live there). I came out to them as trans earlier this year and they’ve all been very accepting of me. They refer to me by my new name and pronouns. Most of them are cishet men, a couple of them are queer or non-binary.
Despite their acceptance I feel like I am becoming more distant from them by the day. They haven’t really done anything wrong… but I just feel like I’ve been masking and pretending to be a different person my whole life and that’s the person they’ve grown to know. And when I see them I feel a sort of reflex to act like that person again. It’s a bit traumatizing and it sucks because I still love a lot of them but sometimes I just don’t know if I can be with them.
Thanks for writing this, it really captures a lot of what I’m feeling. I think I need to get out of this fucking city