Hey. As someone who spent a very long portion of their life supporting trans and nonbinary people, thinking I wasn’t one of them, later realizing I probably was, then eventually coming out, I can relate to this a lot.

I think that feeling can often stem from feeling like other people are judging you based on how you identify, will feel insulted/brought down if you try to identify with a category they also identify as, or because you feel like you’re not “really” trans/nonbinary/etc enough to qualify.

That last one is big, because just like you:

at times I feel very comfortable being male, but at others I feel a lot more feminine)

I experience the exact same thing every day. Maybe it’s just how it is to be nonbinary, maybe I’m genderfluid, but at the end of the day, I still feel more comfortable not being solely defined as a man, so any alternative is better than that, and that is what matters.

Other trans people are not judging you for how you identify. They themselves have almost certainly been oppressed, criticized, and questioned for their own identity. They know how it feels, and they don’t want to push that onto someone else. Would you, with the experience you now have, go to someone else who confided in you that they think they’re nonbinary and go “you don’t seem nonbinary”?

I assume not, because you’ve learned from personal experience that it isn’t necessarily a helpful statement, so you’re not gonna perpetuate that. Sure, you could always say something benign that ends up causing someone to spiral like you did, but it’s not gonna be on purpose, and there’s not going to be an underlying “I hate this person for being trans” thought behind it, because that’s not what you meant.

You support trans and queer rights more broadly, the only crime you’ve committed is the innate human desire and experience of self-discovery and self-expression, and any questioning you have over your gender is something countless other people experience every single day, and that doesn’t make them any less trans/nonbinary in your eyes, now does it?

You are probably afraid of coming off as transphobic because you don’t want to perpetuate the same feelings you have experienced, and are overcompensating mentally by just worrying about it too much. I do the same thing, and at a certain point, you just have to recognize that nobody is hearing your thoughts, nobody understands your mental state better than you, and you are who you say you are. That is something nobody is going to take from you, and that is not something you’re gonna take from anyone else just by existing.

Live your life :) 💛🤍💜🖤