obligatory "man who secretly thinks about being a woman" is not a type of man thats a trans woman in the closet and "woman who secretly thinks about being a man" is not a type of woman, thats a trans man in the closet.

this comes up a lot for me because interacting with people on the verge of figuring things out have specific complexities of the world they've built up to project/hide who they are that tends to be the same shape as everyone else in that situation so its very familiar and knowable but theres always a bit of a game of cat and mouse of trying to side step that projection to speak to the real person on the other side.

also theres all the stuff you cant convey they're not yet understanding like 3 hours after you accept yourself (oh ive always wanted this more than anything and the only person stopping me was myself), 3 days in (i was never a guy and had desperately tried to build an idea of my very-not-a-guy experience as a normal guy experience), and then 3 years in (this isnt a small part of me, this is a fundamental core thing that connects to almost every choice and part of me and has for all my life)

this was just brought to my attention so im including it for any cis people who have read any of this and are curious what sort of shape the people im talking about are in:

@glowtayto hey look, i cant judge, i managed to have a whole heart to heart conversation with one of my closest friends where i came out as trans to them. And then a week later I realised i was trans.