@alice I don't. I agree with your general premise, that's it's a overwhelming and horrific problem that is egregiously common. And given how most say it's worse as a teen, I avoided it by femme presenting much later.

I only mention this because it's a weird feeling when people talk about this kind of thing as if it is a universal fundamental femme experience and where does that leave the few of us who are fortunate to have dodged that bullet?

It's better than the alternative but also othering.

@ellesaurus @alice the fact you see it this way indicates you see pain as proof & a lack of pain as not having earned your identity.

Such a guideline can mislead you to denying pain when you don't understand it, or denying identity when certain pains are missing.

Here you seem to do both to yourself, possibly seeing it as "possible evidence against inclusion" (a reason to deny your identity), which can trigger a desire to prove your worth to preempt exclusion.

It helps to try & find proof from joy instead of pain so that these narratives lose power.

@ellesaurus I understand you didn't ask & that's why I put a content warning.

I commented because centering your pain from hearing a discussion of other's pain is a function of whiteness.

Calling a discussion of pain "othering" because you're not included, is itself what others.
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Edit: I will apologize for reacting here by removing ambiguity though. The boundary for me is blurry, between patriarchy causing othering via both violence as a norm & the implications from not being targeted by said violence, & whiteness causing discussions of othering to be seeing as themselves othering. So it's not as certain as this comment implies. My impression was that the emotions were valid (feeling othered by not being targeted by patriarchy), but the explanation seemed rooted in whiteness ("the discussion is the source of othering").