masc in a peacock way

You were the victim, and it wasn’t fair, but it’s over now. Nobody came to save you, and I’m sorry, but it’s too late for anyone to go back and do it different.

You’re suffering over something that cannot be resolved. You’re allowed to feel angry, or outraged, or betrayed, but there will eventually come a time that you don’t feel that so violently anymore, and you’re going to want to have something good left to go back to.

You can’t make anyone love you the way you need to be loved. That’s how a lot of good things end. Not with a clear sign, something blocking the road that says “do not proceed”, just a splitting of the path that’s still moving somewhat in the same direction.

You can’t fix them. Nothing you can do will fix them. And if they fix themselves, they can’t do it for you- they have to do it for themselves as well, because otherwise a day may come when they’re alone, and as long as they live, they are their only true constant. So you can support, and you can encourage, but the hardest part is up to them. And sometimes they can’t do it even with your help.

Sometimes letting go of someone feels like mourning at their funeral before they’ve died, and every time you see them after it’s like talking to a ghost that doesn’t know it’s dead. Sometimes that happens. You’ll both still wake up tomorrow anyways.

I understand that you’re afraid, and that you’re afraid for good reasons. And I understand that being brave isn’t as easy as just turning that fear off, and you would if you could in a heartbeat. But the thing is, as long as that fear is able to dictate your choices, it will have power over you. If you don’t believe you can try to fight it, if you accept that it will always be in charge, you let the frightening thing stay present in your life. It will exist as long as you stay paralyzed. And that sounds cruel, but it isn’t something anyone can fix for you.

The person you may let yourself become after experiencing the terrible thing may very well grow into a much bigger, much more terrible thing, and someday it will swallow the first terrible thing whole. And all that will be left is something far worse for someone else. And you will not be able to shrink it down by explaining where it came from, because terrible things that are dead and gone are never as terrible as terrible things that are alive right now in front of you.

(they can't describe how with any specifics. they usually do not know surgeries are often multiple-stages with multiple procedures involved, and certainly not the names for these procedures. there is never any consideration given that "difference" might be desirable or actively pursued by some, or that anyone wants an end result that does not involve pericis normative genitals at all).

that is what people have unconsciously absorbed culturally before they ever look into it themselves. all information about these surgeries has to first pass the barrier of "but I've heard it's not very good."

there is also a very common prejudice that trans people are manipulative, hiding bodily information, and trying to "lure" people into transness.

when this baseline "common sense" about bottom surgery (that it is bad) is conflicted by information from a trans person (who by default is imagined to be manipulative, hiding information about it, and trying to lure you), people's initial reaction is to assume the trans person is lying and attempting to coerce people into surgery.

it creates this paradoxical position where no one who has actually had these surgeries are taken seriously, and only people who have the least accurate medical information about trans people's bodies are trusted to speak about them. the less you know about healthcare, the more "objective" your descriptions.

the op linked the study in the replies & i’ve been skimming it & it’s actually rlly rlly interesting to think abt