You can just vent if you want, but here’s more context: We’re playing a DnD oneshot soon, and the theme is toxic masculinity (particularly in a gym). We’re all playing dudes who visited the gym for a long time already. I already have some ideas for my character, but I want to collect some more stories of toxic masculinity, as I’m quite lucky that my bubble doesn’t have much of it.
As a gay trans guy who grew up in the 90’s trying to sort out the toxic masculinity/internalized misogyny while fully closeted and being unaware that other trans men exist is a trip. Like doing all that “I have no emotions and refuse anything remotely girl-coded” song and dance kind of made me into what looked from the outside like a “pick-me” for years and I was relentlessly pursued romantically by people I just wanted to hang out and drink beer with. It was isolating and fucked up even if the behaviour soothed the dysphoria.
Had to address the internalized misogyny thing first, realize that was not motivating the trans portion of the issue and then had to work on getting off the toxic sauce that felt so darkly affirming and actually spend time with cis men who had properly deconstructed their own masculinity. Now I’m generally way better off and have a bunch of folk whom I brunch with who gas each other up over cocktails.