i... just misgendered one of my friends and i’ve never felt so horrible in my life. since we’re online friends, i’ve only seen their face and since they looked like a girl.. i thought they were a girl.. and.. i accidentally misgendered him. i feel like crying right now.

Anonymous

Date posted: 4y

I’m not trans but some of my best friends are, so I can speak from what they’ve told me. Basically, if you mess up someone’s pronouns, what you’re supposed to do is apologize, correct yourself, and then move on. I know with ocd we often have a tendency to want to confess, or to apologize over and over, but that not only is harmful to you because it’s a compulsion, but it also makes the person you misgendered feel uncomfortable. I will often though, to avoid misgendering someone, practice using their pronouns by myself in private. Don’t let that become a compulsion though.

val ʚĭɞ

Date posted: 4y

i apologized and i’m more calmed down now. i just felt really guilty.. like it was really unexpected and it happened so fast and i just didn’t know how to react. i didn’t know they were trans until today and i literally went down a spiral.

Anonymous

Date posted: 4y

@val ʚĭɞ Glad you’ve calmed down some. I’d say what’s happened happened, and just treat your friend the same way you’ve always treated him. He’s the same person now as he was before you knew he was a boy.

val ʚĭɞ

Date posted: 4y

i cant breathe and i can’t stop shaking someone please

val ʚĭɞ

Date posted: 4y

ugh i’ve never felt so horrible someone please

Fathomable

Date posted: 4y

Exactly what Nikki said. My sibling transitioned a decade ago and we still slip up occasionally and misgender or use his dead name if we are talking about the past/childhood etc, even though we DO think of him as male. I've never known someone to be mortally offended by it, especially if you didn't know they were trans at all in the first place it's extremely understandable. We all just want respect and acceptance for our identities and you haven't disrespected that at all, you recognise and respect their identity now that you know about it and I'm sure they get that. Ambiguous gender presentation causes this situation all the time, every trans person knows that it can take people time to adjust to the change both in words and the mental image of them in your mind. You can survive feeling guilty until it just goes away again by itself (as it's supposed to), you don't need to dwell on or punish yourself for an innocent mistake. You also don't need to obsess and make yourself ill about being certain that you never do it again, either. We all slip up. It's fine to slip up. We can't get everything right all the time, and we can all survive it when we make a mistake. The only offensive thing would be doing it deliberately to hurt their feelings or out of 'disagreeing' about their identity.

val ʚĭɞ

Date posted: 4y

thank you for this. we talked today and we got over it:) he thought i knew that he was trans but i didn’t so we laughed it off. i’ll learn from this and maybe apply it in a nearby future!

hiyaaaa5

Date posted: 4y

it is fine u already know ur "mistake", u didn't know he was a boy.

val ʚĭɞ

Date posted: 4y

i just feel so bad.. i really didn’t mean it at all. i was just making sure about his pronouns.. ugh.

hiyaaaa5

Date posted: 4y

@val ʚĭɞ it's okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them, try to not feel guilty ik your mind will be punishing you but tell yourself that you recognize that mistake and u learned from it

nikkispacee

Date posted: 25w

god it feels like she’s dead

it feels like i want to be a boy. i really dont i keep having these what i hope to be false feelings and they suck. oddly enough they make me feel more like a girl again so its a weird win win situation. i want to be fine again i wanna be that girl again. it just feels like i’ll never be and i just have to be a boy i hate it all

aubreyvm

Date posted: 23w

TOCD

This is so extremely difficult, i’ve never experienced having thoughts of being a different gender. i’ve always been comfortable being a girl. i’ve always been a girly girl. this all started a couple months ago and it’s increasingly getting worse. i’ve had times where i didn’t like my body but i always thought i could just go to the gym and fix it, never did i think i wanted to be a man. ever since these thoughts started i hate looking at myself in the mirror, i hate looking at my body, i’m aware of my breasts all day everyday, i can’t look at pictures/ videos of myself. from the moment i wake up to the second i go to sleep i have these thoughts. i’m in a panic EVERYDAY. i don’t want to be trans but my thoughts are convincing me i do. i’ve never bat an eye when someone calls me a girl but now it’s like i’m aware of it which i hate. i hate that i’m having these thoughts & it’s convincing me that i want them & that i have to just come out and change. i want to be able to go back to being comfortable as a girl. this has left me feeling so hopeless and depressed, i can’t help but cry every day. has anyone else felt like their whole world was turned upside down?

issphra 🫶🏻

Date posted: 21w

I messed up :(

Tmi warning I was being intimate with my bf and I kept getting the name of someone else pop up, but I didn’t feel anxious. Afterwards, as much as I tried to delay confessing, I couldn’t help it. I confessed. My bf was fine he said I probably didn’t feel anxious because I’ve gotten used to the anxiety and it’s okay, it doesn’t define me any more than it would if I was anxious. A few minutes later, he got upset and said that the confession kinda ruined a blissful moment. I’m so upset that my head feels so turbulent I didn’t even notice it was a blissful moment for him and could’ve been for me. I feel so awful. I haven’t slept in a day, I can’t stop crying. My bf is afraid that because this specific name keeps popping up, it might mean something and he feels less than sometimes because of it. I know I shouldn’t have confessed but I felt so safe that it was like a dam broke loose. I feel so awful. What’s worse is that I’m still scared it means something, I’m scared that my boyfriend’s fear is right. He’s very understanding of OCD and how it manifests in me and everything, I think I just kinda messed up a sacred moment and I feel so much guilt and confusion and just horrendous. I’m not even fully anxious. I don’t know what to do. I apologized a lot but I feel like I don’t deserve him and so selfish

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i... just misgendered one of my friends and i’ve never felt so horrible in my life. since we’re online friends, i’ve only seen their face and since they looked like a girl.. i thought they were a girl.. and.. i accidentally misgendered him. i feel like crying right now.

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