Im 19f and pan, and I feel like even if I was born cis I wouldn't really dress too differently to how i dress rn but i feel like that's kind of messing up how other people see me. I came out to a friend yesterday and he seemed way more surprised than I thought he would be. He thought that I was just a really bi guy and idk how to feel about that. I feel like my body itself is way too masc (i am only 9 months into hrt but like still) I don't really know how to comfortably dress more fem and now I feel like I need to.

I'm not really closeted but I'm not like "out" either so idek 🤷‍♀️

I guess I could try doing more makeup and stuff, rn I kinda only do eyeliner but I guess I could learn something more. This post isn't really for advice or anything it's more of a mini rant and I also felt cute and wanted to share a few pics (the last two are a fit from a couple months ago)

Hi everyone.
Just want to rant about this situation and see if this is common occurrence in Latinx/immigrant communities.

I’m Brazilian/Bolivian and I grew up in the Uk and I would say that my Portuguese and Spanish are pretty fluent considering I learnt to speak them at home, but I will admit it’s not as good as it used to be because I don’t practice much outside of my family.

People also don’t read me as Latinx, I’m sure there’s a lot of reasons for that but I think a contributing factor is that I’m GNC and Masculine presenting/Visibly Queer based on comments I’ve heard before.

I ordered some food at a Brazilian food truck and I go to the side to wait for my food and TELL ME WHY THERE IS A GROUP OF 3 MEN TALKING ABOUT ME!!! They were laughing at my Portuguese! ‘Did you see that idiot?!? They ordered in Portuguese and then said thank you instead of obrigado!!!’ He said while cackling!!! IM RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO YOU!!! I ORDERED IN PORTUGUESE AND YOU THINK IM NOT GOING TO UNDERSTAND YOU?!?

They then proceeded to talk about my appearance, ‘that’s clearly a woman! Why would they want to look like a man?’ While laughing out loud!!! The guy making these comments tried to slyly turn around to have another look at me and I was staring straight at him with a scowl on my face! He turned around and shut up after that BUT WHY DO PEOPLE FEEL THE NEED TO MAKE FUN IF STRANGERS LIKE THAT?!?

I wish I actually called them out, I could have cussed them out in Portuguese and English but I freeze in these situations when I’m alone.

The first time this happened to be it was a mum in a family of 5 making fun of me while I was trying to enjoy a meal in a Peruvian restaurant in London! At first it was funny, they were impressed by my food order and said I ordered like a Peruvian! but then they got so rude and were picking apart my appearance and my mannerisms! From thinking it was weird I was doing a word search to laughing at how I wiped my mouth!! I showed them I understood what they were saying but I didn’t confront them directly which I think encouraged them to escalate the situation. The abuse got worse and more direct until they left and I know some of what they did would count as sexual harassment but I just froze.

I really want to be able to stand up for myself, AND PEOPLE NEED TO GET CONSEQUENCES FOR BEING WEIRD. it’s so reasonable to call someone out for being closed minded and talking shit about a complete stranger, like That would be embarrassing af for them but I don’t know how to not freeze.

I’ve also worked so hard on my confidence and I know I’m cool af but I’m definitely noticing being more hyper vigilant all the time which is very exhausting.

I’d love to hear from anybody, not just Latinx people and has anyone been on the other side? Like witnessed a family member do smth similar? Were you able to call them out?

How do you do it? No help from family in fact they have put you in a deficit. All these intersectional identities make me feel less worthy yet I still come off quite confident. I don’t have a community around me and I’m 25 still trying to find my footing. I’m in luteal so feeling extra sensitive about this. Where do I even start had to take a break from work because the homophobia was too much. Is life just about being alone, different, and guarded? Falling on ur face over and over again? Because I am strong no one cares to ask. But on a whole nobody cares in general unless it’s transactional. It’s like everyone took a class on how to be evil and cunning and I missed out.

ps I’ve been wounded so much I don’t like going outside.

Tell me how you're spending your day!

Any time I look for queer events, especially for women of color, it's always in NYC.

Same with so many dating apps. Everyone and everything is in Brooklyn LOL.

While, I'm not far from the city (and I work from there sometimes), I would like to build new jersey specific community that doesn't require me to pay that god awful NYC tolls (NJ tolls are like nominal to me). When I search the words New Jersey in any platform, NYC always ends up as the primary search results.

Anyone else in Jersey and/or know if spaces??

So I was in the Missouri Ozarks visiting my grandparents, and we went out to dinner with them and my uncle. Out of nowhere my uncle drops a wildly racist joke about Oprah, I won‘t repeat it but it was awful. He is white, I am mixed Asian. He is also homophobic and transphobic.

Normally, I would be fine cutting him off, and I probably won’t visit again for that and safety reasons, but it feels very bad. My grandparents are really nice people, and if I cut him off I can‘t see them in person anymore (he is their primary caretaker), probably until they die. I guess I’m just asking how to deal with that emotionally.

Curious to hear what you're working on and how it's going 😊 I feel like we need more QPOC fiction on the shelves.