Marisa

and it all seemed like a dead end.

I felt that if I stayed in the anime community I would end up socially stunted since its social standards were lower.

I cut my hair and stopped watching anime.

I put a lot more effort into socializing.

In college, I read The Man Who Would Be Queen, self-diagnosed as AGP, and actually considered transition for the first time.

But it was too late for me the sight of my face in the mirror and the depictions of AGPs in the book were too horrifying.

I resolved to never transition and attempted suicide soon after.

Seven months later I fell in love and that relationship turned my life around.

I loved her immeasurably for five years, and we lived together for two of those.

I became, on the outside, socially and professionally actualized as a man.

I was a great boyfriend and had no problem getting dates.

After the breakup I fell in love two more times.

You already know how this ends.

No amount of true love or social validation as a man could fix me.

I never wanted to transition, but at 31 the strain of repression became unbearable.

Things have turned out far better than I ever dared imagine.

My parents have remarked on multiple occasions, unprompted, how much happier I am now.

They're right.

Overall I fit Fuhrer's phenotype.

I was a mentally ill social outcast weeb, desperately identifying with anime characters as a simulacrum of loving care I had no idea how to find in real life.