It was just like in the clubs, where dudes in bro-tanks and snapbacks flirted with other dudes in bro-tanks and snapbacks, nervously edging away from the swishy, squealing, feminine gays with whom they shared the dance floor. Masculinity was king, and manhood was our bulwark against embarrassment: We might be faggots, but at least we aren’t girls.
I shaped myself according to the messages I internalized, doing crunches in the gym and posing with a butch face to win the attention of big- biceped men, and they played their roles in turn, treating me with bullish impatience and demanding nudes in caveman English.
Eventually, I realized this wasn’t for me: I’m more of a girl than a boy. I discovered this as I gradually gained the courage to liberate my feminine instincts, which had been buried so long I forgot where I’d put them. Women— both trans and cis—taught me to honor softness and my emotional depths, which boys had long-degraded. As I grew my hair long and painted my nails, I became increasingly invisible to the gay men on Grindr. But I now attracted a separate crop of suitors, from a lesser-known stratum of the app: the hordes of straight, bi, and pansexual men who use Grindr to meet trans girls.
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