Happy Pride 2025!!!

[Captain24]

I love that @ale_inmelb 

[ale_inmelb]

@Captain24

thank you so much. i've been celebrating pride month on my own for the last 5 years and this year will be my first one celebrating with people (online and real life)

[Jynx]

Same @Captain24 I love this so much @ale_inmelb - your values really resonate with my own, that is pretty special 😊

What a special thing that we get to be part of that celebration with you @ale_inmelb 😍

[ale_inmelb]

@Jynx @Captain24

Imma come back to my home country in 10 days and not gonna lie, i've planned to come out to my parents but i am super nervous to do so as well...

[MissinTooth]

@Jynx @Dreamy the whole..."can't you be more feminine?" thing didn't just happen for me as a child. Even now, I go home to my parents house and get put-down for the way I sit in a chair because it's not "lady-like."  My Mum's words are very...harsh. And I'm over here like..."I just want to be comfortable..."

As for masculine and feminine energy, I've been told that I need to let more feminine energy in and to be honest, I don't know how or what that looks like for me. 

When it comes down to it...I want to dress, move, and pursue things that make me feel comfortable, things that...that allow me space to just do me and not have to mask or to feel judged just for wanting to feel comfortable, at ease and authentically me. 

I want to feel safe to be me...whoever that person is. 

[Captain24]

Hey @ale_inmelb 

I get coming out is hard. I’m only out on here and that’s how it’ll stay unless I met someone and then I have that fear.

This thread has me thinking and I actually wrote an in depth post on my thread. But there is still more stuff inside to get out. 

I hope it turns out that your family is super understanding. I wish you the best with it. 

[ale_inmelb]

@Captain24

There’s a generational barrier that’s hard to ignore—especially when queerness simply didn’t “exist” in the world our parents and grandparents grew up in. It wasn’t just misunderstood—it was unspoken, erased, or seen as something that could never belong in our culture. Conversations about gender and sexuality weren’t part of daily life, education, or even casual language. And when something is never acknowledged, it becomes invisible.

In my country, we don’t even have gender-neutral pronouns. Our language is gendered at its core, which makes expressing a non-binary identity not only challenging—but sometimes impossible without resistance. It creates this constant dissonance between how I see myself and how I’m spoken about. Even when someone wants to be supportive, the words just aren’t there. And that absence, that linguistic void, reinforces the feeling that maybe I’m not supposed to be there either.

Sometimes, I didn’t just feel misunderstood—I felt untranslatable. Like the way I experienced myself didn’t have a place in the world I came from. That’s a hard weight to carry, especially when all you want is to be seen and respected in your full truth.

But even with all of that—the silence, the cultural resistance, the lack of language—I’m still trying my best to stay true to myself. It’s not always easy. There are days when I second-guess everything, when I wonder if it would just be simpler to go quiet, to fit in. But I know that denying who I am would hurt so much more. So I choose, every day, to honour my identity in the small ways I can—whether that’s correcting someone gently, embracing my expression, or just allowing myself to exist without apology. Staying true to myself isn’t about being loud all the time. Sometimes, it’s just about holding space for my truth, even when no one else understands it yet.

[Captain24]

That’s a hard weight to carry @ale_inmelb. 

The barrier of who you are and being unable to express it in linguistic terms would be a challenge and the fear of non acceptance by your country and culture. The fact that it doesn’t ‘exist’ in spoken terms. 

Being true to yourself is hard and I want to acknowledge that you are doing well in trying to be your authentic self. 

[ale_inmelb]

@Jynx 

“Dysphoria comes in all forms, but so does euphoria.”

I was—and still am—having a tough time with gender dysphoria. Some days, it creeps in quietly. Other days, it roars. It can be triggered by something as simple as a pronoun slip, a glance in the mirror, or the way a stranger addresses me. It’s a heaviness that’s hard to explain—the feeling of not quite fitting into the world around you, or even into your own skin.

But alongside that pain, I’ve learned that gender euphoria exists too. It might be fleeting at times, but it’s real. It’s in the moments when someone uses the right name without hesitation. It’s when I wear something that truly feels like me. It’s when I look in the mirror and—for a second—I see myself as I truly am, not as others expect me to be. Those moments may be small, but they light up something inside me that dysphoria can never fully take away.

This journey isn’t linear. It’s hard, it’s messy, and it’s deeply personal. But through it all, I’m still here. Still learning. Still fighting. Still loving the parts of myself I was once told to hide.

[Jynx]

---

@ale_inmelb wrote:
@Jynx @Captain24

Imma come back to my home country in 10 days and not gonna lie, i've planned to come out to my parents but i am super nervous to do so as well...

---

@ale_inmelb ohhhh big decision!! I've come out twice (as gay, then as nonbinary) and I tell you what it is neeeever easy! 

Do you have any kind of thoughts on how they might react? 

Let us know if there's a way the community can support you in this! Like would it help to hear some other coming out stories? Or would it be enough to know that if it all goes wonky, you can come vent here and know you'll have a whole community here to catch ya? We are here for you 😊

Also, really value your sharing of the struggles with your native tongue!! I have thought before of how languages like Spanish or German could create that sense of alienation for enby folks. I'm mad enough about having found no satisfying gender neutral term for aunt/uncle, and that is only a single facet of my existence. Can't imagine the struggle of that 'brain-itch' feeling of being misgendered being baked into the very structure of your language. 

Your experiences of gender euphoria have also made me all warm n fuzzy inside!! I sense a potential thread coming on.... 😋

@Captain24 coming out anywhere is worth celebrating. I am so proud of you hun!! 

---

@MissinTooth wrote:

And I'm over here like..."I just want to be comfortable..."

...

---

@MissinTooth MOOOOOD 

I swear, comfort has been my goal for a long time. I remember someone saying to me once, 'Beauty is pain,' as they were painfully wrenching hair out of their brows. I was so baffled, I have never understood that mentality. I know that's more 'resisting beauty industry toxicity' than 'resisting femininity' but it's all kinda interconnected, this sense of being told that I had to basically perform femininity. 

---

@MissinTooth wrote:

As for masculine and feminine energy, I've been told that I need to let more feminine energy in and to be honest, I don't know how or what that looks like for me.  

---

Honestly yeah this one is also potentially worth its own thread. To me, feminine energy is like the moon, where masculine is the sun. It's about the duality of things. Feminity is flowing water and a warm embrace, masculine energy is burning fire and a sturdy shoulder to lean on. But that is absolutely a totally subjective interpretation - you can define and then embrace or reject feminity in whatever way feels right for you!