As I slowly enter my actually-having-self-confidence arc, I have a lot of thoughts regarding transfemininity and societal conditioning
Broadly, I think a lot of people of transfeminine experience have internalised a lot of the messaging society feeds us to severely detrimental effect. They tell us we're predators so we learn to repress our desires, to not express them, to be docile and quiet. They teach us that we're ugly so we learn to never see our beauty, to beat ourselves up and put ourselves down over our appearance, to deny the possibility that anyone could ever really see us as attractive. They teach us that no one could ever want us so we learn to never approach others, to hide away from social spaces, to twist everything that happens into being read as us being rejected
It's time for us to learn that we are allowed desires, that we don't have to be quiet and hide our sexuality away. It's time to learn that we are so much more attractive than we ever realised and to embrace this gorgeousness. It's time to learn that people want us in their lives, that we are allowed to take up space and not everything someone says is some signal of us being shunned
Transfems, we are incredible, and we deserve to be confident and loud and fierce! We deserve to see our strength, and to know that we are deserving of acceptance, of love, of community. Don't let the world convince you otherwise, don't let their voices overpower your own in your head, see your beauty and embrace it
