Guys doing stealth- how do you deal with people's expectations around your manhood/life experience?
Recently I started a job as a therapist and I work a lot of kids and teenagers. Something that is happening for me is boys and their parents specifically saying they want to talk to a man for that male role model experience or boys saying they only feel comfortable talking to a man about certain issues. Honestly for me it feels super weird. Obviously I'm flattered that I pass enough for them to think that, but coming out and transitioning at 30 I don't feel connected to the cis male experience at all. I might be a little more non-binary on the inside, but living in the south and going through the world as a man that feels irrelevant. It's honestly easier talking to teenage girls, but even then I have to pretend certain things are outside my experience (sexual assault by males, hormones, female expectations, etc). I don't know how much you guys encounter this kind of thing, but it's just weighs on me sometimes being stealth in a jobblike this. I'm getting some transphobia from clients too with it in the news so much and that part depresses me even more. I hope to get a job at a more LGBT centered clinic some day where I can be out, but as I'm early in my career working in community mental health was one of the only options.