I wanted to add to the previous post, remembering what I said about this being a spiritually and emotionally transformative week for me.

Last week, I realized that many of my issues constructing a stable gender identity were rooted in experiences and frustrations I had had as a teenager, college student, and graduate student. I grew up in a conservative Christian home, and it was understood that "partying" was something a good Christian boy or man didn't do--and after my brother's rebellious teenage years, there was more pressure on me to be "the good kid" or "the level-headed one". I had friends who drank, who smoked pot, who engaged in promiscuous sex, who had homosexual lovers, who said things like "shit" and "fuck" and "damn," or whose families were not as "pristine" as mine . . . and I had a special bond of loyalty with them (some of these people I had grown up with since elementary school) that I felt unrighteous breaking.

Unfortunately, the pressure I felt to be a "good kid" and the emphasis I placed on being successful outweighed those concerns (in my mind). I chose to break those bonds of friendship and loyalty . . . and in so doing, I became worse than the people I was no longer fellowshipping with. A hard-hearted person is someone others tend not to appreciate or open themselves up to--and cutting off friendships and relationships in order to (in essence) preserve your reputation is the epitome of hard-heartedness.

I needed love, and I wanted love--but I forgot how to share it.