As painful as it is to be seen as the embodiment of my fears, the real agony comes from feeling that I am to blame because I don’t look feminine enough. When I finally accepted that the only way I could stop my male classmates from tormenting me for being too girly was by pretending to be a boy, I knew I couldn’t afford to be just an average boy. In my mind, the better I performed my new role, the safer I would be. In order to survive childhood, I became an exceptional boy. So now, when I’m seen as male, there’s a part of me that worries that it’s my fault—for having striven to be the perfect
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