Minority Stress – Part 2

When The World Tells You You’re Not Real

I wasn’t planning to write a Part 2. I thought Part 1 said what I needed to say. But then I got a message – a particularly vicious one – and it lodged under my skin like a splinter. I won’t repeat the whole thing here (frankly, it doesn’t deserve the airtime), but I will quote a few lines, because I think they’re useful examples of what minority stress really looks like in the wild.

You’re just a confused gay man who mutilated himself.

Stop pretending this is an identity.

What you’ve done is disgusting and you shouldn’t be proud of it.

Let’s be clear: this wasn’t a debate. It wasn’t a difference of opinion. It was a deliberate attempt to humiliate and dehumanise me. And while I’m not going to dignify the author with a back-and-forth, I am going to talk about what this kind of thing does to a person – not just to me, but to anyone who lives outside the lines society has drawn for them.

Because that’s what minority stress is: not a one-off insult, but a slow, persistent corrosion. It’s the emotional toll of being told – directly or indirectly – that you’re not valid, not real, not enough. It’s being expected to justify your existence. It’s carrying the weight of other people’s discomfort.

And it accumulates. Every comment like this one adds a little more to the pile. You get tired. You start to doubt your words, your body, your self. You stop playing the piano. You stop going to the gym. You put off reading, writing, cycling. You feel flat, or irritable, or numb. Maybe you stop talking. Maybe you overshare. Either way, your energy starts going toward defence and survival instead of joy.

Minority stress isn’t just theoretical. It’s not something you can journal away or “just ignore.” It’s physiological. It’s neurological. It’s psychological. It wears you down. And when the world is shouting that you’re not real, it takes enormous strength not to disappear.

But I am still here.

And I will not be shamed for surviving in the way that made survival possible.

If you see yourself in what I’m describing – whether you’re trans, non-binary, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, or simply “not what they expected” – please know this: you are not broken. You are not a fraud. You are not disgusting. You are real. Your experiences are real. And your body, your identity, your joy – they are yours. You don’t need permission to exist.

This blog is one of the ways I push back. Some days, it’s easy. Some days, it costs me. But I keep writing because silence has never kept anyone safe. And because somewhere out there, someone else is reading this and realising they’re not alone.

To the person who sent me that message: I’m not going to argue with you. Your words don’t deserve a defence – because what you defend, you make real, and I’m not about to make your projections real.

But I am going to keep existing – loudly, visibly, and without apology.

Because I don’t need to defend who I am.

I am.

The original Minority Stress entry can be read here.