I should prefix this by saying, that I pass extremely well.  I've been on T for 4 years now, I'm post op on top, I have an adam's apple, a small one but visible, I'm 5'10" with strong broad shoulders and a hairy scruff on my cheeks.  I'm not bragging, it's just important to realize to understand what happened to me today. 

Here it is, I'm writing a story, a novel actually.  I've had the first draft done since the end of NaNoWriMo.  It has some supernatural elements and some fighting and gore.  I'd term it horror more then any other genre.  In this story I have an FTM character, it's not the point of the character, it's just one part of his background.  He is one of the two main characters.  In order to get feedback and learn how others are seeing my story I submitted a few chapters to a writing group.  I've been getting feedback, most people seem to like it.  Some say it's to gory, and that's feedback I can use.  However there is also this one guy, let's call him Jack because that's his name, who seems especially disturbed by my FTM character. 

Today he was literally pounding the table demanding to know whether my character is a man or a woman.  I have never refereed to my character in any manner other than male, but that's not enough for this guy.  It's one thing to give feedback, it's another thing entirely to get so emotionally caught up that the table gets slapped.  I show my character before he started taking hormones and then a year and a half after and show some of the changes that would happen in that time frame.  Yet, like I said, the point of the character is not that he's FTM, there is a lot more to him.  Yet Jack is all caught up in this one aspect of him, demanding more and more information and it just got under my skin. 

I guess it was just the sheer amount of hatred coming out over this.  Of course none of them know about my past and I can never tell them.  The other people had constructive feedback about my story, although they did have some questions about the FTM experience, which I was happy to answer.  Those questions were placed from a place of curiosity not to hatred and anger.   

It was ultimately just so irrational really and there was no pacifying him and it was just so strange and off putting.  People don't need to like the character or the story but to rip him apart for this one aspect just hurts me, you know.  I mean Jack is the type of person you could see voting to keep transgender high school kids out of their correct bathroom.  I just sat there, looking at him, wondering, why do you exist?  Why must you exist?  Why are you in my face?  I don't understand your existence of being this volatile about a character that's not even real but is based on my life experiences.  I guess I am taking it personally, I'll admit it.  It hurt me.

You know I spend a lot of time on Tumblr and Facebook and in those environments I can control who I see and interact with.  I can paint a world where people at least make every reasonable attempt to understand Trans* individuals.  The friends I have are overwhelming liberal and open minded bunch.  Then I go out into the real world and realize, holy ->-bleeped-<-, these people are a bunch of ignorant ->-bleeped-<-s.  The average person on the street knows jack ->-bleeped-<- and some of them get very angry if they are forced to face certain realities at all. 

I mean I know they are.  My entire family disowned me, for the most part.  It just that happened 5 years ago now so it's not part of my day to day existence.  I just want to believe that people I meet and have coffee with would be reasonable intelligent individuals and when they are not it just makes me feel dirty.  Dirty to be part of this intolerant species making rash judgements based on fear and loathing.  I just want to shake him but I know that wouldn't do any good.  It wouldn't help anything get into his head.  It's like talking to a blank stupid ->-bleeped-<-ing wall and I want better.  I want people to be better than that, I really do. 

It pisses me off to no end that they are just ->-bleeped-<-ing not.           

I feel you man. I made a character recently, they are an agender character named Jay, and I drew a picture of them and put it on tumblr, and despite how much I try to block these type of people from my tumblr, I got people telling me all about how Jay 'wasn't really agender' or 'was just confused' or 'a poser' and all that crap, basically anything to discount their identity. Even though Jay was a character I created and we don't have the same identity, it hurt me like these people were insulting my own personality, and I imagine it's even worse when you do share an identity with your character. It really pisses me off that there's very few places out there where we can be safe from these types of people, because no matter how hard we try, they always seem to pop up where they don't belong.

When people respond to things in that way, I really start to question their own security in their gender and/or sexuality. I know it's extremely cliche, but someone who was comfortable with themselves might (if they were ignorant) be confused by the character or think it was strange. But they wouldn't go that far into it and get that invested in it, losing all focus of every other part of your story and character.

That being said, I'm pretty sick of encountering people who just say dumb stuff all the time, and I've become increasingly antisocial over the last couple of years because I've lost interest in dealing with them. So I get where you are coming from. I don't understand why people need to act the way they so often do.

Thanks for answering, I just really needed to vent yesterday. 

I think you are right Birkin, he's just insecure himself and projecting it all over me.  I know that many people are not ready to learn.  In my opinion that's a strange way to go through life, not wanting to learn anything or see anything new especially when you claim to be an author.  But that's just the reality of it.  He wasn't ready to learn something new and upset when I presented him with the opportunity. 

I'm sorry to hear you are feeling so antisocial.  There are a lot of good people out there.  It's my failing that I tend to concentrate on those who disappoint me and not on those who encourage me.  I don't know if I need to grow a tougher skin exactly, it's pretty tough now, but I need to learn to focus more on the positive and less on the negative.

CursedFireDean, I have no idea how people can be so presumptions as to tell you about your character.  You are the only one who knows them and people should respect that.  It's a crazy world where people will pound and crush an idea so it fits into a little box of their own creation.  As artists it's tough because we see the whole wide world and so many only want to see their little corner of it. 

I have a finished novel that I am in the works of submitting now to publishing companies. The main character is ftm, I am very open about that, but it's only vaguely important to his current life. I've had a few experiences that are similar to you. I'll write more later. I'm posting now so that I don't forget about this thread.