I say this with multiple underlying caveats, but there are social aspects of being gay that give me personal freedoms many straight men haven’t embraced. For the ones who associate certain healthy bonding and emotional development behaviors with being gay and effeminate, they have to deal with that baggage that I personally am not weighed down by.

They want to think of me as gay for knowing and continually learning how to take care of my mental health and foster meaningful, healthy relationships in ways that would likely benefit them? Well, I am gay, and I’m doing pretty well with my life both superficially and substantively.

It also led to interesting laws trying to prevent gay marriage in some US states before the Obergefell decision. Some states didn’t want to recognize trans people’s gender status, so if your sex was male and you were a trans woman, the law allowed you to marry a woman but not a man.

In some states, trans people would be recognized for their gender identity and were only allowed to marry accordingly. So a trans woman was viewed as a woman and was only allowed to marry a man.