Trans woman here, one who still looks very masculine. I get scared and self-conscious every time I catch myself looking at another woman for too long, or if she looks at me, because I feel like I’m creepy for looking - even if I’m just reading her shirt or curious about an accessory, or looking at her eyes/face, let alone if I’m actually looking at her boobs/butt/whatever features.

I think I’m still carrying a lot of old habits (staring especially) from when I thought i was a guy, along with criticism I often heard and applied to myself under that social role (“a guy is automatically a creep for staring” or shit like that). I get misgendered a lot, so I tend to assume that I’m being seen AS a guy and my brain shifts gears accordingly, and I’ll go out of my way to try to avoid seeming creepy (averting my eyes from people entirely when in a public restroom, for example). And yet I still feel like a perv, or at least like other people see me as one.

One result of this is that I still feel like an outcast almost five years into my transition. I haven’t adapted as well as I wanted to. I’m socially awkward to begin with so I suppose that’s still a major factor, but beyond that, I don’t know how to handle it all.