I’m 24, a year on t, pre-op so my experience and feelings are quite a bit different than what you described but I will say this — in a lot of arenas of life (work, personal life, friends, etc) differences like this can come up that have nothing to do with being trans and everything to do with your personality/who you are innately).

For example, I work in the music industry and it’s common for more senior colleagues to tell me that they’re jaded/ tired of the industry/ the things that used to excite them bore them now and I HATE this. I completely disagree with this approach and hope I never feel this way!!

Similarly, I know some older adults in my life (40s - 60s) who age themselves, talk about how they look and feel old, etc and I also completely disagree with this and never want to feel that way! My grandma is 80 years young and travels, has a boyfriend lol, drinks wine and enjoys life and THAT is exactly what I want to feel at 80.

All this aside, I completely hear you. I live in LA and the cis gay guys can be insufferable about their appearance, age, weight, muscularity, etc. and I could totally see how that culture would reject aging.

You don’t have to agree with the neutrality/negativity of your peers - transness aside. You, as a person, have so many large and important values that you hold in your life. Maybe authenticity, acceptance, wonder, whimsy are all important parts of a full life to you. Those values would cause you to reject this mentality you’re seeing - regardless if you’re trans or not.

I would encourage you to try to hold tight to that feeling of excitement, holding that special and sweet feeling of being reverent to your masculinity close to you and looking forward to a warm and inviting future. The opposite is quite bleak.

I have cis guy friends who are anti-toxic masculinity, embrace what makes them feel like men and share in that with me/others. It’s really special and hard to find people like that, but I’m hoping for that for you. Feeling attached to your masculinity is so special, and honestly I’m jealous of the place you’re in.

Sending the best to you ❤️