An old Instagram video of a trans man talking about post-transition loneliness and vulnerability is going viral again on social media.
Born female and turned male, James Barnes opened up in a video posted in October 2022, in which he opens up about the loneliness he has felt and how difficult it is for a man to make friends. The video quickly went viral, and was even reposted on Friday, receiving more than 45,000 reactions on Twitter.
“No one told me how lonely you are when you’re a man,” he said, in tears.
He also explains that it was easier for him to make friends when he was a woman, because of the more assumed vulnerability in women, according to him.
“I had deeper relationships with unknown women I met in nightclub bathrooms before I transitioned, because women are more open, than after my eight years of transitioning, because women are just a lot more vulnerable and deeper than men,” he added.
The young man thus claimed to understand why the suicide rate was higher among men than among women.
“When you transition, you just become a man walking down the street and people avoid changing sidewalks so they’re not near you,” he said, adding that “friendships are fine. harder to build, and people are colder.”
James Barnes, however, assured, under his original video, that he did not regret having made his transition, and that this video had brought him a lot of messages of support and new male friends.