What were you supposed to do when a site you’ve grown attached to refuses to take down hate speech?

Devin had pondered this question for a long time at this point. Leave the site, probably. That’s what a lot of the authors did, at least.

So why didn’t he do the same?

He certainly used the site less, but even a year later he was still using it every week or so. Why hadn’t he left it completely?

It may be because he’d grown too attached to it. He probably shouldn’t have read so many of those damn stories. It was as if Fictionmania, TG Storytime, BigCloset, and all the other gender bending sites had become a part of him.

It could just be a reflexive reaction. A lot of those sites had occupied a permanent place in Devin's browser history. Literally the first thing that comes up when he types ‘t’ in his google search bar is TG Storytime, and the same goes for ‘f’ and Fictionmania. He had absent mindedly gone on those sites multiple times a day for years.

After thinking it over, Devin came to the conclusion that it was probably a combination of both. Either way, some part of him had a really hard time letting the site go. Even when the moderator literally said the site wasn’t a transgender support group, Devin couldn’t let it go. Even if a lot of people on social media who knew about the site seemingly had no trouble letting it go, Devin couldn’t.

Why was it so hard for him? It was just a site. It wasn’t a real person or anything. And yet, try as he may, the connection between him and gender bending fiction had become too strong. Was he an addict?

Devin wanted to laugh at the thought. Becoming addicted to internet stories was an absurd thing to think about. But it did kind of seem like that was the case.

As Devin washed all the pots and plates, he really contemplated if he could be considered a “TG Story Addict”, if such a thing even exists. Could he? He did visit gender bending sites nearly every day for about 4 years or so. So it could definitely be considered a habit or an obsession, but was he addicted?

Really thinking about it from a critical standpoint, the answer seemed to be “yes”, and at that point Devin was contemplating why he hadn’t just admitted that to himself earlier.

It was obvious those stories were some kind of coping mechanism for him. He lived an empty, miserable life in reality, where it felt as if all his emotions were mostly muted and he didn’t really care about anything except Elise. Then he would come home, and at night pass time by reading some good wish fulfillment stories where he could just insert himself into the main protagonist transforming into a woman and forget about his lonely, miserable life.

In some way it felt disrespectful to the authors who had poured so much work into their crafts and had put so much time into perfecting their stories. Those stories meant so much to the authors who wrote them and he only used them as a coping mechanism.

What a sad, miserable person he was.

Devin felt a few tears come down from his eyes but he forced them back. One crying fit was enough for the day, he didn’t need a second one.

Once he was done washing and drying the dishes, he went outside to clear his head. With his sweatshirt on, he took a walk around the neighborhood, smelling the fresh summer air and watching the nice clouds move across the sky. It was really peaceful and it put his mind at rest. It was partially ruined by one of the neighbor’s dogs seeing him and then loudly barking, but he got over it.

As he was walking a thought came into his mind. At a time like this that probably wasn’t a good thing, but try as he may, he couldn’t get it out so he was forced to contemplate it.

Should he tell Elise about TG Storytime’s hate speech policy?

The fact that she now knew about TG Storytime at all was still a bit hard for Devin to comprehend, let alone the fact that she was actually enjoying For a Girl, and would come back and presumably read through more of it with him.

Elise probably wouldn’t have any use for TG Storytime. People like her just weren’t this into gender bending content. But still, she probably should know about the site’s hate speech policy, especially if she already knew that the site existed at all.

Once Devin went back into his house and caught his last breath of the nice, fresh summer air, his decision was made. He would tell Elise about the hate speech policy. Probably not tomorrow, and probably not while they were still reading For a Girl, but eventually. She deserved to know about it.

Once it got dark Devin went to get a shower. Showers were much more bearable after this long on hormones. He liked the way the water felt on his softer, more sensitive skin, and he no longer had to turn the lights off every time he took one. These days his showers were probably the easiest place for him to slip into Sierra.

As Sierra washed her body, she closed her eyes. She didn’t need to be reminded of that thing that still dangled between her legs. She felt calm. That same calmness she felt last time she became Sierra. She forgot about the world for the moment and just imagined all her problems had vanished away.

It couldn’t be for long though.

Devin stepped out of the shower and dried himself off. After putting on a new pair of clothes, he headed to his room. With the calmness gone, he felt the same emptiness he always felt as Devin. The same eternal misery that prevented him from ever being happy, or ever having any emotions at all.

When Devin reached his room, he immediately fell onto his bed.

Devin laid down on his back. The estrogen had made him lose the ability to sleep on his stomach. The discomfort on his chest was too much for him to ignore.

As he stared up at the ceiling he found himself wishing that he could just have a more fulfilling life. He didn’t want to live like a static void of nothingness. He wanted to feel like he was living his own life, for once.

Some very immature part of him was anticipating that he would wake up the next day as a confident and content young woman, and that history would be rewritten so he would always have been a woman. But of course real life doesn’t work like that. Only in fiction.