Fear is a harsh, pervasive, and often well hidden motivator.

If I may paraphrase Hermann Hesse; “When we fear someone, we fear something in them that is also in us. What isn’t in us doesn’t disturb us.”

Perhaps,(just speculating here), perhaps you’re father’s open homophobia put a great Fear in you of being effeminate, such that you trained yourself, from childhood to avoid any effeminate behaviors. This Fear became ingrained into you such that it controlled you without your even being consciously aware of it.

Exposure to a man with an effeminate affect, struck one of your, if not your number one, deepest fears, one that you had learned to react to instinctively, with no conscious thought.

From here, it looks like although you had shrugged off your father’s training concerning homoeroticism, there was a deeply buried remnant of that 'training’.

Your homophobic dad, though you thought you had escaped his influence, came back to bite you in the ass,(and not in a nice way 😉).

I could easily be completely wrong. What do you think?

BTW, I think that you are a brave man, and given your intelligence and willingness to face realities and still remain resilient, I expect that you’ll go far.

Peace Love Kindness Respect the more you give the more you get 😍 start with yourself 😉 because you deserve it ❤️🙏🏼 (you really do. I promise.)

--weezi--💜🌈🙏🏼🦄🥳🎉