Trans and autistic and self-conscious about being “weird”

One of my coworkers, “John,” has always been awesome to me. He’s a cis queer man, a few years older than me. We’re the same height (short), and he genuinely makes me feel good about my prospects of passing one day. I want to be like him so badly.

At the start of this year, he told me about how one of our coworkers, also transmasc, had a massive crush on him. They had been stalking him for several months before and after being fired for harassment. Joe unfortunately does not pass, so being in that conversation while several of my coworkers (never John) struggled to gender them correctly felt like we were talking about “weird autistic teenage girl obsesses over dude NOT into her.”

John has also complained to me about several of our trans coworkers guilting him for not being a performative ally. He IS a great ally. He’s just somewhat DL and knows a time and place for it.

I’m getting really close to John and I’m just so fearful he‘ll group me in with the other trans people who have happened to be shitty to him. I don’t mind being grouped in with trans people, but when being trans has been a common denominator for pathetic behaviour here, it would really suck.

He’s friends with almost everyone at work. Meanwhile, he’s my closest friend there by a long shot. I’m a lot more confident now that I’ve transitioned and I’m worried that will be off-putting. Me being autistic makes me really clingy to people I like, and I’m so worried he’ll eventually see me as a stalker.

I am terrified of losing this friendship because I’m not man enough. He’ll joke with me but hesitate with “guy humour” (i.e. most recently hesitated before jokingly asking if I’m ‘a sissy’). He’s just so careful around me and I can’t tell if it’s because he secretly sees me as a girl, or if it’s because I’m autistic and take things too literally. I sometimes feel like he only talks to me because he pities me.

I just hate the thought of losing him because aim too creepy and being the weird autistic trans person with no friends again.