What about you threatens others?

It seems that lately (and this has happened previously, in my life) some people I interact with at my job (and there are many of various professions and levels) find that I am doing too good of a job. My direct supervisors (who are my true supporters) explain some of the tensions I experience when trying to work in a civil manner with many personalities happen to be because I am a threat, in a way, because I am a young, energetic person of integrity and I am passionate about doing my job well and, by comparison, scare others who no longer feel like caring. This doesn’t make me feel any better and just kind of sucks all around. So, that’s example 1.

Example 2 has to do with a lot of my identities (and we’ve discussed all this before so I’ll just keep it short) in terms of sexuality and gender that makes others feel threatened (a recent question about losing friends over some deal-breakers got me thinking about how I’ve lost some because they became obviously threatened about some parts of my life and felt it didn’t mesh with how they wanted to live theirs).

It seems that people often find my views to be a reflection on them (and I know they shouldn’t do this and yes, we’ve discussed how that’s cliche and typical and I shouldn’t pay attention to it) without me even asking for justification of their behavior. For example, some people having issues in their relationship won’t really bring their partners around because (heaven forbid) I talk about my open relationship and the mere mention of these ideas will break them up. Or parents that hear about us and the kids being vegan start rattling off their reasons for feeding their kids something else when this wasn’t even the point of the conversation and I feel like other parents think our ideas about gender are dangerous to their kids.

I am not sure what I feel about being a threat to many people in so many ways. I wish it wasn’t like that, I suppose. I wish people questioned their life, yes, became more educated and informed but for their own sake and never as a response to me.

Anyway, enough about that. Tell me…if you’ve ever felt like a threat. What ideas/actions/practices of yours threaten others, if at all?