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QUILTBAG: It’s Pride Time

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  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    Hmm...I'd actually like to talk about that tweet, if that's okay.

    For reference, just to pull it out of the webcomic above:


    If you're under the assumption that you're a cis guy but have always dreamed of being a girl, and the only reason you haven't transitioned is because you're afraid you'll be an "ugly" girl:

    That's dysphoria. You're literally a trans girl already, hon.

    So, as someone who is having a lot of thoughts about my gender and, naturally, doubts about those thoughts, this is making me wonder if I just don't really understand what dysphoria is. I mean, I guess I could Google a definition, but I'm not sure how helpful a clinical description of it would be.

    When I started having these thoughts several weeks ago, one of the main sources of self-doubt came from the feeling that I don't experience dysphoria. My experiences with trans friends, and from a former girlfriend who is trans, led me to think that dysphoria was pretty striking. Like, if I wasn't sure I had dysphoria, then I probably didn't have it. I also [POSSIBLE TMI WARNING] don't really have any negative feelings towards my penis. I rather like it, tbh, and plan on keeping it regardless of what I end up deciding re: transitioning. I'm aware that there's a school of thought that if you don't have dysphoria, you're not trans, and while I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea, it definitely has a strong effect on my self-doubt with regards to whether I'm trans myself.

    That being said, one of the major concerns that I have is exactly what she spells out in that tweet: I am afraid that I'll be an ugly girl. I'm afraid that wanting to be a woman is just a symptom of general dissatisfaction with my body (I'm overweight...that's mostly it, actually. I'm also short, but that stopped bothering me awhile ago), and when I think positively about living life as a woman (which I often do these days), the picture in my head is of a cute tomboyish girl who has some pudge. And I don't know if that's realistic; a few years from now, when I'm 'fully transitioned', and I'm still overweight and feel shitty about my body, am I going to regret transitioning because it didn't solve anything, and actually the problem wasn't 'being a man' it was 'being fat'? This is where my mind is at right now (obviously I really need to see a professional about all this).

    So like...is that dysphoria? I dunno. I don't really feel like I've been living a lie my whole life or anything. But I do have fantasies of, like, getting a cool queer girl haircut and doing makeup and painting my nails and getting girly smelly bath stuff and dressing a certain way. And I know most of that I can do as a guy, but I don't want to do it as a guy, I want to do it as a girl.

    ...this ended up being more of a 'vomiting my feelings onto the forum' than I intended. But I am interested in some discussion on just what dysphoria is or what it means to y'all.

    vRyue2p.png
  • GrogGrog My sword is only steel in a useful shape.Registered User regular
    Hmm...I'd actually like to talk about that tweet, if that's okay.

    Dysphoria hasn't been the driving force for me so much as being able to picture a future I can live with. There are a few specific things I could point to that are dysphoric but even those are centred more around the external, societal facet of gender.

    I mainly just want to end up an old woman. Before I came out I couldn't picture getting past 18 (or 25, or 30), just didn't feel like there was a future, but now I think of growing old and I smile.
    And I know most of that I can do as a guy, but I don't want to do it as a guy, I want to do it as a girl.

    This is enough, no one can tell you otherwise.

  • Silas BrownSilas Brown That's hobo style. Registered User regular
    I struggled with similar feelings re: dysphoria and wondering if I have it or if I have it the right way or whatever. The thing that got me moving was a tweet I read that suggested, if I would go into a machine that turns me into a girl, well... transitioning is that machine. And like, hell yeah I would. I had no doubt about that.

    So that really cleared it up for me.

  • ElldrenElldren Is a woman dammit ceterum censeoRegistered User regular
    I struggled with similar feelings re: dysphoria and wondering if I have it or if I have it the right way or whatever. The thing that got me moving was a tweet I read that suggested, if I would go into a machine that turns me into a girl, well... transitioning is that machine. And like, hell yeah I would. I had no doubt about that.

    So that really cleared it up for me.

    Yeah those sorts of thought experiments really helped me clarify if my apprehension was due to the process or my discomfort with potential results.

    Turns out I’m still p apprehensive about process

    Processing that has been a process

    Process process process process

    fuck gendered marketing
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Some people feel intense negative feelings about presenting as the wrong gender, and some do not, or feel something more low key, or don't recognize they are feeling dysphoria because it's just the baseline way they always feel and can't perceive it. And feeling bad or uncomfortable about the genitals you have is not a requirement either, plenty of trans folks like their existing genitals and don't want to change them even if they choose to go on HRT.

    20 years ago strong, explicit dysphoric feelings about your body and your genitals were required before you'd be considered Really Transgender because the psychiatric medical understanding of transgenderness was tainted by the work of a particular researcher whose theories have since been discarded as bullshit, but there is a lingering impression left in the public awareness that those old definitions are still around. What actually matters is what you want: if given a button that said "change gender" and as far as you knew it actually worked and had no negative consequences, would you press it? Would it be an easy decision? Does the idea of pressing such a button make a bubbly, positive feeling well up inside you?

    I can't tell you if you would or wouldn't be happy with your body if you transitioned, but a thought exercise you can try is thinking about what a similar-looking twin sister of yours might look like, with about the same body type, and see if you think being that twin sister would make you happier than being the brother.

    BahamutZERO on
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  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    Hmm...I'd actually like to talk about that tweet, if that's okay.

    For reference, just to pull it out of the webcomic above:


    If you're under the assumption that you're a cis guy but have always dreamed of being a girl, and the only reason you haven't transitioned is because you're afraid you'll be an "ugly" girl:

    That's dysphoria. You're literally a trans girl already, hon.

    So, as someone who is having a lot of thoughts about my gender and, naturally, doubts about those thoughts, this is making me wonder if I just don't really understand what dysphoria is. I mean, I guess I could Google a definition, but I'm not sure how helpful a clinical description of it would be.

    When I started having these thoughts several weeks ago, one of the main sources of self-doubt came from the feeling that I don't experience dysphoria. My experiences with trans friends, and from a former girlfriend who is trans, led me to think that dysphoria was pretty striking. Like, if I wasn't sure I had dysphoria, then I probably didn't have it. I also [POSSIBLE TMI WARNING] don't really have any negative feelings towards my penis. I rather like it, tbh, and plan on keeping it regardless of what I end up deciding re: transitioning. I'm aware that there's a school of thought that if you don't have dysphoria, you're not trans, and while I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea, it definitely has a strong effect on my self-doubt with regards to whether I'm trans myself.

    That being said, one of the major concerns that I have is exactly what she spells out in that tweet: I am afraid that I'll be an ugly girl. I'm afraid that wanting to be a woman is just a symptom of general dissatisfaction with my body (I'm overweight...that's mostly it, actually. I'm also short, but that stopped bothering me awhile ago), and when I think positively about living life as a woman (which I often do these days), the picture in my head is of a cute tomboyish girl who has some pudge. And I don't know if that's realistic; a few years from now, when I'm 'fully transitioned', and I'm still overweight and feel shitty about my body, am I going to regret transitioning because it didn't solve anything, and actually the problem wasn't 'being a man' it was 'being fat'? This is where my mind is at right now (obviously I really need to see a professional about all this).

    So like...is that dysphoria? I dunno. I don't really feel like I've been living a lie my whole life or anything. But I do have fantasies of, like, getting a cool queer girl haircut and doing makeup and painting my nails and getting girly smelly bath stuff and dressing a certain way. And I know most of that I can do as a guy, but I don't want to do it as a guy, I want to do it as a girl.

    ...this ended up being more of a 'vomiting my feelings onto the forum' than I intended. But I am interested in some discussion on just what dysphoria is or what it means to y'all.

    I still don't really understand what dysphoria is, and I don't have it much, I don't think. It's perhaps part of why sometimes I don't like to talk about myself as trans and say more that I'm someone who got a sex change, because I wanted to. I'm also more nb than binary but I don't like to explain that and going by male is fine/good. (I would like to be...nb from the male side, if that makes sense?)

    But the thing with dysphoria is that I'm not interested in having negative feelings be part of my self-image or part of my 'story'. I think I have felt it, but not so much about my body--it's instead probably an appropriate word to describe the way I get angry when people treated me as female, and the way I have always hated the thought of anyone thinking of me as a woman, and how doing things associated with femininity have always felt quite wrong and sometimes quite upsetting.

    I suppose I did also get top surgery, because I wanted to, but that was more from the concept that boobs weren't really part of my body self-concept, and I sort of felt like they didn't exist and I'd look 'right' without them. I also kinda used to think I didn't have boobs, and was really confused when I got sized and was like huh really? I think that's more dysmorphia--a fucked up sense of body--than dysphoria, an unhappiness around one's body. But again not exactly this really negative dysphoria concept, and I definitely had good tits--just not right for me.

    I also was completely certain that I was starting from the position of having a conventionally attractive female body but sort of middling face, and that I'd make a convincing and cute man (and the face would work better). Now I'm like wtf, maybe not so convincing, huh--but that comes as a surprise tbh. I'm honestly not sure if I'm cuter as male now or female before--maybe the latter, who knows. I feel a lot happier as male though, because I know that I don't have to look cute in order to, like, exist, cause people aren't always *looking* at men to consume their appearance--so I'm really happy that it doesn't matter as much.

    I also have no intention of doing anything with my reproductive bits. You don't have to have genitals that match your exterior presentation, so whatever. It's no one's business but yours.

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • tzeentchlingtzeentchling Doctor of Rocks OaklandRegistered User regular
    Another thought exercise might be, in regards to bodyweight concerns, is to picture yourself with various different body types - athletic, thin, muscular, etc - and then think if you might still have feelings of wanting to experience things as either a man or a woman with that body? From your post it sounds like the femininity aspect is important to you regardless of your body shape, though.

  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    Elldren wrote: »
    I struggled with similar feelings re: dysphoria and wondering if I have it or if I have it the right way or whatever. The thing that got me moving was a tweet I read that suggested, if I would go into a machine that turns me into a girl, well... transitioning is that machine. And like, hell yeah I would. I had no doubt about that.

    So that really cleared it up for me.

    Yeah those sorts of thought experiments really helped me clarify if my apprehension was due to the process or my discomfort with potential results.

    Turns out I’m still p apprehensive about process

    Processing that has been a process

    Process process process process

    This is helpful, insofar as my answer to that question is 'definitely yes'. I guess my concern is like...well, it's not a machine, it is a process, and that process seems pretty harrowing in a lot of ways! I mean, I've read enough stories of people's journeys here in the queer thread, and have enough trans friends and know their experiences, that I'm not sugar coating this for myself at all. When I'm not staying with my parents due to a global pandemic, I live in Nashville, TN, my co-workers are mostly Tennesseans, my company is a religious nonprofit healthcare company. The idea of transitioning in this environment is daunting; the only reason I'm even considering it is because I trust my co-workers and my boss to go to the mat for me on this.

    I do think I would be happier as a woman, but part of why I don't think of myself as having dysphoria is because I'm not really unhappy right now. Not to mention that my understanding is that HRT can cause gender dysphoria if you're not, like...sufficiently dysphoric already? That and some possible physical health side effects that I worry about as someone with diabetes, but that's stuff to talk to my doctor about I guess.

    I suppose my thing is like...even if the question 'do you want to be a woman' is solved, does that necessarily mean that transitioning is the right thing to do? The process is still the process, there is no machine or magic wand for it.

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  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    Another thought exercise might be, in regards to bodyweight concerns, is to picture yourself with various different body types - athletic, thin, muscular, etc - and then think if you might still have feelings of wanting to experience things as either a man or a woman with that body? From your post it sounds like the femininity aspect is important to you regardless of your body shape, though.

    Hmm, I would rather be an ideal-weight woman than an ideal-weight man, for sure.

    I'm not sure if I would rather be an overweight man or an overweight woman though? I dunno, I'll have to do some real soul searching on that one.

    This is good to think about though, thank you!

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  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Also as a side note, I really appreciate y'all helping me work through this, especially since I have, for various reasons, been trepidatious about taking the plunge on a therapist.

    Not that this thread is an appropriate substitute for professional therapy, but it's very helpful to get my thoughts in order. Y'all are great <3

    Hi I'm Vee! on
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  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    Elldren wrote: »
    I struggled with similar feelings re: dysphoria and wondering if I have it or if I have it the right way or whatever. The thing that got me moving was a tweet I read that suggested, if I would go into a machine that turns me into a girl, well... transitioning is that machine. And like, hell yeah I would. I had no doubt about that.

    So that really cleared it up for me.

    Yeah those sorts of thought experiments really helped me clarify if my apprehension was due to the process or my discomfort with potential results.

    Turns out I’m still p apprehensive about process

    Processing that has been a process

    Process process process process

    This is helpful, insofar as my answer to that question is 'definitely yes'. I guess my concern is like...well, it's not a machine, it is a process, and that process seems pretty harrowing in a lot of ways! I mean, I've read enough stories of people's journeys here in the queer thread, and have enough trans friends and know their experiences, that I'm not sugar coating this for myself at all. When I'm not staying with my parents due to a global pandemic, I live in Nashville, TN, my co-workers are mostly Tennesseans, my company is a religious nonprofit healthcare company. The idea of transitioning in this environment is daunting; the only reason I'm even considering it is because I trust my co-workers and my boss to go to the mat for me on this.

    I do think I would be happier as a woman, but part of why I don't think of myself as having dysphoria is because I'm not really unhappy right now. Not to mention that my understanding is that HRT can cause gender dysphoria if you're not, like...sufficiently dysphoric already? That and some possible physical health side effects that I worry about as someone with diabetes, but that's stuff to talk to my doctor about I guess.

    I suppose my thing is like...even if the question 'do you want to be a woman' is solved, does that necessarily mean that transitioning is the right thing to do? The process is still the process, there is no machine or magic wand for it.

    It's definitely a process and you don't have to do it if you don't want to

    There can be the understanding that you are female or secretly female or genderqueer or however you want to put it without any sort of physical action. Your presentation does not have to match anyone's opinion of what your gender /should/ look like. You realistically couldn't swing that understanding at work in a standard corporate environment without changing how you look a bit, but you could do so online and with some friends and perhaps family.

    But also! You don't need to cross some bar for dysphoria or transness or whatever to do some body mod! Or to change how you want people to call you. It's 2020; we're in the future; you can change your body and name for no reason at all except that you think it would be cool, and that is a good thing! (now, you would prob have to lie a bit to insurers to make that happen at a reasonable price, but still). Fluidity in presentation is awesome and for some people it's tied to a lot of pain and trauma and we have to protect those people and make sure they can get access to the medical care they need. But there should not be a burden of suffering requiring for transition to be permissible. Being able to look how you want is awesome, and technology permits it to some extent, so if you want it, and you think it isn't going to make your life unliveable due to bias against people who look how you want to look, fuckin go for it!

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • MsAnthropyMsAnthropy The Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm The City of FlowersRegistered User regular
    Grog wrote: »
    Hmm...I'd actually like to talk about that tweet, if that's okay.

    Dysphoria hasn't been the driving force for me so much as being able to picture a future I can live with. There are a few specific things I could point to that are dysphoric but even those are centred more around the external, societal facet of gender.

    I mainly just want to end up an old woman. Before I came out I couldn't picture getting past 18 (or 25, or 30), just didn't feel like there was a future, but now I think of growing old and I smile.
    And I know most of that I can do as a guy, but I don't want to do it as a guy, I want to do it as a girl.

    This is enough, no one can tell you otherwise.

    Just to toss more experiences onto the fire since these kinds of discussions were instrumental to finding myself.

    When I was really little I honestly thought I was gonna grow up to be like my mom and not like my dad. Whenever I would say something along those lines or write stories about it there would be trouble. When I got a bit older that morphed into thinking that I would’ve chosen to be born a girl, but that wasn’t possible so I guess I’m stuck with this. I didn’t necessarily experience a ton of body-oriented dysphoria, just more dissociation from any sense of self, detachment from physicality, and a difficult time imagining anything like a future.

    There were various experimentations I did in my early 20s since I was a gothy-punk kid who dated women who all seemed to come out as queer later, but they all ended up with me feeling ashamed, so I eventually boxed all of that up mentally / emotionally and went on auto-pilot for the next 15 or so years. That is until I was sitting on some Internet forum where someone linked to a trans person’s story that resonated with how I had always felt at which point I had moment like that in the last frame of the comic. Took me another 5+ years of self-interrogation (I literally created a Bayesian mental model for deciding if I was *really* trans ) and a brush with death to actually do something about it.

    Now I wouldn’t say everything is perfect, but I do actually feel things and have plans for the future, and I actually like my body for the most part instead of thinking of it as just a meat sack that I pilot.

    The main advice I’ve given other people who ask me irl about all of this is that they can be anything they want to be in their life, they are the ones who decide who they are, that it’s okay to be unsure and explore to find what works for them, and that whoever they find themselves to be they deserve love and respect.

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    "The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
  • Brovid HasselsmofBrovid Hasselsmof [Growling historic on the fury road] Registered User regular
    I didn't know I had dysphoria until I started doing things that made it go away

  • LucedesLucedes might be real Registered User regular
    i have a deep dissatisfaction with both genders, after much time and self-examination.
    i've come to the conclusion that i would be angry about whichever arbitrary gender i was assigned at birth.

    after many years of work, it has improved my life and emotions to pursue these thoughts.
    i would like to encourage others not to be afraid to explore it.

  • pimentopimento she/they/pim Registered User regular
    I think I'm agender, but transfemme agender? Or something. Some dysphoria.

  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    I have truckloads of dysphoria, but a good chunk of it is attached to gender-neutral traits; mostly weight, some hair related stuff, some skin stuff. But those things are also largely issues due to causes stemming from my depression, so getting HRTs helps indirectly by making me feel more positive about getting past my dysphoria as a whole.

    It's still an ongoing process though... But I'll get there.

  • Silas BrownSilas Brown That's hobo style. Registered User regular
    I tell people I'm a woman, but to be absurdly honest it would be more accurate to say my gender is "Not A Man." It's just easier in day-to-day society to default to woman. That's already more nuance than most people in my life can handle as it is.

  • initiatefailureinitiatefailure Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    I distinctly remember being a kid and always wanting to be a girl because "they had it easier" and it took me many years to learn that A) incorrect, but more importantly that that had been me reacting against the gendered pressures of some combination of family/society/myself and it turns out it's really fucking hard to unravel all of those things from your sense of identity

    initiatefailure on
  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    I didn't know I had dysphoria until I started doing things that made it go away

    yeah sometimes rather than searching for gender dysphoria, it can be easier to experiment with aspects of the gender you're thinking "well, maybe" about, and seeing if you experience gender euphoria

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  • WyvernWyvern Registered User regular
    I couldn't decide on any particular point to respond to, so I'm just gonna ramble about my personal experiences with the social side of dysphoria to the room in case it does anything for anyone.

    To me, being a self-aware closeted trans woman without hope of transitioning (which was my state of being for about 14 years of my life) was like being a ghost.

    Nobody could see me. Nobody could hear me. Communication with the world outside was impossible. I didn't exist out there; nobody else even held the concept of my existence.

    Because no matter what I said or did, nobody saw me saying or doing it. They see that behavior coming from this...repulsive homonculous which follows my ghostly form everywhere. And they have all these complex belief and associations about what the homonculous is like, what it means for that weird, empty sack of flesh to behave in a particular way. This set of assumptions are completely alien to me; they're not even close to how I really am. But no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, any message I try to send is so thoroughly mangled by these filters that by the time it arrives it has become unrecognizable. If they could just understand that the messages were coming from me, from any woman instead of that thing, they'd get it. But they don't. They never will. And every misunderstood message, every misplaced gaze, is agony to me. The only coherent strategy is to stop communicating. Avoid being perceived as much as possible.

    It's like being told that you may only interact with the world through the medium of puppetry, and then having every string on your marionette cut except one. Nothing left but crude jerks and spasms.

    Humans categorize by gender compulsively. The particular mythology we layer on top of that scaffolding--what sorts of behaviors we associate as being "feminine" or "masculine", stuff like that--is pretty fluid and can vary a lot from culture to culture. Most analysis I see about gender theory happens on that layer. But the underlying scaffolding is also important, in ways that I think cis people lose sight of a lot more easily than trans people.

    Like, somebody can be a mostly-gender-nonconforming woman who happens to be comfortable with mostly masc-coded behaviors, and somebody else can be a mostly-gender-conforming man who happens to be comfortable with an extremely similar set of masc-coded behaviors, and those gender identities are completely different even if both of those people are behaviorally similar, because the rhetorical gendered framework through which those behaviors are filtered matters. If you're a trans man and the people around you see and treat you like a gender-nonconforming woman it fucking sucks shit and is wrong and makes you feel terrible. You don't want your life to be filtered through the lens of a woman who acts like X; you want it filtered through the lens of a man who acts like X because that's what you are. The associations are just different. If you're nonbinary and find both of these perspectives distasteful, and want to just be seen as a human who acts like X without any of that baggage, then that's valid and distinct as well!

    Imagine a triangular matrix. Vertices labeled "masculine", "feminine", and "agender". Your gender identity is a point anywhere along the border--the rhetorical framework forming the baseline of what you want to be perceived in relation to. Your gender expression is any point in the interior field--some hypothetical average of all the ways you talk, the ways you act, all the behavioral things an observer in your culture might consider masc-coded or femme-coded or neither. Your gender is the line segment connecting them. Move either point and the line segment becomes very different even if the other point stays put. Get the positioning of either point wrong, or ignore a point altogether, and you've fucked up and failed to adequately understand the person. Or something. Obviously it's more complex and fluid than that, with both "ends" of the segment being more of a range than a point, but whatever; concessions for the sake of easy visual metaphor.

    A lot of people want to say "but can't we get rid of all the problems by just eliminating the scaffolding, the lenses, the rhetorical framework of gender altogether?" And frankly I think the answer is no. The scaffolding is in there too deep, and too many of us rely on it too much. But we can stop using it wrong. Stop ignoring such a large percentage of it; stop riveting people to the wrong places constantly.

    I dunno, I kind of meandered afield there.

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  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    I can't really speak for others but that is kinda similar to how I have felt

    I spent a good 15ish years fighting the idea that I wanted to be a girl. I tried to cordon it off to being a sex thing or just a fantasy. When I tried to explore it via cross dressing or make-up, I would get deeply, powerfully ashamed and embarrassed shortly after and routinely throw anything I had bought away in a fit. The cycle repeated for...a long time.

    During all of that, I didnt feel like I was broken or wrong. I was happy. I had friends. I was in relationships. But something always felt off. I never felt confident enough, or attractive enough, or cool enough and could never, ever shake it.

    In the 7 months since coming out and starting hormones, well, those problems haven't magically gone away but they are a lot quieter than they used to be. I can look at pictures of myself and go "hell yeah, I'm cute as fuck" or feel confident about myself and my opinions and choices without wondering what I did wrong.

    Dysphoria never hit me in the precise, stabbing way I've seen a lot of other trans and nb folks describe, but it seeped into all aspects of my life in sometimes hard to notice ways and now that I am actively fighting it, things feel a whole lot better more than they used to.

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  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    Thanks everyone so much for sharing your stories; they range greatly in terms of how similar they are to my own personal thoughts and feelings, but just seeing the huge diversity in people's journeys is a big deal to me right now.

    I still don't know where I'm going to end up with all this; I hope I'm one of those people who look back a year from now and marvel at how far I've come.

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  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Also BlankZoe, the picture you shared of yourself after just 7 months of hormones is so inspiring it literally made me cry when I first saw it. It's not precisely the look I want to have, but it's very similar, and knowing it's possible to look that amazing in such a short time makes me think I might actually be able to achieve how I want to look. <3

    Hi I'm Vee! on
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  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    Oh my god you're gonna make me cry at work

    Thank you so much

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  • Fleur de AlysFleur de Alys Biohacker Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Many of us develop plentiful coping mechanisms for dysphoria that we don't even know we have.

    For instance, I was sure bottom surgery wasn't for me when I started. I didn't really care about it, and I was fearful of losing functionality in my relationship.

    As transition has decreased my other dysphorias and boosted my euphoria, that has changed. It now bothers me a lot, because my mind sees me as a woman much of the time (I'm not there yet for all the time... fucking internalized nonsense).

    And then recently I recalled dysphoric childhood memories I had plain forgotten because they weren't important. I used to think it was weird, found a way to make it "disappear," and often considered using tape to make it stay that way. From like age 6 until adolescence.

    Just dismissed it as being a weird little kid figuring out their junk.

    I literally called for an appointment within a week of remembering that, because it took care of that annoying doubt that maybe it wasn't "real." That's unnecessary, though; it's still right for me even without those memories, even if that wasn't there.

    Anyway I had layers and layers of coping mechanisms and excuses. Peeling those away to find the real me took awhile. It's still happening.

    I've had depression with suicidal thoughts since age 11, but didn't connect it to dysphoria. I've had an agitated brain since adolescence, but I didn't know that until HRT took it away. I've struggled with self loathing, but I thought that was a natural and proper Christian thing, and also I was weird and bullied so that must be it.

    And the vicarious living! Games, stories, even relationships, devouring any secondhand or fictional female experience I could, with an excuse for why I did each of them.

    The breaking point was looking back over the last 10 years of my life, then looking ahead to the next 10 and considering living them as a man, too.

    That thought sent me straight to therapy. Just, ughghgh.

    It wouldn't have 10 years prior. My coping mechanisms were still adequate. I was still depersonalized, constantly disassociating. Eventually, that wasn't good enough anymore.

    Fleur de Alys on
    Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    I tell people I'm a woman, but to be absurdly honest it would be more accurate to say my gender is "Not A Man." It's just easier in day-to-day society to default to woman. That's already more nuance than most people in my life can handle as it is.

    I've had this conversation with a lot of trans folks! The little trans cabal at work is all like 'yeah...I'm lowkey nonbinary but honestly it's hard enough trying to get people to accept me as [the gender I transitioned to] that I just go with said gender because it's certainly better than where I started and it's close enough'--I feel similarly. I am very impressed with nb people who manage to carve out a space cause it is really fucking hard.

    Also VH, wrt the concept of transition/hormones causing dysphoria--as other people have mentioned, I'm not sure that's quite the way to think of it. Certainly when you've addressed some major things, you now can end up noticing some other details about yourself that you didn't before (like I realized only after I started binding that I also have hips, which like wut--just never noticed before. Still way less than more afab people cause I'm kind of a rectangle, but definitely more than an amab person, and if I wear tight pants you can tell, and this started to annoy me when it hadn't prior). Also I think there's something where before, you might not have engaged directly with your body, and now that you can confront it as your own, you might notice more stuff about it, cause you care more and it's not just the meat you walk around with and sometimes play dressup in. But that still seems worth to me. But of course these things are very individual.

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • pimentopimento she/they/pim Registered User regular
    BlankZoe wrote: »
    I can't really speak for others but that is kinda similar to how I have felt

    I spent a good 15ish years fighting the idea that I wanted to be a girl. I tried to cordon it off to being a sex thing or just a fantasy. When I tried to explore it via cross dressing or make-up, I would get deeply, powerfully ashamed and embarrassed shortly after and routinely throw anything I had bought away in a fit. The cycle repeated for...a long time.

    During all of that, I didnt feel like I was broken or wrong. I was happy. I had friends. I was in relationships. But something always felt off. I never felt confident enough, or attractive enough, or cool enough and could never, ever shake it.


    In the 7 months since coming out and starting hormones, well, those problems haven't magically gone away but they are a lot quieter than they used to be. I can look at pictures of myself and go "hell yeah, I'm cute as fuck" or feel confident about myself and my opinions and choices without wondering what I did wrong.

    Dysphoria never hit me in the precise, stabbing way I've seen a lot of other trans and nb folks describe, but it seeped into all aspects of my life in sometimes hard to notice ways and now that I am actively fighting it, things feel a whole lot better more than they used to.

    I had very similar experiences. :bro:

    I should probably get rid of the fake tits I bought when 'not trans, just.. uh.. you know..?' now that I'm growing my own, organic, hormone fuelled ones.

  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    pimento wrote: »
    BlankZoe wrote: »
    I can't really speak for others but that is kinda similar to how I have felt

    I spent a good 15ish years fighting the idea that I wanted to be a girl. I tried to cordon it off to being a sex thing or just a fantasy. When I tried to explore it via cross dressing or make-up, I would get deeply, powerfully ashamed and embarrassed shortly after and routinely throw anything I had bought away in a fit. The cycle repeated for...a long time.

    During all of that, I didnt feel like I was broken or wrong. I was happy. I had friends. I was in relationships. But something always felt off. I never felt confident enough, or attractive enough, or cool enough and could never, ever shake it.


    In the 7 months since coming out and starting hormones, well, those problems haven't magically gone away but they are a lot quieter than they used to be. I can look at pictures of myself and go "hell yeah, I'm cute as fuck" or feel confident about myself and my opinions and choices without wondering what I did wrong.

    Dysphoria never hit me in the precise, stabbing way I've seen a lot of other trans and nb folks describe, but it seeped into all aspects of my life in sometimes hard to notice ways and now that I am actively fighting it, things feel a whole lot better more than they used to.

    I had very similar experiences. :bro:

    I should probably get rid of the fake tits I bought when 'not trans, just.. uh.. you know..?' now that I'm growing my own, organic, hormone fuelled ones.
    I am keeping mine, if only so I can pass em on if I end up knowing someone who might need em

    Shits were expensive

    CYpGAPn.png
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    I need to hang out in this thread more

    I’ve got a fuckton of stuff I need to work through and don’t really have a good place anywhere else for it

    Like:

    - I’m pretty far in transition and I still feel horrible and dysphoric and completely undesirable most of the time
    - Surgery sucks and I don’t think we talk about that enough
    - An MTF acquaintance of mine that had finished transition like a champ is now detransitioning to do glamboi stuff? It’s very confusing.

  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    pimento wrote: »
    BlankZoe wrote: »
    I can't really speak for others but that is kinda similar to how I have felt

    I spent a good 15ish years fighting the idea that I wanted to be a girl. I tried to cordon it off to being a sex thing or just a fantasy. When I tried to explore it via cross dressing or make-up, I would get deeply, powerfully ashamed and embarrassed shortly after and routinely throw anything I had bought away in a fit. The cycle repeated for...a long time.

    During all of that, I didnt feel like I was broken or wrong. I was happy. I had friends. I was in relationships. But something always felt off. I never felt confident enough, or attractive enough, or cool enough and could never, ever shake it.


    In the 7 months since coming out and starting hormones, well, those problems haven't magically gone away but they are a lot quieter than they used to be. I can look at pictures of myself and go "hell yeah, I'm cute as fuck" or feel confident about myself and my opinions and choices without wondering what I did wrong.

    Dysphoria never hit me in the precise, stabbing way I've seen a lot of other trans and nb folks describe, but it seeped into all aspects of my life in sometimes hard to notice ways and now that I am actively fighting it, things feel a whole lot better more than they used to.

    I had very similar experiences. :bro:

    I should probably get rid of the fake tits I bought when 'not trans, just.. uh.. you know..?' now that I'm growing my own, organic, hormone fuelled ones.

    As a shameless furry I'd suggest doing double tits but that's me being ridiculous.

    A lot of them you can wear on top to make yourself larger if you want, more seriously. At least if your chest isn't too sensitive.

  • pimentopimento she/they/pim Registered User regular
    Phoenix-D wrote: »
    pimento wrote: »
    BlankZoe wrote: »
    I can't really speak for others but that is kinda similar to how I have felt

    I spent a good 15ish years fighting the idea that I wanted to be a girl. I tried to cordon it off to being a sex thing or just a fantasy. When I tried to explore it via cross dressing or make-up, I would get deeply, powerfully ashamed and embarrassed shortly after and routinely throw anything I had bought away in a fit. The cycle repeated for...a long time.

    During all of that, I didnt feel like I was broken or wrong. I was happy. I had friends. I was in relationships. But something always felt off. I never felt confident enough, or attractive enough, or cool enough and could never, ever shake it.


    In the 7 months since coming out and starting hormones, well, those problems haven't magically gone away but they are a lot quieter than they used to be. I can look at pictures of myself and go "hell yeah, I'm cute as fuck" or feel confident about myself and my opinions and choices without wondering what I did wrong.

    Dysphoria never hit me in the precise, stabbing way I've seen a lot of other trans and nb folks describe, but it seeped into all aspects of my life in sometimes hard to notice ways and now that I am actively fighting it, things feel a whole lot better more than they used to.

    I had very similar experiences. :bro:

    I should probably get rid of the fake tits I bought when 'not trans, just.. uh.. you know..?' now that I'm growing my own, organic, hormone fuelled ones.

    As a shameless furry I'd suggest doing double tits but that's me being ridiculous.

    A lot of them you can wear on top to make yourself larger if you want, more seriously. At least if your chest isn't too sensitive.

    At this point I'm not sure I want to look at them and remind me of past selves, but maybe in future.

  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    BlankZoe wrote: »
    Oh my god you're gonna make me cry at work

    Thank you so much

    I had no idea until I saw your picture but I’ve been following your twitter feed for a while

    You're internet famous!

  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    pimento wrote: »
    Phoenix-D wrote: »
    pimento wrote: »
    BlankZoe wrote: »
    I can't really speak for others but that is kinda similar to how I have felt

    I spent a good 15ish years fighting the idea that I wanted to be a girl. I tried to cordon it off to being a sex thing or just a fantasy. When I tried to explore it via cross dressing or make-up, I would get deeply, powerfully ashamed and embarrassed shortly after and routinely throw anything I had bought away in a fit. The cycle repeated for...a long time.

    During all of that, I didnt feel like I was broken or wrong. I was happy. I had friends. I was in relationships. But something always felt off. I never felt confident enough, or attractive enough, or cool enough and could never, ever shake it.


    In the 7 months since coming out and starting hormones, well, those problems haven't magically gone away but they are a lot quieter than they used to be. I can look at pictures of myself and go "hell yeah, I'm cute as fuck" or feel confident about myself and my opinions and choices without wondering what I did wrong.

    Dysphoria never hit me in the precise, stabbing way I've seen a lot of other trans and nb folks describe, but it seeped into all aspects of my life in sometimes hard to notice ways and now that I am actively fighting it, things feel a whole lot better more than they used to.

    I had very similar experiences. :bro:

    I should probably get rid of the fake tits I bought when 'not trans, just.. uh.. you know..?' now that I'm growing my own, organic, hormone fuelled ones.

    As a shameless furry I'd suggest doing double tits but that's me being ridiculous.

    A lot of them you can wear on top to make yourself larger if you want, more seriously. At least if your chest isn't too sensitive.

    At this point I'm not sure I want to look at them and remind me of past selves, but maybe in future.

    :bro: Fair! I have a lot of clothes in a lot of boxes from the same thing.

  • ButlerButler 89 episodes or bust Registered User regular
    Just heard this on the radio and thought it might be worth sharing here. It's very sweet and Harper Bloom is a damn good lyricist.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3vd4cZzDuo

  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    Atomika wrote: »
    BlankZoe wrote: »
    Oh my god you're gonna make me cry at work

    Thank you so much

    I had no idea until I saw your picture but I’ve been following your twitter feed for a while

    You're internet famous!
    Hahaha, I wouldn't go that far but that's real neat! Small world!

    CYpGAPn.png
  • PerrsunPerrsun Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    I forgot to look for it this year until today, but MS did release another official Pride Windows 10 theme for 2020.

    And here's the one from last year in case you missed it.

    Perrsun on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    I’m about 10 days post-op from the revision surgery on my original SRS last September, and so far I’m really glad I got this surgery. I really began to wonder if dilation and sex was always going to be a painful and bloody experience for me, but no! I can already dilate like a champ without any of the previous complications (apparently I had overactive scar formation and actual regeneration of muscle tissue after the initial surgery, freakin’ introitus tried to grow back together!)

    So yeah. If everything holds, I’m scheduled to be dilating with a #4 by mid-July :eek:

    Atomika on
  • Erin The RedErin The Red The Name's Erin! Woman, Podcaster, Dungeon Master, IT nerd, Parent, Trans. AMA Baton Rouge, LARegistered User regular
    Atomika wrote: »
    I’m about 10 days post-op from the revision surgery on my original SRS last September, and so far I’m really glad I got this surgery. I really began to wonder if dilation and sex was always going to be a painful and bloody experience for me, but no! I can already dilate like a champ without any of the previous complications (apparently I had overactive scar formation and actual regeneration of muscle tissue after the initial surgery, freakin’ introitus tried to grow back together!)

    So yeah. If everything holds, I’m scheduled to be dilating with a #4 by mid-July :eek:

    Oh dang! That's what I'm looking to get revision done on too! Wild. I'm hoping for a day where getting the dilator in doesn't take half a goddamn hour.

    How's healing been? Glad you had a positive outcome from the revision!

  • StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
    I survived my cholecystectomy and am doing pretty good.

    Fingers crossed I can get scheduled for grs this year when I have already hit the out of pocket maximum for my insurance.

    YL9WnCY.png
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    Atomika wrote: »
    I’m about 10 days post-op from the revision surgery on my original SRS last September, and so far I’m really glad I got this surgery. I really began to wonder if dilation and sex was always going to be a painful and bloody experience for me, but no! I can already dilate like a champ without any of the previous complications (apparently I had overactive scar formation and actual regeneration of muscle tissue after the initial surgery, freakin’ introitus tried to grow back together!)

    So yeah. If everything holds, I’m scheduled to be dilating with a #4 by mid-July :eek:

    Oh dang! That's what I'm looking to get revision done on too! Wild. I'm hoping for a day where getting the dilator in doesn't take half a goddamn hour.

    How's healing been? Glad you had a positive outcome from the revision!

    Healing so far has been good. The one month mark is apparently the reevaluation point to see if the new grafts are holding, but so far the pain difference is staggering. Before this it was so, so painful.

This discussion has been closed.