Being Blind, how much would that affect your Dysphoria?

[Shawn Sunshine]

I had a thought while taking a shower, as i often get inspired in there. How much do you think your gender dysphoria would be affected if you could not see? What if you were born blind or lost your eyesight? I ask this question because I would like to know just how much of your dysphoria you see as being visual vs how much is the way your body feels.

If you were blind, you could still transition right? But you could still hear so you would probably develop a female voice, could still smell so you would wear perfume, could still touch, so you could tell where you had hair on your body and how to put clothes on.

So if you were left with just 4 senses, how do you think you would feel?

[Adam (birkin)]

Interesting question. I'm inclined to think it would make my dysphoria worse. Cause I'd feel my chest there, or something, and I'd wonder how obvious it was to others. And I could never try to reaffirm that I looked OK because I couldn't just look in a mirror and think "oh, I look flat, it's OK."

I also wouldn't notice as many changes on hormones, so I would wonder how far I came along. And if I didn't pass, I'd assume nothing was happening and feel awful.

[Shawn Sunshine]

hmm, well if you suddenly went blind vs being born blind, I think that would also affect you differently as well.

[Sara Thomas]

This really is a good question... the tactile aside, if we were unaware of a difference in the visual representation of gender there would be little to indicate a need to conform (i.e. align our body to our thinking... which brings up another [hypothetical] question: why is it assumed that our body is wrong? For instance: if I consider myself [simplistically] a woman in a man's body, wouldn't it make more sense to address my thinking rather than changing my physical characteristics? I know... i know... that's just logic - and as a lady I will not abide it!).

[Elspeth]

Rather than speculate as a  sighted person, with the inevitably questionable utility of such navel gazing, why not check out the blogs of some transwomen who are also blind, at least one of them from a very early age?

(I have to admit this is pushing my own buttons a bit, as someone whose vision has been a problem from early childhood, and at risk of eventual blindness for various reasons). But my life experience is still largely that of a sighted person.

Here are the first three I found. I'm sure there are more, and I didn't mean to exclude transmen -- these are just the first links from a fast search:

One Blind Transwoman - She's also a law student.

Michelle's Book - Account from a ciswoman about her becoming enlightened through getting to know a blind transwoman who was a patient. Second hand account... some may prefer to ignore it, since it's really about the ciswoman's impressions of her friend.

Kara's Place - A very sporadically updated blog.

[Sara Thomas]

Hey - My navel is where it's all at. 

But yes... thanks for the links, Elspeth - I would be interested in reading them.

[Shawn Sunshine]

yes thank you for those links, Elspeth.

[Wild Flower]

In all honesty... I would just die.

And if I was born blind, I would be a burden to my family most likely, and I wouldn't know any better.

I read that Michelle website, and then I was like "over 20 bucks? this is all about the money" Don't get me wrong, but that book should be like 5-8 dollars.