How do you explain to Cis what it feels like to be trans?

[Antonia J]

My wife asked me, with genuine curiosity, what it feels like to be trans? What does it feel like being in a body that doesn't match your mental identity? I was and am at a bit of a loss for words. I said that it felt like being in a burning building that I couldn't get out.  Also, that when I finally came out that my world went from black and white to seeing bright colors kind of like the wizard of Oz. 

Lastly, I said that I feel things like my skin compared to hers, and can sense its roughness and it feels wrong...as well as silly things that cause me dissonance like my manly smell, broad shoulders, and hair. These are not things I feel like I am supposed to have in my mind.

How would you describe how you feel to a cis person to help them understand?

[ZoeM]

It's like wearing a disguise that you can't take off. You may look perfectly convincing, but inside you know you're not what you appear to be. No matter what you say or do, people will see you as the disguise - and the person you are within can never show themselves.
Maybe a bit too direct? I dunno. It works as a thought experiment.

[Shodan]

This is how I explained it to my wife:

She's overweight and is very uncomfortable about it. It really bothers her because she used to be such an active person but after our child, a knee injury and a spinal injury, she ended up putting on a lot of weight, and really isn't able to do much exercise because it's genuinely painful for her. So this is what I said:

"You know how you look in the mirror and you see somebody else? How you can see yourself there, kinda, but it's not really you and how uncomfortable that makes you feel? Well, imagine that, but you don't even get to see yourself, and imagine that feeling every time you hear yourself speak, or move, or anything else, really. It's like that."

[Antonia J]

It's like wearing a disguise that you can't take off. You may look perfectly convincing, but inside you know you're not what you appear to be. No matter what you say or do, people will see you as the disguise - and the person you are within can never show themselves.
Maybe a bit too direct? I dunno. It works as a thought experiment.

Ooh, this is a really good one!

[Chloe]

How would you describe how you feel to a cis person to help them understand?

How does one explain to another that which most unquestionably, rather stupidly I might add, take for GRANTED and we barely understand ourselves ?

For me it comes down to what constitutes "INSANITY" - how can I be right and the rest of the world soooo wrong?? We have exchanged some very fixed "bi-gender" assumptions for a view of a world that transcends (no pun intended) any real differences at all?

As one who has always melted over the attentions of "other guys" it is definitely much easier to explain to cis women " I feel exactly the same way you do when it comes to men?? ""

Real question is do I indeed? LOL How unhelpful "cis" is, doesn't seem to solve my problem at all!

I am a sheep in wolf's disguise  . . . .

[Stefani2]

To guys, I always just say, imagine you were doing what I'm doing. Filling your body with female hormones, growing breasts, and generally feminizing all over. How would that feel, to have that body with your brain being the same? That's what it's like for me without transition. With women I say what if you were doing what an FtM is doing.

This usually works well, actually, and people seem to understand when I put it that way. You just have to put them in our shows and let them see what it's like to live with our brains and bodies totally out of sync with one another.

[Christine167]

I compare it to Kafka's "The Metamorphasis". Your fine until one day you realize that you feel that you look like a cockroach. You want to tear the skin right off and start over.

I often ask those question it to picture themselves as a common unpleasant animal like a shark or a spider and ask how they would feel going about their daily routines when the rest of the world sees the animal as normal when they know they are supposed to be the person they are.

[Rachel]

I was asked that question by the 5 ( non-trans* health care persons)  I disclosed to:
1) Operations Manage,
2) Wife,
3) Coach,
4) HR Specialist,
5) Boss.

#1, 2, 3 and 4 I said it is like being a fish in water. Cis people do not see or feel the water, you are floating through the water. Trans* are in acid. It hurts to breath, move, hear your voice and see and feel your body. You see and hear one thing and you feel another. Then I give specific details.

#5, I said trans is trans, I will give you three books to read which explain it well. The worst thing is hating yourself and hiding in plain sight. He is an Administrative sponsor in a diversity program. When he reads My Gender Workbook I am sure it will be a life change event for him ( although he is Cis so it may not make sense).

[Naomi]

I haven't been able to nail down an explanation that feels right yet.

[Kelly J. P.]

 Sometimes people ask me what it's like to be a cat.

Then I ask them, "Well, what's it like to be a human?"

[barbie]

I usually say positively on being trans. I can experience and understand the worlds of both men and women. I try to keep healthy to be somehow attractive as both men and women. I can be extremely manly, while sometimes very feminine. There are still some stigmas in being trans, and overcoming it is a kind of achievement in my life.

barbie~~

[Ltl89]

When I was explaining it to my sister, I told her to imagine waking up as yourself but your body transformed into Vin Disel's and it wouldn't go back.  I think that got through really well. 

Disclosure:  I look nothing like Vin Disel and am very grateful for that!

[AdamMLP]

I feel like it's like being permanently cold.  Like there's occasionally something which warms you up, but it's always at the back of your mind that you're going to return to being frozen cold.  The feeling of dysphoria isn't exactly painful, but is extremely uncomfortable.

[MeghanAndrews]

I acknowledge where they are coming from, which is usually like "wtf?!?!?!" and I generally say something like this:

"So, I know this is going to sound crazy and I don't really having a way of making you understand how this feels unless you've been there yourself. Basically, for as long as I can remember, I felt like I was a girl. I don't really know what that means, only how it feels. The person you know now, like you said you didn't know I was trans, that's good, because I don't feel trans. I'm living my life very happily and authentically. You want me to be happy, right? Like I'm not hurting anyone, just living how I am, being authentic, because this is my reality. You have any questions?"

Then we talk, they are usually like "Oh, well, I don't really see you as trans, you are just a regular girl to me" or something and I'm all like "good, that's what I am to me too! So let's order!"

[Arch]

I wish cis people would explain to me what it is like to be cis. I still don't know, except from my fantasy worlds. Who knows, maybe those experiences are pretty close to the truth. Except when I hurt myself or had sex, or something, I didn't think much, if at all, about my body in those worlds. I just took it for granted. Everything was just...right. So right that it didn't even register.

[Banshee]

Something that I have sometimes said is that whenever I see myself in a mirror, a picture, a video, reflected in glass walking down the street, I have this moment of "who is that person?" before I realize, with a painful flinch, that it's me. It's about my image of who I am not matching what's on the outside at all. It's looking like a stranger every day of my life.

[leefer]

For me, I often describe it as being like a prison that you can't get out of, because there's such a huge gap between yourself/your soul/your mind that makes you you, and the physical being that is your body.

It's the waves of nausea that hit me when I realise that I won't be free that make it feel worse. :/

I don't even know if any of that makes sense to anybody who isn't me, but yeah, that's how I do it!

[Antonia J]

I feel like it's like being permanently cold.  Like there's occasionally something which warms you up, but it's always at the back of your mind that you're going to return to being frozen cold.  The feeling of dysphoria isn't exactly painful, but is extremely uncomfortable.

I like this one a lot, too, and can relate to it. 

Sometimes I think of it as noise that never goes away. In moments of bad dysphoria it feels like an orchestra playing with instruments out of synch and out of tune.

[Theo]

Never really fitting into the moulds that people seem to want to shape around you, and not necessarily wanting to either, as they just don't feel right. The outer world will notice it too at some point, I still recall one incident during a self-defence class: "Girls over to the left corner, boys to the right; [name], you too", basically defying classification.

Feeling as if you are outside of society, looking in; even more so when it comes to your own body. At some point I was so dissociated from my body that if someone had offered me the chance to have my brain removed, intact of course, and put into a goldfish bowl with sensors for seeing, hearing, talking, I would have jumped at it; my body and all it entailed was meaningless to me.

This truly was my ideal:


...and suddenly transition starts to sound like a much more sensible idea to people. 

[pebbles]

It felt like my flesh was rotting, It didn't hurt much physically because your nerves were dead but you can't take joy in anything any sensation feels wrong, distant and numb with a dull ache inside like hunger, Seeing and hearing yourself made you feel sick, like seeing a corpse.

If that wasn't bad enough you couldn't tell anyone, You were utterly alone, And you knew every day it would get alittle worse. You'd fight however you could resisting it trying to compromise in your mind but it was hopeless.

Self harm was temporary relief, privately I lusted for the permanent relief of death.

Hell in the truest sense of the word.