Do all trans feel gender dysphoria or some do not at all ?

[Jill F]

For me, the dysphoric episodes would always come and go since adolescence hit, but the severity of them got progressively worse as I got older.   They got so bad last year that I frequently would curl up into a fetal position and cry myself to sleep, hating everything about my body and no longer cared if I had lived or died.  My go-to coping methods of denial and suppression with a side order of booze and drugs were no longer working and I was finally forced to face my #1 demon and deepest, darkest secret that I had sworn I would take to my grave.

Had I not felt the extreme soul-crushing dysphoria, I'm pretty sure I would never have transitioned.  Hey, I might have never so much as worn women's clothing in private.  Apparently I have quite some capacity for self-delusion...

[Sacha]

For me, the dysphoric episodes would always come and go since adolescence hit, but the severity of them got progressively worse as I got older.   They got so bad last year that I frequently would curl up into a fetal position and cry myself to sleep, hating everything about my body and no longer cared if I had lived or died.  My go-to coping methods of denial and suppression with a side order of booze and drugs were no longer working and I was finally forced to face my #1 demon and deepest, darkest secret that I had sworn I would take to my grave.

Had I not felt the extreme soul-crushing dysphoria, I'm pretty sure I would never have transitioned.  Hey, I might have never so much as worn women's clothing in private.  Apparently I have quite some capacity for self-delusion...

Interesting testimony.

I understand and agree that if dysphoria gets stronger with time or more often present with time, sooner or later once has  no choice, it is death or changing something in the way of living the gender ( dressing at first, then changing body then changing life ).

I think it is a balance between the dysphoria degree and the self defense to cope with it. As long as you have enough mental strength to control dysphoria you can stay a man who do not even dress.

If your defenses get more fragile because you have other problems or less energy or if the dysphoria goes more and more powerful and floods the defense one day, you become a zombie, depressed and incapable to have any pleasure or will to live. You feel not alive so killing yourself does sound terrible and somewhat not real as you do not live anyways. You live like a flowers with no pleasure or target.

My dysphoria has been going up in the last few years as I needed to express more and more the feminine side. Now I have long hair with a rather feminin cut and it looks weird as a man. But I fells better than with short hair. More in tune with myself. Sexually I started with men 5 years ago and could not imagine now stoping sex with men, too good, I feel too much myself to stop sex with men. I am less and less interested in women. I see them like nice art pieces, some magical creature I admire but I have no real desire to have sex with them. And I probably never had.

So the dysphoria is pushing me to act in a more and more feminine way, physically and sexually.

The more the dysphoria is present, the less I can function socially. I stay in bed, like empty and desperate. Being online and waiting the best moment in the day = when I go to sleep because then there is not dysphoria.

Luckily, dysphoria doesn't last more than a few hours or days. So when it vanished I can live more or,less normaly. But I feel a little bored without the dysphoria and this erotic sensation that I am a woman. And once it has gone I feel that it is just sleeping, that it can come back suddenly, that it is inside me even when not handicapping.

This feeling of the invisible dysphoria always here, even after sex is rather recent. May be the explanation of this invisible ghost is that  I realized and/or admitted to myself that I was trans (and not a man playing only sexual games for fun) or  that the ghost is here to open my eyes and show me that I am not a real man but a genuine trans person who will never be in peace with himself if he does not give his hand to the ghost and let the ghost be his guide.

What is sure is that dysphoria never vanishes by itself, I must do something to scare the ghost, like dressing at home, going outside in drag, having sex with a man or with my dildo, expressing my feminine side in public being the best way to kill the dysphoria, may be better than sex, just walking outside as a woman and being seen as genuine woman is the best weapon to make the ghost sleep.

What to do with my ghost ?

Will he become too powerful and win ? I tend to think that sooner or later he will win and take the control of my whole life. Then I would probably live as a woman openly. At least a part time social life as a woman's to start with. Hormones. May be surgery. The ghost has no limit I guess. Once he wins, there will be no come back.

[ttim0324]

There was an incident at a friends birthday party where a person kept referring to themselves as trans. This person was packing with a ridiculous bulge down the length of their thigh, binding with an ace bandage, was very obviously female, not passing at all etc. and kept feeling the need to talk about how 'trans' they were. They got angry about being misgendered. They were wearing a trans pride flag on their belt. Ever since this incident I have come to the realization that there are people out there who treat our medical problem like a fashion accessory and make it out to be the latest cool trend, because they cosplay and found twinfools on youtube and "want to be just like (him), even if means suddenly becoming a boy cause thats totally cool (sadly enough this is a statement I've actually heard someone make)!"

So now, to me, the idea that someone can be transgender and not feel dysphoria is mind boggling as well as infuriating. When I didnt have a binder available I used duct tape--and this was before I even knew what binding was--that left me horrible cuts and blisters. The phsyical pain I felt from that was so inconsequential in comparison to having my breast be obvious to people. I have cut off entire friend groups because someone called me 'she' and I was paranoid that everyone knew I was a natal female. So when I see people call themself trans and then refer to their biological penis or vagina as their mangina and talk about how much they love it and how comfortable they are with their body, I don't believe they're trans. How can you do that? How you be comfortable in a body you don't want? In a body that causes you emotional, phsyical, and mental anguish? How can you be transgender if it doesn't? My definition of transgender has always been identifying with the opposite assigned sex at birth. My definition may be wrong but I believe transgender is still an ever growing and expanding term. There are people who identify as agender, genderqueer, or third gender, and these people confuse and frustrate me to no end. As if life isn't difficult enough being born in the wrong body you want to bring MORE attention to yourself by coining yourself something as out of the ordinary as neither male nor female? Perhaps I shouldnt be so closed minded but these people who want to be Sally somedays and Samuel others make my condition feel invalidated. How can I ever come out to someone as transgender when their experince with it will most likely be the ridiculous things they've seen on the internet?


Sorry for the long winded post everyone. That was something thats been on my mind for ages that I've never really been able to express.

[Cindy]

I will caution here that at Susan's transgender is inclusive.

I will remind people that MtF cross dressers are women and the correct pronouns are to be used.

I will not tolerate incorrect pronouns.

Please correct your posts

Cindy

[genderhell]

And is the dysphoria constant or fluctuating and sometimes close to zero ?

I have dysphoria but not every say. So i wonder if not having it all the time means one is not transsexual but rater transgender.

To me, "gender dysphoria" are symptoms of a suppressed personality, regardless of what I look like. I knew I was a girl when young, the hormones blocked off personality development, and I had "gender dysphoria" until I took anti-androgens and could "unlock" my original personality.

My dysphoria was nearly eliminated once my personality could finally express itself.  (Though, looking like a male was disturbing - it was not dysphoric - just thought I look ugly). Now I just have "body dysphoria" of having a penis.

At a prior job, everyone in the small company regarded me as female, even though I looked male because I spoke and acted like a female. They also found it amusing that a "guy" was talking like a girl. "Gender dysphoria" was never about what I looked like.

The DSM seems to be written from a mental-illness model. "Gender dysphoria" is presented as "man wears dress and says he is woman" and it does not mention that a person's real personality is being suppressed.

[Noah]

There's a lot of excellent breakdowns of real lived experience with dysphoria, far exceeding the stereotypes society establishes for us.

Ttim:

You're experience sounds very traumatizing, and I can understand why you would feel very strongly regarding your gender as a condition given this.

I don't understand how you can trivialize non-binary experience as you so. This is a recurring issue that I see expressed by the FTM community and not so much by the MTF. I understand how this person you saw at a party might seem appropriative.

But look how many of us transition without this standard narrative of crippling dysphoria? Being who you are is not always so cut and dry. It is a privilege to be within the male/female binary and not all trans people feel comfortable in that framing.

I think I'm a woman but I also think I'm non-binary. I mean at the end of the day life without transition was pale in comparison to what happened when I accepted myself. I really love this idea of dysphoria as a lack of access to ones true self.

Please be open to other realities, this is a diverse world. That doesn't mean that we can't make space to talk a out this issue, I really appreciate you taking the time to articulate it for the first time. I just hope you're open to hearing others as well.

[ttim0324]

There's a lot of excellent breakdowns of real lived experience with dysphoria, far exceeding the stereotypes society establishes for us.

Ttim:

You're experience sounds very traumatizing, and I can understand why you would feel very strongly regarding your gender as a condition given this.

I don't understand how you can trivialize non-binary experience as you so. This is a recurring issue that I see expressed by the FTM community and not so much by the MTF. I understand how this person you saw at a party might seem appropriative.

But look how many of us transition without this standard narrative of crippling dysphoria? Being who you are is not always so cut and dry. It is a privilege to be within the male/female binary and not all trans people feel comfortable in that framing.

I think I'm a woman but I also think I'm non-binary. I mean at the end of the day life without transition was pale in comparison to what happened when I accepted myself. I really love this idea of dysphoria as a lack of access to ones true self.

Please be open to other realities, this is a diverse world. That doesn't mean that we can't make space to talk a out this issue, I really appreciate you taking the time to articulate it for the first time. I just hope you're open to hearing others as well.

In regards to being open to other realities, I would like to be. It's just very difficult when people want to be called gender neutral pronous that just aren't part of the everyday persons vocabulary. It's confusing to suddenly treat people as if they're something not male or female, despite wanting to transition, those are the only 2 genders we learn growing up. Doesn't that sound ridiculous to any normal human being---"I'm not a he or a she, I'm a ze/xe--how do you actually function in the outside world as neither gender? Do you just pick and choose what gender you wanna be depending on whats convenient for you that day? It's confusing to me more than anything, I don't understand it. Granted, my anger probably has to do with bad experiences with genderqueer people in general, but that doesn't change the fact that it does make me feel like my condition is being made a joke of. I can't be he one day and she the next. I can't accept something I don't understand and something that has never been explained to me.

I actually got negged for expressing my thoughts on here, one of the main reasons I've always disliked and stayed away from the entire lgbtqrstuv etc. community. You have to be accepting of everyone, no matter what! Sorry for anyone I offended...but that's just not the way it is sometimes. I think we should all know that by now. Everyone has opinions and we should all be open to helping eachother understand, not by making passive aggressive neg comments (that's you, orangecreamsicle!) or telling people how wrong they are. You don't get people to understand you like that. Sorry if my original post came off in that manner.

[DriftingCrow]

"you have to be accepting of everyone" . . . but respecting someones request of using gender neutral pronouns "sounds ridicilous to any normal human being"? 

I think you mean "we need to be accepting of everyone I find acceptable".

Unacceptable for a place that's supposed to be inclusive. Being trans sounds ridiculous to many in society. There's non-binaries out there. Get over it.

[V M]

Hi friends 

Time to take break

Topic locked

Thank you

V M