Explain being ftm to relatives

[Syd]

Hi,
My dad has been asking me what makes me feel like a boy, so I told him if you switched bodies with a woman,how would you feel? He said that he would just adjust to living as woman... I feel that he does not understand any bit of being trans. Is there anyone who can help me explain how it feels, because to him it doesn't seem like a big deal...
Thanks,
Syd

[Elis]

I was reading this ftm comic yday on the internet, sorry but I can't find it now. The comic that stands out is this. Imagine a cis man who was really manly, never questioned at all that he wasn't a guy. Now imagine if somehow they could extract his brain and put it into a jar without his body. Wouldn't he then insist that he is a man? Just demonstrates how gender is in the brain, not what parts you have or don't have. I hope this helps.

[NathanielM]

I found this really hard, because it is really hard for a cisperson to really understand how you feel. They've never felt it. I asked my brother how he'd feel if he woke up one morning and everyone insisted he was a girl and treated him as such even though he was still sure he was a boy.

With my mother I kind of used the fact that she feels very uncomfortable about her weight to talk about names and pronouns (as a thought exercise, I wasn't being cruel about it), but I asked her to imagine that she would be adressed by her weight all the time instead of her name and pronouns. So people weren't being mean, that's just what they did btu every day she had to hear what she felt bad about all the time. She did understand better that name/pronouns can hurt even when I'm not angry at her about it.

To other people I often use the example that suddenly you'd have a leg growing out of your stomach or something equally wrong, and it hurt for it to be there but people would insist to you it's normal that it's there and start expecting you to walk on 3 legs even when you can't. But they insist you should be able to, yet you wake up every morning expecting the leg to be gone, and it's still there, hurting you and giving you expectations you can't even meet if you try really hard. Strangely enough I've noticed that people find something as abstract as this easier to understand then when I use the 'imagine if you woke up as a girl/boy' line.

[suzifrommd]

Hi,
My dad has been asking me what makes me feel like a boy, so I told him if you switched bodies with a woman,how would you feel? He said that he would just adjust to living as woman... I feel that he does not understand any bit of being trans. Is there anyone who can help me explain how it feels, because to him it doesn't seem like a big deal...
Thanks,
Syd

"Everyone has a gender identity, but most people don't notice it. Your [your father's] gender identity tells you that the men you see are 'like you' and that the females are not, and that you want to be like the men and not like the women. You don't notice these messages because it's something you know already. I get those messages too, but they're telling me that the men are like me and the women are not. I want to have the body characteristics and the look that they have and I don't want those that the women have. When I ignore these messages, they get stronger and harder to ignore and they make living very, very unpleasant."

Do you think this would help?

[Foxglove]

One way I explain gender dysphoria to a guy: let him imagine himself with gynecomastia.  How would he feel?  Couldn't he easily imagine that he'd be willing to undergo a double mastectomy if all other remedies failed?  Or would he just prefer to wear a bra and get on with his life?  (But supposing he wanted to go swimming?  Or he needed to shower with the other guys in the locker room?)

For the women, there's what I call "Hairy Chest Syndrome" since I never can remember the medical name.  It's when a woman starts growing a lot of body hair, especially on her chest.  How would she feel about that?  What would she be willing to do to get rid of it?

[FTMax]

My dad and stepmom both admitted that this wasn't something they could see themselves understanding, just because it wasn't an experience that they could personally identify with. But they've agreed that it doesn't change their support for me and acceptance of the fact that I'm now their son. At the time I decided to come out to them, I had decided that I didn't care anymore if I lost their love, acceptance, support, understanding, etc. Because it was either come out or continue living with massive depression.

Perhaps that's an angle you should approach it from. Instead of focusing on what it would feel like for them, focus on what it causes you to feel. I think almost anyone in the world can understand experiencing depression due to things beyond their control. It might be easier for him to latch onto the idea that dysphoria is localized depression.

[Foxglove]

Perhaps that's an angle you should approach it from. Instead of focusing on what it would feel like for them, focus on what it causes you to feel.

I myself think that this is actually a very good way to approach it.  This is the way I do it myself:

Imagine someone you truly love with all your heart and soul.  Imagine what you feel for them, the way you're always longing for them, longing to have them with you.

And now imagine that you've lost them--lost them for good.  You'll never see them again.  If you've experienced that, you know the emptiness you feel in your heart, the dead weight, the almost physical pain you feel in your gut.

That's what it's like to be trans and not be able to live trans.  It's like losing someone you deeply love.  Because what people see of you is a false image.  What you truly are is inside, something that nobody else can see.  But what you are inside is the true you, and that is the person you love, that you long to have and long to be.

The difference between being trans and losing someone you love, though, is that with the passage of time you might come to accept that someone you love is gone.  Your grief diminishes as the years go by perhaps.  But when you're trans, your grief doesn't diminish.  It's with you every hour of your life.  Every morning when you get out of bed, it starts up again.  That's why gender dysphoria needs to be dealt with.  Otherwise, it's a life-long pain that never goes away.