Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Ok, I have personal friends in the medical community who try to really understand how I feel.  One is treating another MTF who had been self harming.  We were discussing it the other night over drinks (no details, no names, just the vaguest of info).  She was having a hard time understanding what it feels like.  I tried to explain how I feel, and that HRT is really helping me.  I often get asked what is it like.  I try to explain but with no comparison its not easy.

If/ when someone asks how to explain your feelings, how do you tell them?
I normally tell someone that when I look in the mirror, I hate the thing thats staring back at me.  That I know what I see is not the real me.
Thanks I look forward to your ideas.
Choe

Um.. :)

Because what's down there doesnt define me. If people wont accept me as a female, I'll try very hard to pass. I'll pass because I love myself, I dont want people to hurt me and treat me like an abomination. I fear for myself, just as every transgender person should

I want to be the mom, the bride, the sister, the niece. I want to be the "female" in the gender binary. If they ask why I can't be a man, I'll ask them why they can't be the gender they arent. If they say its because of whats down there, I'll tell them the first line again.

Gender dysphoria is like... Having a 6th toe on your right foot. And you want to remove it. You can live with it, but it wouldnt make you happy. Nothing else will convince you otherwise. Its definitely not a "black man feels like a white man inside" situation. Humans are distinguished by sex more, not race. And races dont have roles like genders do.

Thank you Fanni,
I used to use the third nipple example.

If it's a woman:

"Imagine how it would feel like if you woke up and suddenly you had a hairy, smelly, man's body, and prickly whiskers, mounds of body hair and baldness. All of your friends are suspicious of you, because you're a guy who's suddenly interested in them and they wonder what you want. Men all want to gather around you and call you their buddy (as long as you have no interested in touching them). Every time genders are segregated, everyone insists you go on the men's side. You tell people you should have been a woman, but they don't believe you and think you're crazy or making it up."

If it's a man, I tell it oppositely but with a similar theme.

I think Suzi has summed it up quite well.

I'd add a few lines about living in constant fear of being caught out, that constant feeling of the words "I'm not a man/woman" at the back of your throat waiting to get out, every time someone refers to your bodies gender you have to fight the urge to scream the truth at them.

I never really thought of what i has as dysphoria until I came here. I can tell you what my life has been like. It's like living in a constant haze and dreaming, needing, yearning to be yourself and have your outside match your inside. I've seen plenty of men's penises and if mine was that size, I think I would fall over and die. The thought of it, not to mention thinking about it or saying it, makes me gasp for air and pray and tell myself that one day this will be over and everything that is down there will be gone and I'll be able to be normal and have sex, sex like I do in my fantasies, as a woman being penetrated by a man and bouncing up and down on top of him, felling him slip in and out.

It's everytime I look in the mirror and see a man and try to cry, but can't becuase I'm all out of tears. It's the feeling of wanting and be willing to do anything just to get rid of my maleness and see something pretty look back. It's just this feeling that something is terribly wrong and knowing exactly what it is and having every waking thought for the last 26 years revolve around the fact that one day it won't be that way and that I'll be able to shop in a section where clothes fit me, where I want to wear them, where i don't feel self-concious but feel like I belong. It's the desrie to do anything just to get the one half of me out and to be one, to be complete to be myself.

I'm halfway home. Now, when i think about detransition all I have to do is look in the mirror and see how far I've come and the only option is to move forward no matter the costs. When i was a kid, i used to wish everyone on earth would vanish, so it would just be me and I could go to the mall and war what I want and walk around how I want and act how I am, without being this quiet, reserved nothing nobody who never speaks for fear that they might catach on to how I am...a fea that is not unfounded.

But I don't live in fear anymore and I never will again. And in one short year and half that dream I had several years back where I was walking through the mall with two women and it was like I had awoken and I didn't even neeed to feel down there, becuase I knew it was gone and I was myself. it's like living in someone else's body with someone else's life, stuck like in that movie the SkeletonKey, which I love and wanted to be so badly just so I could steal someone's body and finaly, ginally be  something close to myself.

But now, all I need to do is wait. And all my dreams will be true. Fook, half of them already came true and everywhere I go, people see me as I am, not who I was. Only one person is having trouble seeing that: me.

That's the best i can describe it.

Two words... "Train Wreck"

Quote from: Veronica M on March 31, 2014, 04:59:03 PM
Two words... "Train Wreck"

At a busy city intersection at rush hour hitting ten hazardous materials trucks! :o

Why is the sky blue. Why is water wet (no I'm not being flippant). You know in your heart and mind your in the wrong body and transitioning is the answer.  Somethings questions are very hard to answer to some people without them having some experience in the situation

pain

Long post, I write personally a lot and I've tried to describe GD before


I've thought about describing gender dysphoria before.

It's not so stereotypical a thing as "A woman trapped in a man's body" (Or the reverse), at least in my case, I've never felt trapped. But then again, maybe philosophical differences make my body inseparable from my mind.

Anyway, it's not a sense of entrapment, at least not entirely. It's not "as if you woke up and had that opposite genitalia", it's not akin to phantom limb. This is because such analogies note a change from something previous. If you woke up with the opposite parts, you'd still have lived much of your life with things set up correctly. It's a different sensation, a very deep seeded sense of something being incorrect.

Entirely hard to exactly describe. But a great sense that things do not match up. Not (as some might assume) a choice, very much if it was I would've chosen differently. But more similar to certain genetic diseases we are born with. But that again is not how it truly "feels". The dysphoria is perhaps comparable to the sensation one receives when they feel are disoriented. Although I think maybe one of the most accurate comparisons can be found in videogames.

Granted, this may be because they are such a large part of my life. In certain games, one may start playing them and have a sense that something is, not quite right. The frames may be slightly jittery, a touch too slow, the sensitivity of the mouse is too much or too little, the field of view is subtly off-putting, the shadows a little too dark, the UI clashes in a way not immediately apparent. It is a great collection of small things that gives an immediate sense of "something is not right here". Oftentimes this goes away with some adjustment of the game or simply growing used to it.

Now, take that initial feeling of disorientation and move it beyond a superficial experience. Take that disorientation not from a game that is beyond yourself, but from the very parts you use to interact with the world. The eyes you use to see everything, the hands you feel with, the voice you speak in, the body you will wash, the clothes you will wear, in nearly every waking moment take that which is for granted and twist it slightly, give everything the sense that "something is not right here". If I were to do this purposefully, your clothes fit too tightly, things are blurry in your vision at random intervals, your voice sounds queer but no one notices, your body feels entirely disgusting but no amount of soap is making it clean.

Yes, that is more accurate. That confusing anxiety when you understand that something is entirely wrong but it doesn't go away with time, it doesn't stop because you can't close the game, it sits with you and scratches at you. Some people ignore it for a long time, some people (such as myself) attempt to live a life as if they had no body, but I think at the end of it all, that feeling of an innate break of self becomes too much. The overwhelming sense of disgust becomes too great and all the walls we put up fall apart.

But I think that has become too poetic. It's hard to describe, this feeling. At the very least I can say that I don't like it, I can say that it drives me to suicide.

Beautiful responses,  thank you very much everyone.

It's like having a constant itch that can't be scratched.

Jill, your new avatar is pretty!

I never understood what dysphoria was and there was no way I had "that". Still I wanted to know so  I asked my Gender Therapist. I had been going to her for 3 months at that point and had shared my life in every detail, hope, dream and sexual expression with her. She went on and gave numerous examples. At the end I said I have dysphoria very bad.

at 5 and 6 I had the feeling I had the wrong genitalia, played with girls, and wanted to remove my gonads. I saw myself as a girl. I did not question my internal feelings I just cried why it was wrong. I came out to My Mom and sister and I was abused physically and mentally. I was threatened, had my hair crew cut. Forced to not play with girls and forced to play with boys (fail). I got a friend in 5th grade to the 8th grade. Sexual abuse and incest. Wanted to kill myself when I hit puberty. I see myself as a female during masturbation and sex.  I thought about and fanaticized being a girl and envied girls 1000's of times a day. Got a boyfriend in High School. Went to gay bars and picked up or got picked up. I was thin, had long hair and wore fitted shirts  and it goes on and on. HRT reduced the excessive compulsion of fanaticizing to a livable amount.

I think the worst part was 1/2 of me wanted to transition and 1/2 of me made myself feel very bad. Nothing anyone could say to me was not said by me to myself a million times. Basically I hated myself and it got to the point I finally started to exercise suicide attempts and it felt good, for a little while. So I got help.

I don't, not to anyone.

I recently picked this up from somewhere. I'm forgetting where but it is not mine. It is rather appropriate and effective though.

Ask the speaker about when they made the conscious choice to be straight. I can tell you that my friends and I never made that choice. Experimented sure but not choose to just be. I would imagine that it is the same for most people straight or LGBT.

My therapist prefers to call GD Gender Expression Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD). I agree with the terminology and will try to make an example of how to use it to explain the feelings to someone else.

Imagine there is something you just have this intense urge to do, whether it is sing at the top of your lungs or go on vacation or even just get a good nights sleep.... Now imagine that you just aren't allowed to do it... And if you do start to do it you are yelled at and shunned and exiled...

That would feel pretty bad....

Take that one step further and make it everyday of your life... Repeating every few minutes or even seconds...some moments more severe than others...

The final step is to imagine that horror happening for something as basic as breathing or free speech or walking...

Our gender identity should be our human right to express as we feel it needs to be expressed... Any dysphoria we feel is not from the gender identity itself... It is from not being able to express ourselves in something so basic.

That is my two cents anyway. I hope it helps!

I've always been a girl since childhood. I thought I was a girl until the first grade teacher told me I was a boy & I had to sit & play with the boys. Yuck, yuck, yuck....................... for years. It has been so hard to change/correct my body after way too much T. I had no way to stop it long ago but hated every minute of it as my body became male.

What does this word dyshporia mean anyway?  It sounds so strange.

Quote from: Mogu on March 31, 2014, 06:40:36 PM
Long post, I write personally a lot and I've tried to describe GD before


I've thought about describing gender dysphoria before.

It's not so stereotypical a thing as "A woman trapped in a man's body" (Or the reverse), at least in my case, I've never felt trapped. But then again, maybe philosophical differences make my body inseparable from my mind.

Anyway, it's not a sense of entrapment, at least not entirely. It's not "as if you woke up and had that opposite genitalia", it's not akin to phantom limb. This is because such analogies note a change from something previous. If you woke up with the opposite parts, you'd still have lived much of your life with things set up correctly. It's a different sensation, a very deep seeded sense of something being incorrect.

Entirely hard to exactly describe. But a great sense that things do not match up. Not (as some might assume) a choice, very much if it was I would've chosen differently. But more similar to certain genetic diseases we are born with. But that again is not how it truly "feels". The dysphoria is perhaps comparable to the sensation one receives when they feel are disoriented. Although I think maybe one of the most accurate comparisons can be found in videogames.

Granted, this may be because they are such a large part of my life. In certain games, one may start playing them and have a sense that something is, not quite right. The frames may be slightly jittery, a touch too slow, the sensitivity of the mouse is too much or too little, the field of view is subtly off-putting, the shadows a little too dark, the UI clashes in a way not immediately apparent. It is a great collection of small things that gives an immediate sense of "something is not right here". Oftentimes this goes away with some adjustment of the game or simply growing used to it.

Now, take that initial feeling of disorientation and move it beyond a superficial experience. Take that disorientation not from a game that is beyond yourself, but from the very parts you use to interact with the world. The eyes you use to see everything, the hands you feel with, the voice you speak in, the body you will wash, the clothes you will wear, in nearly every waking moment take that which is for granted and twist it slightly, give everything the sense that "something is not right here". If I were to do this purposefully, your clothes fit too tightly, things are blurry in your vision at random intervals, your voice sounds queer but no one notices, your body feels entirely disgusting but no amount of soap is making it clean.

Yes, that is more accurate. That confusing anxiety when you understand that something is entirely wrong but it doesn't go away with time, it doesn't stop because you can't close the game, it sits with you and scratches at you. Some people ignore it for a long time, some people (such as myself) attempt to live a life as if they had no body, but I think at the end of it all, that feeling of an innate break of self becomes too much. The overwhelming sense of disgust becomes too great and all the walls we put up fall apart.

But I think that has become too poetic. It's hard to describe, this feeling. At the very least I can say that I don't like it, I can say that it drives me to suicide.

I think that sums it up nicely.

I don't even know how to describe dyshporia, I recently had a triggering effect and went through will call a dysphoric anxiety attack? anyway, i couldn't describe it and I didn't know how to explain it to my girl, who by accident triggered me and I know she didn't mean too, she kept reassuring me that I was a man to her, but its hard to describe it.

I guess its like I look in a mirror and I see this "fake me" looking back, its not that I think I look ugly or fat or anything, I just see this female looking back at me, and I hate it, so I try to do to the best I can to make the female look more masculine without hormones yet, but I still see what puberty did. So then I look at cis gender males and I want to be like that, its like being stuck in a cage, made to see what your suppose to look like based on how you feel and how you want to act, but this mirror that your forced to look at, shows you what you were assigned as birth and then you have family and society saying you must act this way, not that way. It sucks. You just want to feel comfortable in your own skin and happy, but its not easy with society and puberty working against you, so then you get gender dysphoria.

For me it affected me every day of my life.. I coped but not a day went by I did not think about it.
I bought stuff to make me feel better.. planes boats cars.. distractions .
I wished I could have long hair.. use nail polish.. be myself.. kind a like living but not really totally alive and content.
After starting HRT.. I was free..
It is so hard to describe..and it is a little different for everyone.. we all cope in different ways but surprisingly in some very similar ways.
Carrie

Often to me it feels like permanently portraying a character in a play. One you cannot get out of. From the time you're old enough to read, you're handed scripts by Writers, Producers and Directors all around you. Told to read them. To act out their directions and dialogue. And you do. Even though you know deep inside that you're only playing a part. You're too scared not to. The reviews tell you you're playing the part as it's meant to be played. Your acting is breathtaking. Flawless. You deserve an Oscar for your portrayal of this character.

When you look in a mirror, you see this character. And see yourself at the same time, looking out from behind their eyes. You feel disconnected. Like you're watching this character, watching the part being played. New scripts being given, and acted out. At the end of every performance you take off the outfit, discard the script for that day's scene... but you can't find the zipper to remove the body suit. You get scared, and start to feel uncomfortable. Panicky. Like there must be a way to remove it because it isn't you. You're playing a role. You grow to hate it. So you search and search but it's hidden from you. For the moment you're stuck. Wearing an ill-fitting flesh-suit that covers up everything you know yourself to be.

So you resolve to break from the role. To ad-lib, and improvise. Let yourself shine out in thought and word and action. If you can't escape the costume you can at least make people see that its just a part, a role. Right? So you do. And you get heckled. Driven back behind the eyes of the character you're playing. Told you're not reading the script right. That this play is one where the lines must be read as written. Your performance must be flawless every time. And if you feel like you can improvise then you just don't have enough to concentrate on. So you're given more scripts, more lines. More scenes.

Sometimes you feel like it's just not worth it. That this character is all the world will ever see. So you smile your best smile. Resolve to give the critics the performance of a lifetime. The show must go on. But every time you finish a take... every time you are alone in your dressing room and you can't find that zipper to remove the costume of this character you were told you were born to play... you die a little inside.

That's how I experienced it a great many times.

Sephirah,
I loved this from you.. I often thought I should be given an Oscar for the way I played the role as male..
As I now transition.. and my wife is dying inside from losing that guy I too just this morning pictured myself as the guy walking through a door and honestly I miss him too.
I was a super loveable caring masculine dude..and ok good looking too..
Now, I am a loveable caring wonderful even better woman in progress..
I never knew that my kids would not only accept me but love who I am as me.
I wish I could split in half and give my wife the male part of me..
So maybe another way to describe the GID is by just knowing what we are willing to give up to be ourselves.. that in itself speaks volumes.
Love
Carrie

Quote from: Sephirah on March 31, 2014, 10:00:35 PM
Often to me it feels like permanently portraying a character in a play. One you cannot get out of. From the time you're old enough to read, you're handed scripts by Writers, Producers and Directors all around you. Told to read them. To act out their directions and dialogue. And you do. Even though you know deep inside that you're only playing a part. You're too scared not to. The reviews tell you you're playing the part as it's meant to be played. Your acting is breathtaking. Flawless. You deserve an Oscar for your portrayal of this character.

When you look in a mirror, you see this character. And see yourself at the same time, looking out from behind their eyes. You feel disconnected. Like you're watching this character, watching the part being played. New scripts being given, and acted out. At the end of every performance you take off the outfit, discard the script for that day's scene... but you can't find the zipper to remove the body suit. You get scared, and start to feel uncomfortable. Panicky. Like there must be a way to remove it because it isn't you. You're playing a role. You grow to hate it. So you search and search but it's hidden from you. For the moment you're stuck. Wearing an ill-fitting flesh-suit that covers up everything you know yourself to be.

So you resolve to break from the role. To ad-lib, and improvise. Let yourself shine out in thought and word and action. If you can't escape the costume you can at least make people see that its just a part, a role. Right? So you do. And you get heckled. Driven back behind the eyes of the character you're playing. Told you're not reading the script right. That this play is one where the lines must be read as written. Your performance must be flawless every time. And if you feel like you can improvise then you just don't have enough to concentrate on. So you're given more scripts, more lines. More scenes.

Sometimes you feel like it's just not worth it. That this character is all the world will ever see. So you smile your best smile. Resolve to give the critics the performance of a lifetime. The show must go on. But every time you finish a take... every time you are alone in your dressing room and you can't find that zipper to remove the costume of this character you were told you were born to play... you die a little inside.

That's how I experienced it a great many times.

Wow, I think this whole thread sums it up well, but I really related to Sephirah and Mogu's descriptions of it.

Personally, you don't even have to see it as male/female. Just imagine it as two different sets of behaviour. It's as if EVERYTHING that just comes natural to you, your natural actions, behaviours, feelings, the words you use/want to use, the expressions you make, how you carry yourself et cetera, fits into one behaviour set, whilst everyone is constantly forcing you to live as if you should be using the other behaviour set simply because you look more like them. So you have to live with the constant frustration of curbing your behaviour to fit the set that's expected, whilst constantly feeling anxious that you're not doing a good enough job at it. 

From very young, I was made aware that how I did things was wrong (too emotional, too expressive, too submissive, too introverted, too extreme, too musical, too artsy,  too feminine in every way ugh) and how the boys did things 'right', but whereas they didn't have to work at it, I spent every day (until my dysphoria anxiety attack kicked in that led to me coming out to myself) working to try and fit in, which often led me to overcompensating and becoming overtly masculine (you want me to be a male, I'll be a freaking male). 

Meanwhile, you see people that behave and act and think and talk the way you naturally WOULD and everybody just accepts them acting the way they do 100% without question. It's horrible, it's like constantly feeling like a second rate citizen, you work to fit into your traditional gender role (whilst never really succeeding, even if you pass socially, it always feels fake for me) whilst you're surrounded by people that share traits just like your natural traits yet YOU can't be that way because... well I don't even know... because it breaks the traditional idea of gender roles?

I'm still trying to work out exactly the extent of the feeling, and this might be just how I see it, but yeh...

@sephirah

btw this has to be one of the most amazing explanations of being trans...you should be famous or somethin

Quote from: Sephirah on March 31, 2014, 10:00:35 PM
Often to me it feels like permanently portraying a character in a play. One you cannot get out of. From the time you're old enough to read, you're handed scripts by Writers, Producers and Directors all around you. Told to read them. To act out their directions and dialogue. And you do. Even though you know deep inside that you're only playing a part. You're too scared not to. The reviews tell you you're playing the part as it's meant to be played. Your acting is breathtaking. Flawless. You deserve an Oscar for your portrayal of this character.

When you look in a mirror, you see this character. And see yourself at the same time, looking out from behind their eyes. You feel disconnected. Like you're watching this character, watching the part being played. New scripts being given, and acted out. At the end of every performance you take off the outfit, discard the script for that day's scene... but you can't find the zipper to remove the body suit. You get scared, and start to feel uncomfortable. Panicky. Like there must be a way to remove it because it isn't you. You're playing a role. You grow to hate it. So you search and search but it's hidden from you. For the moment you're stuck. Wearing an ill-fitting flesh-suit that covers up everything you know yourself to be.

So you resolve to break from the role. To ad-lib, and improvise. Let yourself shine out in thought and word and action. If you can't escape the costume you can at least make people see that its just a part, a role. Right? So you do. And you get heckled. Driven back behind the eyes of the character you're playing. Told you're not reading the script right. That this play is one where the lines must be read as written. Your performance must be flawless every time. And if you feel like you can improvise then you just don't have enough to concentrate on. So you're given more scripts, more lines. More scenes.

Sometimes you feel like it's just not worth it. That this character is all the world will ever see. So you smile your best smile. Resolve to give the critics the performance of a lifetime. The show must go on. But every time you finish a take... every time you are alone in your dressing room and you can't find that zipper to remove the costume of this character you were told you were born to play... you die a little inside.

That's how I experienced it a great many times.

Absolutely brilliant and well written! And I can relate to this more than anything! It's pretty much how I've explained myself to my very understanding spouse but I could never have come up with such eloquent words as you have, thank you so much :)

The analogies that everyone has come up with are all very good. For myself, I think I would have a difficult time settling on just one to describe my own experiences. I would need an analogy to convey the sense of regret I've felt throughout my life, one for the envy, one for the longing, one to capture the awkwardness I often feel in social situations and on and on. The trouble is, while a good analogy (or a combination of them) can help paint a picture of what it feels like to be transgender, I think most of them would fail to convey the depths of the feelings it can lead to.

I have struggled with this since I was 5 years old. There is a website that helps you calculate the days between two dates and it shows about 14,300 total days have passed since I was 5. Let's say I could come up with a way to describe even a part of what it feels like to suffer from GD to a non-transgender person that they get. Maybe it's a feeling that they've experienced in other ways for other reasons, but the analogy is enough to get them to relate to it even a little. Then, let's say that the feeling I'm trying to capture and explain with my analogy is something I personally have felt everyday since I was five (and there are definitely a few). I'd then say to the person - "ok - take that feeling I've described which you can relate to and think about what it would be like to experience it over 14,000 days". What we experience and feel is just part of it. The unrelenting crush of it all is, to me, one of the worst parts and one of the hardest aspects for people to grasp who aren't transgender.

For me I have been explaining it as a feeling that I have always had, it never goes away and the more you try to suppress it. The stronger it returns, its something I've suppressed my entire life and I'm tired of living a lie towards everyone while hiding how I feel on the inside.

Since I have told my family and some friends. I feel as if a huge wall has been removed in front of me. I no longer need to hide my emotions or do things a certain manly way. For those I have told, they have only grown closer to me. For those who don't know yet they still view me as weird or why/how could I do or respond to things the way I do.  :D