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.