This might be a strange question but does anyone else here not experience dysphoria? I was talking to a friend yesterday who studies gender in Japan and when I told her I don't really experience my body as dysphoric, she wondered out loud whether it might be a phenomenon more prevalent in the West. Growing up in the Philippines, I was never given the memo that being male-bodied but female-acting were somehow incompatible. I'm wondering if the gender-policing and segregating that goes on in the States induces this feeling of people's bodies not belonging to them. Or maybe it's just me? I'm wondering if other people have insights. The way I tend to experience my transness is not I was born in the "wrong" body but that I had a body that I loved but now there's another body I love even more.

For me - now - it's mostly a social dysphoria. When I was younger my body dysphoria was almost crippling, not so much any more.

I do have dysphoria, just not always, and not as bad as many transguys. If you have NO dysphoria AT ALL I don't think you can be defined as transsexual at least (cause if you don't have dysphoria, why would you feel the need to transition?), and as transgender... maybe as genderfluid/bigender? I have no idea how that feels...
But dysphoria can manifest itself in MANY MANY ways, and it differs for each person. It is a very personal feeling, and even if you THINK you don't have dysphoria, you might have it. Besides that don't I care whether you have dysphoria or not. I am not the person to judge anyone on this. I can only speak for myself.

I have experienced dysphoria for a long time now but didnt realise i was experiencing it until i spoke to somebody and did some online research. I think it can appear in many different forms and each persons experience is different Quite interested in you having not experienced it and transitioning anyway? sorry if that comes across the weong way, i mean no offence at all. Just interested thats all

Quote from: mandonlym on May 20, 2014, 08:09:58 AM
I'm wondering if the gender-policing and segregating that goes on in the States induces this feeling of people's bodies not belonging to them.

I'm sure the masculine western culture and its hangups in regards to gender and sexuality have a lot to do with it, esp. compared to other cultures like many Asian ones that are more accepting and fluid.

Yeah I agree with you, I don't feel "wrong bodied",  I am just modifying the one I have to the one I would like to have and that suits my personality. My dysphoria I guess is more subtle than others, more like a mumble in the background.

No it's totally fine; I'm hard to offend everyone so please don't feel like you have to be careful on my account. I guess maybe I should be specific and say I don't experience body dysphoria, that I didn't experience wanting to have a different body than I do. When I was living as male and had male body parts I didn't find them alienating or offensive, and I've always from adolescence incorporated women's clothing into my wardrobe.

So I guess I experienced social dysphoria in the sense that I figured out as soon as I started wearing women's clothes full-time and being identified as a woman, I found that I preferred it. And then I didn't want to live as a woman and have male genitals for safety reasons and because I didn't like being fetishized, but I never really actively disliked having a penis. I do find that I prefer to have a vagina. So I guess there was a brief period of time when I was living as a woman but had male body parts when I actively wished to have female parts, but I experienced that as more social (dating would be easier, I can feel safer, etc.) rather than something deeper.

So that's what I mean when I say I don't experience dysphoria. I should look more into the topic as a way of figuring out my experience better.

I can't say I relate.  For much of my life I've had both social and body dysphoria.  Depending on the day and how I feel, they are sort of equally important.  The thing that I can't understand is why I have so much body dysphoria.  Was it natural?  Or did I come to be dysphoric for social reasons?  The social differences were my first triggers as a kid, so maybe it just snowballed and created a mentality that I couldn't escape?  I'll never know, yet I've never had a totally normal body either so that only contributed to my feeling like a freak. 

In any case, it's really not a big deal either way.  The only "test" that should matter in these things is if someone is happier or can become happier in transitioning.  I suspect there are probably a lot of people in similar shoes that are afraid to speak up because of all the gatekeeping and politics involved in the trans community.  It shouldn't be that way, but it is. 

The body dysphoria is pretty bad for me... Basically, the only way I cope with having a male body at all is to force it out of my mind whenever possible, and the rest of the time I kind of exist in this weird state of complete disassociation with my body, like I'm controlling it but it's not a real part of me, if that makes any sense. This still isn't enough, and I desperately, desperately want to have a female body. A lot of times the only thing that keeps me going is telling myself that if I keep hanging on, I'll be female someday, somehow.

It's not one body part more than the other for me. Looking at my penis doesn't make me feel worse than looking at any of the rest of my body, or having to hear my voice. It all makes me feel depressed and I hate all of it.

I also experience really bad social dysphoria, but at least I can get relief from that online, where I can be seen as myself. The only time I get a reprieve from having to live in this body is when I sleep.

I do have body dysphoria bad now.  When I was young growing up I played mainly with boys and everything was fine I could do everything they did and no one, including me, ever consider I was different from them.  Then the summer between 7 and 8th grade I started developing breasts and got my first period period and everything changed for me before it did for the boys, for I realize that they were not going to see  these changes.  I have had problems since then seeing and feeling my body as different from cis males, yet wanting to have the normal boys parts..  I tried my first two years of high school and them again in college for a for about a year and a half living and trying to be and do the things cis girls do.  Both times I ended up realizing this form of life style was not for for me.

It makes sense that social factors would worsen dysphoria. "Gender policing" simultaneously calls someone's attention more to what they physically have or don't have, and at a minimum makes it more difficult for them to express their gender in a way that is comfortable to them.

It could be argued if someone's dysphoria were purely social, and they were completely satisfied with their body, they wouldn't desire to change their body any further than needed for "social transition".

For me it's a physical problem. My body dysphoria is there even in complete privacy. Social dysphoria is just dung icing on the crap cake.

I did not have dysphoria the way many people experience it. I loved my body and my life as a male. I was driven to transition by the euphoria of realizing that being a female was the way I was supposed to live and how drab in comparison was the pretense I'd put on for fifty years.

I have a sort of dysphoria now when I get images of myself that do not look female, like the thin hair at the top of my head or my eyebrow/forehead shape. They are annoying but by no means debilitating.

I dont have "classic" body disphoria, too. nothing special. in my opinion, body disphoria develop if you are aware of the missing congruence of your body and mind. so you make your body subconscious responsible for your "problem" and so there are parts which shouldnt be there. i think it is body disphoria if you urge for, or really "prefer" the body of the opposite gender while the emotions toward your body are more the way you interpret those feelings for yourself and not the disphoria itself.

greetings

No I don't really experience the body dysphoria either. It's just a body and nature gave me just enough to not be dysphoric in that area. So what If I have an "outie" instead of an "innie", just like belly buttons. Yeah most of society may have hang ups over it but a lot of society don't. But then again I am really not a mainstream society person though and really don't even try or care to fit into that part of society.

I didn't really have any dysphoria until maybe the last year or so.  I always had a feeling that I was trans, but never imagined that my mind would begin to reject my body.  These days I have sever dysphoria and there are some things about my body that I almost can't stand to look at.  I really don't know why it just kicked in.  I'm pretty young looking for my age, but I guess that I was able to deal with it better before I aged and masculinized a bit more; I was more boyish then as opposed to manish (still not super manish).

Mandonlym and Suzi, that is my experience as well. It was euphoria, not dysphoria that led me down this path.  I spent many years with "Eh, this is good enough I guess" before hitting that "Holy heck, this is AWESOME" point.

It's nice to see other people chime in with experiences that lack extreme dysphoria but are transitioning anyway. I don't think I could go back myself.

I think for me it was/is mostly a physical body thing. The only social aspects of being seen as female that i disdained were the times when i had to alter my appearance at a double standard to males or intentionally in contrast to them.  For example having to wear a dress instead of a suit or having someone give me a feminine version of the haircut i really asked for.

I feel very wrong in my body, and i do not believe that its cultural or socialized.  Well maybe some of my bottom dysphoria is, but honestly with all the dick jokes out there..... How can you deny their negative effect.

We do live in a culture that says people should be trans only out of medical necessity, and for me that doesn't seem quite right. I can probably live as a man, but why do it given the option of being a more awesome woman? So that's how I've ended up where I am.

Quote from: mandonlym on May 22, 2014, 06:28:09 PM
We do live in a culture that says people should be trans only out of medical necessity, and for me that doesn't seem quite right. I can probably live as a man, but why do it given the option of being a more awesome woman? So that's how I've ended up where I am.

Definitely. Everyone should be free to do what makes them happiest. It seems like a very silly notion that there should be some "misery requirement" to transition.

I didn't used to really have much, if any, body dysphoria.  I kind of thought, "Well, if I'm going to have a girl body, at least it looks nice."  I hated being seen as a girl by other people, but I didn't necessarily hate my body for it.  It wasn't until after I started to try and pass that I started having body dysphoria since my body suddenly was actively a barrier to my transition.  Now there are parts of my body that I almost can't touch and stress out that people are staring at my wide hips when I'm in public.

Even still, though, I don't think my dysphoria is as bad as many others.

Quote from: Ms Grace on May 20, 2014, 08:16:51 AM
For me - now - it's mostly a social dysphoria.

I feel the same way.  I feel like I'm acting a lot when amongst a group of men, and repressing when I'm amongst a group of women.

Still, I would hate to have further male pattern age related changes.