(Trigger warning for self-harm below! I don't want to upset anybody) Hi! I'm vishuual, I'm a 15 (almost 16) year old biological female, and I'm new to this forum. I've been having a lot of trouble for about five or six years now trying to figure out what is going on with me, gender-wise. I suppose I'm looking for help, from people who might be going through the same type of thing, because I'm having a difficult time figuring this all out. Gender has always been confusing for me. So, here's what I know about myself: I have definite top dysphoria, in the sense that I don't feel like myself when I look in the mirror and see that I don't have a flat chest. I've picked at my skin there like I was trying to make it go away. I have a few scars and I almost always have scabs. Whenever I wear anything that would make my chest appear smaller, like a sports bra or something, I get sort of giddy. It's hard to describe. I don't pass as a guy. I look like a girl, though it's mostly just my long hair. When I put my hair up under a baseball cap I look like a boy. That causes the same giddy feeling I mentioned before. I don't have dysphoria about how I present as much as I just have this feeling of being wrong-- of looking in the mirror and not quite recognizing the person staring back at me. I don't have lower body dysphoria, though. I've never particularly cared about what's between my legs, it's never seemed to matter at all to me. Which is where I'm getting caught up-- I feel like I might be making it up, because out of all the stories I've read, nearly all people who identify as transgender have lower body dysphoria. I don't know. I'm really confused. If anyone has been through anything like this before, I'd really appreciate your input. I'm terrified of bringing this up to my friends or family. Any help would be great. Thanks, Vishuual
I'm not a trans guy, but I hope I can offer some reassurance by letting you know that there are plenty of trans men who don't have bottom dysphoria. There is no singular one-size-fits-all trans experience: there are guys with no top dysphoria, exclusively social dysphoria, so on and so forth. In the trans guys and transmasculine (and nonbinary/genderqueer) people I know and know of, they all have their own personal experiences when it comes to gender and their relationship with their bodies. What I'm trying to say is, in short, follow what makes you feel better about yourself! Present in the way that makes you comfortable if you can, get hold of a binder if that's an option for you, and remember that there is no uniform experience of being trans. I hope I've been helpful!
Plenty of people don't have bottom dysphoria. My bottom dysphoria is very mild, and I'm still trans. I felt a lot of the things you described when I was first starting to figure out my gender identity: feeling excited when I saw myself with a flat chest or when I wore something that made me look like a boy. It sounds to me like you're not cis, and I promise you can be trans without bottom dysphoria.
