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That mess of (non-binary) dysphoria as related to transitioning.

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by GenderSciFi, Feb 1, 2016.

  1. GenderSciFi

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    Hey, so I wonder if anyone has thoughts on the correlation between social and body dysphoria.
    Does anybody else feel like the two are so intertwined and it's so *ing difficult to tell what's mostly discomfort and resentment about people reading your body a certain way and what's, on the other hand, a real, like, "primary" bad feeling about aspects of your body? Is there even such a thing?

    I especially wonder about this when I think about transitioning. It just seems less legitimate to myself to undergo major changes just so people won't read me as a woman anymore, when most days I look in the mirror and think: "Hey there, cute enby stuff! You look especially genderqueerly nice today..." (because I'm that conceited, go figure :lol:slight_smile:. Other days I resent my body for failing me in the male-passing department, or I feel that the underlying "female-ness" of it all is truly unappealing (to myself, but I also am convinced that nobody else is going to physically appreciate me... Like who would that even be? Open-minded gay or straight people? Other trans* people? Pansexual genderqueer unicorns like me?) and tbh I'm just really confused and it's not getting better with time. I sometimes wish I could shake people and scream: "Say it honestly, do you still think I'm a girl? Can you really tell me you don't see me that way, when confronted with my actual body?" But that would be boundary-overstepping and also asking other people for the validation that I really need to find in myself *sigh*

    I try out stuff to see how it works for me... like I figured out how to make a fairly convincing real-hair fake beard. Oh my, the feeling of gender euphoria when I think that I might just pass as male in a dimly lit room... but it's not real and it itches, and sometimes I'm happy about the softness and blankness of my face when I get it off again. I can't tell if I really want one forever. Or any of the changes T would bring. Will I ever know? And with transitioning, I feel like if I really wanted it, I'd just "know", somehow, if I really wanted it?

    Did anybody else medically transition on the basis of relatively low, or fluctuating, or incredibly complicated body dysphoria and horrible social dysphoria? Non-binary or binary trans* folks out there? How much bloody painful introspection do you have to do before you can move on with your life and transition or not?
    Any thoughts or advice?
     
  2. oh my god I

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    Hey... well, I would say I medically transitioned from a somewhat similar space and I think there are reasons it can be that way.

    I didn't have a ton of body dysphoria linked to my primary and secondary sex characteristics until I was in my late teens.

    But, at the same time, I didn't have any signifcantly masculine traits, I looked very feminine or just female next to any old cis guy, so that felt fine for me, and at the time I felt mostly uncomfortable with sexuality as a whole and was deliberately not thinking about sex, so why would I have a lot of body dysphoria? I mean my body wasn't the main problem, back then I already looked mostly how I wanted to look, small, feminine, long hair, and thin bc I dieted a lot. My major problem was social... not feeling safe or able to transition while living with my family, so most of my dysphoria was social, just like you would expect.

    Then once I was actually living as a girl, my physical dysphoria did get worse as an extension of social, because then it wasn't just about how I want to express myself, it was also the phobia of being misgendered/outed/feeling excluded as a girl if i didn't look 100% female. So I became overly obsessive about my physical traits I did perceive as more masculine, and overly afraid of what guys would think about my bottom situation, so physical issues were the primary problem now, and I experienced more body dysphoria to reflect that, also my social dysphoria took on a new relationship to my body dysphoria.

    It's kinda case by case. It's about your situation. I don't think it's fair for anyone to assume all trans people experience dysphoria in the same way or for the same reasons. Unlike some people, I don't think dysphoria is the main or only reason to transition, I don't think trans people are defined by how much they hate themselves or their bodies.... it's more about how you really authentically want to live your life, how you want to present yourself to the world and what feels right for you, and dysphoria is an indicator that something feels wrong, but it's not the whole picture on its own. Dysphoria just says, something is wrong, and then you have to interpret what is wrong and why in order to figure out how you can be happier.

    So if you're still confused, maybe you could try to pay more attention to your feelings and analyze what they are about? Write it down, talk it out, and be kind to yourself!! (*hug*) But just make sure the changes you make are for you and your truth and not to change anyone else's opinion of you.... other people's opinions or perceptions come and go but you are the only one who fully lives with your choices.
     
    #2 oh my god I, Feb 1, 2016
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2016
  3. GenderSciFi

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    Huh, doesn't seem to be a very common experience!
    Thanks for your answer, though. :slight_smile: Yeah, I guess I've got to go more into my own feelings and what I actually want from transitioning.
    :icon_conf
     
  4. Delta

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    This may be dragging up old threads, and I'm sorry for that, but this does seem like a rare thing to experience and I'd like to offer my 2 cents. I've experienced a lot of social dysphoria and a little body dysphoria. I'd always been pretty comfortable with my body itself when I identified only as a girl, though at times it annoyed me because it wasn't close to social standards of how I should be looking. I chopped off all my hair halfway through high school, and I feel similarly to OMG that at that time I was content to be more masculine than other girls and have that be apparent.

    Then a couple more years went past and I started to be incredibly uncomfortable with how I noticed people treating me. I'd start feeling gross when they were clearly treating me a certain way because of my gender. I mentioned feeling like I was "less than" the non-binary people I was meeting. Like it was worse to just be one. And I guess that was social dysphoria, because I at least know I blamed it on the social environment at the time.

    I'm in math and engineering, which are pretty male dominated fields, so I'd often be the only "girl" in the room at any given time, which meant pretty much one of two things.
    1, the guys would treat me differently because they recognized that I wasn't like them, so they'd start employing traditional guy-girl social roles on things, which (especially as a person who has never been heterosexual) made me feel extremely misunderstood and restricted. And I hated that expectation of vulnerability, too.
    Or, 2, they'd treat me like one of the guys, and start doing weird bro-culture (*cough*misogynistic*cough*) things with me that felt less like inclusive camraderie and more like how you would feel if the neighbors with meth teeth and anger management issues insisted you to come with them to their small, cultlike church's barbecue (where they jokingly promise they'll kill the pig in front of you. And you're not so sure it's a joke). I couldn't really accept the invitation to join in, but I couldn't really stand up and reject it either because fuck-there's-16-of-them-and-one-of-me. And that was weird and most definitely not comfortable and I never wanted to be seen as one of the guys again.

    The only thing I actually liked in that scenario with gender was when it was clear my gender wasn't being assigned as a blanket statement. If they were reacting to how I was and what I said and did, it was always more comfortable.
    I recall telling my Dad I'd like to fill a role in my environment that was outside the boy-girl dichotomy, and he mentioned that (female) people he'd seen in those types of roles naturally seemed to garner more respect from their coworkers because they were less inclined to assumptions about them and therefore paid more attention to their actual stances and points. And I was like "yes, that, that exact type of respect linked to that position in society, that would fix everything that feels so wrong about this. That is the one gender thing I know I love always no matter what. How can I get more of that specific thing." And that's when I started to realize that I'm non-binary. I'm not comfortable being stuck in "girl" or "guy" continually, because that's just not true for me.

    After I started to come out to myself (and eventually others), body dysphoria hit me like, not a truck, but at least a speeding bicycle courier who wasn't paying attention and thus crashes into full speed in a non-fatal but painful and awkward mash of metal and scraped limbs. I liked what I had, until I realized that what I had was going to keep me from ever being truly seen as neither one nor the other. That people were always going to, even if only subconsciously, do the gender checklist of the bustline, the waist, the hips, the face, bra strap, stubble, voice pitch, gait, everything that my body did naturally, and that was always, always going to stick me in one box. Female. And the kind, progressive ones would stash that information in the "doesn't really matter" bin and treat me like a non-binary person. But other people won't do that. Other people will constantly be assuming I'm a girl, ignoring whatever they learn about me that seems contrary to that, and treating me accordingly. So I no longer really like my body, not because of what it is, but because of what it's doing to my world.

    If I was younger, I'd be fine, because girls and younger guys look similar, and I can pass for those both. But I'm 21. It's not normal to look like this as a 21 year old guy. There's no mistaking me for that. And I really wish there was that possibility. That occasionally I could just have everything I needed to be seen as a guy, the facial hair, the deep voice, the walk, everything, and then later still have everything I needed to be seen as a girl, the figure, the smooth face, everything. And that these things may be mutually exclusive is painful to me. And that lack of flexibility, lack of androgyny, is really hard for me to take in regards to my body. It's like my body is that friend that you love hanging out with alone because they're genuine and sweet, but as soon as you're around other people they just start giving you backhanded compliments and encouraging people to tease you.

    So even though I've never looked at my body in the mirror and said "I wish I was seeing something else" I've definitely, definitely looked at the mirror and said "I wish other people were seeing something else." And I have hated my body and not left the house sometimes because of my body, and wished passionately that I was born into a different body, all throughout not actually hating what my body looked like or how it feels to be myself in. Intense social dysphoria can make me dislike any number of things about myself and my life, it's malignant and aggressive, for sure.