This is something that interests me. For me, sometimes gender is all I can think about. But in the grand scheme of things, there are many things that I value higher than my gender identity and living my life as female rather than male. Sometimes I feel that all my troubles with gender pales in comparison to the other things I care about in my life. And at that point sometimes I just think "Is it really worth it? Is it worth it to have to carry this with me, this 'weirdness' for the rest of my life, so that I can create a space for myself to live a bit more freely and comfortably?" Sigh... vent, vent.
It calms me down to research things and find studies that mirror my experiences and give me a potential "what to expect" guide for the future, and I found an article here that does that for me (even if I have to make a few substitutions for the nonbinary aspect). By this metric, I'm around stage 5 or 6, so it's a big part of my life, but not necessarily an accepted part. I'm still nervous and kind of trying to make this go back into its compartmentalized repressed box, but realizing little by little that going backwards won't make this get over faster. I'm in the stage in my identity development where it gets more important to me with every passing day. I think it's an big part of learning to love ourselves in a society that doesn't necessarily feel the same way, and few people can comfortably skip the stages of all-importance and go right to having it be a small but integral piece of your identity that you accept and appreciate without it being an huge big deal.
Thanks for the fox, uh, I mean, link, kitsune ^^ I'm checking it out, seems like good brain food. Hopefully I'll learn something that can help me a little.
It used to be very important when I was still at the beginning of my transition, trying to pass, trying to get on T etc. Now that I've accomplished those things it has lost a bit of importance. I still experience dysphoria and still think about being trans everyday, but it's just not as... obsessive, for the lack of a better word.
I hope to end up like the above poster eventually. Currently my gender is ruling every aspect of my life and it sucks. I can't stop thinking about it. How others percieve me, the clothes I wear, checking to see if I'm doing something thats considered feminine. Its really annoying and I hate being so obsessive about it but I can't help it.
