Inconsistent Dysphoria/Am I actually trans?

For a long time when I was in denial about not being happy as female, I would make pro/con lists in my head about what was BETTER about being female. Not what felt right for me, but purely what the benefits of being female are so I could console myself about being female. I came up with a few things: being able to dress how you want, not being seen as threatening, being able to have closer friendships without being seen as gay or like you just want in peoples' pants, people trust you more around children, no one is going to punch you in the face if you disrespect them, you don't have to sign up for the draft, you can express yourself more freely in general, women just look nicer, they live longer, etc. There are definitely benefits to being seen as female. And there are downsides to being male likewise. I have to tell myself this too, but it isn't about which is better, it is about which is YOU. Either way you will have to deal with some negatives. If you have to experience the negatives of being a man, then congratulations, you know what men go through. I'm sure it is strange at first even if you want that, if you are used to being treated as female.

---------- Post added 23rd May 2016 at 05:00 PM ----------

Oh I forgot to answer the first part of your question. My dysphoria is mostly about my face and my hips. I don't like to pull my shirt up or take my shirt off even though I am skinny and in decent shape. I try to avoid looking in the mirror much because I hate how round and feminine my face is. My voice doesn't bother me that much because I have a really good range and I like to sing, but I hate it on the phone because I get ma'amed every single time, obviously, especially since my name is still female. Or in public I might get called sir until I speak, then it is really awkward.

The majority of my dysphoria is social I think. Everytime I get called a female specific term it feels like I'm being stabbed. When I think about getting married in the future and being called "Mrs." it makes me want to throw up. Or if my fiancee had children and they called me mom. It seriously makes me sick to my stomach.

I hate thinking of the fact that my body makes all this estrogen and I have ovaries and stuff. I would feel better if I was infertile. I tend to assume I have a hormonal imbalance and I make a lot more testosterone than other women, and I've been telling myself this forever, but it probably isn't true and I think if I found out it wasn't true I would be crushed. It would be different if I found out when I was going in to get testosterone though since it could be fixed.

The physical feeling of dysphoria for me tends to feel like anxiety and I start feeling dizzy or nauseous some times. Sometimes I feel like I want to cry and I keep repeating what the person said to me over and over and over in my head and I feel so helpless like no one will ever understand how much they hurt me by being careless.

 

Definitely feeling this right now.

 

For me, my dysphoria fluctuates. In terms of social dysphoria; it's getting misgendered over my voice and that I still have my birth name. In terms of physical dysphoria; as of late, it's generally with my voice and my chest. I'll constantly check myself before I leave the house, and change my clothes multiple times until I find something that makes me as flat as possible; even if I look unusually flat for a chubby guy.

Something to remember is that dysphoria isn't a single thing, and your dysphoria isn't less valid because it's not the same as someone else's. Most of the time, my dysphoria is background noise and I barely notices it; with it getting to where I sometimes forget I'm trans. IMO, if you don't identify with the gender you were assigned at birth, you fall on the trans spectrum somewhere. There's infinite shades of trans and dysphoria out there.

You aren't less trans for being "sensitive" or not being hypermasculine, and there are plenty of guys who are like you.I'm pretty sensitive and and emotional (which there's nothing wrong with by the way), and I'm annoyed by stereotypical dudebros---let alone with I hear people say you aren't a "real guy" if you don't like slamming beers, hitting the gym, or other general crap like that. It's a pain in the ass that we've sort of had to take the backseat to stereotypes and bullshit societal standards. If anyone gives you shit for being a "soft person", then you know they aren't worth having in your life.

Also, there's nothing wrong with being outside the binary. You shouldn't feel like you have to conform in order to make things easier for yourself, especially if you know it won't make you happy. I think of myself as being somewhat non-binary, and I stopped giving a damn about gender norms and ideas some time ago; and I think it's taken a weight off me to not have to live up to expectations of what society thinks of me as a man.

My advice is to try to live as authentically as you can. Your true friends and allies will make themselves known to you if you try to be yourself. Thankfully, society is coming around and you aren't expected to be a dudebro in order to be male.

 

Yeah, I agree with daydreamer1. I know plenty of cis guys that are more sensitive than I am in general, and I am fairly sensitive myself I guess. Depending on the way you define it.

But it does kind of sound like you are probably outside the binary if you don't really belong in either gender. Just saying men come in all types.

 

I usually have a consistent amount of dysphoria. It's not horrible but I just wish I was AFAB so badly. Sometimes it just gets real horrible real quick and often results in me writing a really depressed or angry post on EC. Even when it goes away it's still pretty bad though.

 

My dysphoria fluctuates as well. Up until a few weeks ago it also fluctuated but it's gotten worse of late and I don't know if it will go away or not. Sometimes it can go from better to worse in a matter of hours.

I don't feel any dysphoria physically really, just a sense of disconnect. I like my body as it is, but it's quite...impersonal. I don't know how to explain it, but sometimes I get the sense not that I'm trapped, but that my body is just a vessel, and I feel like I wouldn't be any different if I was born a guy.

Most of my dysphoria is on the social/mental side. I constantly monitor what I wear, how I walk, how my hair looks and the pitch and mannerisms of my voice when I speak and I rebuke myself whenever I act too girly (as I am wont to do), and when I wear feminine clothing I sometimes just a bit weird and sometimes I can't stand it.

I've also lately been feeling a sense of disconnect in terms of people using my real name and female pronouns - I would try changing my name and asking people to use masculine/gender-neutral pronouns for me for a while just to see how it feels, but I'm not ready to talk to people about this yet and I'd feel guilty for changing my name for some reason.

So...yeah. I'm really new to all this but it seems like it's pretty normal to have fluctuating feelings of dysphoria judging from other people's responses, and how dysphoria manifests depends on the person. Hang in there - all you can do is all you can do, after all.

 

My dysphoria manifests itself mainly in the form of physical dysphoria, and also social dysphoria, mostly in the form of awkwardness.

I think that were it not for my physical dysphoria, I could be happy living as a feminine guy. And somehow, living as a feminine guy is kind of like a hope I’m clinging to. Life would just be so much… easier if I didn’t have to have these feelings of “please give me boobs”, “my shoulders are too broad”, “fuck this body hair”, or “what the hell do I have to have this thing between my legs for?”
I used to get, like, panic attacks from body dysphoria. Now it’s lighter anxiety and awkwardness rather than that.

Social gender isn’t as important to me. Getting called ‘he’ and my birth name among people I’m not out to and stuff can be annoying, but most of the time it doesn’t bother me all that much, though sometimes it does.
I don’t want to be treated like a cis woman either. When it comes to expression, as of now I guess I’m basically more comfortable with a male gender role than a female one, since that’s what I’m used to. I hate the idea of people expecting me to be a stereotypical guy just as much as I hate the idea of people expecting me to be a stereotypical guy.
I’m very emotional (like, a train wreck) inside, but on the outside I’m often very level-headed and calculating, or quirky. Not stereotypically girly features. I hate stereotypes… with some things I fall sort of well into a female stereotype, but mostly not.
I feel really oppressed by society socially. I wish I were just seen as a person first and whatever gender second.

I’m also definitely not like the stereotypical trans girl, or just trans person. I often don’t relate well to other trans people at all. This makes it kind of hard for me to feel like I can fit in anywhere.

 

I'm exactly the opposite, I love being a bro and like my body I -am- a guy and it's not even the question of preferring to be treated like this, it's the real me. If anything causes me discomfort about being socially a guy, that's fear about what people would say and the "you can't because you're a female and don't even want to change it". You definitely don't have to be either or, there are a lot of people who are not. If you feel like you would like your body more if it was more masculine - go for it, you don't even need to feel like a guy. Have you checked out the blog Neutrois Nonsense?

And definitely many cis men are not the "macho" or "bro" type. There are those guys who sit quiet, and are calm and kind and warm. I personally know lots of those. One of my best friends, for example, goes on about his dog a lot and is a vegetarian, and is very warm and caring And what? He's a guy. There are guys who don't like sport, who look gay and girly, who prefer playing the guitar and having long hair to being "macho", those who dress nice, who are family guys and like kids, who are shy and quiet, who are sweet nerds, who are warm, who are whatever not stereotypically masculine.

 

my dysphoria isn't very consistent. i usually get more social dysphoria. if i'm thrown into a large crowd or people even with family gatherings i get discomfort and dysphoria. i mostly get depression/dysphoria mentally. basically, as the weeks pass i'm beginning to realise that i'm more depressed and dysphoric about being transgender than ever. i'm more disconnected with the people around me as well as my body. i actually tried to *revert* back to female and consider myself one (kinda silly i know) but it doesn't work out. aha... :/

 

I can relate so much to OP. Though, I'm also unsure if I am really suffering from gender dysphoria or not. Sometimes I feel like I'm overexaggerating it and maybe I'm cis afterall. But eh, I personally don't feel the need to identify as both male or female at the moment.

 

For me it's most about my face, voice and overall shape. Stupid curves I hate it when somebody calls me cute or something and I can get really angry when somebody belittles me about how "weak I am because I'm a girl" because first: I lift weights too and could knock most people out and second I'm no less of a guy than these arrogant dudes just because they are blessed with a body that suits their identity.

 

For social dysphoria it is mostly ok because I usually pass around strangers and my close friends call me the right name and pronouns. But when people say she or my birth name it feels like I just got stung by a wasp or shot by an arrow. It just hurts, but I can usually forget about it in a few hours.
Most of my dysphoria is body. If I look in the mirror I am always shocked by how female looking my face is. In my head it is much more masculine, and that's how I expect it to be. I'm also extremely uncomftable about the width of my thighs and that can get really bad, really fast. But when I do spiral down into those black pits, I just become upset and angry about everything to do with my body, having to transition socially, and wishing I could just feel comftable do the things I want and should be able to do. Sometimes i will just feel really nauseous, or sometimes really upset and I'll just cry uncontrollably, or sometimes get extremely angry and end up hurting myself. Usually it's all of those feelings at the same time though and it happens about every two weeks if I'm lucky, usually more. The rest of the time it is like I am shrouded in a black cloud. I can't see properly and I feel distorted. Sometimes the cloud fades a bit and I catch a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel. Those are the days I am the most happy, and they rarely happen. It feels like being constantly aware of how wrong everything is, being constantly uncomftable and gritting my teeth. In my mind I can imagine myself how I should look like, what my life should be like. I'm not supposed to be having to go through this, I should be worrying about normal stuff like exams and friend groups. It feels very surreal, like I'm only half in reality, like my world is on a scale, tipping each way a bit, but never committing to one side. When I talk, my voice is wrong, it's not my voice. So I hate talking, but at the same time, I want to speak. It is a constant battle between the pain of it and trying to mask it so I can get on with the things I should be doing, that I love to do. But then the pain comes back stronger and I retreat to my bed and don't do anything for the rest of the day. But my mums words, telling me I am "throwing away my life, just ignore it" cut like the blades of a razer into myself, cutting up any morsel of calm that I have managed to hold on to, cutting them into ever smaller crumbs.
I look at myself in the mirror. It is me. But it is wrong.