I just have a quick question about gender dysphoria: to be classified as trans or non-binary or basically anything that isn't cis, do you have to experience physical dysphoria? Just to clarify, I'm not saying that people who don't experience physical dysphoria deserve to have their identities invalidated or anything like that. I'm just wondering for the sake of a concrete psychological diagnosis, because I tried googling to see if you have to feel 'trapped in the wrong body' or feel that your body 'isn't right', but all the results I came up with fell into two categories: medical websites like MayoClinic or WebMD that mentioned nothing about the social side of gender dysphoria (ie, feeling uncomfortable with being considered as and having to stick to the norms of your assigned gender), or websites like Buzzfeed and EverydayFeminism that have a very liberal slant and would probably have a slightly biased and perhaps not medically/psychologically accurate depiction of the matter. I'm also asking because I don't really feel a lot of physical dysphoria, but I'm still wondering if there may be something wrong with how I present myself. I love my body and I wouldn't want to change it, and the only time I really experience anything close to physical dysphoria is when binding my chest to look more masculine, and after having my legs waxed when I didn't want to wear anything that would reveal them and they felt abhorrent to me. So...any thoughts? To be non-cisgendered, does there have to be physical and social dysphoria, or does it really depend on individual cases.
The "trapped in the wrong body" definition is woefully inaccurate for a lot of trans people, though not all. And this also a highly debated subjected. Some people, cis and trans, believe you HAVE to have physical dysphoria to be worthy enough to claim the trans label or to medically transitions. I, and many others, find that ridiculous. I have little physical dysphoria, and I have no social dysphoria, but I still can't stop thinking about being a man. It is the one thing that drives me forward and thinks I have a life worth living. Being trans simply means that the gender identity that you identify with does not match the sex assigned to you at birth. Not all trans people will experience dysphoria, or if they do it might not be at the same level as someone else, but they will experience that feeling of mismatch between gender and sex. And the level of dysphoria and type of dysphoria will differ from person to person. Being cis-gender is like have a perfectly working ankle; aware that its there but you hardly give it much thought. Being trans gender is like having a sprained ankle. Its in pain and your aware of it. And some people have a sprained ankle but the pain is manageable and for others the pain is barely registering. But for others their sprain is so bad that its on the verge of a fracture or break, but people are telling them to suck it up and that its not bad. Just because the person with almost no pain isn't as bad as the person with the almost break doesn't mean they don't have the same thing wrong.
You don't need to experience physical discomfort to "qualify" And if you want to also double check, even the (disliked by some) DSM5 manual lists symptoms of dysphoria that you totally can tick off without a single bit of hatred towards your body. When I speak to my therapist, we don't even mention the body as it is the least of my concerns. We explore the identity aspect, emotional and so on. On several occasions I said I'm not too focused on the body (though I did say I want HRT). To me, the physical aspects are just unpleasant because I feel invalidated as a woman with my body. It's more like feeling I'm not like other women and not a "real" one (or attractive) because of my features... although there isn't much inherently bad about them, in other words, without social context I doubt I'd feel much dislike for the body.
The only thing that makes someone trans is believing your gender is different from the gender you got assigned at birth. You could feel completely like a man but still be fine being and appearing female. Some people realise they are trans by realising they have dysphoria, but some people realise it because they just feel like a different gender. Gender is an extremely personal thing and everyone experiences it uniquely so it is stupid for people to think every trans person has to experience the same thing as them for them to call themself trans. Your gender can only be found by you, so only listen to yourself.
No, you don't need to "qualify". If you know in your heart you are non-binary, then you are. The only good test, as far as I know is : do a test, tick off symptoms., whatever. Then, the test tells you you are cis/trans/nb - are you happy with the result? If you are, that's your identity.
