How Do You (genderfluid peeps) Handle Dysphoria?

I experience dysphoria as well, but I don't want to start a HRT treatment, mainly because I identify as both gender and I don't see the point of going from one to the other. The way I deal with disphoria is by changing the way I act instead of the way I look : people sometimes react more to that than to appearances, and it makes me feel more comfortable about not looking the way I'd like. My attitude the only thing I can change from day to day...

 

by distracting myself with video games/manga/music/whatever

 

I'm basically in the same boat— personally I'm planning on getting top surgery when I am able to (both age wise and money wise). I got a hair cut that helped with those more masculine days, I usually bind, and I wear clothes I have from the mens section/hide my curves. I doubt I'll start HRT though.

 

I've been thinking about doing HRT as a way to feel less dysphoric, but I'm not sure it's really what I want. I'd like certain of its effects, but not all of them, and you can't pick and choose. Guess I got to wait for some more as-of-yet sci-fi HRT to get the body I would want. I'm looking for something at a more specific point in between male and female. The impossibility of having it at the moment I guess just makes me feel more dysphoric.

I guess the best supports I have for dysphoria are other queer people or more gender-literate straight/cis people. Basically, anyone who accepts and understands my gender identity and expression, and don't treat me like I'm confused (I know who and what I am, but sometimes when people don't understand it, they treat me like there's something wrong with me, and/or act like they know more about my gender than I do, and/or repeatedly misgender me), and who actively encourage gender non-comformity. I feel less of a discrepancy between my body/comportment and how others perceive me when I feel like I'm in a culture where people don't make assumptions or pressure others to "fit" into neat little boxes of their own making. That's the kind of toxic bullshit I do my best to cut out of my life. I'm lucky to be in a place where that's not a Sisyphean task. I even recently started going to an LGBTQ+ young adults therapy group and rarely have I ever felt as natural in my own body as I do just being with a group of other vulnerable queers.

Otherwise, I try to take pride in how I dress and act, and try to enjoy defying normative social expectations. To an extent, I think my dysphoria is often social in origin (that is, it's very much tied to passing and how others make assumptions about me), but it's also something I can work on as an individual. That said, some days I just can't do anything about it, which is frustrating. On those days I just kind of hermit up and indulge in some escapism or read something empowering by a queer author, or have a talk with a friend about it. It goes up and down no matter what I do.

 

I experience dysphoria with my breasts because I will always be referred to by strangers as miss or her. My advice is that if you have something that will help you be who you are inside and out (i.e. binder, short hair etc) then use it!