How do you all deal with dysphoria? For me, it's actually difficult to notice in the midst - even though it absolutely intrudes on my quality of life in severe ways, I only notice it when I mitigate it, and during extreme moments, like bigoted encounters. Because of this, there is a subtle, cumulative effect that begins to grow when I don't live within the bounds of my maintenance, presentation, and behavioral routines. The thing is, I absolutely resent, like loudly fucking HATE not being able to just be and exist and have that be okay. The fact that I have to mentally and physically reaffirm to myself nonstop, in every possible way, that I am feminine, is driving me insane. I just want to be, but if I do that, I end up becoming dysfunctional as dysphoria feeds into depression and the dropping of my routines, i retreat socially, and all kinds of functional behavior falls apart as dysphoria ramps up.
I have issues with my facial hair, which i can't afford to get removed right now, and there are surgeries i'd like, but I am mostly happy with what hormones have done by themselves to me physically. So body wise a lot is fine... However, in all matters social, I just want to ambiently "be", but I literally get miserable if I don't express my feminine side enough. If I don't keep myself dressed up, shaved, and able to look at myself and go "yeah you're a girl" to the mirror, and believe it, I fall the fuck apart.
I don't know if there are mental tricks, if there are ways to make myself comfortable with the work of constant self affirmation of my own femininity? I am aware this understanding of who I am and what I need is largely localized to my own experience, but I guess I'd like people's insight if this post resonates with you at all.
My God I feel this so so so hard. For me it's confusing because it feels like my behavior is quite masculine, or at least somewhat masculine, and just like existing by myself puts me in this headspace where I'm like fuck am I just a guy oh God oh God. Or like when I mention this to literally anyone, no one is like " I think you're being hard on yourself". Everyone just affirms that I act masculine, which just sends me down the dysphoria spiral. So then I try to present more femme but still just incessantly get misgendered by everyone 😩 feel like I'm going insane and I can't really fix it at all, unlike my physical appearance. The hardest thing is that I do feel like I'm expressing myself in a fem way and it apparently is so far off from reality I feel like I can't trust my feelings
When I'm comfy, I have no problem expressing femme or at least non binary, and people affirm this, but when i'm uncomfortable, if I'm really done to the nines and there's no mistaking my presentation - i come off as a bitch - but if i am in normal-ish clothes - a femme top and blue jeansx or something - i just get misgendered and coded masculine.
It takes so much work for the cis world to recognize me, and I feel that too.
I am genuinely inwardly feminine, but I was alive for almost three decades before i started transition, so I have just under a decade of acting femme, in my early toddler years, and in the five years since i started this journey - in between is decades of living as a 'boy', and a 'man', and that coding is still more or less the default "server offline" behavior - when I have nothing else, i retreat into the little stoic stern sadboy shell I spent 28 years hiding in. I hate it :|
Omg ikr. Im only like 7 months into my transition. Otherwise I was pretty good at being a cishet guy, well except that I was miserable. But yeah it takes so so much work to be seen right, and it's a total crapshoot for me. I think I need to come out to live 100% as myself but I don't really wanna come out until I'm at least passing as a trans woman most of the time. IDC about being clocked as trans though
I'm with you. To me, my femininity is very visual. I don't have a sense that I'm feminine "deep down inside." So I spend the week living as a guy, and I look in the mirror and say, "oh, that's me. That's fine I guess I'm a guy" as my facial hair grows out. Then, when I get some space to actually shave, let my hair down, and dress the way I like, I look in the mirror and I'm like "holy shit how did I think I was a guy for a whole week?"
I went out with work friends this weekend while presenting femme. I was originally going under the assumption that I'm a femme guy, but once I spent like an hour in public in femme, having a normal fucking time, I just wanted to come out to them so bad (I didn't. We're not that close).
As far as behavior goes, though? I've killed the gender cop in my head. I used to second guess myself asking things like, "would a girl do that?" Or "is this too masculine?" I don't care anymore. Being trans is about acting the way I want, not trying to fit a mold. Someone here once pointed out that nodding is masculine coded and waving is feminine coded. I tried it out, and I'm not a waver lol. The nodding will continue, idc if it's "masc." There's a dozen other little examples, too.
What behaviors do you have that you and your friends think are so masculine anyway? My wife is cis, but if she were trans, she would have a TON of behaviors that people would clock as masculine.
Well, my friends won't come out and say that I have masc behaviors. However, something is going on because I'm not a particularly super masculine looking person, and I literally never get gendered correctly. Even when I'm around people that have only ever known me as Jennifer, I routinely get misgendered (I get apologies which is all well and good but it still hurts). To me this means people just don't see it. Like if you've known me for a while and you still misgender me, it's something I'm doing probably. If it's happening all the time, I'm obviously just coming off as masc in a way that is undeniable.
And yeah I have a hard time with the " I know I'm a woman deep down". I basically know where I want to be, I know that if I could choose i would have been a cis woman, I want to be a woman. But I don't feel like a woman. Ofc I'm still not completely out. But also like, the other part of gender is that other people put a gender on me, ya know? And I'm just not getting anything from anyone that shows they see me as a femme or a woman or whatever. IDK I just feel stuck
Like if you've known me for a while and you still misgender me, it's something I'm doing probably
I don't think this is true. It's well within the realm of possibility that it's on them, and you're behavior has little to do with it.
If it's happening all the time, I'm obviously just coming off as masc in a way that is undeniable
Now this... I mean, I can't deny that. I've got a manly face, and there's no way I'm ever going to pass. I'm not ever going to practice a really girly voice either because I don't want one.
But, like, if my friends use this to invalidate my gender identity, then, uh, they won't be my friends anymore lol. If people aren't going to believe me because I act or look a certain way, then they can fuck off.
I know this is super generic advice, but it's all I got. Sometimes my wife still dead names me out of habit, and she apologizes after, but then I think "Oh, you're just always going to see me that way, huh." So, I know where you're coming from. But like... I also don't want to perform femininity in a way that I don't like just to try to get cis people to acknowledge me.
I basically know where I want to be, I know that if I could choose i would have been a cis woman, I want to be a woman. But I don't feel like a woman.
my therapist helped me come up with affirmations to rotely repeat to myself. I told a trans friend I was struggling this same way and they sent me this meme
*removed externally hosted image*
and i told my therapist that this is what I want to say to myself but obviously i can't say that to myself and they said no that's a great affirmation. We just tweaked it to remove the 'you think' part. I like the hypno swirl too it's like yeah let's get the message to the brain that we are rewiring this bitch. i'm going to make a nicer version of this with a pretty font and make it my phone background.
I have been working on this exactly one day now and i feel silly but it's worth it if it works i want to feel pretty! It feels like self care. I want to convince myself i'm pretty more than anybody else.
How do you all deal with dysphoria? For me, it's actually difficult to notice in the midst - even though it absolutely intrudes on my quality of life in severe ways, I only notice it when I mitigate it, and during extreme moments, like bigoted encounters. Because of this, there is a subtle, cumulative effect that begins to grow when I don't live within the bounds of my maintenance, presentation, and behavioral routines. The thing is, I absolutely resent, like loudly fucking HATE not being able to just be and exist and have that be okay. The fact that I have to mentally and physically reaffirm to myself nonstop, in every possible way, that I am feminine, is driving me insane. I just want to be, but if I do that, I end up becoming dysfunctional as dysphoria feeds into depression and the dropping of my routines, i retreat socially, and all kinds of functional behavior falls apart as dysphoria ramps up.
I have issues with my facial hair, which i can't afford to get removed right now, and there are surgeries i'd like, but I am mostly happy with what hormones have done by themselves to me physically. So body wise a lot is fine... However, in all matters social, I just want to ambiently "be", but I literally get miserable if I don't express my feminine side enough. If I don't keep myself dressed up, shaved, and able to look at myself and go "yeah you're a girl" to the mirror, and believe it, I fall the fuck apart.
I don't know if there are mental tricks, if there are ways to make myself comfortable with the work of constant self affirmation of my own femininity? I am aware this understanding of who I am and what I need is largely localized to my own experience, but I guess I'd like people's insight if this post resonates with you at all.
My God I feel this so so so hard. For me it's confusing because it feels like my behavior is quite masculine, or at least somewhat masculine, and just like existing by myself puts me in this headspace where I'm like fuck am I just a guy oh God oh God. Or like when I mention this to literally anyone, no one is like " I think you're being hard on yourself". Everyone just affirms that I act masculine, which just sends me down the dysphoria spiral. So then I try to present more femme but still just incessantly get misgendered by everyone 😩 feel like I'm going insane and I can't really fix it at all, unlike my physical appearance. The hardest thing is that I do feel like I'm expressing myself in a fem way and it apparently is so far off from reality I feel like I can't trust my feelings
When I'm comfy, I have no problem expressing femme or at least non binary, and people affirm this, but when i'm uncomfortable, if I'm really done to the nines and there's no mistaking my presentation - i come off as a bitch - but if i am in normal-ish clothes - a femme top and blue jeansx or something - i just get misgendered and coded masculine.
It takes so much work for the cis world to recognize me, and I feel that too.
I am genuinely inwardly feminine, but I was alive for almost three decades before i started transition, so I have just under a decade of acting femme, in my early toddler years, and in the five years since i started this journey - in between is decades of living as a 'boy', and a 'man', and that coding is still more or less the default "server offline" behavior - when I have nothing else, i retreat into the little stoic stern sadboy shell I spent 28 years hiding in. I hate it :|
Omg ikr. Im only like 7 months into my transition. Otherwise I was pretty good at being a cishet guy, well except that I was miserable. But yeah it takes so so much work to be seen right, and it's a total crapshoot for me. I think I need to come out to live 100% as myself but I don't really wanna come out until I'm at least passing as a trans woman most of the time. IDC about being clocked as trans though
I'm with you. To me, my femininity is very visual. I don't have a sense that I'm feminine "deep down inside." So I spend the week living as a guy, and I look in the mirror and say, "oh, that's me. That's fine I guess I'm a guy" as my facial hair grows out. Then, when I get some space to actually shave, let my hair down, and dress the way I like, I look in the mirror and I'm like "holy shit how did I think I was a guy for a whole week?"
I went out with work friends this weekend while presenting femme. I was originally going under the assumption that I'm a femme guy, but once I spent like an hour in public in femme, having a normal fucking time, I just wanted to come out to them so bad (I didn't. We're not that close).
As far as behavior goes, though? I've killed the gender cop in my head. I used to second guess myself asking things like, "would a girl do that?" Or "is this too masculine?" I don't care anymore. Being trans is about acting the way I want, not trying to fit a mold. Someone here once pointed out that nodding is masculine coded and waving is feminine coded. I tried it out, and I'm not a waver lol. The nodding will continue, idc if it's "masc." There's a dozen other little examples, too.
What behaviors do you have that you and your friends think are so masculine anyway? My wife is cis, but if she were trans, she would have a TON of behaviors that people would clock as masculine.
Well, my friends won't come out and say that I have masc behaviors. However, something is going on because I'm not a particularly super masculine looking person, and I literally never get gendered correctly. Even when I'm around people that have only ever known me as Jennifer, I routinely get misgendered (I get apologies which is all well and good but it still hurts). To me this means people just don't see it. Like if you've known me for a while and you still misgender me, it's something I'm doing probably. If it's happening all the time, I'm obviously just coming off as masc in a way that is undeniable.
And yeah I have a hard time with the " I know I'm a woman deep down". I basically know where I want to be, I know that if I could choose i would have been a cis woman, I want to be a woman. But I don't feel like a woman. Ofc I'm still not completely out. But also like, the other part of gender is that other people put a gender on me, ya know? And I'm just not getting anything from anyone that shows they see me as a femme or a woman or whatever. IDK I just feel stuck
I don't think this is true. It's well within the realm of possibility that it's on them, and you're behavior has little to do with it.
Now this... I mean, I can't deny that. I've got a manly face, and there's no way I'm ever going to pass. I'm not ever going to practice a really girly voice either because I don't want one.
But, like, if my friends use this to invalidate my gender identity, then, uh, they won't be my friends anymore lol. If people aren't going to believe me because I act or look a certain way, then they can fuck off.
I know this is super generic advice, but it's all I got. Sometimes my wife still dead names me out of habit, and she apologizes after, but then I think "Oh, you're just always going to see me that way, huh." So, I know where you're coming from. But like... I also don't want to perform femininity in a way that I don't like just to try to get cis people to acknowledge me.
Just stay the course, girl
my therapist helped me come up with affirmations to rotely repeat to myself. I told a trans friend I was struggling this same way and they sent me this meme
*removed externally hosted image*
and i told my therapist that this is what I want to say to myself but obviously i can't say that to myself and they said no that's a great affirmation. We just tweaked it to remove the 'you think' part. I like the hypno swirl too it's like yeah let's get the message to the brain that we are rewiring this bitch. i'm going to make a nicer version of this with a pretty font and make it my phone background.
I have been working on this exactly one day now and i feel silly but it's worth it if it works i want to feel pretty! It feels like self care. I want to convince myself i'm pretty more than anybody else.