Ok I won't lie...
I SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY wonder how much of Gender Dysphoria is just... completely just the person bending to gender norms and their expectations of gender normative behavior and body image.
If there is one thing that bugs me about someone going through it, it is why I don't console people suffering from gender dysphoria if I have the option, it is that they will sometimes point to societal conventions as excuses...
This isn't always the case... but I want to slap someone who goes "I like puppy calendars so I am a girl"... and I am not taking that back.
Then again... there is quite a bit to suggest that I am onto something... but I won't go there because it is too depressing a topic that is too interwoven into political issues AND is too polarized to ever get a meaningful topic out of it.
Oh hell no. I'd be the last person to say "I am a girl because I like girly things." There might be a correlation, but since girly things are girly because girls like them and are supposed to like them... it's just too much of a can of worms to get into.
My consideration of HRT isn't about other people seeing me, anyhow. It's mostly about matching my self-perception with my identity. And while my Bogus Gibber-Babble
TM can tweak the way I see myself, it doesn't really work over extended periods of time.
And when I say that I've made my self-perception "feminine," I don't mean "with breasts etc." There's a slight feeling of a difference in body shape, perhaps, but that's more in the shoulder areas, and that isn't the primary part of the tweak. It's not really explainable. There's just a... variable in the data stored about a person, and one of them is "masculine/feminine," and I know this because all feminine people have that as a 1 and all masculine people have that as a 0. I can switch that value to a 1 with my Bogus Gibber-Babble, but actually appearing less masculine would do the same.
I'd also like to note that my feeling of 'femininity' and 'masculinity' are completely subjective and shaped by the world around me. The same would apply to... pretty much everything. Sociology and psychology are fun.
Of course, that analogy is
completely wrong. The best explanation I've found for gender is:
Masculine:----------
Feminine: ----------
Other: ----------Where it's a sliding scale for masculinity, femininity, and then the Other could be whatever third gender you identify as, I don't know. Hemidemisemifemis would look like
Masculine:O---------
Feminine: -O--------
Other: O---------And a "traditionally male person" would look like
Masculine:--------O-
Feminine: O---------
Other: O---------I'd probably rank myself as
Masculine:-O--------
Feminine: --O-------
Other: O---------or similar.
But of course
that is inadequate too. I conducted an experiment in which I used my BGB at different times and determined which self-perception felt most "right." The results were... interesting.
They never differed
that far from androgyny, but there was a noticeable difference between my "optimal self-perception" throughout the day, masculine-androgynous at one point and feminine-androgynous at another. That is,
my optimal self-perception is not time-independent! If you asked me to place my gender on the same scale before, you'd see something like
Masculine:--O-------
Feminine: --O-------
Other: O---------or like
Masculine:--O-------
Feminine: -O--------
Other: O---------So my gender-guess has gone from cisgender, to maybe transgender, to agender/genderless, to androgyne, to gender-fluid androgyne.
Okaaaaaaaay. I
might be overthinking this, but who knows.
=====
That tangent aside, I do disagree with something you say. This part to be exact.
I don't console people suffering from gender dysphoria if I have the option
I sometimes feel like my presented gender is just an act, the steps I go through just because people expect it.
Yet again, sociology to the rescue! Err, rescuing me from incorrect statements.
Many things, not just gender, are 'roles' or 'acts' that people do. So part of gender dysphoria might arise from cultural things. But does that invalidate their feelings?
Second,
what the hell dude. Unless... wait...
When people talk to you about their "gender dysphoria," are they saying "man I hate being a boy, I'm really a girl because I like ponies and shit"? That's
not gender dysphoria. This isn't intended to tell them "your feelings don't matter," but gender dysphoria is a
clinical term with an actual definition. Gender dysphoria is a profound feeling of anxiety or unease arising from a conflict between one's gender identity and the way they and others perceive them, or their sex and gender expression. It is usually resolved by changing the latter to align with the former.
So when somebody is going through gender dysphoria,
it's basically depression because of unresolved transgenderness. So yes you console them, the same as anybody going through depression.
@Dozebôm:*supports talking to knowledgeable peoples*
Like whom?
there is gender dysphoria
and there is being a civil human being that likes puppy calendars
I know, right? Who
doesn't like those... wait you said puppy. I was imagining
kitten calendars.
PURGE THE HERETICS
re Dozebôm,
From my experience, school councillors are very good.
It is their job to be compassionate, and your problem is one that can be tackled far more directly than the poverty cycle teens they are used to.
They are very understanding, even of all the introspective-seeming-nonsense we never share; speaking to mine was one of the best decisions I've made.
If you're dubious as to the quality of the school councillor, doctors too are trained for compassion.
They mightn't know what to do, but can give you a referral to someone that does, and are sworn to secrecy.
If you decide to tell someone, the best tip for spilling the beans of a secret is to work yourself into a corner from somewhere innocuous.
"I recently did X"
Why did you do X?
"Because I constantly feel Y?"
Do you have any idea why you feel Y?
Nowhere to go, alphabet exhausted: "Z"
The best of luck to you!
Thanks! I think that I will try that.
oh shit
How do I start a conversation like that? *is a clueless and nervous socially incompetent person*
Well, a little bit of forewarning...
Hormone blockers, at least in New Zealand, aren't often prescribed without the person doing hormones in the future. It's often used as a preliminary step, although it isn't compulsory, it helps. But yeah, I don't think you can do hormone blockers forever (for one, you'd have to get stabbed in the butt every 12 weeks for the rest of your life) due to it sorta effecting bone strength after long periods of use.
I'm not in NZ, and I don't think this applies in the US. And yes, I know that I can't hold off puberty of some sort forever, but there's something reassuring about how the first stages of hormone-changing-things aren't permanent.
Hmmm. A misconception and logical inconsistency that I held has been refuted by more research. Going off of HB will just result in puberty coming back like normal. I knew this. What I
didn't draw from that was the following conclusion: I will need to have puberty, whether it's testosterone or estrogen that triggers it. Armokdamn it, what if I don't want either the masculine or the feminine secondary sexual characteristics? The decision is paralyzing.
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Topic: Gender/sexuality etc. - What Even Is A Gender Anyway (Read 142168 times)