Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TheBiggerFish]

Like, I read those alleged strawwomen and...Aren't those pretty much reasonable positions except for that last one which is just...made of crazy?

[uber pye]

Call me weird but I like to think of the whole gender sex ext. as a finite but very large vector space. Like you have an axis or two for each variable like sexual preference, or presenting gender and you are anaddition of all these basis vectors.

[Kansa]

I'm sorry if it's been asked before but what does Gender Dysphoria feel like?

I've just been going through a lot of feelings lately and it would help a lot.

[Kansa]

Thank you, that does sound slightly familiar.

I guess there isn't anyway to know for sure, right?

[Solifuge]

Yeah... I can't talk about other people's experience, but in my case, I didn't even realize I felt dysphoria until it stopped.

I think when I was very young, I experienced clearer feelings of something like jealousy, or not understanding why I was the way I was, as opposed to another way. I got shamed and trained out of feeling that way over time, and forgot about it. The symptoms started again with feeling upset and not-good about puberty crap, rather than feeling excited or whatever. After that, persistent depression settled in, plus dissociation and a lack of awareness of what I was feeling, what I wanted or needed to do, lack of connection to other people, lots of other things. I lost sight of it again, and that sort of persistent out-of-touch-with-myself feeling continued for the next decade or so, until I started to sort my identity out.

The pattern was hard to see while I was dealing with it. Getting a change in perspective and all that helped me see the pieces of it. But yeah, it's kinda hard to know based on that alone.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

While that is true, and not-feeling-good-about-puberty might be suggestive of dysphoria, it is not a definitive sign of dysphoria, right?

[Kansa]

Thank you, I can relate to not wanting to grow up.

It's just so confusing and I don't know what to think, or whether I'm just making the feelings up or not.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Thank you, I can relate to not wanting to grow up.

It's just so confusing and I don't know what to think, or whether I'm just making the feelings up or not.

That's exactly where I am right now.

[spümpkin]

RE: what is gender dysphoria


As has been said, it's different for everyone. The wikipedia article has a pretty suitable range of possible symptoms, but it's very easy to mistake for anxiety, regular body discomfort, depression, etc. It's a hard thing to define, and as such takes years to actually nail down.

[Starver]

(@Kansa, but maybe others too...)
It's hard to say, either way. Each human has just one experience to judge their existence against, depending on how solipsist you want to get over it.

The better way of thinking of it might be that unless you're in a particularly conformist culture (and, thanks to your presence on here, you've obviously found the Internet which so easily breaks down the conceptual edges of anything like that, if you let if) you can see that other people are around who are similarly (or at least equivalently) not so easy to self-label, or at least willing to use the labels given by others.

Take your time. Some things might take a while to work out, but that's what life is often about, from finding a favourite author to getting yourself a career.

[wierd]

I'm sorry if it's been asked before but what does Gender Dysphoria feel like?

I've just been going through a lot of feelings lately and it would help a lot.

Not the best one to ask. That should be asked of people who have suffered it in the more mainstream way.

But, as I mentioned earlier, internally I do not ascribe to a gender, really.  That said, I am physiologically male.

It is my understanding that people with stronger dysphoria (I dont hate that I have a penis, I just dont have an internal gender, and am ambivalent about the physical one I was born with-- People with strong dysphoria are internally THE OTHER gender, and deeply resent being stuck in a body that does not match.) suffer a serious self-identity crisis, and feel locked out of the world, because others insist that they conform to their physical body, rather than their internal gender identity.  (I only get this a little, but usually people just think I am gay, when in fact I am ungendered. I shrug, and allow them their easier to understand, but incorrect interpretation of my behavior.) People with strong gender identity disagreement long to wear the pretty dress, because damnit-- that dress is pretty! Why do natural born women want to wear pretty dresses? The transsexual wants to wear the dress for the same reasons. (and vise-versa, for born females that are internally male.)  However, society sees their natural desire to be what they are inside, manifest on the outside, as "degenerate", and "sick", when in reality they feel stifled and trapped by their body.

Transsexuals are not "Perverted men who want to use the ladies' room so they can stare." or "Weird, gross women who deny being lesbians." or any other incorrect interpretation. They are people trapped inside the wrong body type, and when they get surgery to fix that, they want to be treated like they were born that way.  They want to use the ladies' room because they are ladies, or they want to be with women romantically, because they are heterosexual men.

Doze is angry about the TERPs he mentions, because there is a woman is being denied rape services, because she was born male.

[Kansa]

That's exactly where I am right now.

It's nice to know that someone's in the same situation as me.

Thank you all very much, I really appreciate all your advice and help. Hopefully I'll figure it out one day.

[wierd]

Heh, it could be worse Kansa.

You could be like me, and have the hormones flow, grow the beard and all the hair-- and watch perplexed at how all your peers lose their ever loving minds, while you remain basically the same.

(and then mis-attribute your lack of interest in boobies as being a secret interest in penis, when the idea is equally alien to you.)

Hell, I am in my late 30s, and STILL haven't had that kind of transition to "male-ness."

Testosterone isn't a bad thing, it increases your muscle mass, helps you stay thin, and helps regulate your metabolism as an adult. Sure, it makes you grow hair, but meh-- Unless you are mortified by having said hair, it isn't that bad. You can shave off hair. Estrogen? That makes you grow boobies, and those are harder to deal with I understand. I'll take the testosterone. If I want to get rid of the hair, there are any number of inexpensive products one can use, in the comfort and privacy of one's home.

Dont worry about the physical nitty gritty of growing up, or growing older. Just follow the advice of the old bard-- "Above all else, to thine own self be true."

[Solifuge]

As has been said, it's different for everyone. The wikipedia article has a pretty suitable range of possible symptoms, but it's very easy to mistake for anxiety, regular body discomfort, depression, etc. It's a hard thing to define, and as such takes years to actually nail down.

Yeah, that's my main point. I didn't really get it back then, and thought that those symptoms were part of many other things. The fact that they cleared up after I started transitioning was a good indication of their cause, though. Back then, I didn't have the headspace to sort it out; I was an mental and emotional mess, dealing with a lot of other things that weighed a lot more heavily on my mind, and were a lot more obvious. I didn't unravel the gender puzzle and recognize the feelings I was experiencing for what they were, until much later.

While that is true, and not-feeling-good-about-puberty might be suggestive of dysphoria, it is not a definitive sign of dysphoria, right?

Of course not; Everyone's different, and the same feeling can have a very different reason in different people too. I'm just talking about things that were indicators for me. Feeling wrong in one's body once puberty hit is something that's been common for other trans and non-binary folks I've talked to as well.

When I talked with family about that feeling, they told me I was probably just anxious about adulthood and responsibility, and I believed them (as though I hadn't already been cooking, cleaning, working, and otherwise taking care of myself by that age). I used to put a lot more weight behind other people's assessments than my own back then, which was a huge part of the problem. Letting other people tell me how I felt or who I was... that was a big part of what made figuring everything out so hard.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Heh, it could be worse Kansa.

You could be like me, and have the hormones flow, grow the beard and all the hair-- and watch perplexed at how all your peers lose their ever loving minds, while you remain basically the same.

Hah, that's almost exactly my situation. Whether it's peers losing their minds over penis and butt, or losing their minds over MACHO IDIOCY, or arsehole boys, I've dreamt of just skipping the next few years, but...

(and then mis-attribute your lack of interest in boobies as being a secret interest in penis, when the idea is equally alien to you.)

(thanks for pointing out that pitfall, I almost fell into it)

Hell, I am in my late 30s, and STILL haven't had that kind of transition to "male-ness."

...and I'm guessing that the lost minds still haven't gone away yet. Sigh.

Testosterone isn't a bad thing, it increases your muscle mass, helps you stay thin, and helps regulate your metabolism as an adult. Sure, it makes you grow hair, but meh-- Unless you are mortified by having said hair, it isn't that bad. You can shave off hair. Estrogen? That makes you grow boobies, and those are harder to deal with I understand. I'll take the testosterone. If I want to get rid of the hair, there are any number of inexpensive products one can use, in the comfort and privacy of one's home.

I'll take that! Very useful. Pseudo-sour grapes are always good for feeling !bad.

Dont worry about the physical nitty gritty of growing up, or growing older. Just follow the advice of the old bard-- "Above all else, to thine own self be true."

Hmm...

Spoiler: personal gender rant (click to show/hide)

A-ha! I think I've figured some stuff out! I've been experimenting, and the attempts at resolving this... stuff that I'm going through about gender - they all fall under the same category. Disassociation! It's painfully, embarrassingly obvious! I knew that association was my problem, but I never tried to actually REMOVE it!

The way I see it, I consciously knew that gender and gender roles, for example, weren't necessarily associated, but I didn't actually use that knowledge in practice. Association has "clogged up" everything that's related to gender. I am X, and X is associated with femininity, and femininity is associated with Y, and so Y must be relevant - but I am not Y! Or how about this - when I was younger, I was too shy to approach people and make friends with them, so I only interacted with people who approached me. Those were bullies (all male) and friendly nice people (predominantly female). Have I thought of femininity as better than masculinity because of that biased sample? Has association then brought that to other things, and caused issues?

This problem, most likely, could only exist because I am genderless or something similar, sort of like what wierd describes. Because I don't associate masculinity with good, and because I don't fit into the masculine gender/gender roles, association causes problems. A-ha!

and then mis-attribute your lack of interest in boobies as being a secret interest in penis, when the idea is equally alien to you.

THIS IS IT! Replace "interest in boobies" with "identifying as masculine" and "secret interest in penis" with "identifying as feminine," and this describes my problems very well! I knew that the gender binary was a false dichotomy, but I didn't use that knowledge (subconsciously?)!

Code: (Project Disassociation) [Select]


*Body image from non-body self-image
Appearance and behavior/personality are [i]not[/i] the same
*Self-image, body image from gender roles
Behavior/personality and appearance do [i]not[/i] have to correspond to a gender
*Gender from gender roles
The gender roles that I can divide myself into do [i]not[/i] have to correspond to my gender
*Gender role components from gender role components
I do [i]not[/i] have to fit neatly into a gender role composite; if I divide myself into gender roles, the result [i]can[/i] be a mixture of masculine and feminine GRCs
*Gender roles from what they cover
I do [i]not[/i] need to assign "masculine" and "feminine" to bits of myself
*Gender roles from sexuality
I do [i]not[/i] need to like penis to be trans; liking penis does [i]not[/i] imply being trans
*Romantic from sexual attraction
I do [i]not[/i] need to like penis or boobies in order to be romantically attracted to boys or girls; being romantically attracted to boys or girls does [i]not[/i] imply liking penis or boobies
This largely comes down to "this is obvious, I knew it, but in practice were these carried out." And no, they were not, damn you subconscious why didn't you get the memo.

TL;DR: Ahahaha, I think I figured out why I've been feeling bad - association. Also I'm pretty sure I'm agender.

Also I'm pretty sure I'm misusing the term association, but I don't care, it fits.