Cassie LaBelle has an interesting take on gender dysphoria over at Medium.
She argues that the traditional descriptions of gender dysphoria may not make sense to trans people who are still in denial or exploring their sense of self:
The more I read, the more certain I became that I wasn’t trans. I had only cross-dressed a few times as an adolescent, and never as an adult. I didn’t feel intense distress about having a penis. I didn’t even feel like I was “trapped in the wrong body.” I didn’t exactly LIKE my body, but it’s not like I looked in the mirror every morning and thought to myself, “hmm, this should be a girl!” And if that wasn’t at the heart of being trans, then what was?
Telling a trans person that they aren’t trans — or aren’t “trans enough” — serves no purpose other than cruelty, Cassie argues. She also points out that lot of “unhatched or newly-hatched” trans people suffer from gender dysphoria without actually realizing it.
Gender dysphoria appears as a different experience once you fully accept the fact that you are transgender. Mirrors were distressing for Cassie, but she did not understand why. “..early on, you can come up with an alternate explanation for almost every symptom,” she writes.
Talk to trans women about their pre-transition experiences with women’s clothing, or with playing female characters in video games, and you’ll get a similar range of answers. Some trans people gravitate toward expressing their true selves using clothing or digital avatars early on, perhaps not even realizing why. Others (like me) felt too much frenetic energy bound up in these things, and shied away from them — not because I didn’t want to be seen as more feminine, but because I had a lot of shame and confusion and anxiety bound up in these things, and I wasn’t ready to face it yet.
Advice on being a man I wished/expected to hear from Cis people:
Never raise your voice around women and children, this invokes a fear response and is all around not good
Don’t slam doors/throw things. Maybe if you are completely by yourself and no one else will know/be upset by it/have to clean it up. Again, this fucking scares people. It doesn’t matter how intensely upset you are/overwhelmed. DON’T DO IT!
You are stronger than you think. Both mentally and physically. And, at least for trans men or people on testosterone who’s bone growth was influenced by estrogen, you can even break your own bones! Testosterone let’s your muscles do things they probably shouldn’t do.
Being horny is not the end all be all of manhood. I’ve been on T for (only) a month, but so far my sexdrive has been replaced with a food drive. Sex is whatever. And I’ve been celibate for 5 years but sex is even less important than before. But when I’m hungry (which is almost always) I will literally eat the end piece (the heel) of the bread loaf because it was the first thing my hand touched and I’m too hungry to care.
(This one is specifically for trans men or people on testosterone for any reason who will have intense hormone shifts. And again this is not everyone’s experience) Your emotions will be different than they were before. Maybe you don’t over think, or have as complex/undecipherable emotions as before, BUT OMG WHEN YOU DO HAVE AN EMOTION HOLD ONTO YOUR. FRIGGIN’ HAT BECAUSE OMFG WILL IT ROCK YOU TO YOUR CORE! Before I used to have emotional responses to everything. Even things that’s made no sense. Id just have an emotion about a thing. Constantly. Not all estrogen fueled people are like this, but I was. After T I’ve always known exactly what emotion/emotion combo I was feeling. And it’s always like BAM here is that emotion, choke on it! Like I have emotional responses to things, but my common emotional responses aren’t as intense as before, but I do have intense spikes of emotion to certain triggers. Mostly someone being in danger/ hurt but someone else. Or someone verbally attacking someone else. I just get so amped and am like WHY ARE YOU BEING MEAN!! STOP!! (again, this is from the perspective of a trans man on testosterone, Cis men may relate to the first part or not. And also not all trans men on T will be able to vibe with this. Suprisingly (not really) the human experience is a very individual thing. This counts for hormones too).
All of these things I was warned about by the trans community. Only most of them I believed before I got on T.
Now, let’s look at what I ACTUALLY learned about being a man from Cis people (I swear I’m not joking and that this was also the ‘prime’ piece of advice that I got from 20+ people, consistently):
Men cut their fingernails straight across. Not rounded.
Hi. Wondering if anyone has an experience of transitioning that does not include HRT or surgery. Can I still be a man? I view my body as a man’s body even though it is perceived as female. Are there soaps I can use, workout techniques, vocal trainings? I just love my body. But my gender identity is DEFINITELY male and masculine. I’ve been out with my pronouns for a month.
Oh illiterate honey that isn’t the topic of discussion
always be suspicious when someone tries to derail a conversation by talking about people taking ‘advantage’ of a social safety net. brings this to mind:
You really won’t ever appreciate how cool insect wings are until you’ve seen all this footage.
The ones with wing covers that completely open up are beetles, by the way, but the ones LIKE beetles whose protective cover remains in place are bugs. Bug is supposed to be a special term for just one insect group!
Mid-way through is an earwig’s wings, which is neither a beetle nor a bug, but does have very beetle-like wing cases.
