#as always fun disclaimer so hypothetical internet people aren't mad: THIS IS A PIECE OF SELF-REFLECTION

[myopicry]

something on the concept of passing I've been trying to put into words for a while (and I think I've finally gotten somewhere with it) --

passing is ultimately a fool's game because it only guarantees you'll be dependent on how others perceive you, forever.

which, in my opinion, sort of sucks! especially if you suffer from dysphoria and already have the lowest of low self-esteems, you essentially doom yourself to never getting the chance to really ever build up a healthy and stable sense of self at all. that absence of self-understanding and confidence just continues to provide a spot for the dysphoria to stay and rest. sure, you tell yourself, maybe with enough surgery and hormones and hug-boxing and external validation and curating a perfect image that finally gets you the response from others you want, you can be just satisfied enough to ignore that bitter presence, that angry combination of envy and self-loathing and anxiety, on the condition, of course, that the world responds to your projection in the "correct" way. but it is still there. it will be there when you realize placing your most fragile component in the hands of people who love an ideology and a stereotype more than you isn't a promise of anything tangibly better. and it will be there until you realize the only way to win the game is by letting go the notion of "winning" at all. until you finally prioritize seeing yourself through your own eyes, instead of just balancing your whole internal sense of self on the shifting opinion of the fickle, flawed world around you.