#no. i know i'm not. my dysphoria is just so intense

[magical-xirl-4]

the way that i truly am just non-binary still... idk, surprises me? like, i forget that i am, so i have to remind myself that while i am trans, i'm not a man. at the same time, i'm not a woman. i'm just floating out as something else. something totally new.

but that's why it's so hard for me to affirm myself. there is no exact language to describe me that truly encapsulates my experiences. there's very little representation about what it means to be non-binary. it's why i think about it so much, it's why i fixate on it.

the world is extremely binary, and it's influence over my thoughts is still very strong, despite my gender identity.

it can be lonely. it can be confusing.

my bodily dysphoria is so strong but my social dysphoria is ten fold. to a vast majority of people they will never see me as non-binary no matter how many times i say it, and that haunts me.

i know not everyone will be able to instantly see me as my true self wherever i go and whoever i talk to, but the two binary genders are something that we are innately trained to recognise.

if a person recognises me as 1 or 2 and never 3 instantly, it feels. wrong.

why can't you see me as that? no matter how hard i try; why?

maybe HRT and top surgery will get me there, maybe, hopefully, one day. i want to be seen as androgynous, ambigious, first and foremost. someone who perfectly toes the line of masculinity and femininity. i feel like i am that as a person already but i just want people to be able to see that as soon as they see me.

but ultimately what i truly want is reformation of society. i want- no, need, trans acceptance, and abolishment of gender roles and heteropatriarchy. it's the only way i'll ever be able to thrive and feel comfortable. it's easy for you to people to see man and woman, but i wish it were different. i wish it were more that that.

i still haven't changed my name legally, or moved away from my family, so i'd say i'm in the worst of it. i'm just barely getting enough air to breathe. when i change my name, when i move out, when i go on HRT and get top surgery i will feel better.

but those systems put in place to hold up cisheteronormativity will still exist. i'm not sure how i will feel once i'm up to that point. i'll definitely have more air to breathe. but i can't even picture it right now. i'm still looking up from the well. why do i still have to endure more darkness once i'm fully free to be me?

i really hope for a day where that well won't exist and we'll be able to be on equal level a plain and open field. where we'll get to sit next to each other in the warm gaze of the sun, feeling loved, safe, protected and cared for. where we don't have to fight to exist and feel like ourselves. no conflict, no fighting, no hardship. just ourselves and the purity of it.

[non-un-topo]

Every time I spend too many days in a row at home, I get it into my head that I don't actually want to transition, and then I go back into the world and go Oh. I remember what it's like to have a body and a mind.

[synonymroll648]

oooh genderfluidity?

yeah i went to prom and i did makeup which i'd loved the day before when practicing for the real thing, but when i did it i looked in the mirror and felt super dysphoric and washed it off as soon as my partner i wanted to impress saw it.

and then i was like 'hey babe what are the signs of being genderfluid' and they were like 'well i judge it by liking my boobs one day and wanting to rip them off the other' and i was like 'ohhhhh shit you were right back in january when i cut my hair and told you about it and you said what i was describing was just like your genderfluid awakening weren't you-'.

to which they were basically like 'dude you're only just figuring out you're genderfluid??' and uh. yeah. i'm not sure about being genderfluid yet but it would definitely explain some things

[boyapologist]

ok this is definitely a depressive episode lol

[quartergremlin]

Yall got a little too much faith in leo. this guy is clueless.

first/previous/next

transcript:

Yuichi:

No. Absolutely not.

Leo:

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Don’t you like me? Aren’t I your best friend?

Y:

Yes, unfortunately. But you really should go home.

Leonardo, why are you here right now?

L:

Isn’t it enough that you get to see my handsome face? You gotta know why too?

Y:

It’s kind of hard when you’re shoving your face into my comforter.

And here’s your chance to make me feel like an asshole for kicking you out.

L:

S’never stopped you before.

…

I guess I’m like… a girl or whatever.

Y:

Oh. Um. Okay? Congratulations? Did you have another name picked out oooor...

L:

No! Not like that! Its-

I've been a girl this whole time. Apparently, dad just guessed – and everyone else knew! And just didn’t tell me!

And-I know. I know it doesn’t matter – I'm being stupid.

Y:

I mean- that doesn’t sound stupid. Id be upset too.

And I don’t want to tell you… what you’re thinking or feeling. But this seems like some pretty intense dysphoria. So maybe your dad got it right?

And your nesting is obviously not helping, honestly-

L:

My what.

Y:

What do you mean “your what”?

Leo:

reeks of lemon-scented cleaner

Yuichu's hoodie

Donnie's board shorts

Raph's bear

made a nest in his bed

Meme:

Yuichi: this is your hormone level. It's pretty normal for someone turtle-PMSimg. You'll be fine in a week.

Extra 1:

Yuichi: as a lizard owner, clocked Leo's nesting immediately.

Leo: Didn't read Donnie's book, so still clueless.

Extra 2:

Yuichi enters to sitcom clapping and cheering.

[my-castles-crumbling]

This whole time?

Jegulus for the soul. My idiots.

Based on an anonymous request. TW: accidental misgendering, miscommunication, but a happy ending!

He'd been avoiding it for weeks. Ignoring the feeling in his stomach, the nagging of his conscience that was telling him it was time. That if he wanted this to go anywhere, he had to tell him.

Of course, he didn't expect himself to just burst out with it one day.

"I'm trans, James," he practically shouted in the middle of their conversation atop the Astronomy Tower on a random Saturday.

And James, to his credit, just paused and looked over him quizzically.

"You...you're trans?" he asked. Well, he didn't look disgusted or angry, Regulus realized to his intense relief.

"Yes," Regulus murmured, looking down. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was worried, and-"

"Oh, love," James whispered, eyes wide and adoring. "There's no need to worry. You know I'll always support you. So....this means you're a girl?"

And Regulus's hope, which had previously been hesitantly building up around him, came crashing down. "No," he said, his voice cold. His stomach twisted as the dysphoria grew crawled along his skin.

James blinked, looking thoroughly confused, "But you said-"

But, after receiving the reaction he'd been dreading, Regulus's easy defensiveness flared, and he found himself ranting. "Merlin, I can't believe I thought you'd understand! No, I'm not a girl! I'm a boy, Potter! Just because I'm trans doesn't mean you can suddenly call me a girl! I thought- I thought-!"

James, however, cut him off. "Reg. Wait a second. You've been trans this whole time?"

Regulus reeled, shocked James was so ignorant. "Yes, James! You don't just wake up one day and decide-"

"No! No, I mean-" James laughed, and Regulus wanted to kick him. "I mean, I just...when you said you were trans, I thought you meant you were born a boy. Like, y'know..." he made an awkward gesture to his legs, his fingers curled to make a circle. "I thought you were telling me you wanted to be a girl now!"

Regulus gaped.

James grinned sheepishly. "I'm sorry, love. I didn't mean to upset you. I just meant to say, whatever you want to be- boy, girl, whatever- I'll still like you the same, you know? That I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh," Regulus mumbled, shrinking back, relief flooding through him. "So...you're not mad?"

"Reg, I love you," James shrugged, his small smile lighting up Regulus's entire world. "As long as you are happy, that's what I care about."

"I love you, too," Regulus mumbled, tearing up as he said those words for the first time.

Just a note: obviously, James doesn't have the most knowledge on transness, hence some of his comments and actions!

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hi, I'm 27 and coming to the terrifying realisation that despite being a mother and a wife that dysphoria might actually be onto something, I'm worried about literally everything to do with this but I think I'm a guy. How did you *know* because I think I know but don't know I know, you know?

Anon, I'm sorry you're feeling such worry right now.

I'm one of those "always known" folks, and it really boils down to "I'm a man because I feel like one." Not because of my interests or who I'm attracted to, or what role I want to play in society. I just feel like a man.

The thought of being a woman makes me intensely distressed (even though so many of my friends are women, I am attracted to women, and have feminine role models), and being a man is not just the absence of that distress, but a joy all it's own. Even if I were a hermit, I'd want to have had my top surgery and stay on T, because it makes my body and brain just feel right.

I wish I could be more helpful. I could point to signs in my childhood, but for every "boy thing" I enjoyed, there was also a "girl thing". The traits I look up to in a man are about the same as in any other gender.

But at the end of the day, being a woman felt like moving through a world of static, being bled dry from a thousand little cuts. And being seen as a man, be it in online RPGs or in cosplay, suddenly erased all that radiation and made it clear that transition was what I needed to be my best self.

Transition can be something you explore, from role-playing to dress-up to even just trying out T (knowing some changes will be permanent). And follow more trans folks, consume more art by trans people, and see how that resonates with you. And not just trans masc folks - follow trans people of all genders, because there is a lot to learn from the rest of the community.

We reinvent ourselves constantly, and transition may not be the biggest change you end up making in your life. But it sounds worth it to explore in some way, if at the very least for your peace of mind.

[genderqueerdykes]

I’m really nervous to say this but I think I might be a girl, but it’s confusing because I still think I was born male.

Like, I use he/him for myself sometimes. I don’t consider myself even trans, I’m a girl in a boys body or a girl who was raised/born with a penis. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m a real Transfem, or like I’m less valid because I still consider myself male to some degree. Or I feel like I’m using transmed language. I know it isn’t true, but the internalized transphobia is real. 😞

(also btw I go by the name Ren, if you could refer to me that way please)

hello there! thanks for taking the time to stop by, we really appreciate it

i totally see where you're coming from. i don't think you have to feel ashamed for thinking/feeling that way right now. i have met so many girls in your situation and it's totally okay to feel that way while you're coming to accept who you are. many transfems are affected by imposter syndrome and i think it's due to the absolutely unrealistic expectations we place on every single transfem. i think it's because of how poorly other people treat you and other transfems

it's really easy to internalize that you're not "really" this or "really" that when other people treat you that way, or you've witnessed that behavior being expressed towards others. it's alright to feel unsure of yourself right now. a lot of trans people start off thinking they're a girl in a boy's body, or a boy in a girl's body. it's alright to not see your body as a girl's body yet. it takes time to accept that. some of my exes have been in the same situation where they still saw their body as a man's body and it's okay. you are a girl in a girl's body, but you've been told otherwise for so long it's okay to take a while to dismantle that

you sound transfem to me, i hope you're able to feel more confident soon as time passes. if possible, it may help you to try to seek out online transfem spaces, i'm part of a few on discord and i see a lot of people being very proactive in helping ease the dysphoria of other transfems. it's so common, you're not alone. some of the most intense dysphoria i've ever seen in a trans person came from the trans girls i've known. and who can blame you? society is so harsh towards trans women

it's okay if you're not perfectly feminine or if you don't fit into any type of box. it's okay if you need time to accept things. and many trans people do end up viewing their lives as "halves". many older trans women i've met have told me about "when they were living as a boy/man" and when they began living as a woman. i've met trans men who say the inverse. it's okay if you feel like you were a boy/man at at one point and are no longer. it's okay to feel like you were born in a boy/man's body and need to transition to make it feel like a girl's body, and your body. however you feel about it, you don't need to feel ashamed of yourself.

you're still a girl, Ren! you're still transfem. imposter syndrome is tough, i hope it eases up for you soon. you don' thave to jump through any hurdles to be transfem- so many transfems out there feel just the same way you do. it's okay

hope that helps, take care for now. please feel free to ask any more questions you may have!

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Ever since October 7th, the amount of misinformation and disinformation about Jews, Israel, Judaism, and even just like, basic facts about reality have been so intense that it's really dredging up a lot of my gaslighting trauma.

(No, not in the memic sense that it's been distorted into, but the kind of gaslighting that leads you to detransition and think it was your choice despite drowning in dysphoria, the kind that warps and changes and erases memories, and makes it so that you dissociate for literal months at a time to escape the pain. That kind.)

And I recognized this because I keep finding myself arguing facts and trying to reason with people who say that they're part of the compassionate left and care about working on antisemitism but yet spew the kind of antisemitism that would be totally at home on Stormfront.

It's that first arguing stage of gaslighting, where the abuser keeps saying outrageous, untrue things and you're still fighting to try and get them to empathize with you and seek mutual understanding. This:

A gaslighter does not simply need to be right. He or she also needs for you to believe that they are right. In stage 1, you know that they are being ridiculous, but you argue anyways. You argue for hours, without resolution. You argue over things that shouldn’t be up for debate — your feelings, your opinions, your experience of the world. You argue because you need to be right, you need to be understood, or you need to get their approval. In stage 1, you still believe yourself, but you also unwittingly put that belief up for debate.

(bolding mine) (source)

This is a pattern I recognize in myself in personal relationships and even within communities, but what's happening right now is a lot bigger and more diffuse. It's not one abuser or even a shitty cohort of abusive people who are monopolizing a community space. This is being encouraged in a frighteningly large number of non-Jewish progressive spaces. In the same way that stochastic terrorism adds up very quickly, this type of cultural gaslighting and stochastic emotional abuse feels like a deluge.

But if you look at history, this is not new, for Jews. This is but the latest version of a very long game of Why Won't You Just Give Up and Assimilate or Die that Jews have thus far prevailed on at great cost to ourselves.

Anyway I'm done arguing with goyim about things that absolutely should not be up for debate: Jewish history, Jewish culture, what certain religious concepts in Judaism mean, Jewish lived experiences, what is and isn't antisemitism. If you aren't willing to engage in a genuine way that seeks mutual understanding, I'm not interested. I'm done.

You are engaging in violent behavior and lying to yourself about it and calling it activism. Well I am no longer going to participate. You can lie to yourself all you want, but you are a bad person and I don't forgive you, and you can do that alone.

You are acting from a mob mentality and a mob cannot be reasoned with. You are drunk on your tiny bit of power and social capital, and years down the line you'll lie to yourself and pretend that you cared about us.

You didn't. And deep down you know it, too.

Instead of arguing with people who refuse to see facts or reason and put our experiences up for debate, I am going to work on compiling a resource for people who want to actually learn.

Everyone else can fuck off.

[mrghostrat]

hey happy trans day of visibility. i'll get visible why not

i'm nonbinary, specifically genderfluid. i identify with this label because idk, even though i look back at my childhood and spot signs of dysphoria and gender fuckery, i don't feel like i was ever masquerading as something i wasn't. i'm just different now. and i may be different again in the future. i was a little girl then, and i'm a little bilv now.

i'm AFAB and just passed my 2 year T anniversary. i'm loving it, and just like putting together a pinterest board of hair and fashion styles to figure out how i wanted to present my truest self, starting T to change my voice and body and facial hair was just another step in that. i love how i look now and love all the changes T has brought me.

at this point i plan to remain on T indefinitely, but knowing a friend who took T for four years then stopped because she got to where she wanted to be, i feel safe and comfortable enough to stop if i ever change my mind. this is why visibility is important 💕

i don't plan on having any surgery at this point. i thought about top surgery for a while, but considering my fluidity and how much i've enjoyed tits in the past, i think i want to keep them in case i ever want to focus on them again in the future. this is the only thing i "struggle" with; how much i would like to have a flat flat chest right now, but know i may not want that in future, and surgery is so definite. thankfully i'm happy with binders and am small enough to live in a comfy middle ground.

i'm so grateful for all the trans art in the good omens fandom, especially @chernozemm's explicit illustrations that highlight how fun and sexy tcocks are. i did look into phalloplasties and matoidioplasties once before, but never felt as strongly about it either way, which didn't seem like a good basis for such an intensive surgery. now i'm less ambivalent about my genitals and actively love them

(i also suffered from vaginismus my entire life, until about 2 or 3 years ago when i started engaging with more nsfw content and must have just? exposure therapy'd myself out of it?? it feels like i didn't do anything at all and it just went away on its own, which made me personify my vag a bit, bc i'm so fucking proud of her. now we're finally getting along, i'm taking her to my grave)

keep drawing, keep writing, keep sharing. every little thing you put out there helps people like me love ourselves more, and hearing other trans stories only helps solidify how real and genuine we are for feeling the way we do about ourselves. happy tdov

[lycheedr3ams]

König Character Analysis (Part 1)

*image reposted with permission

Part 1: His Past | Part 2: König's MBTI

the first installment of a multi-part character analysis for our beloved König

to convince you guys i know what I'm talking about, just look through my blog at my könig posts. I am confident that I have grasped most parts of his personality and backstory, but I will acknowledge that some of it may be projecting. obviously we do not know much about him, which is the point of this series. i also relate a lot to him

discussion of my interpretation is welcome in the comments, and if you disagree, there's no need to be hateful. he is, at the end of the day, not real

TW: bullying, social anxiety, other mental health disorders

We have very little information on könig's life before the military. his bio includes one sentence, just one, about his past:

König suffered from severe social anxiety throughout his life, often being bullied during his childhood.

while this information alone isn't striking, when put into more context of other parts of his bio, it says:

While he hoped to join as a recon sniper, his physical size and his inability to stay still made him an unsuitable candidate.

focus on those words: his inability to stay still. this crucial bit of information, tied to the fact that he was often bullied, leads me to conclude that könig has ADHD. not being able to sit still is not a stereotype, it is a real fact of life for those with ADHD, me included. people with ADHD are bullied much more than neurotypicals (people without ADHD, autism, etc). while each source is different, it is estimated that children with ADHD are 4-10x more likely to be bullied.

it is no wonder why bullying would cause social anxiety, since most of könig's interactions with his peers were negative. as someone with social anxiety, it is horrible. not knowing what to say or how to act, you end up either completely misreading the social context or not saying anything. either way, you can never win.

additionally, children with ADHD receive up to 20,000 more negative messages from parents and peers in their childhood than neurotypical children. because of this, it is common for people with ADHD to also be extra sensitive to rejection, and it can be so strong in some that a new term has been coined called "rejection sensitive dysphoria." research on this issue has revealed that 99% of people with ADHD also have and experience rejection sensitive dysphoria. therefore, it makes sense to conclude that König also experiences rejection sensitive dysphoria (rsd)

an aside on rsd: this isn't just feeling hurt when you're rejected by a crush or feeling sheepish or embarrassed you're scolded at work or school. rsd episodes make you question your entire life, your personality, your worth, and for many can even lead to suicidal thoughts just from a small incident of rejection. it can also lead to the person having low self-esteem, and they are also more likely to perceive rejection even when it is not there. it is an intense and overwhelming experience that no one should have to go through, yet people with ADHD experience it often

so, we've established, based on the evidence i've provided, that König has ADHD, social anxiety, and experiences rsd. i would say that i can't even imagine what König's childhood was like, but sadly I can since i too have adhd and was bullied. being mean is never okay, and bullying is not cute or quirky or sassy. bullying is when someone kicks your books across the floor, steals and destroys your belongings, when they spread false rumors, make fun of you, laugh at you, when they give you mean faces when you ask questions in class, when your only friend is the other "weird" kid who also has ADHD. it's when your teachers constantly criticize you and you get in trouble for every little thing. it's when you just wanted a friend and everyone else knew how to socialize, but somehow, you didn't. being bullied while also having ADHD is an experience i wish on no one. yet könig went through this. just sit with that for a minute. the big scary military man we love was also a child once, and went through this.

sorry to depress you guys, but this is the reality of his character. i firmly believe that könig has ADHD and experiences rsd despite his untouchable and stoic demeanor, and you're not gonna change my mind.

so, that's the end of the first installment. keep your eyes out for more, cuz trust me, there's gonna be more. (also don't forget to sign up for my taglist if you want! link is on my masterpost)

taglist: @osteawb, @sleepystaarr, @vvampir3s, @simpxinnie, @majocookie, @sharkyyyyyyyyyyyy, @marysdelrey, @kybeth5, @chaos-on-stand-bi, @shannonswizzies, @arcadia509, @bloodstoneruby, @cumikering, @skystreamchan, @junkratssheila-09, @kit-williams, @tangerynsbaby, @dreamdiaries777, @royalbxstxrd, @non-satanic-panic, @theweirdchick, @kiyomisan, @maylif, @mortimoshi, @eneiss

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

This is kind of a ramble of a question sorry. I'm a trans guy, and have been trying to figure out how much sexual attraction/desire I actually feel, with the idea of figuring out how into sex I'd be post bottom surgery. I do think I experience some attraction towards women - watched Alien last night and felt funny every time Sigourney Weaver opened her mouth - but I don't think I feel it as intensely as other people my age (15.5), and never seem to feel horny spontaneously without a specific trigger. I am dysphoric about my genitals to the point where actually being aroused/feeling any kind of sensation from them is mentally very uncomfortable. I had a stim when I was younger (autistic) that I later realized was unintentional masturbation, and I stopped immediately after learning that. I don't know if I would ever want to have sex with a prosthetic. My amount of desire might change (though it hasn't so far a couple months on t) but right now it seems like the amount of dysphoria from using a dick I know is fake + the stimulation being centered in the wrong spot? outweighs desire. I think I would be open to the idea if I got phalloplasty, but I'm not entirely sure it would ever be a thing I sought out over say, playing video games yk? I can be overstimulated, am bad with people, and just don't seem to want it as much as everyone else, even though i do want it? Now the main question. I want phalloplasty. I want to have a dick, and pee standing up, and feel the weight of it when i sleep. But it's also a long, expensive, complicated process that I might end up getting and then never actually using for the main thing genitals are meant for - sex and masturbation. I want it, but I'm not very attractive or personable, and it's a hard thing (even harder if I do it young on my parents' insurance) to do and then have to tell everyone you'll die a virgin. Any thoughts? Sorry if this is unfocused or inappropriate.

hi anon,

listen. I totally get your anxieties about your social and sexual options right now, and why they might make phalloplasty seem like it isn't worth it.

but the thing is - and I swear this isn't meant to be condescending - you're 15 and a half. what you're like right now is going to have so little bearing on who you are as an adult that it's hard for me to even begin to describe. hell, who I was when I was a senior in high school was pretty much completely irrelevant by the time I finished by freshman year of college. you're going to change so, so much in your life, and just because you feel like you're not attractive or personable now is no reason to cut yourself off from a surgery that it sounds like would make you very happy!

even aside from having sex, there are plenty of other reasons to get phalloplasty. you said them yourself! you have reasons you want to have a penis that have nothing to do with sex at all, and you don't ever need to sleep with anyone in order to justify that. being comfortable in your body is always reason enough.

[kittyit]

This is a long and loaded ask so feel free to delete but it's completely earnest

I've been a radfem for about 3-4 years now (radfemhagen but I got termed) and honestly I still struggle w genuine dysphoria. All the reading, critical thinking, talking w detrans women is definitely eye opening and helped me but it hasn't healed me of my ~gender feels~ if you know what I mean. I remember trying to get tips from other blogs but all I remember was something about doing physical labor with other women or just being around other women but that isn't helping either, I'm so disgusted by my female body and how I'm seen (especially by men and especially as a lesbian) and it's just getting worse. I've been thinking about going on a low dose of T even but I know there's other options to coping, like there HAS to be SOMETHING. I can't just will it out anymore.

Help a gyn out

this and it's probably better saved for an essay but i felt moved to respond to you straight up. i'm going to explain three really important parts of my journey to a place where i almost never experience the intense and life-disrupting distress around my sex (diagnosed as dysphoria) except in times of extreme stress, and even then it's fleeting.

one essential thing i did was stop thinking of transition as an option for myself. this is something i see a lot of detrans/desisted women struggle with. i think this is a mental trap. "if i don't feel better in x amount of time or when i do x, i'll transition" removes the urgency and necessary nature of working through the distress around your sex. i've written in a few pieces about when my girlfriend max asked me to not do it 3 days before my first t shot, it genuinely felt like the last light in a dark harbor going out. i felt utterly hopeless. i felt like my last solution had been taken from me and i would never feel better.

i came to my decision to never pursue transitional medicine first through listening from my girlfriend and other detrans women. to take seriously the pain & trauma detrans women go through. to listen when they said this did not help me, this was not help, it did not fix these feelings of distress. to listen to detrans women is to understand that transitional medicine is an unethical practice being done by unethical practitioners. it's also to understand that this solution is not what it's presented as. taking these women's experiences and analysis seriously meant ruling it out as a coping mechanism for myself, ever. but there are so many reasons to make the decision not to participate in transition medicine - political & practical. not giving money to surgeons who traffic in literal female flesh. not wanting to risk all of the under-studied, ignored negative long-term health effects. not wanting to signal to the women around you that there is no way to survive as a woman like you without transitional medicine. defiance of new patriarchal expectations for women like you. defiance of the pressures that tell you that this is the thing that will make you feel better - like makeup, like labiaplasty, like breast implants, like an elective double mastectomy. defiance in general.

so the first thing was to stop thinking of transitioning as an option. i said no. the second thing was to stop thinking of my distress as dysphoria. to un-diagnose myself with this word that means i need to take T and get a mastectomy and undergo phalloplasty to have a chance of ever being happy. you mention disgust for your body, you mention disgust for how you're seen by men and as a lesbian. disgust for yourself on these points is anger at patriarchy, lesbian-hating society & men turned inward on yourself instead of the people who deserve it. it's an impulse of someone dealing with oppression to blame one's self for it and think there are things we can do to escape it. it's no different than a woman trapped in domestic violence obsessing over what she could have done differently to not set him off this time - the right dinner, place setting, clothing & tone. the idea that woman- and lesbian-hating can be escaped as easily as transitional medicine claims it can is simply not true. the experiece of a woman who passes as a man is another exerperience of womanhood, still under the bell jar of misogyny.

what helped me with these feelings of distress was pinpointing exactly where they came from and what they meant. i know this isn't helpful for everyone. but it's almost like going deeper and deeper on the feeling make it more and more clear what needed to be addressed. here's one spiral to the center: i want to chop off my tits → why? → i hate my breasts → why? → they feel ugly and disgusting → why? → i got them so young, they're so large and people stare → why does that bother you? → i feel so ugly and out of place → why does that bother you? → i feel so alone and worthless → how do you feel? → i feel lonely → what do you need? → i need connection.

"i want to chop off my tits" is not a coherent feeling - every human alive has complex reasons for the things they say, think and do. if you can get to the bottom of where these sensations and feelings and disturbances diangosed as dysphoria are coming from, you can figure out how to address them. what is the feeling at the bottom, what is going unaddressed? and quite honestly a lot of the time it's not an easy answer. sometimes the answers are super hard to grapple with. sometimes the need cannot be fulfilled or are very difficult to fulfill. but once you've decided that transition is not on the table, the quest to find those answers becomes a lot more essential.

this isn't something anyone is really meant to do alone. when i hear you say you hate being seen as a lesbian and how men treat you, i hear an inherent isolation in that. i could be wrong, i know a lot of people can still feel lonely when they have a strong support system, but i would say the majority of women do not have the kind of friend group and number of connections they need to be socially supported. so another big part of this is breaking out of isolation and being around other women who "get it" - whether virutally or in real life. humans are a pack animal and this is an isolating age.

so that's my three parter to your question

1. say no to transitional medicine

2. undiagnose yourself with dysphoria and instead figure out why you're feeling what you're feeling

3. seek out friendship, community, and ways of thought that can help you address those feelings

[tirfpikachu]

you are not "detrans" you are cis

i'm definitely what you'd call cis too! though cis/bio womanhood is not at all what most tras assume it's like. especially detrans cis/bio womanhood. and for me, the label detrans helped me find others like me. it kept me from hating my own guts. it helped me find a community of ppl who actually understand what i've been through and don't think i'm a freak.

living as trans for 13 years changed what mainstream tras would call my gender identity forever. it also is a way for me to find people who also went thru what i went thru. i get a lot of DMs from other detrans women and detrans men who lived as trans or even transitioned partially/fully like me (i was on testosterone for a bit and have an awkward bit of annoying af stubble T_T gotta get expensive laser for that... it can be isolating!). to me, i will never again be a fully cis woman. i will forever be affected with having struggled with intense dysphoria for 13+ years. i also feel like my cis womanhood in general has forever been changed with me having rejected it and then finding it again - it does NOT feel the same way as my girlhood did. in girlhood, i didn't give a shit what people thought girls or boys needed to do. doubly so because i was autistic. then puberty came, and the usual teenage girl and/or afab experience of needing to conform to cispatriarchal expectations came, and i freaked the fuck out about my boobs, about how boys were suddenly treating me and the things my shitty female relatives told me were "becoming a woman" (all very conservative notions of womanhood) and it grossed me out so badly, on top of grappling with being into other afab people, and i just totally distanced myself from girlhood at all. i gave up on making my own scrungly, gender nonconforming version of girlhood. girlhood felt like it had no room for people like me.

and so i kicked it out of my mind. i obsessed over becoming a boy. some trans boys, ofc, become happily trans men. for me, though, it personally was an escape. i was trans-identified for all the wrong reasons and it really fucked me up. it made my internalized lesbophobia so much worse, to the point where i even started identifying as pansexual/bisexual (PREPOSTEROUS thing for me since i had never ever in my entire life been attracted to a man or someone living as male in society... but i was into non-transitioned transmasc people, so i thought i couldn't possibly be lesbian!). for me, the trans identity was a bandaid, it was a crutch in the worst possible way. detrans people aren't trying to make trans people look bad. we're not trying to convert y'all, we don't give a shit. we're too busy grappling with our newfound connection to cis womanhood/cis manhood and dealing with transition-related issues.

we NEED to find fellow detrans folks or we'll go batshit crazy with shame at having made a mistake, guilt at being weaponized without our consent against the trans community, and just fucking hating how hrt/surgeries affected our bodies and trying to come to terms with that and learning to love our bodies as they are despite it all.

detrans cis womanhood will never be normie cis womanhood.

detrans cis manhood will never be normie detrans manhood.

living as trans for years affects you DEEPLY. trans people should know this first-hand. detrans folks, simply by starting to live as cis / bio men/women again, cannot suddenly erase all those years as if they never existed. we just can't. i'm sorry. i tried. dear goddess i really fucking tried harder than you'll ever know. and so did so many of my detrans friends and my darling detrans girlfriend.

but detrans people need other detrans people.

mainstream tras don't understand us.

cis/bio radfems who aren't detrans often misrepresent us.

we need eachother.

and our voices NEED to be heard too.

both radfems AND mainstream tras don't get it.

detrans & desisted folks NEED sisterhood & siblinghood.

only detrans women understand other detrans women.

only detrans men understand other detrans men.

i will always be seeking out lost detrans sisters. and i will always want to hear out my detrans brothers. i love my detrans/desisted community. we've been through really hard shit, we're more likely to be gay, more likely to be traumatized, more likely to be autistic. we're not what you think. and now you need to sit down and hear our stories. sorry. it has to happen. or feel free to block all detrans voices and plug your ears and go lalala! and now i'm not talking to you specifically anon, i don't want to put assumptions in your little mouth. but i'm talking to ALL mainstream trans activists, anti-radfems especially, who assume the very worst of us from the get-go. those who want detrans & desisted people to pretend we were always cis and normies who should pretend to not be deeply affected by our real lived detrans/desisted experiences. we will not shut up. we refuse to. both radblr and normie leftblr misrepresent us.

our voices matter. or, at the very least, we deserve to put detrans/desisted in our bios so we can find one another. shoutout to my detrans & desisted siblings!!! i love you!!!! <33

[marcelshorjian]

hi. I saw your coming out post. Big congratulations!!!!

I, bittersweetly, relate very much. I'm 23. I started suspecting I was trans around 15/16. I can generally repress it for a good long while (a couple months at a time), so the dysphoria comes in waves of "oh I can tolerate this forever, it's fine, its not that bad, they're just words/names/pronouns."

I think I am very soon reaching that point of "oh god this is inevitable, and I can't live as a woman anymore."

But I also know I have successfully bottled it back up when feeling like this before. And likely will again because I'm about to go into my first career, corporate job.

If you can even answer this... how did you get to the point where you felt ready to come out publicly?

Congrats again, truly.

Hi there! I usually don’t publicly reply to the more personal messages I get on here, but yours really struck a chord with me. Thank you so much for sending it.

I know what you’re going through. I have been stuck in similar patterns for many years. I started suspecting I was trans when I was 15, asked my closest friends to be called by a male name and pronouns when I was around 19, but only decided to transition medically and publicly this year, at 26. It takes time.

Every year I would get an intense few months of feeling like I needed to transition, but always decided against it, for the very same reasons you named. Feeling like I could survive just like this. Feeling like if I could do without it, then it wasn’t something I had to « put myself through ». That it also wasn’t something I had to put others through. I intellectualised it to the point of finding many material reasons not to do it, focused on my fears and the vulnerability it would bring, just to occlude that very simple question: what do I want?

Delaying doing it, thinking it’s fine, it’s just a discomfort, is because you’ve lived with it for so long it doesn’t register as pain anymore. But it is pain.

Why should you settle for survival? Why would stating what you want be selfish? What are you really putting others through? Some tweaks in the way they address you, maybe some confusion and questions they’d never asked themselves before, that can only broaden their understanding of human complexity. The hostility often comes from defensiveness, but it's not your problem anyway.

You don’t have to do it all at once. Hormones can be started, stopped, picked up again. The changes are gradual. You don’t have to come out to everyone right away, just a select few you trust. But you’ll see, freedom is addictive.

I got to this point after years of unease by being around my amazing trans friends, and seeing them thriving and caring for each other, and them telling me: you love us like this, so allow yourself the same grace.

[pokegyns]

some thoughts:

i think radical feminism is antithetical to transgender ideology. i think we should still treat trans people as people and not be disgusting towards them, but trans ideology is still inherently misogynistic and patriarchal. so i don’t understand “trans inclusive radical feminism”… what are we including? people who believe sex based oppression isn’t real? people who believe in “trans misogyny”? people who “identify” with gender roles that have oppressed women for centuries? people who medicalise gender nonconformity? people who believe homosexuality is bigoted?

these ideologies don’t belong in radical feminism simply because they are anti feminist. so therefore radical feminism is inherently trans exclusionary and i refuse to believe that’s a bad thing.

obviously detrans women and women experiencing sex or gender dysphoria who aren’t trans aren’t included as trans ideologists i’m talking about.

there is so much misinformation and stigma surrounding transness on radblr, and just lack of information. it can be confusing being on the outside looking in! as a detrans woman who's often assumed to be firmly against transition, instead of how i'm highly critical of it and want safety measures within the community to be put in place to prevent detransitions and unhealthy transitions and misplaced identification... i think it's very easy to forget that dysphoria is a mental disorder and trans rights are a mix of gnc rights and disability activism / mental health advocacy. and as most of us know, radblr has a HUGE problem with rampant ableist ignorance.

the trans community is split in two, with some sharing both sides.

there's the dysphoric side, where there needs to be discussions on how to manage a complex disorder and not shame people for trying out different healing treatments. i want to erase the stigma of people with disorders, dysphoria included, choosing treatments that at times carry risks. this can be pain medication with potential addiction, or transition treatments or psych meds that potentially come with side effects and just might not help you in the end. i also hate how neurodivergent/mh communities can turn toxic fast, but i still am glad people can share their experiences with others, find people's stories in battling a disorder and gain more mental stability. this includes dysphoric people for me. as a physically and mentally disabled woman, my dysphoric trans activism is also my disability activism. and my detrans side gives me a complex perspective, because for me, it turned out to be the wrong treatment. some people are anti-psych because meds fucked them up instead of helping them. i am psych critical, because meds saved my life.

i am all for them exploring their treatment options, physical transition included, as long as they're educated on the risks and prepared for potential reverse dysphoria. the tra community handles that in a SUPER inappropriate, unhealthy, and honestly dangerous way and they're shooting themselves in the foot bc they don't push for better healthcare, leading to more detransitioners, leading to more trans stigma.

now on the other side, the term trans (and nonbinary, since not all nonbinary ppl identify as trans) for some can simply be a label to find likeminded gnc people, enjoy a punk-adjacent subculture focused on breaking gender roles and pissing off the patriarchy, and simply enjoying crossdressing and using terms that makes them happy.

dysphoric people still exist, and dysphoria is debilitating. it's a complex issue. for some, dysphoria is more neurodivergent, and it just is stubbornly staying and so they look for more intensive treatments. for others, it's more like a mental illness, and the condition can be treatable and may come from gender roles. and even if a specific person had a root cause for their dysphoria that relates to the patriarchy, i still wouldn't judge them for transitioning if it seems like it's just not going away no matter how hard they try. just like how i'm wary of people going on hardcore, addictive pain meds, or try treatments that come with risks for their physical health, but i know it helps many people and i don't want the option off the table. they are suffering. i care deeply. i fucking hate reverse dysphoria, but i hate ableism even more. i hate the stigma of disorders and the shaming of mentally ill & neurodivergent people, people with mental disorders, including dysphoria as is listed in the DSM.

i know the trans community is confusing. frustrating. often immature. people who are mentally suffering are often not in the right mind to do realistic, down-to-earth activism, but god knows they try and like in neurodivergent activism spaces it can get unhinged in a unique kinda way. we can call out their sexism, their homophobia, their misogyny, without resorting to ableism and transphobia - aka, what imo is a mix of ableism and gncphobia.

dysphoric people deserve healthcare reform. tras keep fucking things up for homosexuals and female/afab people and just make fools of themselves. radfems, esp non-detrans bio women, are often out of touch when it comes to trans issues.

it's easy to resort to extremist views on these things. it can be easier to embrace black-and-white thinking. but it's not the way, trust me! there are grey areas. we need reform, not the destruction of transness being a concept at all, whether it be the gnc subculture or the dysphoric side of it. there are a fuckton of trans issues to tackle. it's okay to be frustrated, to feel hurt, to be worried, to think maybe transness shouldn't be recognized as anything and those people should just be poked out of it somehow. but you can't just force someone's brain to be neurotypical, or cis/non-trans, or take away labels that feel meaningful to some folks even if you find them silly. it's counterproductive. the trans community has a lot of flaws, but it's a puzzle that can be figured out! please hear out trans radfem & nuancefem voices on this as well <3

-mod pikachu ⚡