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#other dysphoria classics:
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the same is a song that resonates so deeply it’s like poking around in an open wound that you thought was numb but Nope! It Still Hurts! like “everybody wants you, yeah everybody loves you, your smile, your teeth, your hair, they don’t know you’re not there-” like SIR calm down. man wasn’t satisfied with hitting close to home he had to break down a wall
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sysig · 3 months
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Finally made a Parapluesch OC, introducing Mama Oz ♥ (Patreon)
#Doodles#Parapluesch#Do I need to tag all of them? I don't want to so I won't lol#I can tag my original I guess :P#Mama Oz#She's based on this absolutely ridiculous and darling object I found at the same place I got my new-to-me video games haha#So apparently in the 60s this specific type of - magazine rack? in the shape of a kangaroo?? was made??#Ridiculous. So ostentatious. I fell in love immediately and had to make her into a Parapluesch#Like as soon as I laid eyes on her standing there I was like ''Oh you're from Die Anstalt'' - Instantly started filling in her backstory#Mama Oz's deal is your classic Stages of Grief - in her case from losing a child#Since she's a plush she never had an actual baby but she lost Her Child if you get me - she stopped being played with#And so she projects that grief onto others and adopts them in an attempt to get Her Child back#Except if this new relationship isn't within that framework then she rejects it and goes to the next one#She doesn't really realize that she's inconveniencing them by trying to adopt them and limiting herself from forming lasting connections#Not allowing change or growth - stagnating and trying to reclaim something lost#One of my favourite parts of Die Anstalt is that each of them is shown to have flaws#They still need and are deserving of help! But their uglier symptoms aren't shied away from#Dolly and Lilo use self-harm as a coping mechanism#Sly is shown to seek out the high at times and be short and destructive#Dub takes pride in his overwork#Kroko is surly and prickly#Don't even get me started on Dr. Wood lol#So it's fun to imagine what Mama Oz would be doing to - even by accident! - harm herself or others#The whole point of helping them is for them to become their best most comfortable selves :D#I also think what's especially funny is that I've been Meaning to make a Parapluesch OC for /years/ now#I always planned for it to be a Gender Dysphoria diagnosis since that's in the DSM and I had a design and route planned and everything#No. Kangaroo magazine rack. Okay#Lol
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punkboyjack · 4 months
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I have a gender dysphoria day playlist that covers all 24 hour of a day
That's just how desperate I'm
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girlscience · 8 months
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the past few weeks I've been feeling basically zero dysphoria and yet the amount I was thinking about my body didn't decrease even slightly
#imagine not having a constant soundtrack of#'i have boobs. do i hate them? do i like them? what are they feeling? they are moving. nipples. touching things. i hate it. i like it.'#and on and on and on. i do think my dysphoria as a whole has been on a constant decline since I finished puberty#and I really don't know how I feel about that#like technically it should be a good thing... but I don't know how to feel about my body otherwise#and also what does that mean about gender for me. i don't really get the point of being a different gender if i am chill with my body#like..... literally no one is ever going to look at me and not see woman#no matter what i do.#whatever vibe some people have that just makes people know they are somehow different#i do not have that. i get lumped into VERY classic woman no matter what i do#i have chopped all my hair off and don't shave and don't wear makeup and half my clothes are mens and i never wear dresses#it almost makes me want to ask people what i am doing wrong#like i don't think it's bad to be associated with women. i don't hate it#but there are people who are like 'even when i was fully femme other people could tell there was something different about me'#i straight up don't think anyone has ever once thought that about me. i genuinely don't think people even see me as a gnc woman#is it the way i talk? the way i carry myself?? my face????? i don't Know#that was. not at all the point of this post#basically i'm feeling less dysphoria and it is just as discomforting as feeling dysphoria#and i am so tired of constantly being aware of my body#and i wish it would stop but i don't think it ever will and it makes me want to cry
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neverendingford · 8 months
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#tag talk#seeing hornyposting on tumblr makes me realize just how insecure my last bf was about his weight#and how much internalized phobia he had about so many things (but thinking about the fatphobia specifically here)#which like. tragic because I deadass forget that people irl do have and perpetuate fatphobia#like. he was so good and chunky and I loved that but he was so wildly insecure and wanted to be skinny again and I was like noooooo#the amount of times he would make fun of fat dudes and then turn around and shame himself for putting on weight.#not very healthy and also it's like that thing how it's hard to compliment someone if they always deflect it and insist you're wrong#hard to let someone know you actually do think they're hot as fuck when they're always like ew I'm ugly I wish I were different#also... a fat guy isn't gonna use his chub in a sexy way if he's insecure about it.#like. yes pin me down with your weight and make me breathe it in. but if that just makes you insecure about your body then you're not gonna#kinda like how if you like dick but the trans woman you're with is dysphoric about it then you're not both gonna have a good time#anyway. fat people rule and chub is good and one of my many goals is to assure the people I sleep with that I think their bellies are hot#I showered with my gf a few nights back and like. honestly damn. she asked about what I thought and I was like girl you're serving classical#like. very heart shaped in the way the belly lines lead toward the thighs. idk it's very beautiful and I like it a lot.#I get that a lot of people prefer my hyper-slim body type and sure that's fair. but don't erase us who prefer heavier people.#like. I keep thinking about her.#I don't remember which art period it is that's got her specific body type I said Renaissance but I looked and they're thinner there#anyway. still figuring out how my sexuality relates to my own body because gender dysphoria forever. but I know how I feel about others
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vasquez-rocks · 4 months
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i know most ppl haven’t seen it yet but wanted to write something abt how annoyed some of the critical discourse abt I Saw the TV Glow is making me. MAJOR SPOILERS below the break, be warned!!
so idk i’ve seen so many reviews of the film positing that it’s about the dangers of obsessive fandom and overidentification with fictional characters, esp vis a vis real life self-actualization/coming out. (like, essentially every review has some of this in it, from what i’ve seen.) and, like: i don’t think that’s wrong, but i also think it’s massively underselling what schoenbrun is doing here. the metaphor of the show’s bleed-over is so smart because works in both directions at once.
like, in one direction: when maddy asks owen to come into the show by burying himself alive, you can read it as her asking him to abandon his real-life responsibilities, and the material facts of his real life body, in favor of a fantasy life where everything is already fixed. she’s inviting him to skip over the hard, messy work of transitioning and to sink even deeper into the analgesic obsessions he uses to numb his dysphoria. in this interpretation, it’s, like, the equivalent of overprioritizing “transition goals” instead of actually medically/legally/socially transitioning if that’s what you want, living forever in the ideal instead of taking difficult steps to change the material. (also, uh, if you don’t think she’s literally correct about the nature of reality, she is in fact asking him to kill himself. there’s that.)
BUT! it also works the other way. when maddy tells owen that the show is real, that their lives are just the buried dreams of dying girls in another life, she terrifies him by confronting him with something he’s always known about himself: he was supposed to be a girl. what she proposes is radical, dangerous, seemingly unhinged, and based on a childish fixation: all the things scared closeted trans people worry transition is, basically. on a more figurative level, too, the feeling she’s telling owen is real – that his real life is just a dream within a dream, that his home is not his home, that he belongs somewhere else, that he is supposed to be SOMEONE else – is something so, so, so many closeted trans people have felt before, myself so much included. when he sobs in the shower, yelling “this isn’t my home!” at his dad, i felt a sense of identification stronger than i’ve almost ever gotten from art before. when maddy finally calls him isabel, it’s the gentlest thing i can imagine.
in this read – which i do love, while thinking the other one is simultaneously true – it’s less “come sink deeper into delusion with me instead of dealing with your own life” and more “it’s going to be terrifying, but that childish dream of being a girl you once held wasn’t childish, and it can be real if you’re courageous enough.” he says he runs away from the football field because he thinks maddy’s not mentally well; it takes very little analysis of subtext to figure out he’s running away because he’s afraid of how much he wants what she’s offering. and, of course, the idea of the visible world being an illusion laid atop the world in which one is one’s truest self is a classic trope of trans cinema going all the way back to the matrix. (also: while i’m pretty death-of-the-author-pilled in most media analysis, it kinda seems like schoenbrun themself has interpreted the film in this way, as they’ve spoken at length in interviews about how, to them, transition felt like asking to be buried alive.)
all of which is to say: i think the film IS commenting on fandom, obsession, overidentification, and the ease with which queer people can sink into art as a way to dissociate from real life. but i think it makes the film so much more cynical and so much less tender to treat it as the ONLY read of the film’s relationship with the pink opaque. art, especially the sort of slow, metaphor-laden art schoenbrun makes, is best when it is complex and productively contradictory. the pink opaque is a problem, and an escape, and a fantasy, and it’s real, and one day isabel is going to wake up.
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itsawritblr · 8 months
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Holy shit, the New York Times is FINALLY interviewing and listening to detransistioners.
The tide is turning.
Opinion by Pamela Paul
As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.
Feb. 2, 2024
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Grace Powell was 12 or 13 when she discovered she could be a boy.
Growing up in a relatively conservative community in Grand Rapids, Mich., Powell, like many teenagers, didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. She was unpopular and frequently bullied. Puberty made everything worse. She suffered from depression and was in and out of therapy.
“I felt so detached from my body, and the way it was developing felt hostile to me,” Powell told me. It was classic gender dysphoria, a feeling of discomfort with your sex.
Reading about transgender people online, Powell believed that the reason she didn’t feel comfortable in her body was that she was in the wrong body. Transitioning seemed like the obvious solution. The narrative she had heard and absorbed was that if you don’t transition, you’ll kill yourself.
At 17, desperate to begin hormone therapy, Powell broke the news to her parents. They sent her to a gender specialist to make sure she was serious. In the fall of her senior year of high school, she started cross-sex hormones. She had a double mastectomy the summer before college, then went off as a transgender man named Grayson to Sarah Lawrence College, where she was paired with a male roommate on a men’s floor. At 5-foot-3, she felt she came across as a very effeminate gay man.
At no point during her medical or surgical transition, Powell says, did anyone ask her about the reasons behind her gender dysphoria or her depression. At no point was she asked about her sexual orientation. And at no point was she asked about any previous trauma, and so neither the therapists nor the doctors ever learned that she’d been sexually abused as a child.
“I wish there had been more open conversations,” Powell, now 23 and detransitioned, told me. “But I was told there is one cure and one thing to do if this is your problem, and this will help you.”
Progressives often portray the heated debate over childhood transgender care as a clash between those who are trying to help growing numbers of children express what they believe their genders to be and conservative politicians who won’t let kids be themselves.
But right-wing demagogues are not the only ones who have inflamed this debate. Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism, especially by pressing for a treatment orthodoxy that has faced increased scrutiny in recent years. Under that model of care, clinicians are expected to affirm a young person’s assertion of gender identity and even provide medical treatment before, or even without, exploring other possible sources of distress.
Many who think there needs to be a more cautious approach — including well-meaning liberal parents, doctors and people who have undergone gender transition and subsequently regretted their procedures — have been attacked as anti-trans and intimidated into silencing their concerns.
And while Donald Trump denounces “left-wing gender insanity” and many trans activists describe any opposition as transphobic, parents in America’s vast ideological middle can find little dispassionate discussion of the genuine risks or trade-offs involved in what proponents call gender-affirming care.
Powell’s story shows how easy it is for young people to get caught up by the pull of ideology in this atmosphere.
“What should be a medical and psychological issue has been morphed into a political one,” Powell lamented during our conversation. “It’s a mess.”
A New and Growing Group of Patients
Many transgender adults are happy with their transitions and, whether they began to transition as adults or adolescents, feel it was life changing, even lifesaving. The small but rapidly growing number of children who express gender dysphoria and who transition at an early age, according to clinicians, is a recent and more controversial phenomenon.
Laura Edwards-Leeper, the founding psychologist of the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States, said that when she started her practice in 2007, most of her patients had longstanding and deep-seated gender dysphoria. Transitioning clearly made sense for almost all of them, and any mental health issues they had were generally resolved through gender transition.
“But that is just not the case anymore,” she told me recently. While she doesn’t regret transitioning the earlier cohort of patients and opposes government bans on transgender medical care, she said, “As far as I can tell, there are no professional organizations who are stepping in to regulate what’s going on.”
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Most of her patients now, she said, have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Others refer to this phenomenon, with some controversy, as rapid onset gender dysphoria, in which adolescents, particularly tween and teenage girls, express gender dysphoria despite never having done so when they were younger. Frequently, they have mental health issues unrelated to gender. While professional associations say there is a lack of quality research on rapid onset gender dysphoria, several researchers have documented the phenomenon, and many health care providers have seen evidence of it in their practices.
“The population has changed drastically,” said Edwards-Leeper, a former head of the Child and Adolescent Committee for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the organization responsible for setting gender transition guidelines for medical professionals.
For these young people, she told me, “you have to take time to really assess what’s going on and hear the timeline and get the parents’ perspective in order to create an individualized treatment plan. Many providers are completely missing that step.”
Yet those health care professionals and scientists who do not think clinicians should automatically agree to a young person’s self-diagnosis are often afraid to speak out. A report commissioned by the National Health Service about Britain’s Tavistock gender clinic, which, until it was ordered to be shut down, was the country’s only health center dedicated to gender identity, noted that “primary and secondary care staff have told us that they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters.”
Of the dozens of students she’s trained as psychologists, Edwards-Leeper said, few still seem to be providing gender-related care. While her students have left the field for various reasons, “some have told me that they didn’t feel they could continue because of the pushback, the accusations of being transphobic, from being pro-assessment and wanting a more thorough process,” she said.
They have good reasons to be wary. Stephanie Winn, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Oregon, was trained in gender-affirming care and treated multiple transgender patients. But in 2020, after coming across detransition videos online, she began to doubt the gender-affirming model. In 2021 she spoke out in favor of approaching gender dysphoria in a more considered way, urging others in the field to pay attention to detransitioners, people who no longer consider themselves transgender after undergoing medical or surgical interventions. She has since been attacked by transgender activists. Some threatened to send complaints to her licensing board saying that she was trying to make trans kids change their minds through conversion therapy.
In April 2022, the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists told Winn that she was under investigation. Her case was ultimately dismissed, but Winn no longer treats minors and practices only online, where many of her patients are worried parents of trans-identifying children.
“I don’t feel safe having a location where people can find me,” she said.
Detransitioners say that only conservative media outlets seem interested in telling their stories, which has left them open to attacks as hapless tools of the right, something that frustrated and dismayed every detransitioner I interviewed. These are people who were once the trans-identified kids that so many organizations say they’re trying to protect — but when they change their minds, they say, they feel abandoned.
Most parents and clinicians are simply trying to do what they think is best for the children involved. But parents with qualms about the current model of care are frustrated by what they see as a lack of options.
Parents told me it was a struggle to balance the desire to compassionately support a child with gender dysphoria while seeking the best psychological and medical care. Many believed their kids were gay or dealing with an array of complicated issues. But all said they felt compelled by gender clinicians, doctors, schools and social pressure to accede to their child’s declared gender identity even if they had serious doubts. They feared it would tear apart their family if they didn’t unquestioningly support social transition and medical treatment. All asked to speak anonymously, so desperate were they to maintain or repair any relationship with their children, some of whom were currently estranged.
Several of those who questioned their child’s self-diagnosis told me it had ruined their relationship. A few parents said simply, “I feel like I’ve lost my daughter.”
One mother described a meeting with 12 other parents in a support group for relatives of trans-identified youth where all of the participants described their children as autistic or otherwise neurodivergent. To all questions, the woman running the meeting replied, “Just let them transition.” The mother left in shock. How would hormones help a child with obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression? she wondered.
Some parents have found refuge in anonymous online support groups. There, people share tips on finding caregivers who will explore the causes of their children’s distress or tend to their overall emotional and developmental health and well-being without automatically acceding to their children’s self-diagnosis.
Many parents of kids who consider themselves trans say their children were introduced to transgender influencers on YouTube or TikTok, a phenomenon intensified for some by the isolation and online cocoon of Covid. Others say their kids learned these ideas in the classroom, as early as elementary school, often in child-friendly ways through curriculums supplied by trans rights organizations, with concepts like the gender unicorn or the Genderbread person.
‘Do You Want a Dead Son or a Live Daughter?’
After Kathleen’s 15-year-old son, whom she described as an obsessive child, abruptly told his parents he was trans, the doctor who was going to assess whether he had A.D.H.D. referred him instead to someone who specialized in both A.D.H.D. and gender. Kathleen, who asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her son’s privacy, assumed that the specialist would do some kind of evaluation or assessment. That was not the case.
The meeting was brief and began on a shocking note. “In front of my son, the therapist said, ‘Do you want a dead son or a live daughter?’” Kathleen recounted.
Parents are routinely warned that to pursue any path outside of agreeing with a child’s self-declared gender identity is to put a gender dysphoric youth at risk for suicide, which feels to many people like emotional blackmail. Proponents of the gender-affirming model have cited studies showing an association between that standard of care and a lower risk of suicide. But those studies were found to have methodological flaws or have been deemed not entirely conclusive. A survey of studies on the psychological effects of cross-sex hormones, published three years ago in The Journal of the Endocrine Society, the professional organization for hormone specialists, found it “could not draw any conclusions about death by suicide.” In a letter to The Wall Street Journal last year, 21 experts from nine countries said that survey was one reason they believed there was “no reliable evidence to suggest that hormonal transition is an effective suicide prevention measure.”
Moreover, the incidence of suicidal thoughts and attempts among gender dysphoric youth is complicated by the high incidence of accompanying conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder. As one systematic overview put it, “Children with gender dysphoria often experience a range of psychiatric comorbidities, with a high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, eating disorders and autism spectrum conditions, suicidality and self-harm.”
But rather than being treated as patients who deserve unbiased professional help, children with gender dysphoria often become political pawns.
Conservative lawmakers are working to ban access to gender care for minors and occasionally for adults as well. On the other side, however, many medical and mental health practitioners feel their hands have been tied by activist pressure and organizational capture. They say that it has become difficult to practice responsible mental health care or medicine for these young people.
Pediatricians, psychologists and other clinicians who dissent from this orthodoxy, believing that it is not based on reliable evidence, feel frustrated by their professional organizations. The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have wholeheartedly backed the gender-affirming model.
In 2021, Aaron Kimberly, a 50-year-old trans man and registered nurse, left the clinic in British Columbia where his job focused on the intake and assessment of gender-dysphoric youth. Kimberly received a comprehensive screening when he embarked on his own successful transition at age 33, which resolved the gender dysphoria he experienced from an early age.
But when the gender-affirming model was introduced at his clinic, he was instructed to support the initiation of hormone treatment for incoming patients regardless of whether they had complex mental problems, experiences with trauma or were otherwise “severely unwell,” Kimberly said. When he referred patients for further mental health care rather than immediate hormone treatment, he said he was accused of what they called gatekeeping and had to change jobs.
“I realized something had gone totally off the rails,” Kimberly, who subsequently founded the Gender Dysphoria Alliance and the L.G.B.T. Courage Coalition to advocate better gender care, told me.
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Gay men and women often told me they fear that same-sex-attracted kids, especially effeminate boys and tomboy girls who are gender nonconforming, will be transitioned during a normal phase of childhood and before sexual maturation — and that gender ideology can mask and even abet homophobia.
As one detransitioned man, now in a gay relationship, put it, “I was a gay man pumped up to look like a woman and dated a lesbian who was pumped up to look like a man. If that’s not conversion therapy, I don’t know what is.”
“I transitioned because I didn’t want to be gay,” Kasey Emerick, a 23-year-old woman and detransitioner from Pennsylvania, told me. Raised in a conservative Christian church, she said, “I believed homosexuality was a sin.”
When she was 15, Emerick confessed her homosexuality to her mother. Her mother attributed her sexual orientation to trauma — Emerick’s father was convicted of raping and assaulting her repeatedly when she was between the ages of 4 and 7 — but after catching Emerick texting with another girl at age 16, she took away her phone. When Emerick melted down, her mother admitted her to a psychiatric hospital. While there, Emerick told herself, “If I was a boy, none of this would have happened.”
In May 2017, Emerick began searching “gender” online and encountered trans advocacy websites. After realizing she could “pick the other side,” she told her mother, “I’m sick of being called a dyke and not a real girl.” If she were a man, she’d be free to pursue relationships with women.
That September, she and her mother met with a licensed professional counselor for the first of two 90-minute consultations. She told the counselor that she had wished to be a Boy Scout rather than a Girl Scout. She said she didn’t like being gay or a butch lesbian. She also told the counselor that she had suffered from anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. The clinic recommended testosterone, which was prescribed by a nearby L.G.B.T.Q. health clinic. Shortly thereafter, she was also diagnosed with A.D.H.D. She developed panic attacks. At age 17, she was cleared for a double mastectomy.
“I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m having my breasts removed. I’m 17. I’m too young for this,’” she recalled. But she went ahead with the operation.
“Transition felt like a way to control something when I couldn’t control anything in my life,” Emerick explained. But after living as a trans man for five years, Emerick realized her mental health symptoms were only getting worse. In the fall of 2022, she came out as a detransitioner on Twitter and was immediately attacked. Transgender influencers told her she was bald and ugly. She received multiple threats.
“I thought my life was over,” she said. “I realized that I had lived a lie for over five years.”
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Today Emerick’s voice, permanently altered by testosterone, is that of a man. When she tells people she’s a detransitioner, they ask when she plans to stop taking T and live as a woman. “I’ve been off it for a year,” she replies.
Once, after she recounted her story to a therapist, the therapist tried to reassure her. If it’s any consolation, the therapist remarked, “I would never have guessed that you were once a trans woman.” Emerick replied, “Wait, what sex do you think I am?”
To the trans activist dictum that children know their gender best, it is important to add something all parents know from experience: Children change their minds all the time. One mother told me that after her teenage son desisted — pulled back from a trans identity before any irreversible medical procedures — he explained, “I was just rebelling. I look at it like a subculture, like being goth.”
“The job of children and adolescents is to experiment and explore where they fit into the world, and a big part of that exploration, especially during adolescence, is around their sense of identity,” Sasha Ayad, a licensed professional counselor based in Phoenix, told me. “Children at that age often present with a great deal of certainty and urgency about who they believe they are at the time and things they would like to do in order to enact that sense of identity.”
Ayad, a co-author of “When Kids Say They’re Trans: A Guide for Thoughtful Parents,” advises parents to be wary of the gender affirmation model. “We’ve always known that adolescents are particularly malleable in relationship to their peers and their social context and that exploration is often an attempt to navigate difficulties of that stage, such as puberty, coming to terms with the responsibilities and complications of young adulthood, romance and solidifying their sexual orientation,” she told me. For providing this kind of exploratory approach in her own practice with gender dysphoric youth, Ayad has had her license challenged twice, both times by adults who were not her patients. Both times, the charges were dismissed.
Studies show that around eight in 10 cases of childhood gender dysphoria resolve themselves by puberty and 30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years, though the effects, including infertility, are often irreversible.
Proponents of early social transition and medical interventions for gender dysphoric youth cite a 2022 study showing that 98 percent of children who took both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones continued treatment for short periods, and another study that tracked 317 children who socially transitioned between the ages of 3 and 12, which found that 94 percent of them still identified as transgender five years later. But such early interventions may cement children’s self-conceptions without giving them time to think or sexually mature.
‘The Process of Transition Didn’t Make Me Feel Better’
At the end of her freshman year of college, Grace Powell, horrifically depressed, began dissociating, feeling detached from her body and from reality, which had never happened to her before. Ultimately, she said, “the process of transition didn’t make me feel better. It magnified what I found was wrong with myself.”
“I expected it to change everything, but I was just me, with a slightly deeper voice,” she added. “It took me two years to start detransitioning and living as Grace again.”
She tried in vain to find a therapist who would treat her underlying issues, but they kept asking her: How do you want to be seen? Do you want to be nonbinary? Powell wanted to talk about her trauma, not her identity or her gender presentation. She ended up getting online therapy from a former employee of the Tavistock clinic in Britain. This therapist, a woman who has broken from the gender-affirming model, talked Grace through what she sees as her failure to launch and her efforts to reset. The therapist asked questions like: Who is Grace? What do you want from your life? For the first time, Powell felt someone was seeing and helping her as a person, not simply looking to slot her into an identity category.
Many detransitioners say they face ostracism and silencing because of the toxic politics around transgender issues.
“It is extraordinarily frustrating to feel that something I am is inherently political,” Powell told me. “I’ve been accused multiple times that I’m some right-winger who’s making a fake narrative to discredit transgender people, which is just crazy.”
While she believes there are people who benefit from transitioning, “I wish more people would understand that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,” she said. “I wish we could have that conversation.”
In a recent study in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, about 40 young detransitioners out of 78 surveyed said they had suffered from rapid onset gender dysphoria. Trans activists have fought hard to suppress any discussion of rapid onset gender dysphoria, despite evidence that the condition is real. In its guide for journalists, the activist organization GLAAD warns the media against using the term, as it is not “a formal condition or diagnosis.” Human Rights Campaign, another activist group, calls it “a right-wing theory.” A group of professional organizations put out a statement urging clinicians to eliminate the term from use.
Nobody knows how many young people desist after social, medical or surgical transitions. Trans activists often cite low regret rates for gender transition, along with low figures for detransition. But those studies, which often rely on self-reported cases to gender clinics, likely understate the actual numbers. None of the seven detransitioners I interviewed, for instance, even considered reporting back to the gender clinics that prescribed them medication they now consider to have been a mistake. Nor did they know any other detransitioners who had done so.
As Americans furiously debate the basis of transgender care, a number of advances in understanding have taken place in Europe, where the early Dutch studies that became the underpinning of gender-affirming care have been broadly questioned and criticized. Unlike some of the current population of gender dysphoric youth, the Dutch study participants had no serious psychological conditions. Those studies were riddled with methodological flaws and weaknesses. There was no evidence that any intervention was lifesaving. There was no long-term follow-up with any of the study’s 55 participants or the 15 who dropped out. A British effort to replicate the study said that it “identified no changes in psychological function” and that more studies were needed.
In countries like Sweden, Norway, France, the Netherlands and Britain — long considered exemplars of gender progress — medical professionals have recognized that early research on medical interventions for childhood gender dysphoria was either faulty or incomplete. Last month, the World Health Organization, in explaining why it is developing “a guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people,” said it will cover only adults because “the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender-affirming care for children and adolescents.”
But in America, and Canada, the results of those widely criticized Dutch studies are falsely presented to the public as settled science.
Other countries have recently halted or limited the medical and surgical treatment of gender dysphoric youth, pending further study. Britain’s Tavistock clinic was ordered to be shut down next month, after a National Health Service-commissioned investigation found deficiencies in service and “a lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.”
Meanwhile, the American medical establishment has hunkered down, stuck in an outdated model of gender affirmation. The American Academy of Pediatrics only recently agreed to conduct more research in response to yearslong efforts by dissenting experts, including Dr. Julia Mason, a self-described “bleeding-heart liberal.”
The larger threat to transgender people comes from Republicans who wish to deny them rights and protections. But the doctrinal rigidity of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is disappointing, frustrating and counterproductive.
“I was always a liberal Democrat,” one woman whose son desisted after social transition and hormone therapy told me. “Now I feel politically homeless.”
She noted that the Biden administration has “unequivocally” supported gender-affirming care for minors, in cases in which it deems it “medically appropriate and necessary.” Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told NPR in 2022 that “there is no argument among medical professionals — pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, et cetera — about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.”
Of course, politics should not influence medical practice, whether the issue is birth control, abortion or gender medicine. But unfortunately, politics has gotten in the way of progress. Last year The Economist published a thorough investigation into America’s approach to gender medicine. Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor, put the issue into political context. “If you look internationally at countries in Europe, the U.K. included, their medical establishments are much more concerned,” Beddoes told Vanity Fair. “But here — in part because this has become wrapped up in the culture wars where you have, you know, crazy extremes from the Republican right — if you want to be an upstanding liberal, you feel like you can’t say anything.”
Some people are trying to open up that dialogue, or at least provide outlets for kids and families to seek a more therapeutic approach to gender dysphoria.
Paul Garcia-Ryan is a psychotherapist in New York who cares for kids and families seeking holistic, exploratory care for gender dysphoria. He is also a detransitioner who from ages 15 to 30 fully believed he was a woman.
Garcia-Ryan is gay, but as a boy, he said, “it was much less threatening to my psyche to think that I was a straight girl born into the wrong body — that I had a medical condition that could be tended to.” When he visited a clinic at 15, the clinician immediately affirmed he was female, and rather than explore the reasons for his mental distress, simply confirmed Garcia-Ryan’s belief that he was not meant to be a man.
Once in college, he began medically transitioning and eventually had surgery on his genitals. Severe medical complications from both the surgery and hormone medication led him to reconsider what he had done, and to detransition. He also reconsidered the basis of gender affirmation, which, as a licensed clinical social worker at a gender clinic, he had been trained in and provided to clients.
“You’re made to believe these slogans,” he said. “Evidence-based, lifesaving care, safe and effective, medically necessary, the science is settled — and none of that is evidence based.”
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Garcia-Ryan, 32, is now the board president of Therapy First, an organization that supports therapists who do not agree with the gender affirmation model. He thinks transition can help some people manage the symptoms of gender dysphoria but no longer believes anyone under 25 should socially, medically or surgically transition without exploratory psychotherapy first.
“When a professional affirms a gender identity for a younger person, what they are doing is implementing a psychological intervention that narrows a person’s sense of self and closes off their options for considering what’s possible for them,” Garcia-Ryan told me.
Instead of promoting unproven treatments for children, which surveys show many Americans are uncomfortable with, transgender activists would be more effective if they focused on a shared agenda. Most Americans across the political spectrum can agree on the need for legal protections for transgender adults. They would also probably support additional research on the needs of young people reporting gender dysphoria so that kids could get the best treatment possible.
A shift in this direction would model tolerance and acceptance. It would prioritize compassion over demonization. It would require rising above culture-war politics and returning to reason. It would be the most humane path forward. And it would be the right thing to do.
*~*~*~*~*~*
For those who want tor ead more by those fighting the cancellation forquestioning, read:
Graham Lineham, who's been fighting since the beginning and paid the price, but is not seeing things turn around.
The Glinner Update, Grahan Linehan's Substack.
Kellie-Jay Keen @ThePosieParker, who's been physically attacked for organizing events for women demanding women-only spaces.
REDUXX, Feminst news & opinion.
Gays Against Groomers @againstgrmrs, A nonprofit of gay people and others within the community against the sexualization, indoctrination and medicalization of children under the guise of "LGBTQIA+"
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shoccolatine · 7 months
Text
what your favourite obey me character says about you
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╰┈➤ ❝ LUCIFER. ❞
you like people who act mature/responsible
you're stubborn
"i can fix him!"
you like when people act mean
you're a romantic
you like the classic gentleman type (opens the door for you, pulls out your chair, etc.)
you listen to a lot of music
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╰┈➤ ❝ MAMMON. ❞
you have abandonment issues
you believe in soulmates
you want to be someone's first choice
you're a hopeless romantic
you want someone to do dumb things with
you're kind/caring/forgiving
you like to make people laugh
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╰┈➤ ❝ LEVIATHAN. ❞
you're a gamer/otaku yourself, or watch anime casually and/or enjoy watching other people play video games
you're a quiet person
you fluster easily or enjoy flustering others
you like aquariums
you try to avoid social gatherings/situations
you're autistic
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╰┈➤ ❝ SATAN. ❞
you love reading
you love cats
you like being around smart/academic people
you're patient
you have very strong morals and a strong sense of justice
you're an introvert
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╰┈➤ ❝ ASMODEUS. ❞
you have rejection sensitive dysphoria and/or abandonment issues
you value aesthetics
you're kind and caring
you don't judge a book by its cover
"are you tired of being nice? don't you just want to go ape shit"
you're asexual
you like femboys
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╰┈➤ ❝ BEELZEBUB. ❞
you love cooking/baking/eating
you like buff people
you're happy just doing your own thing
you have abandonment issues
you are very supportive of those you care about
you have a big heart, but don't show it often
you enjoy making people happy
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╰┈➤ ❝ BELPHEGOR. ❞
you're sarcastic
you love sleeping, or you have trouble sleeping
you're stubborn
"i can fix him!" / "i can make him worse"
you're playful/silly/reckless
you want someone to do dumb things with
you like taking care of others
you have a monster kink, and/or love yanderes
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trans-androgyne · 4 months
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discrimination against trans men is literally just misdirected transmisogyny, and i don't see how it could be anything else- when transphobes go after trans men, it's just to further demonize trans women and treat them like predators who are going after young girls; if trans men didn't exist, transmisogyny would still exist, but if trans women didn't exist, there would be no systemic discrimination against trans men
Alright, this is a tad long but it’s for the benefit of anyone who isn’t sure about this position and would like my thoughts on it. (adding a TL;DR in the notes for anyone that doesn’t want a couple paragraphs worth of text)
Sorry, but this is a terrible take and not reflective of reality at all. I understand why you might feel that way considering a lot of transphobia directed at transmasculine people ties into transmisogyny against transfeminine people, like in the example you gave. Additionally, trans men do at times experience transmisogyny. However, that is not the majority of it. Even when it comes to the infantilization and characterization of transmascs as mentally ill, delusional young girls mutilating themselves, the cause is not always attributed to trans women. I encourage you to look into the idea of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) as it applies to transmascs and the idea of them spreading a “social contagion” within groups of “young girls.” Transmascs’ bodies are treated as ruined and diseased, more and more the further we transition into masculinity. There is a full transphobic book on the subject focusing on transmascs, called Irreversable Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
It is thoroughly untrue that transphobia against transmascs (transandrophobia) would cease to exist without transmisogyny. This stance leads me to believe you are relatively unfamiliar with some of the unique ways transmasculine people experience transphobia. I can absolutely promise you it is frequently directed at them. Your hypothetical is unrealistic to me, but I want to note: gender non-conformity is still punished outside transmisogyny. Misogyny still occurs outside just transmisogyny.
Fear and disgust at pregnant trans men is not transmisogyny. The idea of “lost lesbians”/“butch flight” is not transmisogyny. The corrective rape of transmascs by cis people as a means of detransition is not transmisogyny. Being called privileged gender traitors trying to climb up a rung in the patriarchy is not transmisogyny. At the least, not nearly as much as it is classic transandrophobia. All transphobia is connected, that much is true. But other types are just as serious and oppressive of systems as transmisogyny. Please seek out a more diverse selection of transmasculine people’s experiences before you try to theorize about their oppression; I think you may find them enlightening.
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dog-park-dissidents · 4 months
Note
What are some of your guys punk/queer punk inspirations? I’ve really been trying to find more music that scratches the same itch as y’all cause there are only so many times I can listen to pink and black in a row
Pansy Division is the reason we're a band. They are the OG of queercore pop punk, they toured with Green Day in the 90s, they were out on stage singing "we're the butt fuckers of rock n' roll / we wanna sock it to your hole" before Ellen even DeGeneresed.
Against Me! and Laura Jane Grace's post-AM! work are also a big anarcho-queer punk inspiration for us. Against Me's albums before Transgender Dysphoria Blues, before LJG transitioned, are absolutely excellent but obviously less explicitly queer than everything since then. But they're anarcho-punk classics all the same.
Sarah and the Safe Word are some of our best friends and they're gay as shit. We've toured with them a couple times and had a blast. They've got a lot of eclectic jazzy/folk genre influences that they mix with face-melting guitar work, very genrequeer.
Rev Your Motor is basically a song off Danger Days, so My Chem might scratch your same itch as Dog Park. MCR is always a good idea.
Also maybe this is cheating but Skylar is in another queer punk band called Atomic Broad, so that's a little bit like more Dog Park.
Anyway we're also on this compilation record called Never Erased where you can sample 15 other queer punk bands like Sarah and the Safe Word, Middle Aged Queers, and many more
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honey-crypt · 3 months
Note
could i possibly get a fic about sebastian helping adhd!farmer through their rejection dysphoria? i leave the rest up to you, go wild <3
- 🪩
★ like the stream - sebastian x adhd!farmer ★
word count: 1.5k
warnings: rejection sensitivity dysphoria episode
summary: it's the day of the flower dance! you're prepared to ask your friend sam to be your dance partner when you're met face to face with a kind but otherwise hard rejection from the other party. Unable to cope with the rejection because of your RSD, you find yourself spiraling when another friend of yours, Sebastian, finds you alone and distressed in the depths of Cindersap Forest.
a/n: hi hi request #2 for my write-a-thon! hope this is an okay fic, i made sure to do some research on rsd and adhd (beyond my personal knowledge of it) for this fic :D
Today had to be perfect. 
That was what you repeated to yourself, as you made your way towards Cindersap Forest for the Flower Dance. You double, even triple, checked that you had everything ready for today. It may have taken two or ten sticky note reminders, but you knew that everything was in the right place. Your outfit? Check. Your flowers? Check. Your confidence to ask Sam to be your dance partner? Check!
As you got closer and closer, the sound of upbeat classical music grew louder and louder. They should really install a better alternative to this, I don’t know George crosses this, you thought to yourself while crossing the bridge over to the festival. An open green space greeted you with the residents of Pelican Town scattered about. You exchanged pleasantries with your fellow townies, making a beeline to your friend group by a secluded corner of the festival. 
“Hey (Y/N)!” Abigail gave you a small, half salute, “Didn’t think you were going to make it.”
“I lost track of time,” you confessed, “Nonetheless, I made it!”
Your two other friends, Sam and Sebastian, paused their side conversation at mention of your arrival. Sam offered you a dazzling smile that made your heart flutter, “(Y/N)! Good to see you!” and, much to your disappointment, he gave you a friendly side hug. You forced a smile in return and responded, “Yeah, for sure. I’m just glad I made it before the dance started.”
“Would’ve sucked ass if you missed it,” mused Abigail. Sebastian didn’t respond, staring silently at you. A frown graced your lips, What’s his deal? you questioned. Your chest, however, had a different reaction, tightening up at the sight of Sebastian’s deadpan. He’s probably just having a bad day, you reassured yourself, He’s not mad at you. He’s not mad at you. 
“I’m gonna grab some of Gus’s drinks,” you perked up at Sam’s voice, “You guys got a preference for what?”
“Ooo, get me the Tulip Jubilee,” requested Abigail.
“The Blue Jazz Drop for me,” you eyed Sebastian when he spoke up. Sam looked at you expectantly, “How about you, (Y/N)?”
“Oh, uhhhhh…” you mentally thumbed through your options, “No preference, just grab me something you think I’ll like,” you adjusted your collar with your free hand, “I trust your judgement.”
“Will do!” Sam responded with a double thumbs up before leaving for the food and drinks table. You let out a deep sigh and fiddled with the flower in your hand, a small but homegrown tulip. Abigail quirked an eyebrow up at you, “Something on your mind?”
“Oh! Well,” you cleared your throat, “Just thinking about the dance.”
“Fingers crossed that you don’t have to dance with Clint like last year,” snorted the purple-haired goth. You grimaced at the memory and scanned the crowd for the aforementioned blacksmith, seeing him talk poor Emily’s ear off, “Anyone but him,” you grumbled.
“Which reminds me,” your friend directed her attention to Sebastian, “Dance partners this year?” to which the black-haired boy nodded quietly. You stared at him with narrowed eyes, Why are you so quiet today?
“Back with the drinks!” your blonde friend announced to the group, two drinks in hand and two held tight against his chest. Sam passed out the drinks and informed you, “I got you the Sunflower Tonic.”
You pressed your lips against the cup and took a sip, the sweetness of the drink evident, “This is good,” you let your friends know.
“Ew, mine’s too sour,” sighed Abigail, her lips puckered. She held her drink towards the group, “Any takers?”
“I’ll try it,” answered Sam. He grabbed the drink and sipped it, his face grimacing, “Yikes. Too sour,” before handing it in front of you, “Want a taste?”
You felt flushed at the idea of sipping the drink after Sam and seized the opportunity, accidentally taking a big swing of it. Immediately, you gagged at the taste, “Ugh! My tongue!” and spat out what little liquid was left in your mouth. Sebastian finally took the drink and drank it without any sign of sourness on his face, “Yeah, this is bad,” he stated, “I’ll stick with my drink,” the emo resumed his Blue Jazz Drop. 
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Mayor Lewis’s voice echoed awkwardly through his microphone, “The Flower Dance will begin shortly! Last chance to find yourself a partner!”
You heard the man, this is your last chance! you grasped your flower and waited until Abigail and Sebastian went ahead to pull Sam aside, “Hey Sam, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Yoba, his sunshine demeanor was too much. 
“Would you like to be my partner for the dance?” you held up the tulip. Sam’s sunshine self dimmed into a clouded version, “Oh, (Y/N), but Penny asked me to dance while I was getting the drinks. I’m really sorry.”
The sound of your world cracking rang through your ears, as you stood motionless in front of Sam, “Oh! I, uh…” tears pricked at your eyes, “I gotta go.”
Your surroundings began to blur and any outside noise turned into static, as you made your escape from the Flower Dance and deeper into Cindersap Forest. The bum bum of your heart and the swoosh of your blood pounded against your head. 
I hate him.
He hates me.
No, he just made a promise!
No, he thinks you’re the worst!
It was like being trapped on a carousel, your thoughts and emotions spinning around and around. Soon, you found yourself by a small stream, laying on the ground by it with sprawled out limbs. Tears rushed down your face and you heaved dryly, as your brain failed to comprehend Sam’s words and intent.
Oh, (Y/N), but Penny asked me to dance while I was getting the drinks. I’m really sorry.
You sat up, nearly flinging yourself forward towards the stream, and started to bite at your nails, “He hates me. He hates me. I hate myself. I hate myself. I-”
“(Y/N)?” 
You jerked your head to the left, Sebastian standing a few feet away from you. As he approached you, you hastily wiped your face with your sleeve, tears and snot staining the fabric, “Leave me alone,” you sniffled.
“(Y/N), what’s wrong?” he asked you, sitting down beside you with his knees to his chest. The tears resumed and coated your cheeks in the salty liquid, “I hate myself, okay?! I fucking hate myself, Sebastian!”
Sebastian tilted his head in confusion, “Why do you hate yourself?”
“Because I’m obviously such an awful person that Sam doesn’t want anything to do with me!” you cried out. Your friend frowned deeply, “(Y/N), you know that Sam usually dances with Penny at the Flower Dance.”
That made your blood steam, “I wanted it to be DIFFERENT, Sebastian! I wanted him to dance with me!” you heaved at Sebastian. He fell silent and fished out something from his suit pocket, a red tangle fidget. Your friend let it out to you and you snatched it without hesitation, fidgeting with it while you sobbed. You tried to get back to reality, but with each passing moment, the idea of returning to the present grew farther and farther away. Everything was hurting, your mind and your body, everything was hurting so much.
“I’m sorry that you’re hurting,” whispered Sebastian. You looked at him with watery eyes, “I can’t control this,” you admitted. He nodded quietly and held out a hand, to which you grasped and squeezed. Sebastian continued, “I know that these kinda things are a lot for you. I know that your mind is telling you a lot of awful stuff right now because of what Sam said, huh?”
“Yeah…” you squeezed his hand again. Sebastian added on, “I didn’t mean to watch, but I accidentally saw the whole situation go down. Sam looked upset when you ran away.”
“Well, he can shove,” you grumbled. Sebastian snorted and retorted, “He’s the one who wanted to check on you, but I told him that you seeing him while you’re in a RSD episode wouldn’t be that helpful.”
You moved closer to Sebastian and laid your head against his shoulders, “I hate my brain.”
“I get it, you’re not alone,” hummed the emo, “Isn’t this stream pretty, though?” he redirected your focus on the stream, the gentle rush of water humming against the swaying trees, “Maybe, just for a second, we can be like the stream.”
You closed your eyes and focused on the sound of the stream, envisioning yourself as one with the water. A sense of peace washed over you and you exhaled, still picturing yourself as the stream. It felt like an hour or so went by before you opened your eyes again, “I’m the stream,” you stated to Sebastian. 
“You’re the stream,” he repeated back, holding you close, “You’re the stream," your heartbeat and breathing returned to normal.
"I'm the stream."
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inkylizard · 1 month
Text
Since my top surgery posts seem to be going over really well, and since I owe my gender awareness to Tumblr in the first place, let me do one of these:
If you've been on the fence about taking a gender-affirming action (for reasons other than personal safety) - hormones or surgery or wearing the pretty thing - let this be your sign to go for it.
Y'all, I'm turning 40 next month, and I definitely had some moments of doubt in the last few years where I felt like I was getting to surgery really late on, and worried about that. I doubted whether my dysphoria was bad enough. All your classics.
There is no such thing as too late. If your gut says it will make you happier, believe it. If it's within your means, do the thing.
I'm having a remarkably easy recovery and my dysphoria was particularly easy to resolve and I know there are a lot of more complicated situations than mine. I just. I feel happy in my body for the first time in 25 years, and I want that for all of us, y'know? I want that for you, queer family.
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max1461 · 14 days
Text
Idk if I count as trans because I haven't transitioned and, well, don't necessarily plan to (although I don't necessarily plan not to). But I do have gender dysphoria, which started when I was probably... four years old? Or around that age. I have a whole complicated gender thing going on. I sometimes tell other lgbt people that I'm nonbinary, but I think this is... sort of not true. Like all my dysphoria is pretty standard binary trans shit. And I kind of have the classic "rebelled against my assigned gender for as long as I can remember" trans narrative or whatever. But my feelings about gender do feel more complex than this, I feel like there are internal reasons for not just straight up calling myself trans in addition to the external ones (the external ones being: I obviously haven't transitioned). Uh, like. Yeah basically I've got a whole gender thing. So I sometimes just tell people I'm nonbinary, which means, basically, I've got a whole gender thing.
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gimmethatagustd · 6 months
Text
collard greens | kth
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Working as a counselor at a summer camp for kids isn't the most exciting job, but hanging out with Taehyung makes it worth it.
○ Pairing: Taehyung x trans man!Reader
○ Rating: Explicit/18+
○ Genre: A classic Jai weed fic, friends to lovers, summer camp au, smut, fluff
○ 13 / 100 Drabble Challenge (Camp Counselor)
○ Word Count: 3,670
○ Warnings: Some body/gender dysphoria, reference to top surgery, reference to hormone therapy, marijuana, oral sex, (self) hand job, Jai didn't proofread this jhsdkjfsk sorry friends
○ Notes: Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility, created to celebrate trans and nonbinary people worldwide. Particularly on Tumblr and with reader-insert BTS fanfic, there is little representation of trans and nonbinary characters. Readers are often written as AFAB and use she/her pronouns and traditionally feminine terms to describe their genitalia (even when listed as gender-neutral readers). I wanted to share a story that explicitly focuses on a trans reader. I welcome everyone to read this story, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong." 
○ Disclaimer: The trans community is diverse, and this fic doesn't represent all trans and nonbinary people's experiences. If you'd like to learn more about how to be an ally for trans and nonbinary people, check out this article from the Human Rights Campaign. 
○ Post Date: March 31, 2024
○ Masterlist | AO3 Crosspost
○ What was Jai listening to? A weed playlist
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“Did you know that smoking weed makes your sperm count decrease?” 
You scrunch your nose at Taehyung’s vulgar question, but he doesn’t notice. He’s nearly cross-eyed as he licks along the edge of the blunt he just rolled with expert fingers. 
“Not me,” you challenge. “Maybe you.” 
Taehyung stares at you for a moment. You can practically see the gears turning in his head before he sticks the blunt between his lips and speaks around it. 
“Shit, yeah.” 
The summer air, thick with humidity, doesn’t help when your face heats up from Taehyung’s mistake. It’s funny how seemingly inconsequential moments—like Taehyung forgetting that you don’t have the same parts as him—can bring you such euphoria. Taehyung has always been good at that, though. He’s never treated you differently, singled you out, or made you feel like you aren’t enough or are too much.
You’re just two dudes perched on a mossy rock in the middle of the woods, smoking a blunt while the camp kids you’re supposed to be taking care of are asleep in their cabins.
Simple as that. 
Taehyung pauses to light the end of the blunt and inhales deeply, drawing smoke through his pink lips and exhaling it slowly. The thick cloud doesn’t have a chance to disappear into the night sky before Taehyung breathes it back in through his nose. 
Rolling your eyes at Taehyung’s unnecessary display of stoner prowess, you take the blunt from his pinched grip and curl your lips around the tip. 
“Are you trying to say weed is, like, male birth control?” you ask, smoke coming out of your mouth in disjointed puffs and streams between your teeth while you talk. 
“It basically is.”
“That feels very unreliable.” 
Your fingers brush against each other every time you pass the blunt between you. The contact makes your arm tingle, and the feeling wiggles down the right side of your body the more times you reach for the blunt. 
“I mean, I smoke, like, every day, and I haven’t knocked anyone up yet,” Taehyung admits with a shrug. 
You nearly choke. 
“You’re fucking people raw, Tae?” 
“Shhh!” Taehyung giggles with his index finger to your lips. You grab his wrist and try to push him off, but he doesn’t budge. 
“Taehyung,” you whisper, but he pinches your top and bottom lips together to keep you quiet. It’s useless; his giggles are louder than you are.
“Listen,” Taehyung grins as he brings the blunt to his lips. Yours are still pinched together with his other hand. “I got tested before camp started, and I got no babies.” 
“That’s not–” 
“I know the test is for STIs, not babies, obviously!” Taehyung squawks, shoving you hard on the shoulder when you finally free yourself from him with a giggle, almost sending you flying off the rock. “I’m just saying I got neither.” 
“Alright, alright! I believe you. No STIs, no babies.” 
“Exactly.” Taehyung winks at you as he exhales a thick cloud of smoke. 
Since you’re sitting next to each other, it’s impossible to escape the shy embarrassment Taehyung triggers in you. He has no business looking as good as he does when he smokes. It’s his lips and eyes, you think, watching him take another hit. The perfect pink bow of his upper lip and the plushness of his bottom lip make his mouth look pretty when the smoke swirls out of it. 
When he looks at you through the smoke that surrounds you, his eyes are dark and lidded, a heavy gaze that weighs on you as you bring the blunt to your lips.
“Do you want me to roll another one?” Taehyung asks, his voice rough and thick, after a few more passes of the blunt between you. 
It doesn’t feel like you’ve been outside for a long time, but a quick glance at your phone tells you it’s way past time to return to your cabin. 
“We should head back, unfortunately,” you say with a sigh, “Waking up in the morning is going to fucking suck.” 
“There’s probably just this last hit left.” 
You wave away Taehyung’s offer of the blunt now smoked down to a pinched nub.
“I started it, so you have to end it,” Taehyung insists.
“Fine, come here.” 
You’ve shotgunned weed with someone before. Although people may call it a shotgun kiss, it isn’t a real kiss. The person who inhales the smoke is supposed to blow the smoke into the other person’s mouth. Sure, that requires getting close to the other person, but it doesn’t require mouth-to-mouth contact. Everyone knows this, especially someone who smokes as much as Taehyung does.
So why does Taehyung lean in too close to press his lips against yours when you blow the smoke into his mouth?
It’s quiet outside, just the chatter of insects and other forest dwellers breaking the still summer night, so you easily hear the breathy way Taehyung inhales the smoke you’ve passed to him. It’s a soft, gentle sound that makes your entire body tingle, starting where his plush lips connect with yours.
Have you wondered if Taehyung’s lips are as soft as they look? Of course, you have; who hasn’t? Taehyung is easily one of the most gorgeous people you’ve ever met, but he has always been just a camp friend.
You’ve known Taehyung for years, spending half of every summer together at this camp since you were kids, eventually becoming counselors once you aged out of the program. Despite living in different cities and attending different universities, you’ve maintained an unlikely friendship through camp. 
However, now you’re wondering if you’ve been reading your relationship all wrong.
Taehyung pulls away and turns his head to the side to exhale the smoke before cupping the back of your head and leaning in again. He’s pretty like this, with his eyes closed and expression relaxed.
“Is this okay?” he asks, and for some reason, it feels like the hottest thing anyone has ever said to you.
“Yeah,” your voice is hoarse when you respond, scratchy from the smoke making your throat raw and your mouth dry. You made the rookie mistake of not bringing anything to drink.
When Taehyung slips his tongue in your mouth, you can taste the smokiness of the blunt. He cups your face with both hands and deepens the kiss, tilting his head slightly and causing your noses to brush against each other. Making out while high comes with an indescribable pleasure, something airy and electrifying that washes over your entire body in waves. It isn’t like normal arousal that you feel throbbing from your core and spread throughout your body. Kissing Taehyung while high makes your entire body tremble.
You twist your fingers into the sides of his baggy t-shirt to have something to hold onto as he sucks your bottom lip into his mouth, eliciting a low groan from you. The old camp shirt is faded and soft from years of going through the wash. You’ve got an identical one in your dresser at the cabin.
“We have to go back,” you insist weakly once Taehyung releases your lip from between his teeth.
“I forgot.”
“Of course you did.”
Your laugh is full of anxiety as you look away from Taehyung’s heavy gaze. His eyes are blazing red. You wonder if he kissed you because he’s high and if he’s going to wake up in the morning and pretend it didn’t happen. Is that better than the alternative outcome where Taehyung is weirded out because, well, you’re you?
“Shut up,” Taehyung grumbles, but he wears a grin as he digs the toe of his hiking boot into the ground, twisting it to make sure the blunt is put out. 
“First one to the cabin gets to shower first,” he declares.
“Taehyung!” you hiss, but he’s already crashing through the forest brush with flailing arms.
It takes a few seconds for your brain to get in sync with your body, still foggy from weed and Taehyung’s kisses. You scramble to get up, having to adjust your pants with a tug to your crotch as you jog after him. Bottom growth is affirming, but it’s also a pain in the ass sometimes. You can’t imagine how cis men deal with all that.
Taking off in what you hope is the direction of the camp, you quickly realize there’s no way you’ll make it to the cabin before Taehyung. The forest floor is uneven, and you’re an idiot and didn’t wear your hiking boots. Your smooth-soled Converse slide against mossy rocks and get caught on raised tree roots, nearly sending you flying as you try to catch up with Taehyung.
When you finally reach the cabin, you’re wheezing, and your entire body is sticky with sweat. Taehyung is already in your bedroom, whistling as he rifles through the dresser like he’s having a grand time despite his hair looking like a rat’s nest and having welts on his legs from running through bushes in shorts.
“Took you long enough,” he grins as you stomp through the front door and head straight to the bedroom.
The cabin is small, with a living room big enough for a couch and a coffee table, a small kitchenette off to the side, and a door to the bedroom you’re sharing with Taehyung. You each have a twin-sized bed that sits across from the other in the small room, and you share a large dresser placed in between your beds against the back wall. On the opposite side of the room is the door to the bathroom. Everything is a tight fit, but you don’t mind. The two of you are hardly ever in the cabin anyway. Being a counselor requires long hours full of activities, meaning you’re only in your cabin to sleep unless you have an off day.
“I’m gonna go enjoy a nice, warm shower now.” Taehyung rubs his victory in your face, his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek, and his eyes glittering like fire embers in the cabin’s pale yellow lighting.
“Dude, fuck off,” you give him your middle finger as he shuts the bathroom door with a cackle.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for Taehyung to finish showering. You trade places silently, your red eyes avoiding Taehyung’s because the time you had alone made you paranoid about what happened in the woods.
The paranoia only gets worse while you’re in the shower. There’s no need to scrub yourself with your washcloth so aggressively, but you feel like your entire body is crawling. It isn’t the discomfort you once felt when you looked at your naked body. It’s been a while since you felt discomfort when touching your chest or washing between your legs. No, this feeling you’re experiencing now is something different. Rather than feeling the urge to hide, you want to be seen. You want to be seen by Taehyung, and you don’t know what to do with that desire.
Showering doesn’t calm the need pulsing through your body. You feel a little less high, but you’re still buzzing with electricity, still incredibly sensitive as you dry yourself with a fluffy towel. With your brain still floating in the clouds, you almost think you’re hallucinating the slow opening of the bathroom door. Quickly, you wrap your towel around your hips and stare at Taehyung, whose head pokes through the door crack.
“Hellooo,” Taehyung drags out the word, low and slow, as his eyes sweep over your body.
He’s blatantly checking you out, and you feel your cheeks heat up from arousal or shame; you’re not sure which. You may not experience dysphoria anymore, but that doesn’t mean you’re running around shirtless, sporting scars where most guys’ pecs end. It was never “okay” to be shirtless with the chest you had before; it’s taking a while to feel “okay” doing it now.
You take a deep breath and remind yourself that Taehyung has never cared. He watched you blossom for over a decade as you shaped yourself into your most authentic form, and he kept up with every change, no matter how different things were from the summer before.
“Do you need something or…?”
Blinking, Taehyung’s face turns pink, and he shakes his head.
“No. Well, I mean, sort of?”
Taehyung laughs at himself, and you can’t help but laugh, too, because who can hear Taehyung laugh and not want to experience that same joy, even if it’s twinged with nervousness?
“What do you sort of need?” you finally ask with a grin, that shared joy warming your chest.
“Can I come in?”
“You’re already halfway there.”
With a cheeky grin, Taehyung slips into the bathroom and closes the door so you’ll stay warm. He’s wearing loose boxers and a tank shirt because the cabin’s lack of central air conditioning makes it hot at night. He’s cute like this, soft and domestic.
“Did you like it?” Taehyung keeps his hand on the doorknob as though preparing to leave, but his voice is steady when he asks the question.
“Like what?”
You know what. Taehyung knows you know what.
He clarifies anyway.
“When I kissed you, did you like it?” Taehyung switches between focusing on your eyes and your mouth. “Because… I want to do it again.”
It only takes a slight nod for Taehyung to crowd you against the bathroom counter. The kiss feels confident this time, no longer an accident or hesitant test ride. Taehyung holds your jaw to tilt your head up and kisses you hard enough to leave you breathless. You noisily inhale whenever he lets you.
“I didn’t want to wait,” Taehyung explains against your lips while you moan against his.
“For what?”
“You to finish showering.” Taehyung’s free hand runs down your side to squeeze your hip, part of his hand slipping under your towel. “Is this okay?”
You don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you let him unwrap your towel and drop it on the slippery tile floor. Maybe it’s the weed making you feel reckless, letting this boy see you in a way you haven’t let a boy see you since you started your transition. Maybe it’s just because it’s Taehyung.
“You, too,” you groan when you feel Taehyung’s clothed cock press against your thigh.
Taehyung doesn’t need to be told twice, reaching over his shoulder to pull his shirt over his head by grabbing the back. Once he’s shirtless, his mouth finds your jaw, kissing across to the sensitive spot just below your ear while you tug down his boxers so he can kick them off.
Beneath the arousal building inside of you are nerves you can’t seem to shake. They’re making it difficult to concentrate on how fantastic it feels to have Taehyung’s soft lips kissing and sucking your neck. All you can think about is how you’re afraid that Taehyung will freak out, that he keeps forgetting, and how it feels nice when he forgets when you’re talking about guy stuff, but it’ll feel devastating when he realizes he has forgotten now.
Slowly, Taehyung’s fingertips skirt your torso, creeping down your side to swipe over your waist and trail along the crease where your hip meets your thigh. You hold your breath as he ventures further, eventually shooting your hands out to squeeze his biceps when his fingers dip into your hole to gather your arousal and drag it upward.
“Can I suck your cock?” Taehyung breathes, hot and ragged, against the curve of your ear.
Jolting back, you stare at him with wide eyes and feel your heart flutter painfully in your chest because you still haven’t started breathing again.
“W-What, what did you say?” you stammer, holding Taehyung’s red, lusty gaze.
“Can I suck your cock? I want to suck you off.”
Taehyung says it so simply, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. He slid his fingers through your arousal and didn’t refer to it as your pussy or clit, as if he already knew those words would make you feel disgusting.
“You, how did you know… why did you call it that?”
Scrunching his eyebrows and frowning slightly, Taehyung pulls his hand from in between your legs.
“Uhh… you always call it your dick when we’re talking about stuff with the guys?” There’s a panicked edge to Taehyung’s voice, each sentence coming out like a hesitant question. “But, uh, I feel like most of society agrees that dick isn’t really sexy, so… I thought cock would sound better…”
When you don’t respond, Taehyung’s face shifts from pale with panic to bright red with embarrassment.
“Shit, should I not have said that? Should I have asked first? I’m sorry I—”
You kiss away Taehyung’s embarrassed babbling, your fingers dug into his hair, and your body pressed flush against his. His hands curve around to hold your lower back and pull you closer as if it’s even possible. You want him to try, to mold you into him.
“Thank you,” you whisper. 
When Taehyung smiles, his teeth press against your bottom lip.
“You don’t need to thank me. I just wanna make you feel good. Will you let me?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
You bite your bottom lip and squeeze the edge of the counter on either side of your waist as you watch Taehyung get on his knees. The bath mat protects his knees from the hard tile when he kneels in front of you.
“You’re so pretty,” Taehyung says softly as he rubs his hands up and down the inside of your thighs with slight pressure to push them apart a little bit more, “Pretty boy.”
It’s hot watching Taehyung lick the tip of your cock, the hormones you’ve been on making it stick out beyond your folds. Taehyung is gentle when he presses your lower abdomen with his palm and uses his fingers to pull your lips back slightly to expose more of you. He gets you nice and wet before he wraps his lips around your cock, suckling it and flicking it with the tip of his tongue.
“Oh fuck,” you moan, grabbing Taehyung’s head with one hand so you can run your fingers through his bangs and push them away from his face to see his eyes better.
Taehyung hums in response to your moans, and you feel the vibration rumble through your groin. He’s skillful as he licks and swirls your cock with his tongue and keeps a tight suction around it with his lips and hollowed cheeks.
For a moment, you tip your head back and try to regulate your breathing because how is Taehyung about to make you cum already, just from his mouth? Sure, your body has been more sensitive since you started your hormone therapy, but fuck.
To make matters worse, when you look back down, you notice that Taehyung’s free hand is wrapped around his cock. He pumps his cock at the same rhythm as he begins to bob his head as if he’s sucking even more of you than there really is. You can say, without a doubt, that no one has ever tried to affirm you and make you feel as complete during sex as Taehyung is.
“Fuck, yeah, Taehyung,” you adjust your grip on Taehyung’s hair and start guiding his movements, pulling him up and down by his hair, “Just like that, shit, your mouth feels so fucking good.”
You aren’t pulling his hair hard; you’re really only following the pace he’s already established, but it feels good. It must feel good for Taehyung, too, because he whimpers and jerks off faster. His body trembles just like yours does, and it doesn’t take long for both of you to be panting and frantic.
“Gonna cum, fuck, fuck.”
You squeeze Taehyung’s hair and the edge of the counter as you buck your hips, coming right as Taehyung adjusts his angle to lap at the gush of arousal at your hole, painting his mouth and chin.
“God, you’re so hot, you have no fucking idea,” Taehyung groans into the inside of your thigh, where he nuzzles his face.
His breath is hot and wet as he pants, trembling for a few seconds longer before he finally cums, too. Some of it leaks between his fingers and lands on the inside of your leg, but you don’t care; you just caress his hair from his face while he breathes slowly to calm himself down.
With trembling legs, you twist around to collapse onto the closed lid of the toilet, unable to stand any longer. Your head feels spacey and throbs, likely because you’d been holding your breath too much. It’s okay, though. It makes your body feel all warm and jiggly.
“We have to shower again,” Taehyung says quietly.
He looks just as fucked out as you feel, his eyes wide and staring out into the void as he continues trying to relax his shuddery breath. You can’t help but laugh, throwing your head back and letting it out, like whatever other pent-up energy you had left over after you came needs to escape somehow.
“Yeah, we do,” you wheeze even harder once Taehyung’s face cracks into a boxy smile, and he starts laughing, too.
“I got cum all over the floor,” Taehyung cackles, falling back on his bare ass and holding up his cum-covered hand.
You wipe the tears collecting in the corners of your eyes and shake your head. “That is something I don’t envy.”
“It’s so fucking inconvenient!”
Taehyung grins up at you with crinkled eyes, and you don’t know why you were so nervous before. He’s so perfect it makes your heart hurt.
“Next time, I’ll be the one to swallow,” you promise slyly, pleased when Taehyung lets out a weak moan in response.
“Bro, don’t do this to me,” Taehyung throws his head back and whines at the ceiling. "I’m gonna fall in love with you if you’re not careful.”
Grinning, you shrug. Tonight has been pretty reckless; there’s no use in being careful now.
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Disclaimer: All my writing is fictional and for entertainment purposes only. None of these characters are meant to actually represent the real people mentioned in the stories. 
All rights reserved © @gimmethatagustd​ - Do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my writing. Do not use my writing for any AI purposes whatsoever. Do not use my fics for anything aside from reading and commenting on them. My fics will only be posted on this Tumblr and on AO3 (gimmethatagustd & daddytaehyungie).
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pack-the-pack · 1 year
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✦MISCECANIS PRIDE FLAG✦
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So I may or may not have spent a lot of time making this flag (No I could not figure out how to not make it blurry on tumblr, thanks tumblr). It's a pride flag for all those of us who identify with the omegaverse lifestyle, or in a deeper more intimate level. Ever since I came up with the term in 2020 I kind of wanted to make a flag for it, and now we finally have one! I'm so excited!!!
✦The meaning of the colours and shapes✦
✦Teal: Symbolizes Legacy. The Legacy we received as a community over the years, as well as the legacy we leave as a community for future generations who may find comfort and/or solace in omegaverse and with the miscecanis life-style. ✦Turquoise: Symbolizes Fluidity. Not only of the concept of Omegaverse itself, in its ever changing nature, but also of the miscecanis community and its individuals. ✦ White: Symbolizes Freedom. The freedom many of us feel when we identify as Miscecanis. Freedom that may relief grief, feelings of inadequacy and dysphoria. Freedom to be who we truly are and how we truly feel. ✦ Yellow: Symbolizes Pride and Self-Love. In identifying as a miscecanis we love ourselves more than we hate those who hate and ridicule us every day. In identifying as Miscecanis we love ourselves for who we are inspite of negative perceptions. ✦ Gold: Symbolizes Community. The community we built for ourselves, of mutual support, love and acceptance. ✦ Purple: Symbolizes Unity. Unity of all the aspects above as well as unity of spirit with our fellow Miscecanis people. ✦ The Moon: Neither Waxing nor Waning, the Crescent moon faced down is both. Symbolizing Rebirth and Introspection of the Self at the same time. ✦ The Four Pointed Star: The Star represents the three classic dynamics (Alpha, Beta and Omega) + Tertiary Dynamics. The smaller spikes in between each arm of the star represent the in-betweens of the dynamics that also exist in our community. Yes you can use this flag for yourself! You can also take inspiration from it and make other flags that relate to misce varieties (misceanimalis, miscefelis, miscelupus, etc.). ENJOY MY LOVELIES!!!! (If you'd like a non-fuzzy and blurry shitty tumblr rez version of the picture just let me know. You can DM me).
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detransition · 10 months
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Many trans people talk about dysphoria as if it is some mysterious thing, that cannot possibly be comprehended by others. Having experienced gender dysphoria, I actually think it is a very ordinary thing. It is the discrepancy between how one would like the world to be and how the world is. You want your body to be one way, and it is a different way. You want to be treated in one way and you are treated in a different way. You want to be seen in one way, and you are seen a different way. This is really a universal experience, shared by all human beings. I find it helpful to see that, it helps to create empathy and compassion, rather than separation and isolation. It then follows that anything that increases the gap between how you would like the world to be and how it is will increase dysphoria and anything that decreases that gap will decrease dysphoria. Frequently, people report that when they come to a point of identifying as transgender rather than questioning, their dysphoria increases rather than decreases. This is not surprising because they have increased the gap between how they would like the world to be and how the world is. Now being seen as your birth sex hurts more, because you have solidified your idea of being otherwise. The pain of being misgendered increases greatly after taking steps to transition because you have committed to the idea of the world seeing you as the gender you identify with, and they don’t. The more rigid these ideas, the more suffering that there is. When faced with the challenge of the world being different than you would like it to be, there are two things that you can do to reduce that gap. One is to change the world so that it is more to your liking and the other is to accept the world as it is. It is like the classic serenity prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.” When it comes to gender, there are things you can change it is true, you can change your hormones, you can have surgery, you can change your name, you can change the way you behave in the world. However, you cannot completely change your sex, you cannot control the perceptions of others. Not accepting those two facts, will lead to endless suffering. I remember having dysphoria that was so severe. It was very important to me that everyone perceive me as female. Whenever this failed in some way I would create some rationalization for why it happened. Sometimes that wasn’t possible, and I would go into a tailspin. I even moved to a place where people were less trans aware in order to attempt to be perceived as female. That didn’t work either. I wanted the world to be other that it was. I still had body dysphoria after surgery because I wanted my body to be other than it was. The only way out, was the path of acceptance. That was what helped to let go of dysphoria, not changing my body, not attempting to convince everyone I was born female, not attempting to convince myself that I was female in every way. You can change your body or not, but without the acceptance, the dysphoria will not go away. If you are dependent on other’s perceiving you a certain way, that won’t work either, because you do not control the perceptions of others. This acceptance is essential for any path through this maze, whether transitioning or not, going on hormones or not, having surgeries or not. So why not start with that first? I know for myself, if I had practiced this acceptance first, I would have not needed to change my body. I am not sure what is true for you, but I do know we all need to confront the fact the world is other than we would like it to be.
from thirdwaytrans | thinking of detransition? you are not alone
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