#this is evidence for why trans mascs have it worse

[amirmeavid]

what you don’t seem to understand is that statistics and surveys are JUST as subjective as things like theory. you seem to put things like surveys in a “practical, unbiased truth” category and things like memoirs or theory discussions about people’s actual real-life lived experience in a “impractical, biased falsehoods” category. but that’s YOUR personal judgement, not a universal opinion, and you can’t treat it like it is. statistics and surveys can be just as hypothetical and flawed as “personal experience”. in fact, most of the surveys you pull statistics from were questions answered by individuals about their personal experiences. so like, stop trying to push this arbitrary divide between “theory” and “evidence”.

'what you don’t seem to understand is that statistics and surveys are JUST as subjective as things like theory.'

Dude, Fite-Club I know this is you. You're the only person who will ever make a claim that statistics are AS SUBJECTIVE as something that is PURELY subjective.

I'm not saying statistics are perfect. But trying to argue that RECORDED TRENDS OF LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE are not less subjective than SINGULAR PEOPLE's experiences is only a claim you could make.

'most of the surveys you pull statistics from were questions answered by individuals about their personal experiences.'- Its almost like theres a difference between 'trends' and 'singular individuals'.

'stop trying to push this arbitrary divide between “theory” and “evidence”.' ...Ah yes. The notoriously 'arbitrary' divide between 2 factually different things.

Theory- An educated guess presented as an explanation for observable patterns

Evidence- Observable patterns.

If your theory does not align with observable patterns, it is WRONG.

[wolfertinger]

Is Majora referring to her ex when she mentions some trans masc that "raped" her? Isn't that the one who made a public statement on twitter and denounced that claim? I think their name is Cass or something. Anyway, yeah I don't believe Majora at all. Especially with the evidence in the doc on her. Also, making bold claims and then deleting them while also asking people to remove her replies on a post to cover her tracks? It just adds as further evidence to the behaviors emphasized in her callout, and it's making it harder for her to be believed. She's backed herself into a corner she can't get out of at this point. Salem should be ashamed to be friends with someone like Majora but we know he isn't because he loves to surround himself with people just as bad or worse than him so he can't feel remorse over his own behaviors. These people will never grow and reflect as people. Especially considering Majora herself said she's now 25. Acting like this at 25 and getting worse in such a short amount of time is alarming.

yes. cass has told his story. and i find it convenient, that majora claims this person assaulted them, when this person has made it clear, majora was the one sexually over stepping, almost like majora is attempting to silence the ex, by making them out to be an abuser. and again. majora has posted no proof, not even a story. just vague claims, that this ex raped them.

this, sounds more to me like majora is attempting to silence a victim. again. if wis is allowed, to fake claim sawyer's story, and coddle sawyer's rapist. i do not see, why i am not allowed to want some form of evidence, beyond hearing a proven liar, whose own family is aware of them lying about being sexually assaulted, repeat the same story.

again. majora. you have just been proven to have lied, about 1/2 of your rape accusations. as well, as misgendering the person, showing you have no respect, and clear ulterior motives, for your accusation. prove me wrong.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi Makenzie

I'm sorry for bothering you, but as I followed your blog for over a decade now and this is the first time I need to deal with questions around sexuality, it seemed to me like the best way to get good and trustworthy input was to ask you.

There's a lot of context to this, but the TL;DR is that I (a trans masc) used to staunchly believe I'm aroace (which I'm still not sure of that I'm not) until last month this person swaggered into my life and basically upended my understanding of myself by somehow making it so we're in a relationship together. That means that for the first time in 23 years I have to think about the downstairs equipment and, worse, use it.

Now, my partner is absolutely lovely, don't get me wrong, but I am very much not into sex at all. Or like, it's fun, but it's also a chore and while I like the intimacy of it all, I just... don't like sex. It's extremely painful and since my partner has been circumcised it takes so long to get them off (over 4 hours!), even on their own- the closest we've come to me being involved at all when they do is my letting them come in my mouth by some last-minute manouvering- and even so, after two times I physically cannot bring myself to do it again, which puts them off too.

I know one of your mottos is that orgasms aren't the end-all-be-all of sex, but it seems to be the only thing to make the whole ordeal worth it at all. It's like we're stuck in a feedback loop where I only put up with sex because I want them to enjoy themself, and they need to see me enjoy myself to enjoy themselves, but with them having a really hard time getting of and me being physically unable to (even on my own: I never feel anything, even if the muscle-spasms indicate something happened).

I'm very worried about the strain this will put on the relationship, since they told me on the very first day that they do need to get their rocks off, and while I'm fine with them watching porn to get off and the occasional comment that they would prefer me have the body of one of those actresses, I'm not secure enough in this whole relationship yet to just set them free sexually. Not in the least because a part of me doesn't want to lose the way our sexuality works atm. It's dysfunctional and painful, and there is practically no benefit to it at all, but it's fun having them so close. If only the rest of the deal didn't exist.

It's basically a lose-lose situation where I was wondering if you could tell me if I should be worried about the sheer amount of pain I experience with penetration (also with tampons: the two times I tried putting one in, I ended up crying on the bathroom floor because of the pain) and if you maybe have any advice regarding the rest of the whole shitshow.

Thanks in advance and have a nice day!

hi anon,

oh my god there's a lot to unpack here

before we get into the important stuff I just want to open by saying your partner's four hour plateau period is maybe not an outright medical marvel but is definitely unusual, and both scientific and anecdotal evidence indicate there's no particular reason why that should be linked to circumcision. I have no idea what would actually be causing that, but it's probably not a lack of foreskin! just wanted to point that out, because it's interesting.

anyway, and much more importantly: you two should not be having sex with each other and maybe need to just break up entirely.

literally every single thing about how you are talking about sex indicates to me that you don't want to be having it, you don't like it, it's painful, you don't see the point, you can't bring yourself to do it... literally stop doing it. stop that right now. there's literally nothing but trauma that's going to come from repeatedly forcing yourself into something that sucks this bad for you.

okay, so, where does this leave your partner? well, in grand sex witch style I am humbling suggesting that they either put up or shut up. sex is important to them and that's fine, wahoo yay sex, but they've chosen a partner who Does Not Want To Do Sex At All and that has consequences, namely that they do not get to have sex with that partner.

if you're uninterested in opening the relationship up (which is fine!) that means they either need to cope or y'all need to break up, which frankly sounds like it might be awesome for both of you based on everything you're saying here. no one is necessarily at fault here, but this is a major lack of compatibility that seems like it's only going to keep eating at both of you. there are lots of different ways to be intimate in a relationship, and you both deserve to find someone operating on a more similar frequency.

also, hey, this?

I'm fine with them watching porn to get off and the occasional comment that they would prefer me have the body of one of those actresses

you shouldn't be fine with that. talking about anyone's body like that is shitty, let alone an intimate partner. I would hit somebody with a car for that, personally.

also hey PS if tampons suck that much there's a chance you have vaginismus, a condition that causes the vaginal muscles to reflexively and often painfully tighten to prevent penetration. it's a fairly common condition that's often caused by anxiety or trauma, and in many cases the easiest solution is to Stop Putting Things In Your Vagina.

[sharpth1ng]

I hope it's okay to ask you that. I realised I'm trans about a year ago. I usually say I'm a transman so ppl don't get confused but I'd say I'm more non-binary, just very far on the masc spectrum. I was just wondering if you also had like a honeymoon phase? The euphoria I felt was quite intense and my body disphoria wasn't too bad I thought I could handle it. But now the euphoria died down a little and I'm constantly questioning myself and tze dysphoria hit me hard too this week. I think it's the backlash of my family tho that made my excitement die down... I thought After the honeymoon phase it would settle in more comfortably and not make me more anxious. Sorry, now I'm rambling... You don't have to answer this ofc, but idk, in case you wanna share

Hey, I think what you're going through is super normal (as much as it's not fun).

In my experience dysphoria can be something that fluctuates for a wide variety of reasons. I'll talk about it and maybe you'll relate, but don't take this as an exhaustive list it's just based on my experience and I can't speak for everyone.

1. Experiencing transphobia, even indirectly or in microaggressions can trigger dysphoria.

This could be something like watching transphobic content online, or even something like coming out to someone and having them respond with confusion or what I can only describe as disappointment (yk that thing when cis people say they need to mourn the gender you had before). It could also be something much more malicious and dangerous than that, but I'm not going to get into that here.

It's an othering experience, it highlights your identity in a negative way, and it's easy to have old patterns of internalized transphobia wake up in response to that. Even now that I've completed all the medical transition that I ever will that kind of experience that can trigger older dysphoria.

Especially having to deal with family that doesn't understand or people who question you, that kind of stuff can really get in your head and turn you against yourself.

A big contributor to this lately is people fear mongering about how HRT will irreversibly destroy your body (it wont), and make you unattractive based on cis standards (it often doesn't, but why should we care about that?). It presents a medically transitioning body as horrific, and shames those who don't transition medically for not being 'real' (which is also bullshit).

Early in my transition i was confronted with so many people questioning how i really know, and it freaked me out, made me question myself constantly. It made me forget that I know because I feel it. Thats the only evidence you can have for your own gender identity. No one else, not even the most qualified psychiatrist, is able to figure that out for you.

2. Sometimes when you treat one kind of dysphoria you realize that it was drowning out another kind of dysphoria.

This happened to me a few times, like when I got people to start using he/him pronouns and my physical dysphoria got a lot more noticeable. It happened again when I finally got top surgery and my bottom dysphoria decided to get a lot worse.

This obviously isn't going to happen to everyone, but for me it felt like once I was happy with my pronouns and my chest, then my brain had time to focus on something that had always been lurking in the background.

I had always had a level of bottom dysphoria, but I think there's sort of different stages. Like early on you just feel sort of disconnected from a body part, then maybe you start to associate it with confusion and anxiety, and then once you realize that its something you can maybe change is when it really feels the worst, at least consciously.

Its not a new kind of dysphoria materializing out of nowhere, it's just that sometimes one type of pain can hide another type of pain, and when that first type is cured you notice the second.

I wouldn't go back on any of my transition. Before my dysphoria was hurting me in much more harmful and hidden ways, but there's a unique kind of pain that comes from allowing yourself to fully feel something for the first time. You can ride it out, it will fade, you'll find a way to treat it or you'll find a way to manage it if you can't. But it does really suck to get blindsided by that.

3. When you aren't binary or when you're fluid in either gender or presentation, there's a kind of dysphoria from being forced into an arbitrarily binary world that is hard to escape.

Im having a hard time figuring out exactly how to explain this one so I'm going to start in talking about my own experience.

I feel a need to have a masculinized body, and medical transition was absolutely necessary for me. I'd much rather be referred to with he pronouns than she pronouns, and the natural way I emote and carry my body is often perceived as more masculine than feminine.

All of that is true but I also don't know how to understand myself as a man the way other men are (this is just me, i know for a fact other trans men feel like men in the exact same way other men do). He pronouns are better than she, but it/its pronouns are the only ones that make me happy.

I don't really identify with colonial conceptions of gender in general. My understanding of gender means that I just don't think any of our pre-made categories are particularly useful because the traits we use to define them are mostly arbitrary. I don't like dissecting my identity along lines drawn by a system that doesn't represent me.

I tell most people I'm a trans man. I did used to identify that way but over time I've realized the language that feels like it actually captures me is 2spirit. A lot of people don't know what that is though, and I often don't have the energy for an explanation of the fact that our gender and sexuality categories are a colonial construct. When I do, it opens me up to hearing a bunch of anti-indigenous bullshit.

(Everytime I see a post of passing tips for trans men, theres a point about cutting your hair, like braids aren't of massive cultural significance for a lot of native men. And people will just act like the binary is innate. Natural. It's exhausting.)

All that is to say that most of the time I feel like I'm telling half-truths about my gender, and doing that can put you in a weird mental space. It makes you feel like you're fake, or some kind of imposter.

And all of that comes before even thinking about gender presentation.

If I dress in a way thats more binary or masculine I get treated like a binary man in a way that makes me uncomfortable. In particular women and visibly queer people seem less open around me, which makes me feel horribly sad. As a result I often intentionally dress in a more visibly queer way than I would otherwise.

On the other hand, on the rare occasion that I dress in a way that leans more feminine, the I get she/her pronouns (which makes me uncomfortable) or people notice my masculinized body and treat me with what I can only assume is misplaced transmisogyny.

None of these shifts in presentation correspond to a change in my gender. If anything my gender has always been the same and Im more accurately described as a transsexual, in that my sex needed to change, but that doesn't really have anything to do with affirming my gender.

All of this is fucking confusing. Depending on how I present on any given day I can have different weird kinds of dysphoria get triggered, simply because when you're gender non-conforming at all you get othered. Even when i'm in a more binary masculine outfit I feel out of place because I know my internal experience doesn't match what people see when they look at me.

All of that is really long winded, and I don't even know if I'm expressing it properly, but the point I'm trying to illustrate is that the mere experience of being measured up to a binary gender when you aren't binary can be confusing and dysphoria inducing.

Its also important to remember that cis people experience gender dysphoria too.

Cis women who are insecure about having a small chest, being too tall, having facial hair- those women are experiencing dysphoria. Its the same for cis men who are insecure about penis size, the width of their hips, not being muscular enough, ect.

When society has defined a narrow range of biological realities as "correct" the majority of people are not going to fit in, and when you don't fit in it causes you to feel like your body isn't the way its supposed to be, whether or not you're trans. Even worse we don't acknowledge the ways in which constructed gender is mostly only accessible to people can at least seem to have a white, cis, hetero, perisex, thin, abled body.

Because of that, dysphoria doesn't necessarily go away fully when we transition, and thats ok. Its probably going to come and go for you, it will change over time, and most likely it will fade, A LOT as you settle into yourself. The euphoria will come and go too. Thats all a normal part of having a human body.

As long as transition moves us closer to a place that feels comfortable then it's worth it. It doesn't have to fix us or make us perfect. We only have to prefer it to the alternative.

[bodhrancomedy]

I wasn’t going to respond to this, I looked at your blog. Your irrational hatred and bile directed towards trans people is palpable and pathetic. This was intended to upset me. 

But I now have a chance to talk about who my grandfather is. 

You see, I find it interesting that you claim the only way my 90yr old grandfather could possibly be so accepting is if he was dying of one of the most horrible diseases known to man, a condition which eats your brain from the inside out and turns you in an angry, scared shell of the child you once were while your family has to grieve you long before you’re dead. 

You find it easier - and evidently prefer - to believe that to accept me, my grandfather must have Alzheimer’s rather than any other reason. 

Why is that easier to believe than a man who lived through (not was born during, not was around for, lived through) the Second World War and the aftermath, seeing footage of the concentration camps and meeting refugees would be accepting? 

A poor builder and a farmer who worked alongside queer men and deaf men and the few people of colour in Northern Ireland in the 1950s and was himself barred from many places of employment and education due to his religion?

This man, whose oldest son was born the year the British army began occupying his country, who lived through the Troubles and was automatically considered suspicious and dangerous through an incident of birth? A man who helped raise six children - most of them boys and therefore in great danger of the army turning their guns on them for playing kid-games - in a time of civil war where it didn’t seem to matter which side you were on, the bombs and shootings could get you either way? A man who once was taken hostage by the IRA? 

My grandfather’s oldest son - my dad - was the first in his family to go to university and there he met and fell in love with a Protestant woman. This was before the Good Friday Agreement, when the civil war was still happening, and if my grandparents had a problem with it - they never let said to my mum. 

(My grandpa and my mum don’t really get along, but that’s more to do with me being a premature baby and tensions over my survival and disagreements on how to look after me. My mum and my Nana? Thick as thieves.) 

They certainly never let it slip to us when we came along because it wasn’t important anymore that we were something many people in Northern Ireland would have preferred to not exist. It didn’t matter. 

He voted in the Good Friday Agreement in hopes of stopping the conflict. He spent a lot of time listening to me about the bullying I was facing for being - unbeknownst to me at the time - queer and disabled. He just told me that being happy was far more important. 

Being trans? It does not matter. Of course it doesn’t matter to him because he’s seen worse things in the world. 

He’s ninety years old. He’s still out on the farm, he’s still studying history, he’s still sharp as fuck. I’ve seen someone die of Alzheimer's. I know every bit of it and it’s not him. Besides, I’ve not medically transitioned in anyway yet. He’s only seen me presenting fully masc for six days in person. Two years in total. If he had Alzheimer’s he’d be calling me by my deadname and using she/her. 

And he’s not unusual. Outside of your echo chamber, most people are fine with trans people. Most people don’t care. Most people are accepting. They may not understand, they may not use the right words, but they’re accepting. 

I do find it interesting that once again the TERF tactic is try and wrestle autonomy and self-control away from people who don’t follow your bigoted stances. Autistics must be being manipulated. Trans men are clearly confused little girls. Children obviously can’t understand their own minds and bodies. 

My grandfather must have Alzheimer's. 

Of course my view of a world I’ve seen in a Tumblr textpost must be more correct than the reality everyone else lives in. 

Have the day you deserve. 

My 90yr old Irish Catholic grandpa doesn’t miss with my gender. He’s never gotten my name wrong, or my pronouns, never even faltered over it.

It’s all so natural too: son, big man, young man…

We’ve never talked about it. He’s the only one who hasn’t pushed for details. He just accepted it and carried on because it’s not a huge deal.

It’s so comforting.

[xthelastknownsurvivorx]

we all know that sy goes through the most insane comp het mental gymnastics to convince himself that he's straight. and so i'm sure that sy would also do the most in order to convince himself he was cis despite plenty of evidence to contrary. but since gender and sexuality both inform and can have an impact on each other, he would be so much more infuriating and worse bc it would turn from one type of mental gymnastics into another before finally accepting both identities. if sy was trans masc i think it would go something like this:

first, he'd have naturally developed some crushes on boys in his class bc he is actually attracted to men and wouldn't repress himself bc it's "straight" attraction (since he still thinks he's a girl). however he would rationalize away any additional gender envy as also being romantic crushes, plus be like well everyone wants to be a boy/hero/fairy tale prince, that's why so many girls like fairy tales and why there are so many pieces of media coming out putting women in those roles haha, all while ignoring the fact that he does not tend to consume that media

eventually he would finally come to accept his gender identity as male and immediately flip the switch and rationalize away all and any romantic feelings he had/has towards men as having been solely gender envy and the result of comp het bc he thought he was a girl and girls are supposed to like boys, all while doing the same exact damn thing this time around but in reverse; also see: "of course i like lbh, he's the model of the perfect man that everyone should strive to be like with his protagonist op'ness and harem of beauties"

tl;dr sy having to figure out both his sexuality and gender would be that much more infuriating because he'd go straight (ha) from comp cis to comp het (or vice versa if you wish), all while being like wow glad i'm now over deceiving myself (he is very much not, he's got a whole 'nother crisis to get thru)

[ursie]

Why do you keep calling Shatterstar gnc? He’s always been masculine? Just because he’s Bi doesn’t mean he has to be effeminate you know

Ok so I’ve gone back and fourth on how seriously I was gonna answer this so I’m sorry this took a bit to answer anyway here we go : I’m sorry if this makes no sense I’m tired

First off it’s important to remember in media what’s considered masculine and what’s not so while a lot of Star may be considered either or what’s important to remember is when him being a warrior, fighter/ect is being emphasized that’s them playing up traditional masculine characteristics and his presentation or softer moments is them playing up “feminine” characteristics (obv this is stupid but it’s also undeniably how people write characters 99% of the time)

Second off there is textual evidence he is at least viewed as gnc in universe in X Force-many comments were made about his makeup, hair (also I remember the pigtails) and general demeanor. Was it done in a ala homophobia way? Absolutely is it still canon? Yes (also so much worse now that it’s retroactively canonically homophobic as he’s literally Bi and definitely had a known thing w Julio at the time-so..way to teach him micro aggressions guys)

Now post x force in xfi he is drawn and written as far more traditionally masc, in appearance and presentation- even his body type seemed to change-as in x force he was described as acrobatic and fast, avoiding hits when he could in xfi he’s made into a brick house that just. Tanks hits-far more direct-even his fighting is made out to be more traditionally masculine

Now this could be broken down to character development (which we did not see and it’s important to note I can’t stress how ooc xfi Star is) but really it just reads as more homophobia as not only is Star aware enough of homophobia and gender roles to adapt to a more accepted persona (because the x force taught him homophobia) but also the writers at the time when he was canonically Bi went out of their way to adapt his character to both fit and avoid different stereotypes-he’s allowed to be a walking slutty Bi stereotype (which is literally so ooc) but can no longer be gnc-he’s allowed to be slutty and hit on women despite his relationship w Julio but he’s not allowed to present as anything less than “macho” in summary Star was just made palatable in all of the worst ways to straight audiences-they stereotypes they love were forced and the ones that make them uncomfortable were dropped

Later on we’re back to getting glimpses of less than traditionally “masc” only a warrior Star w him cooking for Julio and buying him a sweater in new mutants (which are not actually feminine traits but are presented as feminine/gay traits in media even lampshaded by what’s his name asking of his boyfriend bought his sweater to Julio (which he did-also another micro aggression marvel forces me to witness))

(There was that super racist x force run I didn’t read that came out around here-Star was back to being a super warrior macho macho man idk it was bad and the art was racist ignore it )

The slightly less masc Star is dropped in the Shatterstar solo where his character is p much completely retconned but also another more traditionally masc Star is pushed again w the crux of his problems w Julio being “they don’t fight enough”, the emphasizing of him still being a warrior despite how the crux of his character was trying to define himself out of that role assigned to him, there are definitely homophobic connotations to what’s her name (yes he’s Bi him having an ex who’s a girl isn’t the issue it’s the entire plot that is), and even weirder connotations with the use of his slave name/dead name as his go to name-he has only ever referred to himself as Shatterstar-that’s his name-other people either call him Shatterstar or Star-giving him a “traditionally masculine” name is certainly. A choice. There are a lot of problematic elements to the solo to unpack but the rest don’t really have to w the homophobia and forced gender roles Star seems to consistently face

Then in (new) xfi he’s gone something happened he’s on Mojoworld again he has long hair again (king) but his outfit is a wrestling one and his “masculinity” is once again emphasized with his being forced into being a warrior again just to like. Be on the island being tasked w immediately fighting Terry (I actually liked this scene but there were some choices about to consider especially about how the rest of the mutants still seem to view him)-and now we’re here where we’re right back to where we started w long hair, just left Mojoworld, definitely a warrior you can’t forget it Star. Only this time his identity isn’t up for interpretation or debate.

So long story short while Star may not be consistently gnc it was noticeable enough that once he was openly Bi they immediately started pushing for a more masculine Star and you can see the difference in characters as xforce Star and xfi Star might as well be different people. Stars ambiguous gender non conformity was enough that Marvel seems set on “fixing it” and writers are constantly walking a line in making sure he’s “not like those other gays” despite the fact that apparently he used to be. There is def canon evidence for a more gnc/less traditionally masc Star. No one is saying (but me) that he should be a Femme Bi dude they’re just saying they see him as gnc and like. Yeah he was🤷‍♀️

Also narratively him being Trans makes wayyy more sense also his people are machine made why do they even have different sexes or genders let alone follow the earths idea of it like he’s an alien., why would he care about the our perception of the sexes or gender- main point is he should be Nb and intersex but that’s another conversation

Anyway Star gnc king

Also yes just because he’s Bi doesn’t make him effeminate-he’s effeminate-not because of his sexuality - it is not his gender presentation despite how much it undoubtedly influenced it. People aren’t calling Star gnc because he’s Bi they’re calling him gnc because he used to look like this

[yearning-mlm-hours]

Ok so tw discussing transmedicalism (and why it's bad) //

I feel like i probably should say this because I'm so tired of the argument between people who aren't in a good headspace to be arguing with each other, especially since that can prompt nasty things to be said

There is SOME truth to transmedicalism, but a lot of the details have been taken put of context or misinterpreted. You don't need gender dysphoria to be trans. What you DO need is Gender Incongruence, which is not the discomfort relating to your assigned gender, but rather the difference between the way you percieve your gender and what your gender was assigned at birth.

"But wait, mr. yearning mlm hours, isn't that what being trans is?" Yeah! Essentially, if you do not identify 100% with your birth gender at all times, you're some level of trans.

Now back to the transmed narrative. Why do they think you need dysphoria to be trans? Well, back in The Day, many people who had dysphoria would *medically* transition. Doctors noticed this and set it as the standard to recieve medical treatment. Also, many people who thought they didn't have dysphoria noticed feeling better after treatment, and so it was assumed these people didn't realize they had dysphoria in the first place due to denial. Whether or not that is the case is still undetermined, as most of those doctors are now deceased.

"Wait, aren't you dysphoric?" Yeah. I am. However, it didn't make me trans. It's a side affect of being trans. Before I first came out, I used to cry in dressing rooms trying on bras because I thought that my chest was too small or looked wrong, when in reality I just hated having a chest. I misinterpreted my own gender and discomfort because I was not only in denial, but just a kid. After coming out, I thought I didn't have dysphoria. I recognized how much better I felt identifying as another gender, which is where incongruence comes in, but I didn't really know that I would begin to feel discomfort about female puberty. Later, I started to feel worse and worse, still not understanding. It was only til I drew myself with short hair for the first time that I realized I was experiencing dysphoria, a side affect of being trans. My brain didn't recognize me as I was, because in my head I was not a girl, but I looked stereotypically feminine and was percieved as such, so I felt awful.

Now obviously, my experience with gender is not the only experience. Some people know, and have always been masc or femme, or never understand the incongruence until they're much older. Some people will never know.

Now I'm gonna address what is called the "tucute" side. Dysphoria isn't hating your body. I like my body, but it doesn't feel right to me. It's essentially comparable to "I like watching basketball, but I don't like playing it." Also, transmedicalism often stems from a place of "wanting to understand why" someone is trans. For a long time I wanted to know why, and when people offered an explanation, I simply agreed. Now, I've learned that the explanation I was given was not correct, and that there's not enough evidence to back it up, because so few trans individuals have offered to be part in the studies cited.

"Well, why don't a lot of people want to dress like their gender?" A lot of trans people, including myself, are somewhat or totally GNC. I understand that no matter how I dress, my body and voice are going to be seen as a woman, or nb. I also really like fashion, and don't understand why clothes have to be gendered (curse you, adhd that alienated me from social standards) (jk). So anyways, many people feel that expressing themselves gives them a sense of joy that is separate from their gender. Being able to change how you look and look cool in fun colours or fashion is enjoyable, and shouldn't be spit on.

Anyways, td;lr, the only thing that makes you trans is being trans, not dysphoria, and GNC trans ppl are absolutely valid. Also nb ppl are trans, and a lot of transmeds are misinformed rather than purposely hateful, though that doesn't make transmedicalism good.