I’m on my way home from Ireland today! Look for updates from the European Professional Association for Transgender Health and Genspect conferences!
To be fair, the prompt was “what’s your dumbest dysphoria trigger?” and respondents delivered. But please tell me more about how transition just frees you up to be your true self and how your inner sense of gender identity has nothing to do with stereotypical sex-role expectations:
Sometimes I’ll have to sit and reread a message multiple times before I send to make sure i sound like a guy lmaooo
All my close friends are girls, and sometimes it feels really weird for me to be the only boy in the group
I think the weirdest ones I have are like my skeletal system. Cuz i remember learning in anatomy that AFAB people have a different skeletal system than AMAB especially in the pelvis cuz AFAB people's are widersncuz y'know uterus and evolution for giving birth. And as someone who is a trans guy and thinks human reproduction is just gross in general that makes me wanna curl up into a ball and not exist 😭
Changing pads, not the period just Changing pads often
How I talk/pronounce words. Everyone speaks differently, but if I text too long of a sentence, or use affectionate words, or extend my S out at the end of a sentence, I feel feminine and start judging myself. I feel like I out myself every time because of the way I text or talk.
not wanting to be without my phone
when i was at school i couldn’t help but notice that girls were the ONLY students who ever had their phones in their hands all the time
never once did i see a guy who wasn’t using his phone holding it idly (and even then i rarely saw the guys using their phones)
so ye now it makes me dysphoric lmfao but i just get anxious without it in my hands
Now that you mention this... damn yeah i never see guys holding their phones when they're not using it, straight into a pocket when their done using it.
new source of dysphoria just dropped 🤙
Gonna start putting my phone in one of the pockets on the butt of my pants because it was an euphoric feeling or me to have my phone in that pocket
My eyebrows is one of the biggest things. I fill then in but in fear or it looking femininly filled in does that make sense 💀
Having scoliosis, because apparently its much more common in women
The discomfort at the thought that if I donate my organs they might end up in a woman's body just seems so silly.
Having my eyebrows raised, and showing emotion.
meeting a man, lol
This one’s kinda weird,, the noise when I pee. Idk but it sounds like cis men have a deeper noise when they pee (probably because they’re standing up) and mines just sounds so “feminine”?? I dunno, it just always makes me dysphoric
Idk if it counts but the way my shoes clap as I walk. You know how people on high heels clap with the heels? My shoes do the same and idk how to get rid of it. I feel like they are yelling "It's a girl! She's fooling you!" everywhere I go...
My skin, it's really soft and pale- translucent even. My hands are small and my nails grow really fast. Having to bring a tote bag anywhere. Being in a room of all/majority cis women and being included in their conversations. Having BPD and being highly emotional person- worked on my MH so I wasn't so angry all the time and now I just cry a lot instead. How slow T is and how slow my transition will be in general.
Old pics with all men - all women generations (not so dumb trigger)
Thinking about having a mental illness that’s way more common in women
sometimes I fucking put all my weight to one side and pop my hop out just as a resting position. Then I get all weird and self conscious because it makes me feel like people see that and think I'm femme or whatever
I'm literally standing
I have a faint line/crease on each of my forearms, near the insides of the elbows. It's apparently a trait found in women (of Chinese or eastern European descent), which means it gives me a little dysphoria sometimes.
I over communicate. Explain a shitton when I don’t need to. And so many cis guys I know say the bare minimum. It makes me think, “See, you are a girl after all.”
I learned that afab people tend to have a smaller joint capsule in our knees. Absolutely not visible from the outside, still hurts
Doing art, and having a specific art style. I know art and art styles aren’t gendered, but sometimes I get a bit self conscious about my art being too feminine. Or how being an artist in the ways I do, and in the modern eta, is seen as more feminine.
Also butch lesbians especially wearing feminine makeup. Mad respect for them but every time I see one my brain goes "you look like this wearing guy clothes"🤦🏻♂️
Having health problems that are more common in AFAB people (fibromyalgia, celiac)
the curve of my forearm. Knowing that AFAB people have slightly curved forearms to better hold babies and to be able to swing around wider hips makes me so unhappy. I want to trade forearm bones with a cis male, please.
The fact a lot of trans people emerged from my class. Like we have 5,5 (0,5 because he doesn't really describe himself as trans but technically still under the trans umbrella) that I know of. I feel like I'm just faking
My breathing, half the time I'm like "stop breathing so girly" ????? Like WHAT does that even mean lmao
Having emotions.
I’ve always been one to advocate for men to show emotions and to not be afraid to cry and whatnot even before realizing I was trans but every single time I get upset over something I don’t think I should be getting upset about I get super dysphoric and it fills my head with thoughts like “I’m not really a guy because if I was I wouldn’t be getting upset about this” or that my emotions are “too feminine” which of course in turn gets me more upset for even thinking those things and the vicious cycle of getting upset with myself for being upset starts and doesn’t stop until something to be happy about happens
Greeting other men, I always fuck it up because I don't have the "guy codes". Like am I suppose to shake your hand or tap on your shoulder or hug you or?? 😂
The way I stand in the shower- I get so hung up on if I’m standing too feminine to wash my hair. Especially if I’m showering with another person. I also get hung up on how I sit in a chair. The most comfortable way of sitting for me is also the most feminine and it bothers me.
Whenever there’s a post like this, the same things leap out at me:
comorbidities: autism, ADHD, OCD, anxiety, depression, BPD
fear of faking it. This comes up all the time in trans communities. In this post, the fear of faking it crops up when commenters are confronted with the real thing (actual boys/men) and when commenters reflect on the prevalence of trans identity in their peer groups (evidence suggestive of social contagion).
constant self-surveillance and self-correction. Let’s stop pretending any of this has anything to do with being your ‘true self'‘ if you can’t even sit in a way that feels comfortable without worrying if you look ‘masc’ enough or worry about showering too femininely, even if nobody is watching.
dysphoria that migrates from one part of the body to another, even to the “smaller joint capsule in our knees. Absolutely not visible from the outside, still hurts.”
rampant sexism. Adopting this belief system about gender turns self-identified progressives into outrageously sexist stiffs. Experiencing emotions is feminine.
This just proves that no matter how many hormones and surgeries they get, it will not alleviate dysphoria. There will always be one more thing about their bodies to fixate on and hate, one more thing that they have to fix before all their problems will be solved.
Everyday may more of them wake to reality.
Reminds me of a friend of my daughter's who switched plates laid out for my birthday cake a few months ago. Took the slightly bluer one from my place when I wasn't looking.
(A young woman...on testosterone.)
I switched it back, told her it was my fave plate. She lied, said it was closest to her place. I didn't press the matter, kept it light.
How weak, if the colour of a plate can affect your sense of self. How completely useless this delusion makes people for real life if they continually have to rearrange every small and big thing to assist their faking it, which they are told is authenticity.