I’m marking this as NSFW because I’m not super sure if this counts as discussing dysphoria. I don’t exactly know a lot about this if I’m being entirely honest. Feel free to tell me if this would have been fine or not :)
I’ve always considered myself a cis dude. I feel relatively comfortable as a dude I think. But there’s a lot of stuff that has me wondering things. For example, like a year ago I told one of my friends “Being a man is cool and all, but if I was given the reins at character creation, I would have chosen to be a woman.” That friend told me that was not very cis of me to say, and I kinda just wrote it off, but I still hold to that take as the way I feel. When I am falling asleep and I’m sort of day dreaming, I choose to daydream about the adventures of a female character I’ve invented. When I play video games, I almost always choose the female option if it’s given, because I found it’s easier for me to get into the story that way.
However, I feel totally fine being a guy. So like I don’t know if I’m gaslighting myself here, one way or the other. It’s kinda a thing where there’s a possibility I might be trans, but if I were to actually do it, I can’t tell if my life would get better or worse. I don’t think I would feel safe being trans in my area of the world, for example. So it’s like sure I might have chosen the female build in the game of life, but that’s not what RNG gave me, and maybe I’m okay with that?
common thoughts, doesn’t mean you have to act on them especially if not safe, but some gender exploration can help clarify.
https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/am-i-trans
If you’re already at the stage where you are questioning your gender — even if that just means looking up “Am I Trans?” and then slamming your laptop shut before you get a search result — congratulations, you’ve already thought about your gender more than most cis people will in their entire lifetimes.
If I was given the reins at character creation, I would have chosen to be a woman.
You do have the reins. Its just not as quick and easy as it is in video games.
Of the cis people I know well enough to know what they’d choose (that’s really only 3 people), they’d all choose a guy without a doubt (all 3 are amab). Two of them would go for fairly stereotypical masc traits, one would go for a twink build, but still confidently wants to still be a guy.
one would go for a twink build
I mean, yeah. I’d choose to have the best possible gear starting at an extremely low level, too.
i feel you. we get the common narrative that being trans is like, rife with suffering due to gender dysphoria. and while that’s certainly true for some trans folks, there’s a lot of others who are just sort of… fine?
the key thing to think about here is that gender feelings come in negative and positive flavors. so you might be on the low dysphoria side, but you never know, expressing yourself more femininely might make you happier
it’s hard to know without experimenting, though. you could try (even in this thread) having people refer to you with she/her pronouns and descriptions. you could also try it anonymously in other online spaces. or you could try different clothing / nail polish / etc
also, that said, maybe you end up not liking it, or maybe the safety factor really weighs on you. your gender is yours to discover and decide! hopefully this helps you with that a little bit
you could try having people refer to you with she/her pronouns and descriptions
Honestly this hit me like a ton of bricks. Just last night I laid in bed going “he him she her he him she her” trying to figure out what I vibed with and felt like I was getting nowhere. But reading this and realizing that I can ask other people to refer to me with she/her had my hear beating fast and tears welling up and I felt super giddy.
I think you’re right. I think I might not have negative male thoughts, but positive female thoughts.
I have a safe and anonymous discord server I’m in and yeah I think I’m going to try experimenting. Wish me luck
However, I feel totally fine being a guy.
A very common experience is that when the egg cracks the dysphoria begins to climb until it becomes unbearable and forces someone to transition. The egg is also safety.
This feels more like a discussion of not having dysphoria. Being trans does not require dysphoria.
There’s some common misconceptions. I’d say the “always knew” narrative is also really pushed, but the reality is many of us don’t realize until adulthood. Some don’t know until after they’re past middle-aged.
Used to have hangups over quibbling about what exactly “dysphoria” meant in “you don’t have to have dysphoria to be trans if you’d be happier transitioning” where I was like, “well, if they’d be happier transitioning, isn’t that dysphoria?” but language and gender are both social constructs and it’s whatever to me now. Ultimately nobody gets to define your gender but you. You don’t have to medically transition or change your presentation to have a different gender identity or change names or pronouns if you don’t want to, and you can pick and choose what changes you would like to make.
That’s also good to know. Because I definitely haven’t “always known.” Not even in the slightest. So it’s confusing when I try to look up info and every blog post written by a trans person has a story where they always kinda knew.
