Thalassa
Permabanned
- Joined
- May 3, 2009
- Messages
- 25,183
- MBTI Type
- ISFP
- Enneagram
- 6w7
- Instinctual Variant
- sx
Everyone's experience is different--literally. Gender dysphoria is a mixture of both nature and nurture. It is not identifying the the gender you were assigned with at birth. This can include the gender role as well (the "nurture" aspect of it). It may look peculiar to some, that I'm a trans man and yet I still like "girly" things and I'm not hypermasculine. Though that very much does not make my gender dysphoria any less real than anyone else's. Trans people experience gender dysphoria to differing extents I think, but the bottom line is that all of us are so strongly affected by it, that we can't just throw it on a shelf and forget about it without damaging ourselves psychologically. It's hard to accept at first, at least it was for me. I first identified as genderfluid before I began identifying as trans--all I knew at first is that I just wasn't cis. Eventually I realized that every day was a "boy day." And then I mulled on it for months. I wanted to be absolutely sure with myself at my core that the dysphoria I was experiencing was real and not the cause of something else. And once I accepted that, well, that was it.
Body dysphoria is related, but different. There are trans people who don't see it as necessary to transition. While gender dysphoria is more about the social aspect of it--of being seen as the correct gender, passing for it, being identified as it, etc. body dysphoria is more about the physical aspect--of feeling so uncomfortable in your own skin that you can't even look at yourself in the mirror, feeling trapped and unable to escape. I often have to suppress panic attacks at school when I feel like my binder isn't getting me flat enough. Body dysphoria I think is definitely more of a spectrum. And--since I vaguely remember talking to you about dysphoria shortly after I joined, nearly a year ago--things like wanting to be shorter or taller don't really count as body dysphoria, at least in the sense that I am talking about. That's more of a "Oh, if only I was, that'd be nice..." sort of thing, whereas for trans folk, it's more of a "If I can't live in the body I want/I identify with then I'm at a higher risk of suicide" sort of thing. That is causes panic, anxiety, and strong psychological discomfort.
Can provide clarification if necessary!
And remember, everyone's experience is different. Trans people experience dysphoria to varying degrees and in different ways. The above is my understanding/experience.
How do you, personally, as an individual, I'm not trying to ask you to speak for a community of people or for other trans men, feel about the radical feminist suggestion is what you are experiencing is not dysphoria, that you are simply a woman who didn't conform to the submission process of being a fuck object (much how they believe trans women are simply men who reject the emotionally dead subject who others the object as non human) ...and you are just being yourself, because gender is just a symbolic hierchy in the first place, where females are marked as non human objects by sexualizing and physically restrictive clothing, systemically broken into submission.
What makes you different from a woman who sees herself as a subject rather than an object, since you still like "girly things" and don't have body dysphoria?