Detrans people rarely get support and their issues are often swept under the rug.
I believe this is because if detrans people are listened to, we would find out that dysphoria is not cured by gender affirmation surgeries and hormones. Its clear that there has been little or no attempt to research other ways dysphoria can be managed and young dysphoric people are pushed to spend thousands of dollars on the medical industry.
its clear that medical transition often comes with more physical health issues than not and there is evidence that transitioning doesnt help with dysphoria.
its so rare to find surveys and research on the detrans experience and I think this one really shuts down many myths about why people detrans.
trans activists claim that detrans people do it because they are discriminated against when they transitioned and lack of social support but according to detrans people this comes dead last in the reasons for detrans.
instead further exploration into why they are dysphoric and realisation that the transition doesnt magically cure dysphoria was a major reason for detransitioning.
hello violet. may i ask why you detransitioned? the general consensus according to doctors is that transitioning is the best treatment for gender dysphoria. i'm really curious about your experience because i experience dysphoria as well, and i would like some guidance.
Hello anon! Yes, you may ask! Fair warning, I’m really gonna get into it, because I think it’s important that I am honest and in-depth here.
In regards to the consensus of doctors, you said it right in your question: the "best treatment" for gender dysphoria, keyword best. When you actually take a look at the science, doctors really don't know how to treat gender dysphoria. Transition seems to work for some people, yes. The author of this article (I know he writes for The Federalist. that doesn't mean this article is irrelevant!) looked at the studies often cited for supporting transition as a cure for dysphoria, and found that most of the studies were flawed and don't exactly support the idea of transition being 'the best treatment'. Again, there is evidence that transition helped some people, but overall, the data is pretty inconclusive. Many of the studies were self-selected and had a small sample size. It seems that doctors just don't really know how else to treat dysphoria -- transition is the only known treatment at this point, so only by default is it the ‘best’.
This was something I discovered in the midst of my transition when I was having doubts. I honestly had doubts the entire time I was transitioning, but I ignored most of it, because I was told it was ‘normal’ and that my doubts were actually more evidence that I was “really trans” and was just “internalized transphobia”. I thought this was odd but I was really invested in transition and wanted it to work so badly that I just ignored it as best I could and forged ahead.
I wish I had listened to my doubts then. They only grew and continued to resurface from time to time. Sometimes the cognitive dissonance I felt was truly agonizing and I would be alternately panicky and depressed for days. Again, the online trans communities I was in said this was normal. I tried, again, to just deal with it. Though all the while my dysphoria was curiously getting worse and worse. But by all accounts I was trans. You can’t say that I wasn’t. My experience was exactly like every other trans man I had seen online and met in person. The same shit. I hadn’t just jumped into transition unthinkingly. I had been in therapy for several years and had discussed transition at length with my therapist. I had researched and researched and researched and watched videos and thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and it really seemed like transition was my only option for future happiness, based on everything I saw and read. Watching video diaries from trans men, it was like they had copy + pasted thoughts from my head into their videos. All the memes and things -- I related. More and more evidence that this was my best bet. I would have been nuts to not transition at that point (at least, that’s what I thought). So anyone who wants to claim that I “wasn’t really trans”, was “a confused cis person”, whatever, can frankly fucking shove it.
So why was it, well, not working? At the beginning, pre-T, I had dysphoria over just a few things, like my voice, my curves, and occasionally my breasts, but not all the time. I had come to see testosterone as The Holy Grail that would save me from my self-loathing. When I got on it, the first few months were alright, then my dysphoria took a steep upturn; that is, it got much worse. Things that hadn’t bothered me before were bothering me a lot now. As the months went on, I went from feeling fairly neutral to the idea of top surgery, to leaning toward it, to feeling like I absolutely needed it immediately. It made me extremely depressed to even look at my breasts, to notice them in my peripheral vision. That was new. Then I started having thoughts about bottom surgery, which I had never had before. Dysphoria about my genitals was brand new and it disturbed me. I was concerned that my dysphoria was growing, and my hatred toward my body was becoming stronger and stronger. The more my body masculinized, I was simultaneously elated and disgusted. It was very confusing and unsettling. I loved that I looked more male and that I was starting to pass, but I became ever more disgusted with my femaleness, and the things I perceived as ‘female parts’ of my body.
I wondered, then, if the dysphoria would ever end. I thought of the accounts of other trans men that I saw and had followed along; I remembered how a lot of them started with a little bit of dysphoria that grew and grew the further along they got in transition. A lot of them had felt hesitant about top surgery, then ended up getting it. A lot of them said they never wanted bottom surgery, then ended up getting it. It started to look more and more to me like a slippery slope, like celebrities who get a nose job and then cheek implants and then chin fillers and then you get Kim Kardashian and Farrah Abrahams and the like. People who keep altering and keep altering their bodies hoping that the next procedure will cure them and give them everlasting confidence and happiness and make them love themselves, but it doesn’t. It never does. Because the problem isn’t external, it isn’t your body. That’s what I eventually realized.
I didn’t like that I was hating myself more than ever and craving surgeries and becoming obsessed with picking out ‘flaws’ in the mirror. I felt insane. I felt like I did at the peak of my disordered eating episodes, except far, far worse. I knew that what I was doing was not healthy. Yet, everywhere I looked online, trans people were, well, doing the exact same stuff I was doing and calling it ~normal and healthy trans behavior~! It really started to freak me out. I decided to get off of all of the trans communities I was a part of. I deleted my twitter and instagram and reddit accounts and also stopped talking to my friends who were trans (that’s a bit of an extreme approach but I was really in a bad way. We weren’t very close anyway because I was so fucking depressed I had pulled away from everyone in my life. I don’t recommend anyone just cut off their friends willy-nilly).
Within just a month of being left to my own thoughts, journaling incessantly and engaging in deep self-reflection, I started to recognize that transition really wasn’t helping me and was, in fact, making things far worse for me. I realized that a lot of the things I heard in the trans community didn’t make very much sense but I hadn’t questioned it because -- well, you’re not really allowed to question things in the trans community. I realized most of them were self-loathing and encouraging self-loathing in other community members. I realized how the focus on validation was inane and vapid. I realized that “AFAB” people — females — really had no place in the trans community and were constantly shut down and told not to share their experiences because it was upsetting to trans women. I realized if I continued with medical transition, I would be a medical patient for the rest of my life. That frightened me. I hadn’t truly thought about that before. What would happen to my vagina if I stayed on testosterone? Was I putting myself at risk for cancers or liver disease? Would I need a hysterectomy? What if I wanted to have children? What if I wanted to breastfeed? Transition was complicating those things and it just didn’t quite seem worth it anymore. I wanted to just let my body be.
The biggest reason, probably, was that I realized transitioning would be committing to hiding a huge part of my life, basically forever. That I would either have to constantly come out to people as trans and have to worry about who was safe and who wasn’t, or I’d have to go stealth, and pretend to be ‘one of the guys’, when I really couldn’t relate to men because I didn’t grow up as a boy. I wasn’t raised male, I wasn’t born male, and I couldn’t go back in time and change that. Men bond with each other over having shared childhood experiences, and I didn’t have those. I missed camaraderie with women so much. I missed that knowing smile that two women walking down the street make at each other. I missed the safety of women’s bathrooms. I realized I would always have the shared childhood experiences of women and that would never go away. And I’d either have to lie for the rest of my life and pretend that never happened, or I’d have to live in fear of my past being revealed if someone clocked me. And it all just suddenly seemed so stupid.
Why was I doing this to myself? Why was I making myself an outsider like that? Why was I making myself a life-long medical patient when my dysphoria wasn’t even going away? I missed being a woman. I finally admitted it to myself and I cried and cried and cried. I realized that I had never really wanted to be a man, anyway — I just didn’t want to be a woman. I just was fed up with the difficulties of being a woman in our society and I hated being objectified and I hated being sexually harassed all the time and I hated feeling unsafe in my body. I hated being a lesbian, hated that people would make gross assumptions about me, thinking of a porn category before thinking of me as a human being. And I realized I had been taking all that anger and hurt and pain and basically directing it at myself. I had been harming myself because I was angry at the way society treated me for being a woman. And that made me cry even more. I cried for like, days straight. I’m not even exaggerating. I had so much pain in me.
I realized my transition had been, ultimately, a really elaborate form of self-harm. I was blaming myself for the hatred directed at my body by a woman-hating society. But my body had never done anything wrong. I had never done anything wrong. I was suddenly overcome by a fierce overprotectiveness of my body. I immediately wanted to detransition. I wanted to protect my body and myself, and I didn’t want to hurt myself anymore. I didn’t want to continue hating myself and rejecting myself. There was never, ever anything wrong with me, and I was fucking pissed at all the people who convinced me that there was.
And so here I am. I realized that gender is a lie and that being a woman doesn’t really mean anything other than a label that society has given to me by virtue of my female sex. People may not like it when I’m loud and opinionated and hairy and not wearing makeup and not being subservient and obedient but that’s their fucking problem! I could do those things when I was on testosterone and people didn’t care because they perceived me as male, but I hadn’t actually changed at all. The only thing that changed was that it was suddenly OK for me to be myself because people thought I was male. But I was actually free to be myself the entire time, even if some people don’t like it, and I’m free to be myself now, even if people know I am female. Fuck the people who think that masculine women must secretly be men. I realized that’s actually crazy homophobic. Fuck the people who think that lesbians are gross and would rather me ‘turn myself into a heterosexual man’ so that they can feel more comfortable. Who cares!! It’s my life. People might think masculine women and lesbians are disgusting, and those people are heinous and wrong. Woman is just a word to describe me and other female people who are adults; that’s all, it means nothing more than that. And that was the most freeing and wonderful realization. That ‘woman’ carries a lot of cultural baggage, but I don’t need to pick it up and carry it with me. I can be a woman and be myself and if people misunderstand me or dislike me for it, that’s their fucking problem, not mine.
i’m so tired of the sentiment that we are “in” our bodies. you’re not piloting anything, you’re not a soul inside a vessel, you are your body. “feeling comfortable in your body” as if it’s a space to occupy instead of you?? there’s no “being born in the wrong body,” because you aren’t anything at all without your body. it’s really a religious way of thinking, far removed from science (both material and sociological), which is more “you are what you are due to external and internal factors.”
there’s a post i saw recently that said that cosmetic surgery creates a fragmented sense of the self, and this is really just an extension of that. we are so deep into the patriarchy/makeup culture/capitalism that we see bodies as something to maintain, or improve, or correct. personally, i became a much happier person when i started being able to let go of the anxiety around how i look without altering myself with makeup, shaving, or considering surgery. my body, my face isn’t a shell for my spirit, i’m not a different person when i wear a ball gown vs. sweatpants. neither one of them is better or worse than the other and neither one of them changes me as a person.
people never talk about the functional side effects of mastectomies. The uncomfortable scar tissue build up and the loss of upper extremity range of motion. The pain that can limit your ability to perform your ADLs (activities of daily living). The wound care for the incisions. The potential sensation loss. The potential compromise of the nerve structures that pass through your armpit. Etc etc etc. it is not as simple as lobbing off some unwanted tissue.
keira did a thread on this, and i did mention this
literally, we’re not mr potato heads, all our body parts are interconnected and you can’t just remove one piece without consequences. our breasts have major ligaments, nerves and muscles that attach to and/or interact with our entire upper torso. our chest underneath our breasts, our arms, our back, our ribs, so much. even the nerves that get removed, damaged, or scarred travel further up and down the body, so you can even get pains in seemingly random places like the lower torso and legs because the connections between the nerves and the brain have been broken/impaired. it’s the same situation as the trivialisation of hysterectomies. it’s the commodification of our bodies, and dissociation of our bodies as one entity, including our brain, rather than many little pieces that happen to be together and are independent of each other.
hat’s insane is that i have to use breast cancer websites and use the term “double mastectomy”, because when looking at gender sites and using the term ‘top surgery’, the complications are hidden and minimised so severely, and they refuse to go into detail
twelve percent complication rate for a non life threatening, elective plastic surgery is not ‘rare’, it’s very significant. and that rate is likely not even including years down the line because these women don’t go back to their surgeons, and the results as hidden.
maybe if you say you feel “very gender” when you wear skirts instead of pants and vice versa...... maybe just maybe..... your idea of gender is exclusively sexist stereotypes and maybe.... just maybe..... if you really do care about gender non-conformity you would stop changing your fucking “gender identity” when the weather’s cold and you can’t wear a skirt outside anymore
just because you discover it feels genuinely nice and somehow affirming to call yourself something does not inherently mean it is accurate, okay, and non-appropriative to call yourself that thing. ‘just feeling right’ does not make it right and does not excuse you from thinking critically, or make it evil of other people to do so when you refuse to. if you are flat out, tangibly, by definition simply not a part of a group a word refers to, then the definition of that word doesn’t suddenly become false or oppressive just because you really like that word anyway. oppression comes from actually being the things words referring to marginalized groups describe, not from aggressively ‘identifying’ with those words without specific material reason.
There is something very odd about the prostitution debate. While the absolute majority of sex buyers are male, an overwhelming majority of intellectuals defending prostitution are women. It’s a strange phenomenon that most definitely needs its own analysis.
The john should, in theory, have every reason to worry right now. He is, for the first time, at the center of discussion. Legislators are increasingly targeting the sex buyer, or “demand” as NGOs call it. The Nordic model has been praised by the EU parliament as the most efficient legislation to curb trafficking, and the survivors’ movement is growing all around the world. Women are speaking out, as in the recently published book, Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, about what johns really do to them. It is the first time in history that so many women are collectively revealing what goes on in the world of prostitution — a world where a man, up until now, could do almost anything with a woman and no one would find out. Those times are over — the sex buyer is becoming visible. Tension is mounting. Have we reached the point in history where a man actually has to be liked by a woman in order to get inside her pants?
Despite all this, the john remains, for the most part, silent. He does not need to speak. As always, when a man is threatened, a woman comes along to help him out. At the forefront of international “sex work” discourse, we generally do not find a sex buyer, but a female academic. In any magazine, at any conference, at any event where the john is to be even remotely criticized — a pro-prostitution female academic is there to defend him.
Who is she? Well, she calls herself “subversive,” “revolutionary,” even “feminist.” That is exactly why the john needs her as his ambassador. A defense of prostitution coming from this woman makes prostitution look queer, LGBT-friendly, modern, fair trade, socialist — the very epitome of female liberation. But most importantly, when she speaks, we forget that the sex buyer exists.
The tacit agreement between the john and the pro-prostitution female academic is that she will do anything to defend his acts, while ensuring that he stays in the shadows. She will speak incessantly about prostitution, but never mention him. Her task is to make sure prostitution seems like an all-female affair. The queer academic will use the prostituted woman as a shield, blocking the john from the limelight. She will use the prostituted woman any way she can — analyzing her, re- and deconstructing her, holding her up as a role model, and using her as a microphone (i.e. a career booster), thereby positioning her as “good” vs. the “evil” feminist.
This move perfectly mimics prostitution itself: the prostitute is visible, standing on the street or in a bar, while the buyer only visits and leaves — there is no shame attached to him, and no myths surrounding him. The function of the queer academic is to ensure things stay that way.
What we are dealing with here is a defense of prostitution constructed of a double shield. Anyone wanting to debate prostitution will have a hard time getting to the john, since the female pro-prostitution academic and the “sex worker” are standing in between. Any attempt to speak to what the john does, says, or thinks will bounce back into discussions of female identities and become a cat-fight in an alley of mirrors.
This academic has her own definition of intellectual debate. When she speaks, she calls it “listening.” According to her, she doesn’t actually speak in favor of prostitution, she merely “listens to sex workers.” The louder she speaks, the more proof that she “listens.” When someone opposed to prostitution speaks, however, she calls it “silencing.”
The emergence of the survivors’ movement has, however, shown that this “listening” is anything but unconditional. When survivors of prostitution speak out against prostitution, the queer academic either does not listen, or actively debates against them. Here it is revealed that the person she really defends is not “sex workers” at all, but the john.
She is the type who will start a Twitter storm if a man is caught “mansplaining” or “manspreading,” if someone calls her “sweetie,” or states that women get pregnant instead of “people.” One must wonder how her outrage at details can co-exist with her complete callousness towards an industry which is, according to studies, the most deadly one women could be in.
We must not forget that for her, just like for the john, a woman in prostitution is and remains an “other” type of woman. Sure, she’ll adopt a tone of admiration where the john has a tone of contempt, but the meaning is the same.
Here is the truth: the function of this academic is not that of a revolutionary or a feminist — she is not trying to defend women — rather, she is the sex buyer’s nanny. One of the oldest patriarchal functions that exists. She soothes him when he is worried and takes on his enemies. She makes sure nobody will take away his toys, whatever he does to them.
Remember, the live-in nanny of yesteryear always treated the son of the house as simultaneously master and child — obeying him, cleaning up after him, and letting him cry on her lap. The nanny, more than any other character in patriarchy, is the understanding woman. She cannot stand to see her young master hungry — he will always eat before she eats — but she does not treat him as a man with responsibilities. No matter his age, he will always remain a boy who can’t help what he does. This function has allowed men of the upper classes to be bosses and reckless children all at once. One cannot understand patriarchy without understanding how the nanny has shaped the upper echelons of masculinity.
The john embodies exactly this type. He is the man who will command and expect his every whim to be catered to, but will not take responsibility for what he does. If he ruins other people’s lives, spreads STDs to women in prostitution and to his wife, contributes to the organized slave trade — so what? Not his problem.
Today’s john might not have a literal nanny anymore, but what he has found in the female pro-prostitution academic is akin to it: A “queer” nanny who soothes his worries, takes care of his needs, and defends him against the outside world.
The john can go on bragging about his business trips and all the “whores” he’s going to fuck, though he would never accept his daughter becoming one (nor would he, for that matter, marry one). He can watch porn but forbid his girlfriend to “act slutty,” and never will his nanny hold him accountable. She will never enter the online forums where sex buyers discuss and “review” the women and girls they pay to inform these johns that, “Actually the term is ‘sex worker,’ not hooker.” She will never scold him for stigmatizing or having double standards. Men are men, after all…
Well, if that’s the case, let them grow up and speak for themselves. If buying sex is such a great thing, let the men come forth and say what they do and why — in their own words, the same words they use when they go to brothels. And when survivors call johns out, step aside. Don’t let these men cling to your skirt for protection. Queer nannies of the world, are you even paid to act as sex buyers’ ambassadors? Or are you volunteering for them — protecting them from accountability, responsibility, and maturity — as women have always done?
Queer nanny, it’s time to resign — you too deserve a better fate.
Kajsa Ekis Ekman is a Swedish journalist, writer, and activist. She is the author of Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self and The Eurocrisis Seen From Athens, among others. Watch her TEDx talk, “Everybody talks about capitalism — but what is it?” here.
“ This academic has her own definition of intellectual debate. When she speaks, she calls it “listening.” According to her, she doesn’t actually speak in favor of prostitution, she merely “listens to sex workers.” The louder she speaks, the more proof that she “listens.” When someone opposed to prostitution speaks, however, she calls it “silencing.” ”
I hate women, but it’s unfashionable to say it publicly. HOWEVER for some reason hating TERFs is a free pass. You can call them stupid cunts, frigid ugly bitches, whatever hateful misogynistic slurs you want and people will celebrate and up vote you. It’s so fucking awesome. You claim that “TERFs aren’t real feminists, trans people are real feminists, lesbians who aren’t attracted to mtf penis are transphobia” and people will fuckin nod their heads and say “makes sense to me, yaaaaaasssss” - a misogynist
I think the trans community overstates and appropriates trans murder victims ( especially black and hispanic trans women ) to advance a ...
A fucking incredible article, written by a trans woman, about how white trans women appropriate TWOC’s deaths and overstate trans murders (1 in 12/1 in 8 statistic, anyone?) to win arguments and avoid criticism. The fact is that trans people, white trans people esp, are not being slaughtered and massacred en masse.
“I think the trans community overstates and appropriates trans murder victims (especially black and hispanic trans women) to advance a political agenda that ignores many (if not most) of the urgent needs of the people actually being victimized. Said differently, transphobia isn’t killing trans people as much as institutionalized racism, misogyny, and classism is killing trans people.
When you read about trans violence, whether it’s in an op-ed in the NY Times or even my own blog, you often find a phrase like: ‘trans women, especially trans women of color, are disproportionately subject to…’ [discrimination, violence, etc.]. Especially undersells the problem so I’m going to stop using that phrase (“women of color” can also be problematic for different reasons, so I’ll try to avoid it too).
When I started working on this blogpost in early February at least 4 black and Latina trans women had been murdered. Since then, more names have been added to the list. At the end of February there were 11 queer/trans victims in 2015 - ten of whom were black or Hispanic. Now in mid-March the list is up to 13 LGTBQ victims. Seven or eight were ‘trans’ in the typical transition narrative sense, which raises the question why all gender identities seem to count in death but not in trans politics, but let’s move on….
“That individuals appropriate these statistics and deaths is not an accusation so much as it is an observation of overall community dynamics and how they lend themselves to fear. A fear that is not rational when there is no deadly backlash for the white, middle-class, trans community.
This fear is so irrational that it even lead some to defend a someone who raped a 15 year old cousin because that was the past and she was doing important work tracking trans violence. Think about that: a convicted sex offender running an organization that tracks violence against vulnerable members of society. That is indefensible, yet some ask, ”who will track the violence now?“ as though that’s more important.”
when we say trans women are male and trans men are female, we are not saying they deserve to be discriminated against or that their dysphoria doesn’t matter. we are saying biology exists and matters in certain contexts.
when we say we won’t date trans women because we’re lesbians, we are not saying trans women don’t deserve to have happy, fulfilling relationships. we are saying that we are not romantically or sexually attracted to them and so that neither of us would have a happy, fulfilling relationship if we dated.
when we say we are gender critical, we are not saying everyone should be gender-conforming. we are saying the opposite, that men and women should be free to dress and act however they like instead of being forced into certain gender roles based on their sex.
when we say female-only safe spaces are important, we are not saying trans-only or mixed safe spaces aren’t also important. we are saying that based on our biology, women have certain shared experiences and face specific oppression that we deserve to be able to discuss among ourselves.
when we say one thing and you hear another, that isn’t our fault. when you’re ready to listen to what we actually believe or to have a genuine discussion, we’ll still be here.
Idk who needs to hear this but liking frogs or rats and having a unique hairstyle and doing your makeup “not for men but for [insert other group here] to think you’re cool,” wearing weird mismatched earrings, having an androgynous sense of style and being popular on tiktok for your videos about gender dysphoria and even having pronouns in your bio doesn’t make you an “enby sapphic/ he-him they-them dyke” or whatever you’re just a woman who has really cool interests but who has internalized the misogynist idea that women can’t be interesting. I feel like so many young women correctly identify certain forms of femininity as oppressive, but then instead of actually dealing with the root of it they just replicate another, more fashionable kind of femininity in the form of seeking male approval, competition with other women, shame at being women, while wearing big boots and a silk slip instead of high heels and a silk slip etc. it’s like these young women are so desperate to prove that they aren’t Cizz Women because “cis women” aren’t even considered human beings much less interesting or nuanced or complex. That desperation informs every facet of these women’s personalities to the point where they have to pathologize normal parts of their personalities as “queer” or “trans” in an effort to prove to themselves and others that there is something intrinsically different about them and the Other type of female human being, the type who is subhuman and identifies into it. please can we all stop with this mind numbing CONSTANT performance? Your best attempts at regaining your humanity by denying other women theirs will always fail you. No matter how hard you rail against the fact that you are female and therefore a woman, you won’t escape it. Nor do you need to— womanhood is not oppressive, men are. Being a woman doesn’t mean that you can’t be a fully realized individual— if you feel that way, it’s not because of dysphoria it’s because of internalized misogyny.
hello….. i’m a bit nervous because i’ve never really interacted with radfems as a dysphoric person before but i would just like to reach out for some help, if at all possible. to the dysphoric/detransitioned radfems: what are some things that helped you cope with your dysphoria? i’ve been really starting to question wether or not transitioning is something i want to do, and i’m trying to consider ways of dealing with dysphoria through other means before going down that path. anything at all helps, thank you.
hi! i’ve been detransitioned/ing for almost 2 years now. here’s some things that helped me:
• removing myself from online trans spaces entirely so i could think more clearly, without a) being influenced by extremely pro-transition messaging and b) feeling “guilty” or like i was somehow “betraying” other trans people by considering detransition
• making a pros & cons list to (de)transitioning. personally i didn’t do this when i started transition, but rather when i began to question my transition. i literally just took a piece of paper and on one half, wrote down the things i liked about being on testosterone/things i’d miss if i stopped it; on the other half i wrote down what i didn’t like/things that would be better if i stopped it. making lists like this seems very basic, but it can help if you’re the type of person who, like me, finds it hard to work through things purely in your head.
after making the list, i looked at the things i liked about testosterone/living as ftm, and tried to figure out if these were things i could achieve through other means, or if it would really be so terrible to live without them.
• talking to other women! dysphoric women, but also just… women. i found that so so many more women than i might’ve guessed shared some/all of my feelings wrt gender. of course, not so many of them necessarily considered themselves dysphoric or would want to transition, but much of what my dysphoria was rooted in - wanting to be seen as a person, not just a girl; wanting to be “allowed” to do things men could do; wanting to feel safer around men; wanting to feel more attractive - were also experienced by thousands and thousands and thousands of women.
• working on making peace with my body. you can take really tiny steps if you need to. i started out by just spending more time naked and just… learning what my body actually looked like after years of hiding it. appreciating it for what it’s capable of, rather than what it looks like. and also, learning more about female anatomy in general! learning that my breasts aren’t just “sacks of fat” or whatever, but an important part of me even if i don’t want children; same for my uterus, female hormones, etc.
• learning to accept that i really, genuinely can dress, act, live how i want without having to transition. for me, when i was at the height of my dysphoria, i could not accept the idea that i could just be an androgynous/masculine female person without transitioning. i didn’t want to be - i wanted to be a man!! reading radical feminist theory in particular helped me process this as internalised misogyny, and slowly work to get over it. it’s hard to put into words, but if you have similar feelings caused by your dysphoria, maybe you’ll get what i mean - and most importantly, that it’s manageable
• this one might sound a little harsh, but accepting that i simply was not and never would be able to change my biological sex. i don’t say this in any way to put down or invalidate people who have medically transitioned, but the further i got in the process, the more i realised i was just never going to be satisfied with it. hormones were ok, but they would only change so much. mastectomy would leave scars and there were no phalloplasty options i even wanted to consider. it was scary and anxiety-provoking to grapple with the idea of living as a man with female anatomy for the rest of my life, and eventually i realised that it just wasn’t what i wanted. again, not supposed to be a slight against transition - i know a lot of people are really happy with their medical transition! but it was not for me, for so many reasons.
• i stopped consuming so much media about men. obviously i don’t know what the case is for you, but (despite being a lesbian) a lot of my dysphoria was specifically to do with wanting to be a gay man, in a gay relationship - being a lesbian didn’t feel “good enough” (again, hard to put into words, sorry). being a gay man felt like it would be safer, better somehow. silly as it might sound, i realised that i was making these feelings a lot worse by watching/reading a lot of films/tv/books about men - i wanted to be those men, look like them, live like them. it was and still is so hard to find decent female characters to admire in the same way. but even so, it helped a lot to not be consistently triggering myself by consuming male-dominated media like that.
• learning more about women, especially gender non conforming women! learning about storme delaverie, about the wealth of female achievement that has been buried or overwritten! it made me feel more like a part of something, not so lost and uncertain as i had been - and more than that, it made me want to be a part of this something. it helped me feel like being female was something to be celebrated and enjoyed, not just tolerated.
^ that said, if all you can do at first is tolerate being female, that’s totally fine. dysphoria is rough and it’s ok to take it slowly
this is getting really long, so i’ll leave it here! i hope you can find something helpful in it.
this is an old sideblog i’m using as the info here is a bit personal for my main, and i used to mostly use this blog as a venting space during transition - so, sorry if the content on here is a bit weird lol. i don’t actively use this sideblog anymore, but if you want to get in touch please do feel free to send an ask or contact me through the message feature! i might not respond immediately but i usually check tumblr a couple of times a day. i hope something i said in this massive ramble was helpful and i wish you all the best :~)
