Mira (she/her/hers) Documenting Dysphoria “I’m a binary transgender woman. So for me, there’s the social dysphoria and the body dysphoria. Those are really the two components. I’ve noticed, at least in my experience, that one or the other is stronger in different people. For me, it means that mixture of not only not being able to live as your gender in the world, which is the social aspect, but also just that basic dis-congruence with your body itself.” What are some situations where you feel gender dysphoria? “It’s usually when something suddenly reminds me that I’m trans, or somebody particularly reminds me of that. Like when I’ll suddenly get excluded in a conversation in a certain way.” “This is the example of an environment inducing [gender dysphoria] for you. You’re at a job and suddenly people start treating you differently because they find out you’re trans. I finally got this one teaching job. I could tell [the principal] didn’t know until after I’d already taken the job because he needed to hire somebody really quick because they lost a teacher right before the semester started. So he got the background check back after it already started. And then he’s all, ‘Well I don’t care as long as you teach.’ But he wasn’t very friendly about it. Then he probably told somebody or somebody found out or they just figured it out. Then all of a sudden my coworkers are treating me very differently and they’re very cold and evasive and somewhat hostile. And then all of a sudden the parents found out and then even the kids wouldn’t respect me because if neither the other teachers nor the parents are, they just don’t feel obligated to. So it just made teaching there a nightmare. I was going there everyday trembling. And then I would go there and then halfway through the day I’ve locked the door for lunch and I’m crying in my classroom and I just finally quit. There was one day when I just said, ‘This is my last day here.’ I didn’t even give them two weeks notice. I couldn’t stay.” ———— Sharing some photos published on NPR from my ongoing project “Documenting Dysphoria” exploring what gender dysphoria feels like. (Link in bio.) #documentingdysphoria #genderdysphoria https://www.instagram.com/p/CCW4ZPLlsC9/?igshid=1tyzr7e7hk5gh
