Hey ladies.
Me. Again.
I’m sorry to be posting so frequently. I’m sort of scrambling to figure things out. I’ve already had to be corrected on how I word things, so I’m still learning, and I do apologize if I’m clogging this place up with stupid questions. This will be my last post for a while.
I am 34 now. And I could go on and on with examples after examples in my life of moments where I should have started wondering, but I’ve only learned this about myself recently.
I won’t give my life story, but I will say this: Most, if not all, trans women I’ve listened to have described a history of unpleasant feelings associated with their prescribed gender at birth. Some women talk about having always felt weird being called “he”. Some women describe not wanting to have a penis or testicles. Some have described puberty being a distressful time for them.
However, in my case my dysphoria (if indeed it’s dysphoria) has almost exclusively been envy. I was never actively disgusted by being called “he” or having lots of body hair. I was just super super envious of the girls who didn’t have it.
I’ve always had a more feminine cadence in online discussions like on discord or aol way back when. So that’s where I’ve always expressed myself truly on. It’s never bothered me to be called a man in person, but it does fill me with a lot of joy to be called “she”. A woman I’ve spoken with on discord has no idea I’m trans. She just knows I’m a woman, and she called me “girlie” the other day and I wanted to cry and squirm with excitement. I’m not sure if that’s weird.
It’s more like…indifference to masculinity with active joy from femininity. Being a man isn’t so much something I want to avoid as much as it is being a woman is something I exceedingly want to do.
I don’t know if that’s weird makes sense…
What you are struggling with is medicalisation. The medical system acts as a gatekeeper to people doing what they want with their bodies and requires you to jump through hoops. Some of the very first gender clinics actually saw this and understood it. I can't remember the names involved, but essentially they would have clients come in and say what their experience was, some said dysphoria and got support, others did not and didn't. After a short time everyone was saying they had dysphoria. It turns out if you won't provide what people want without them saying they have dysphoria then they will say they have dysphoria! What a shocker!
Now we have more research and it seems there is a wide range of experience. Some people have primarily negative feelings driving their desire to transition, having high levels of dysphoria which go down as their process unfolds. Others have the exact opposite motivation. They have no dysphoria, just the euphoria when they engage with their gender in a trans way. Others have a mix of the two, and this is actually the larger population in the stuff I have read, however part of that may be the same effect as before, people performing dysphoria to get what they need.
In no way am I saying any of this is invalid. Your gender is yours alone, you have to live with it and you get to engage with it as you will. The responsibility of those around you is to not be a bunch of dicks about it and to support you as a human being worthy of respect. If you present as a woman it would be really rude of me to refer to you as a man, just as it would be really rude of you to refer to me as a woman though I clearly present as a man. Regardless of whether I dimple or dangle I am performing male gender and the same, though reversed, applies to you.
So if you don't feel huge amounts of dysphoria you don't need to worry you are an imposter. I don't feel dysphoria about my gender at all. I occasionally feel fairly euphoric about it and have a good life. The fact that I am cis just means I got lucky, mine align fairly well, but making your body align with your gender will likely give you the benefits I get from my body aligning with mine, a sense of stability and rightness which makes life more tolerable.
Also, I have long hair and look nearly identical to my sister in the face, I have actually been misgendered quite a few times, and it doesn't bother me when it happens, it did bother be when I was bullied and called a girl because I like having long hair, but that was because people wanted to make me feel bad about myself which is mean, not the gender itself. It is much more nuanced than "girl things make me feel bad" and it doesn't have to fit a pattern.
If you are more comfortable, happy, and fulfilled being seen as a woman then you are a woman, end of story. Nice to meet you miss, have a great day.