Trans Twitter Topics

The understanding of

(a) what constitutes gender dysphoria

(b) how to recognize it

(c) how trans people know they're trans

(d) what transitioning entails

(e) what hormones can do

that you absorbed through cultural osmosis?

It's all wrong.

(a-c) my personal experience:

I didn't recognize my perpetual misery and discomfort as gender dysphoria. I'd absorbed the narrative that most transgender people "know" they're transgender from a very young age. I thought that, if I was transgender, I'd have already transitioned.

(a-c) my personal experience:

The longer I'm out of the closet, the more repressed memories, feelings and signs I can add to the jigsaw puzzle.

But I could have passed a polygraph test claiming that I was cis.

How do you learn something you're hiding from yourself out of fear?

(a-c) diagnosis:

Pop culture thinks it understands gender dysphoria-- as an obvious discomfort with your body, and your social gender role.

But you exist in your body 24/7. You learn coping mechanisms, and the misery blends right into the background.

(a-c) diagnosis:

What pop culture (and, honestly, the mental health profession) DOESN'T understand is that gender dysphoria is often comorbid with depersonalization or derealization-- the sensation that you or your experiences are "not real" somehow.

(a-c) diagnosis:

I'm going to link to an article about depersonalization, here, that helped me break out of the line of thinking that transition wouldn't help my mental state. And here's a snippet from that article-- see if anything resonates with you.

medium.com/@zinniajones/d…

(a-c) diagnosis:

I used to describe myself as having "high functioning depression," because I knew how to socially simulate all of the normal emotions as long as someone was watching, but on my own, my marionette strings went slack. I didn't do or want anything for myself.

(c) non-dysphoric trans people:

Some people figure out that they'd be happier with a different gender, but don't really experience dysphoria. It's not my experience, but I can't think of a single reason they shouldn't transition, too, if they want to, except for cissexism.

(c) "knowing" you're trans:

Some people have one "aha!" moment, but most of the transfeminine people I've talked to experienced a series of "oh my god what if-- no, it can't be" moments, where they confronted their transness and then rationalized it away.

(c) "knowing" you're trans:

Some extremely common feelings we all felt alone in:

-the ability to cope with your assigned gender makes you 'not really trans' because a 'real' trans person wouldn't be able to cope

-a lack of motivation to overcome transition hurdles makes you 'not really trans', because a 'real' trans person would be extremely motivated to transition

-just wanting to be a cis person of the other gender, NOT a trans person of the other gender

-guilt over 'minimizing' the suffering of 'real trans people' by even thinking you might be trans

-guilt over 'minimizing' the suffering of women under patriarchy by thinking you'd prefer to be one

-fear of telling anyone you might be trans, or especially of transitioning, and then discovering you're not, and the shame of having to "roll back" the revelation

^^^^^

All of these fears are super normal and common for trans people, keeping them in the closet.

There are a lot of different trans narratives-- some people really do yell "I'm not an X, I'm a Y!" as toddlers and effectively self-advocate somehow?

But I don't think there's much representation for (the majority of?) trans people who took a long time to self-realize.

(d) what transitioning entails

In whatever shitty sitcom you watched in the 90s/00s, when a character transitioned, they did it with a single "sex change operation."

Interviewers always ask trans people: "Have you had ~the surgery~?"

Surgery's often not even involved, gang!

(d) transitioning non-medically

First of all, I know lots of nonbinary people and several binary-trans people who've transitioned without medical intervention. They needed to be socially recognized for who they are, and to present themselves that way, and that's all.

(d) transitioning medically

For transmasculine people, getting a mastectomy (or "top surgery") to remove their breasts is often the central medical intervention involved in transitioning.

But for transfeminine people, just hormones by themselves might be enough!

(d-e) hormones and medical transition

HRT (hormone replacement therapy, swapping out testosterone for estrogen or vice versa) does an *astonishing* amount of the heavy lifting. They're two tiny chemicals that control 99% of what we think of as maleness or femaleness.

(d-e) hormones and medical transition

Hormones can do *so much* that, after being on them for a few years, many trans women find surgery to be unnecessary.

But for those whose dysphoria is still strong, there are THEN surgeries to bring them the rest of the way into alignment.

(d) transitioning medically

But the assumption that you're not "finished" transitioning until you entirely resemble a cis person of your gender is cissexist.

The goal is to escape dysphoria and to be yourself, not to emulate someone else.

There's so much more about transition that's just not understood by anyone who hasn't done it, but everything basically fits under these headings:

-Sex and gender are spectrums

-Trans people are much closer to cis people of their gender on those spectrums than you think

I always struggle with whether or not to write more about sex and HRT in these threads, because I'm an easily embarrassed prude and not a sexpert, but also, everyone shoulda learned this stuff in sex ed...

For tonight, I think that last tweet sums it up, though.