Gender dysphoria is for life

Just as a PP said on another thread, your mental map of your body probably is a part of a "gender identity", along with the masculine self that feels like you.

I wouldn't put it that way. I only have the mental map, with its phantom sex characteristics. I wouldn't call it a "gender identity" because it's neither about gender (it's about sex) and it's not an identity (it's physical phantom organs). I'm also not sure what "masculine self" you refer to? Is it my masculine presentation? Then yes, it feels like me but that's only because it brings my physical appearance more in line with my mental map, so I "recognise" myself better.

I'm tempted to read that book you were recommended by the PP who said it and come back here in some kind of book club capacity to discuss it with the PP and you.

I've started it, and I think I'm gonna like it! Do tell me if you read it and want to discuss it.

I hope I'm not unfairly planting an "I'm a believer" sticker on you if that's not how you see things.

I... think you are? The only thing I believe is my brain's faulty map. I don't believe I have any male part in me: no "soul" or anything of the sort, no identity, nothing of the sort. When I say, "I feel like a man," I mean, "I physically feel like I have male bits, and like I shouldn't have female bits".

So I wouldn't call myself a believer, because I have been a believer in other things, and it's not the same mechanism or feeling at all, at least for me. To me, a belief is not based on fact. There may be evidence but not outright proof. When it comes to my faulty mental map, it's a fact that it exists. I can't show it to anyone else, true, but to me it's absolutely real. It's the only map I have, after all, and it's not like I can plug a USB key into my brain and download a more accurate one, you know? So I have to do with this one, even if I know it's faulty. I can consciously compensate to a degree, but that requires an effort, it doesn't feel natural, because I'm literally going against what my brain "knows".

@Seethlaw thank you for addressing the elephant in the room that no one seems to want to acknowledge. I am not GD, but I experienced its older sibling of body dysmorphia [BD] as a teen and developed a severe life threatening level of anorexia and bulimia by my late teens/early 20s. I largely recovered from the ED, in that I recognised the behaviours and curtailed them, but my relationship with food has remained difficult and the one with my body - the BD - is equally pervasive. I don’t know whether that is because they really haven’t cracked the way to treat either GD or BD in a way that is effective - how can they, in terms of GD, if they don’t even acknowledge it is a MH illness that NEEDS treatment and exploratory therapy and not something to be celebrated and affirmed? But it seems that there is so much work on a clinical application level that needs to be done to support sufferers better and to train practitioners in their care.

Am humbled by the contribution you make to these threads, sharing your experience and understanding of yourself and how it has shaped your journey. I really am in awe of the insight you have and beyond grateful that you share it here. Your posts have been so enlightening and helped me, as the mother of a YP with GD, to understand her better, to navigate our relationship with more sensitivity to what she may be experiencing. I genuinely think our interactions here, your posts more widely, have helped me to dial down the conflict and be a better mother to my child.

So I thank you, with much love, for the generosity you have shown in revealing your vulnerabilities and the compassion, empathy and virtual friendship you have offered to many of us as we try to understand the issues on a social/political and on a deeply personal level.

I think where I disagree is that you see before and after transition as having a healthy vs unhealthy body. I haven’t developed any health conditions or had any surgical issues, so from my perspective I still have a perfectly healthy body. I’m in much better shape than before and my mental health is significantly better.

I think where I disagree is that you see before and after transition as having a healthy vs unhealthy body. I haven’t developed any health conditions or had any surgical issues, so from my perspective I still have a perfectly healthy body. I’m in much better shape than before and my mental health is significantly better.

I agree that the mind and body are both physical parts of a person, so accept your point that the mind being unhealthy is a physical unhealthiness.

However the point you appear to be side stepping is that when people talk about "healthy bodies" they do mean everything that isn't the mind that is objectively physically healthy. It doesn't make any sense to surgically remove breasts because someone is in mental distress, in the same way that doctors don't amputate arms/legs of people who are obsessed with the idea that they should be amputees. The mental distress needs addressing not the part of the body the distress is focused on.

That makes perfect sense: I only feel my internal reproductive organs when I have ovulation pain or menstruation pain. The rest of the time, they're insensate. Same with the vagina, I'm only aware of it when it's doing something nice (or something unpleasant).

I spose t's the same for a lot of internal organs like liver, appendix, intestines 🤔

1. Children are known to come to believe truly extraordinary things when under great emotional duress, so that wouldn't be particularly surprising.
2. We get right back to, "How can trans people ever know what being the other sex is like?" Answer: intellectually only - and my brain got caught red-handed because it didn't realise that a man wouldn't feel his prostate! That's... hilarious, in a way 😂And very sobering in another 🤔

just checked with DH and he says he def can't 'feel' his prostate, without exploring in a way that he has no intention of doing😂

1. Children are known to come to believe truly extraordinary things when under great emotional duress, so that wouldn't be particularly surprising.
2. We get right back to, "How can trans people ever know what being the other sex is like?" Answer: intellectually only - and my brain got caught red-handed because it didn't realise that a man wouldn't feel his prostate! That's... hilarious, in a way 😂And very sobering in another 🤔

How does your son refer to you? Mummy/Mum or ?

The equivalent to "Mum" in his language, yes (not French either, it's complicated 😛) That's how he started, and I saw no reason to make him change. I am his mum, I am the person he knows as "Mum", I still want to be in his life as his mother and not some kind of "other father", so why change, you know?

And has having had a son caused you to reflect upon, or change, any of the ways in which you view or experienece your male sense of self?

Hmm, no, I don't think so. If anything, I think the challenge would have come if he had been a girl! Oh dear, that would have been a problem indeed... I mean, I was a tomboy woman, my husband was a man, and our child was a boy: it was all a continuity, you see? No problem whatsoever. But a girl!? That would have been a total disruption, and one I would not have felt well-equipped to deal with. How do you raise a girl to be anything she wants, when you yourself never felt like exploring the full range of feminine presentation, you know?

And then, I might not have transitioned when I did, if my son had been a daughter, because I would not have wanted to send her any message regarding her own femaleness. Not: you should think you're a boy too. And not: you must remain a girl at any price. I would likely have waited at least until she was an adult, so she could grow up free of any subconscious messages from me about her own relationship to her sex.

Brrr. So, so glad he was a boy...

Oooh, that's an excellent point you make about my imaginary prostate! I shouldn't feel it, so the fact that I can pinpoint where it "is", is an indicator that this is more about my brain learning about male anatomy and integrating that knowledge into the faulty map, than about it is about said brain somehow getting signals mixed or something. And, well, that would make total sense.

Now, of course, the question is, "Why does it do that?" I can think of several reasons, the most obvious, I think, being that I've somehow integrated at a very early age that I was supposed to be a boy, so my brain compensates for what's not actually there. Heh. Interesting!

Sorry if you have answered this before, but does your mental map of your body as male extend to internal sex organs?

Nobody's ever asked me this before, no! And yes, I can "feel" my prostate, right there, and my testes, squashed into the armchair I'm sitting on. Though let's be clear: this is a peripheral knowledge. I can "feel" them when I focus, but in my daily life, I'm no more aware of them than i'm aware of my liver, you know?

Of course, the very act of "focusing" brings into question whether I'm really "feeling" them through some distorted internal sensing processes, or whether I'm just imagining that I'm feeling them. I'm well aware of that, but how do I make the difference??

Oh, and by contrast, I can't "feel" my uterus; I just know that it's somewhere around here, but it's an intellectual knowledge, you know?

(You have no idea how weird it is to write stuff like this 😅)

I can't unfortunately answer the questions about the pregnancy, because I had several issues that made it incredibly difficult psychologically (several different kinds of familial abuse, some of them I was aware of at the time, some others I was in denial of), so I can't differentiate between what would have been "gender dysphoria" and what would have been anxiety related to other things, you know?

Also, you have to remember that at the time, I had entirely repressed my knowledge of my being trans, and saw myself as a tomboy woman. I didn't hate my female body or anything. I saw my breasts, for example, as annoyingly too big, and as pointless in the absence of someone who would enjoy playing with them, but I didn't hate them. So when I got pregnant, I don't remember developing any issues around the physicality of it, like hating my uterus, or the physical changes I went through. As for the baby: I had terrible anxiety about how I would treat him once he was born, but watching him grow was magical! No problem with that.