Gender dysphoria is for life

That's good, and must be a relief. Though there are many people, particularly women, who have endless cosmetic procedures, and none is ever enough, and each one leads to another one; to another area of bodily focus which needs to be improved or changed. And surgical procedures can go wrong, leaving the woman with scarring or disfiguration, or even leading to death.

I also have dysphoric feelings about my body - which I live with every day; which I'm always conscious of. In my mind I should have a very different body shape/figure to the one that I have. I feel like my nature is quite different to the body shape I have. This impacts upon my self esteem, and on the clothes that I wear; and I'm always conscious of how my body is, or might be, being viewed or assessed.

I'd love to be able to wear different types and styles of clothing to the ones that I actually do - but i'm always conscious of how unflattering they would look on me - and my strong aesthetic sense makes just wearing what I'd really like a 'no-go' area for me. I've often thought about or considered surgery - but on another level I suspect that having surgery would not significantly change my life - even if it might make me feel better about certain body parts if I did. But I also worry about surgery going wrong, or causing complications - and how I'd feel angry at myself for not being able to deal with my psychological issues without recourse to surgery in the first place. Just get over myself, sort of thing'.

It can be very difficult to live with a sense of oneself that is very different or separate to one's body. Because in certain ways our bodies are our selves.

Having said all of this, I am fine in myself and keep an even keel in my life. I manage my feelings and try to keep them in proportion. I'm fairly steady and settled in myself. I think this is all we can do. We have to adapt, modify and be more accepting of the things we cannot change, and try not to be so inward focused and naval gazing for too much of the time.

@Seethlaw Sorry if you have answered this before, but does your mental map of your body as male extend to internal sex organs? I guess you saw your womb on ante-natal scans. Did it and/or the baby growing in it make you feel dysphoric? Does your mental map include a prostate and testes?

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.

This is such an interesting thread which, thankfully, hadn’t been hijacked so far, touch wood that I haven’t jinxed it now!

This from an earlier post from @Seethlaw really made me think:
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And also... Quite frankly, I don't understand the trans people who experience euphoria at being succesfully taken for the opposite sex in situations where they cannot participate by virtue of their sex. Like, if a group of men had a discussion about, say, prostate problems, I wouldn't feel euphoria that they take me for a man. I'd feel dysphoria because I'd be horribly aware that I can't participate, and that I'm witnessing something that isn't my business. So sometimes, being "a transman but not a man" is better for me!

I’m not exactly sure why this has stood out to me and I need to think it over more, but it is something to do with that it puts into stark relief how the current trans movement has grown around entitled men with fetishes bullying their way into women’s spaces.

From what I understand OCD sounds bang on. And as anyone with experience of that kind of condition understands, can be very difficult to treat.

I recently watched the latest series of 'I kissed A Girl' - the lesbian dating show on Channel 4 - and it was very notceable that those women who identified as 'mascs' were particularly tied in to enacting a role which they felt compelled to continue. One of the 'masc' women, at the end of the show, said how she'd realised this and that going forward she was going to try not to be so suppressive of what she saw as her 'feminine' side. ( holding the body in a more rigid or controlled manner seems to be very consciously studied and then applied)

One woman entered the show who it was announced had a 'non-binary' identity - and then everyone had to be very conscious to use 'they' pronouns and adapt their language - which felt very artificial and really quite annoying. She was no different to the other 'masc' women ( none of whom seemed to have any issue with she/her pronouns) other than in claiming she wasn't a girl ( Danni Minogue, the host, referred to the women as 'girlies' or 'girls'). I do hope that after the show and watching it back she might reflect on how artificial the 'non-binary' identity was and how she could really just learn to relax with the fact that she's female, and with being a more 'masculine' woman -who also happens to like other women.

I've given this post quite a bit of thought and reflection over night, and I think that the list of continuing symptoms of gender dysphoria you have compiled is not particular to 'gender' ( apart from the obvious medical interventions and their consequences).

I think we all, to greater or lesser degrees, have to manage our feelings and internal conflicts on a daily basis, and we all have to negotiate our relationships with others too: the ways in which they perceive us or respond/react to us, and the ways in which we feel they misunderstand us - and often quite badly. This can occur at the more intimate and personal level, but also at the level of the general public and those we encounter each day in various types of situation.

I think we all suffer from degrees of cognitive disonance too, when we find ourselves living a life, or elements of a life which feel incongruous or not in tune with what we'd really like, or what we long for. We need to accommodate our desires, longings and imaginings within reality and the bounds of the practically possible. We can all feel fake at times; or just winging it; or just performing a role - which is lifeless ,or with no real authenticity or true motivation.

This is the human condition, and you seem to have a found a way of dealing with your dysphoria and dissonance and in a way which makes you feel able to say that you are " doing fine". That is all we can all hope for. To reach a level of relative contentment and having developed a practice of managing (and trying to resolve) our more difficult feelings. The way we do this is by altering our mental approach to matters and by learning to let some things go.

The difference for you is that you have embarked upon a medical/surgical pathway in pursuit of your own feelings of authenticity - and that must be tough, and you must sometimes have regrets - but have to justify or rationalise them to yourself in order to cope? Which is an additional burden.

Thanks for the response @Seethlaw Rapid onset gender dysphoria, seems to only cover a new young female cohort.

There is not much at all on women who are older than this group.

Also wanted to add in Dr P (Dionne Joseph)who appeared on inciteful sisters podbean.

She has an interesting take on gender dysphoria (a term she refutes as having any validity).

In short she feels that this psychological problem can be better associated with OCD, and that an individual becomes fixated on the notion of being in the wrong body.

Evil would be the right word.

I have a friend who is a published child psychologist working on local authority contracts with children on behalf of Social Services.

She says that if a girl teenager says she is a lion or an eagle she will explore with them why they might want to identify as an apex predator in a world where men generally hold power. But the moment that teenager says she is a boy, all discussion about why they might want to be male had to stop.

The trans lobby are actively preventing people from accessing mental health care, it's genuine evil.

I have come back from a day out and caught up on this thread which has been on my mind all day.

In my search for trying to gain an understanding of trans ideation in women and young women, i found most writings and research was about men by men.

Hakeem, Bailey and Blanchard for e.g - all very useful but really brushes over females with the ROGD formula.

I am totally a lay person in this field.

But what i want to say is that we do not need to know why gays and lesbians exist because the only problems they encounter are societal prejudice , be it family or their wider communities.

if those illogical prejudices did not exit this section of our society would have no problem just being who they are.

That cannot be asserted for the so called “trans community”

Set aside transvestites, cross dressers and drag queens, (where fetichism resides), (Blanchard, Bailey Hakeem et al.)

Transsexualism is a whole other problem, which even body modifications does not resolve the personal psychological struggles but may just alleviate the most severe symptoms of distress.

So where does female transsexualism come from, is not clear from what i have read.

For me i have always had freinds who are lesbians, and was fascinated by some of the debates and identifications, such as butch, femme, lipstick lesbian etc. as they all tried to model around existing culture.

And then in comes gentleman jack, AKA Ann Lister.

A bloody exciting account of a woman who inherited wealth and therefore power, who was a lesbian. Who took on a more “male” style of dress to assert said power, and acquired education and knowledge to make it stick.

I do not think there is a hetro sexual woman, who saw that program who did not love her story.

I always return to the thought that gendered “role models” of ditsy sexualised women are the cause of female gender dysphoria, and “butch” “bossy” “assertive” hetrosexual and lesbian women, rejected by family and society as not behaving as we should, can end up with anger at there bodies.

And how women ought to look and be has gotten worse not better despite our legal rights.

Women internalise feelings about personal violations, and violence ends up towards themselves in all sorts of ways that much i know for sure.

I find this healthy bodies framing so unhelpful. The mind is part of the body and it certainly wasn’t health before transition, and there was no way for me to enjoy my ‘healthy’ body or incentive to look after it before.

There were a few trans people who were what is now called 'gender critical'. Not heard much about them for a while. Fionne Orlander and Miranda Yardley were two.

Your explanations of dysphoria one this board have been very illuminating.

We probably all live with a measure of various dissatisfactions about our bodies. I hope, again, that you are able to find peace with yours.

I also can't help but say that I find it profoundly sad that people are so distressed by their healthy bodies. Thats my own sadness to handle, though. 😊

Great thread @Seethlaw

This comment makes a lot of sense to me, as a mum of a child who expressed gender dysphoria in the past. I think it's still there now but is slowly resolving. Thankfully, it's not dominating our conversations and when it does come up, it's very clear that she knows the difference between sex and gender identity and that, sadly, many children don't. She's fully aware that there is a female child at school who seems to be on a pathway towards testosterone that is unstoppable - and that this child is vulnerable and likely confused.

It's interesting when you describe children as "not really trans". I think that's the phrase you used in other posts.

As a PP has said, this points to the notion of true trans. As a non-believer in gender identity, I don't think true trans exists. However, I do think that there are some people for whom no alternative relief exists other than transition. But, as you point out, it's not a walk in the park and it won't make the feelings go away.

My concern is that for such people, what was missing in their journey of self understanding was a deep enough exploration of the underlying issues. In what must be deeply personal (so please know I'm not asking for any more detail), you alluded to this in your own journey by mentioning the impact of your younger years and how you effectively stepped in to fulfil a "masculine" gap. I hope it's not rude of me to observe that the alignment of your mum's subconscious needs and your inner sense of tomboy-ness seems significant here, potentially to the point where true trans became deeply embedded. We do have very deep-rooted societal expectations and pressures about what masculine and feminine means, so I can't imagine how it must feel to be in the wrong "role".... but I still can't help my own firm conviction that there is no true trans. Perhaps I'm wrong. I'm also an atheist and perhaps I'm wrong that god doesn't exist. Regardless, there will always be people that believe in gender identity and people that believe in god so my lack of belief is irrelevant to them.

Did you hear Buck Angel address the Cambridge uni debate a couple of months ago? That was a great speech and touched on Buck's sense of true trans self versus how society accommodates people who have this viewpoint. Scott Newgent also talks about this kind of thing. Buck has previously been vocal (and IMO homophobic) about how gay men should accept Buck's beaver but that aside, what I generally hear from Buck, Scott and you is that nobody should be forced to accept another person's gender identity as their own reality.

I can’t no, but I get why you’d want me to be angry.
Ultimately there are transwomen who are incredibly vulnerable and being fed they’re women. They feel entitled to women’s spaces because that delusion has been enabled and will be forever I suspect. They are going to have to accept that a 3rd space is required and that unfortunately for them, women don’t all welcome them in their spaces.
I’m angry at lots of things, but this I just feel sadness over. Lots of transwomen have had hatred towards their bodies and just want to belong. Now I accept that it is not the responsibility of women make them feel better about themselves but I can also feel sad for them that they believe access to a woman’s toilet or changing area will change that for them. I can’t be angry and someone in the depths of self hatred just trying to find ways to make themselves happy. I can be angry that their selfishness is making women uncomfortable in women’s spaces but I can’t bring myself to be cross at someone desperate to feel included. I just find it sad.
I have an uncle with psychosis, I’ve mentioned him on this board before. He truly believes he was best friends with the Beatles and went on tour with them. Believes he met elvis. Elvis may have been dead before he was born. He’s not violent or agressive but when he’s told he didn’t do those things, it absolutely destroys him. He can’t fathom why people would think he’s lying. To him, he was practically the fifth member of the Beatles. He knows he found elvis to be an absolute prick and it’s all so real.
I often wonder if being trans is similar and I just can’t get mad at that. X

Re “the toys” (or clothes, or hairstyles - take your pick) things, this is from a developmental psychologist who claims to have spoken to Dr Cass before the Cass report came out.

She mentions that children go through a developmental stage that includes thinking that putting on a dress turns a boy into a girl (and that Cass did not seem to understand this…):

https://nitter.net/wontsomeonethi2/status/2069800467811459454

Before the Cass Review was published, I had the opportunity to talk to Dr Cass about my research. I outlined how young children think that putting on a dress turns a boy into a girl and the relevance of this to younger children who think they have changed sex.

I have not mentioned this before publicly but I feel it is time to do so. She listened to what I had to say and appeared to understand the implications for younger children who identify as transgender (I'm using "identify as" as a placeholder here because the concept of internal identity in younger children is very problematic). Dr Cass said "oh, that's interesting, I thought those cases were "safe", where they say they are trans very young" [I paraphrase but she definitely used the word "safe"]
She knows there's no magic internal feeling in young children who think they are the opposite sex. I've told her and she's heard it and acknowledged it might not be right to go ahead with social or medical transition in these cases. SHE KNOWS. I have no idea why she's doubling down on this. No idea.