Well, as the title says, I Am curious what Dysphoria feels like for you? When/how did you realise, that certain feelings are in reality Dysphoria?

Edit: Damn, some of you really have lived through a lot. I Am very happy that I can’t really relate to quite some of the comments here, because that sounds horrible.

  • OldEggNewTricks@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    Simply because I needed to meet some women for my perception to switch from “unfathomable sex objects” to “people I like to be around”. Which it did, very quickly, and even if I didn’t know why it was immediately clear to me that I liked, even preferred, hanging out with women as friends. One of the first times I was able to express, even jokingly, a desire to be more feminine was to a group of girlfriends. My egg exploded soon after.

    It’s possible social pressures would have kept boys and girls apart like you describe, but otoh I’ve always been a bit of a deliberate outcast, and I’d probably have quite enjoyed defying those expectations.

    • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      ahh, interesting. My world was dominated by women from the time I was born, I often thought that was why I wanted to be a woman (and a reason I used to discount the possibility I was trans, it’s just “normal” to feel that pressure as the only boy, etc.).

      My denial survived

      • being a teenager and asking one of my female friends to organize a girls night for me where I would try to dress up as a woman and hang out with them socially as a girl (nothing trans here!),
      • it survived telling my boss that I’m not gay because I’m not attracted to men that much, but it’s almost like I’m gay because it’s like I’m a woman on the inside (nothing trans there!), and
      • it survived decades of cross-dressing and choosing a female name for myself and trying to feminize my voice when I was around my partner (again, I absolutely am not trans!!).

      Looking back, I don’t see how it wasn’t obvious, but even now I have imposter syndrome and endless doubting.

      • cows_are_underrated@feddit.orgOPEnglish
        2·
        10 hours ago

        I’m not gay because I’m not attracted to men that much, but it’s almost like I’m gay because it’s like I’m a woman on the inside

        I feel you. Had the exact same thing. I first thought I was gay, but I never really liked the appearance of men. This was quite confusing.

        • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2·
          5 hours ago

          to be fair, taking estrogen made my attraction to men much stronger, where before I never saw a man IRL and felt sexual desire, now there are times where I do (and strongly so, the way I might feel attraction to a woman). I think part of what was going on was that being attracted to a man as a man made no sense to me, but being attracted to a man as a woman does make sense - but more than that I think it’s just hormones, the estrogen flipped a switch and balanced out my bisexuality from incidental to moderate.

      • OldEggNewTricks@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        Oh, dear–the closet wasn’t even glass! I do get the “almost like I’m gay, but for women” thing, though.

        Funny thing about imposter syndrome: I can reflect on past signs all day long and still feel it, but thinking about the joy I get from presenting femme or the effects of HRT puts it to bed. Or rather, I don’t care if I’m faking it if I get to feel this good. Euphoria is the way to go!