I can't really speak for trans mascs as I'm not one. for trans femmes, it's a scalding iron, joining with societal voices to reinforce in our own heads that we are in fact men. that belief, that we are actually men, is the root of dysphoria. it means something obviously true about the world - that I am a woman - is false and the cognitive dissonance is existentially painful. it's difficult to articulate what this pain is like because there's no real comparison with the things you might experience day to day. dysphoria precedes thought and emotion - it warps my perception of the world and my responses to it before I'm even aware that I've even perceived something. that is, every single other person in the world can look at me and see a woman and I'll still look in the mirror and see a man - literally hallucinate things into existence or out of it - just because I've allowed my dysphoria to grow out of control. I have to remind myself every time I look in the mirror that I can't trust what I see, good or bad, because my senses will straight up lie to me depending on factors entirely out of my hands. have I gotten misgendered or deadnamed recently? 0% chance I see anything but a disgusting wretch of a man. I have a single point of control - to remove all the factors my dysphoria might anchor on from my body and my life well before I look in the mirror. and to fail too often means returning to the zombie-like existence I eked out prior to transition - something I cannot tolerate.
Part of what youre describing sure sounds passingly similar to the experiences of cis people seeking out surgery. Or HRT.
Don't get me wrong, trans experiences of dsyphoria are different than cis ones, especially because of the intensified scrutiny society places on us.
But,,,
I think it is a mistake to conceptualize gender dsyphoria as a unique experience of trans people because
a) IME it is not, I've had cis people describe similar feelings and experiences
b) on a larger level, it others trans people. Dont get me wrong. There are many ways that our lives are different than the lives of cis people. But when it comes to dysphoria like you're describing, the variation is on how and to what degree we experience it, not that we experience it.
And when it comes to the Musk thing
c) rhetoric against cis cosmetic surgery is inevitably turned against us
gender dysphoria is unique to trans people but not because cis people can't experience dysphoria -- but rather that if you experience gender dysphoria, you have a place somewhere under the trans umbrella. there are certainly other kinds of dysphoria but I'm not aware of any attempt to unify those experiences under a single tent. that is, I don't think anyone is trying to find commonality of cause between the various dysphorias.
But when it comes to dysphoria like you’re describing, the variation is on how and to what degree we experience it, not that we experience it.
this is actually a really fraught position within the trans community. there are a sizable minority of trans people who report that they do not experience any kind of dysphoria and I think we just have to take them at their word. some people try to square this circle by redefining their experiences to show that they must include dysphoria but I think fundamentally we just need to accept what people say about themselves - they'd know best, after all.
c) rhetoric against cis cosmetic surgery is inevitably turned against us
yeah, the only position available to us is that people should be able to modify their bodies how they please and without justification to anyone.
gender dysphoria is unique to trans people but not because cis people can’t experience dysphoria – but rather that if you experience gender dysphoria, you have a place somewhere under the trans umbrella.
I think it is reasonable to define a lot of cis body dsyphoria as gender dysphoria. I think the distinction between some cis body dysphoria and trans gender dysphoria absolutely is in how society categorizes it and not because the experiences are sufficiently distinct to warrant the separation.
this is actually a really fraught position within the trans community. there are a sizable minority of trans people who report that they do not experience any kind of dysphoria and I think we just have to take them at their word.
Let me clarify, I meant the distinction between cis people and trans people who experience gender dsyphoria is how and to what degree they experience it, Im not saying all trans people have gender dsyphoria.
A cis person who is distressed over experiencing hair loss doesn't take that hair loss to mean that they'll never be/be seen as a "real" member of their gender
So I guess my confusion lies in that my friend is a man and doesn't worry about being perceived as not a man based on balding, but still experiences gender dysphoria about it?
I'm a trans woman, so I don't know that I can explain the intricacies of trans men's experiences. So just keep that in mind.
For me, dysphoria is most often what I described, about not being seen as our gender, usually mixed with imposter syndrome. But there's one type of dysphoria called Existential Dysphoria that has to do with all the life experiences we missed because of when we came out. Like "even if I transition right now and pass immediately, I'll never get to experience having a sleepover with my girl friends" or whatever- this is why a lot of adult trans people hold proms and such.
So my instinct is that that might be part of what your friend is experiencing? Like, even though quite a lot of men go bald, they usually had the experience of being a man with a full head of hair for at least some time. Idk I don't want to put words in his mouth
Idk, I am somewhat skeptical of not analyzing a lot of stuff cis people do through the lens of gender dsyphoria. Maybe I'm projecting my own experiences onto cis people though.
different example in the same vein - I'm pretty sure that a lot of the men in bodybuilding communities who supplement androgens are experiencing some form of gender dysphoria. they're cis men but they experience a kind of a lack in their deviance from hypermasculinity that I've really only seen replicated in circles of trans people.
That isn't true. Women's hair has been culturally tied to their femininity for so long that women would no longer think they would be treated as real women if they started to bald, which did sometimes happen. This has changed somewhat in modern times, but for much of history it was the case. I can't compare it to gender disphoria as experienced by trans people because I've never been a balding woman or trans. But those are both experiences stemming from a similar root cause, balding as a sign of non-femininity.
Could you explain?
I can't really speak for trans mascs as I'm not one. for trans femmes, it's a scalding iron, joining with societal voices to reinforce in our own heads that we are in fact men. that belief, that we are actually men, is the root of dysphoria. it means something obviously true about the world - that I am a woman - is false and the cognitive dissonance is existentially painful. it's difficult to articulate what this pain is like because there's no real comparison with the things you might experience day to day. dysphoria precedes thought and emotion - it warps my perception of the world and my responses to it before I'm even aware that I've even perceived something. that is, every single other person in the world can look at me and see a woman and I'll still look in the mirror and see a man - literally hallucinate things into existence or out of it - just because I've allowed my dysphoria to grow out of control. I have to remind myself every time I look in the mirror that I can't trust what I see, good or bad, because my senses will straight up lie to me depending on factors entirely out of my hands. have I gotten misgendered or deadnamed recently? 0% chance I see anything but a disgusting wretch of a man. I have a single point of control - to remove all the factors my dysphoria might anchor on from my body and my life well before I look in the mirror. and to fail too often means returning to the zombie-like existence I eked out prior to transition - something I cannot tolerate.
Part of what youre describing sure sounds passingly similar to the experiences of cis people seeking out surgery. Or HRT.
Don't get me wrong, trans experiences of dsyphoria are different than cis ones, especially because of the intensified scrutiny society places on us.
But,,,
I think it is a mistake to conceptualize gender dsyphoria as a unique experience of trans people because
a) IME it is not, I've had cis people describe similar feelings and experiences
b) on a larger level, it others trans people. Dont get me wrong. There are many ways that our lives are different than the lives of cis people. But when it comes to dysphoria like you're describing, the variation is on how and to what degree we experience it, not that we experience it.
And when it comes to the Musk thing
c) rhetoric against cis cosmetic surgery is inevitably turned against us
gender dysphoria is unique to trans people but not because cis people can't experience dysphoria -- but rather that if you experience gender dysphoria, you have a place somewhere under the trans umbrella. there are certainly other kinds of dysphoria but I'm not aware of any attempt to unify those experiences under a single tent. that is, I don't think anyone is trying to find commonality of cause between the various dysphorias.
this is actually a really fraught position within the trans community. there are a sizable minority of trans people who report that they do not experience any kind of dysphoria and I think we just have to take them at their word. some people try to square this circle by redefining their experiences to show that they must include dysphoria but I think fundamentally we just need to accept what people say about themselves - they'd know best, after all.
yeah, the only position available to us is that people should be able to modify their bodies how they please and without justification to anyone.
I think it is reasonable to define a lot of cis body dsyphoria as gender dysphoria. I think the distinction between some cis body dysphoria and trans gender dysphoria absolutely is in how society categorizes it and not because the experiences are sufficiently distinct to warrant the separation.
Let me clarify, I meant the distinction between cis people and trans people who experience gender dsyphoria is how and to what degree they experience it, Im not saying all trans people have gender dsyphoria.
oh, yeah, I completely agree.
A cis person who is distressed over experiencing hair loss doesn't take that hair loss to mean that they'll never be/be seen as a "real" member of their gender
So I guess my confusion lies in that my friend is a man and doesn't worry about being perceived as not a man based on balding, but still experiences gender dysphoria about it?
I'm a trans woman, so I don't know that I can explain the intricacies of trans men's experiences. So just keep that in mind.
For me, dysphoria is most often what I described, about not being seen as our gender, usually mixed with imposter syndrome. But there's one type of dysphoria called Existential Dysphoria that has to do with all the life experiences we missed because of when we came out. Like "even if I transition right now and pass immediately, I'll never get to experience having a sleepover with my girl friends" or whatever- this is why a lot of adult trans people hold proms and such.
So my instinct is that that might be part of what your friend is experiencing? Like, even though quite a lot of men go bald, they usually had the experience of being a man with a full head of hair for at least some time. Idk I don't want to put words in his mouth
That could be it.
Idk, I am somewhat skeptical of not analyzing a lot of stuff cis people do through the lens of gender dsyphoria. Maybe I'm projecting my own experiences onto cis people though.
different example in the same vein - I'm pretty sure that a lot of the men in bodybuilding communities who supplement androgens are experiencing some form of gender dysphoria. they're cis men but they experience a kind of a lack in their deviance from hypermasculinity that I've really only seen replicated in circles of trans people.
This is a pretty good example yeah.
That isn't true. Women's hair has been culturally tied to their femininity for so long that women would no longer think they would be treated as real women if they started to bald, which did sometimes happen. This has changed somewhat in modern times, but for much of history it was the case. I can't compare it to gender disphoria as experienced by trans people because I've never been a balding woman or trans. But those are both experiences stemming from a similar root cause, balding as a sign of non-femininity.