Excerpts from the Bible

Content Warning: Just fucking everything I am being 100% raw here. (suicide, abuse, assault, nsfw, kink, curse words)

My therapist recommended that I read something called the Dysphoria Bible. A document written by transpeople for transpeople seemly in an attempt to ease the length of discord messages from an elder to a closeted (\s). While I did not recognize within myself every point they listed; there was alot that I did. A fucking goddamn lot. It's always striking in these moments of self discovery when you find the PERFECT codex to translate your emotions and head-noodles into coherent thought and memories. As my friend Kayla says, "You realize just how unoriginal you are."

All of my discontinuous thoughts, fears, frustrations, and excitements where listed there. Things that I assumed operated independently of these gender based questions I all the sudden see as interreliant. Memories from childhood, awkward glances in high school, weird sexual urges, and grooming /self hygiene habits go from interesting data points requiring a curve-fit with a significant error, to an elegant governing theory. Here I want to get into some of these points. Both to catalogue the things I agree with as well as the things that I don't. I am going to be charitable to the idea the I might be.

Be careful, it's a little ranty, and very long

4. Gender Euphoria

The first three chapters are mostly covering the basics around language and history so I will skip them but they are def worth a read. Chapter 4 is the thing that I have been personally relying on during most of this exploration thus far. I am going to just bullet point thoughts as if you read it so note that

• I don't actually like genuinely cry, like sobbing wreck cry, that often... I did on the cave analogy. Part of me just felt so seen, like a part of my innocence was noticed and validated. 

• I read all those tweets they cited in that thread from Nightling Bug and heavily identified with 13/17 of their tweets. (Most of these where apparently Societal and Biochemical Dysphoria)

• I generally feel like I am a happy and functional person, I have great relationships with coworkers, friends, and family; I have a job and potential career I like (tho I often feel like I am coasting more then anything else); I have hobbies and wish to make myself better; and I worked really super fucking hard to even like my body
  BUT
  I have always had this ideology about me, I talk about it more extensively here, but I am ok with suffering a bit to stay safe

• Damn I feel seen by this

• When I finish my transformation (albeit very unconvincing) I feel like I lose 100 lbs (I also now feel this way when completely naked (as long as my stubble is covered)). I don't have to struggle to look at myself. I don't need to practice gratitude to just to not freak-out. I feel effervescent and easy. The world kinda just melts away and I giggle as I look at myself for a half an hour as if it is the first time I have ever seen myself.

• All the sudden I have so much confidence. I feel like I can wear every bright color I have wanted to. All the purples and reds and yellows and oranges. Finally!

• As I have continued on this path and started to make expositions in girl mode outside I have wayyyyy less anxiety then I thought and further more have less anxiety then when I presented male in these same spaces.

Some of points of euphoria have incurred positive responses outside of when I present female

• I used to have to make a concerted effort to love my body and practice gratitude on it but ever since presenting female I truly love it. Like holy shit kinda hot. On that note I feel like I lose 100 pounds when I am in womens clothing or naked.

• I hadn't been to the dentist in years before I recently started presenting fem. There's a few other reasons behind this but the female presentation definitely helped the anxiety melt away when scheduling the appointment. Like I all the sudden feel like I have the confidence of Dolly Parton 

5. Physical Dysphoria

This one is really interesting to me as it involves things that I had really never noticed before. I mean like the rest of these, the symptoms where there but really this kinda feels outta left field. Especially when juxtaposed with social dysphoria—where I had recognized alot of those issues throughout my life and had associated them with some other kind of root—this just always felt like benign physical preference and maybe some over sensitive skin. The more I think about it tho the more it makes sense.  But maybe not.

I have never liked my facial hair, hated even. My father never taught me to shave, tho I do remember being really young and helping him do it. Instead I got an electric razor for Christmas one year and was told to figure it out (classic middle child). I remember how much it would hurt and how patchy and scratchy it would leave my face. I would use it every morning even on the days when I wouldn't brush my teeth (other hygiene issues), I would often drain the battery and surprise my brother at how frequently I would have to  recharge the damn thing. Ultimately we landed on it potentially having a faulty battery.

Eventually it started to cause rashes on my chin and cheeks that my high school bully seized on. I tried growing out my facial hair to prevent this but it would become itchy after two days then painful after four or five and I would aquess to the angle grinder. I remember complaining to my father about this at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the last time I tried to grow it out, and he looked at me like I was nuts that my facial hair could ever cause pain.

In undergrad I finally switched to an actual razor with shaving cream. The bloody mess my untrained hand would leave my face was 100X better then the stubble ridden one that the electric razor would. Even tho it still looked like my face was covered in coffee grounds, I couldn't feel it for about 36-48hrs before I absolutely need to do it again. 

I've noticed over the years that if I let it grow more then 2 days I stop being able to function all that well. I become noticeably slothly and find it hard to focus on my work. Shaving would return me back to a productive state. What's odd is that no other hygiene item ever held me like this, it was only ever shaving my face. I would go to school with unbrushed teeth, having not showered in a few days, with no deodorant on and be more or less ok with it. I don't like my facial hair enough to consider laser hair removal far before I ever started questioning my gender.

I have alot of body hair and while I've never liked it all that much I have never really felt bad about it either, it's just kinda there. Actaully it was always was nice to compare to my less hairy brothers to prove what a man I was, lol. 

I did (do) have alot of internalized body image issues. I have to make conceited efforts to practice gratitude towards my flesh vessel to like it. This has gotten better in recent years but for a long time I could not look at myself in a mirror. I spent multiple hours a week in high school sitting in front of one touching myself, smiling, and repeating positive affirmations. It helped me to be able to look at myself but I still never really liked what I saw. Especially around my butt, gut, arms and face. 

Currently I do generally like my body parts that help me to appear womanly in nature, aka the ones that make me look good in a dress (I got big tits and a fat ass for a boy with a bit of an hourglass figure). 

All the other more extreme stuff I have no current known relation with. I like my penises and testies (or at least I don't dislike them). I feel no phantom pain.

For more experimentation with this see Shave?

6. Biochemical Dysphoria

This one I am really not sure about. Again I have items that could potentially be loped into this category tho I thought I had pretty good explanations for them already. 

With alot of these symptomes I experience them sometimes maybe for a week or two then not for a few months. They feel highly transient and seem to come together and leave together. I had always assumed they more had to do with my time of the month, some kind of seasonal affective disordered (the Willamette valley gets really sad (pun intended) in the winter), or had associated them with things like finals and dead week, but maybe not.

With the ones that are permanent I had mostly thought they where associated with coping mechanisms produced due to trauma from childhood and adolescence, or where just me being lazy.  

I am just gonna list the symptoms and make comments

Depersonalization:

• A sense of detachment or estrangement from your own thoughts, feelings, or body.

I often feel as tho I am observing all of my own internal systems, always. Like I can't turn off a hyper observant internal self that will examine and critique (more often in a matter-of-fact kind of way then in a mean way) my own internal dialogue and thought process. I have whole conversations out-loud when alone or within my noodle all the time. This leads me to start looking at my body and emotions in a much more cold, calsious, and calculator manor and sometimes makes me think my emotions are forgin. I used to love the show Bones when I was in middle school cus I wanted to emulate how detached they went through life. I had always assumed this was a trauma response.

• Feeling split into two parts, with one going through the motions of participating in the world and one observing quietly:

see above

• Feeling as if you have an “unreal” or absent self: “I have no self”

I have always felt like a composite character and like I can't trace the roots. I have taken the way I should act in a given scenario with a given group of people and learned how to best implement it. I used to practice smiling in a mirror and how I would laugh. I practice most of my interactions with people in my head and even alone out loud before doing them

• Experiencing the world as distant, dreamlike, foggy, lifeless, colorless, artificial, like a picture with no depth, or less than real

In really stressful moments I've felt like this but when the stressor was over, things more or less returned to normal. See Anything But Qualifying. In undergrad I would work for 16 hours a day with no days off for months at a time. I knew I was running from something but I figured it was trauma and loneliness. I loved how unreal it all the world felt, like totally safe from all the evil in it as long as I just worked so hard I couldn't even look around. I felt like all my issues just seemed to melt away with the sound of my EJ25 driving to and from school and like time would warp between those two bookends to a day.  

• Being absorbed in yourself and experiencing a compulsive self-scrutiny or extreme rumination

See first bullet

• Having an ongoing and coherent dialog with yourself

See first bullet, fuck

• Feeling like a veil or glass wall separates you from the world

See 4th bullet point

• Emotional or physical numbness, such as a feeling of having a head filled with cotton

Nothing really ever physical, but emotionally I can often have a hard time crying. Like I know I should be crying right now, I want to cry, but I just can't for some reason. I mention this in my bio. I always figured it was just me being a guy.
I also remember this when I was letting myself be abused on the internet when I was in middle and high school. There was a clear action I should take, but when my internal voice spoke to me it sounded like it was trying to speak with a gag in its mouth and I would go about an automatic process of really hurting myself. It was like emotional trench warfare.

• Lacking a sense of agency – feeling flat, robotic, dead, or like a “zombie”

I am a creature of habit and often feel like I am just going through the motions of a normal person. Not always but often. This came to a head during the covid pandemic where I wouldn't leave my apartment. Everything felt gray and not fun. I had assumed this specific one was related to the pandemic but I feel this way alot of the time. If I didn't have people needing me to get out of my apt, I wouldn't leave it. Often when i do come home I find myself just numbing with netflix and youtube tho this seems to be most people.
This was also happening this summer alot when I having alot of mindless sex (see hesitation on the landing). My whole day seemed to revolve around it, I would have cognitive thoughts like, "hey I shouldn't do this" but then would anyway. I am still not entirely sure what that was all about but it certinaly wasn't sex, I rearley if ever got of

• Inability to imagine things

Never noticed this in myself

• Being able to think clearly, but feeling as if some essential quality is lacking from your thoughts or experience of the world

This is how I feel when stressed, numbing with workaholism, and engaging in mindless sex

• A sense of disconnectedness from life, impeding you from creative and open involvement with the world

I can often feel disconnected but it's never related to creativity for me. I usually feel like I am lying to everyone around me which leads me to be very insecure, which leads to lots of anxiety, which leads to a retreat from being in the world. Like I used to be so involved in community service stuff, and I really haven't been able to for the last few years. I figured this was because I am lazy

I often look at myself in the mirror and while occasionally repulsed (especially when I have longer facial hair) I more just kinda see a person. A cute person, who can and does smile genuinely, who experiences joy, who has things going for them, but a person that isn't necessarily me. I see him and touch his face and look into his eyes, and examine his flaws. I don't not like him. I think he is cute and worthy of love and compassion and decency, I am grateful to him for protecting me, but I don't always see myself, I don't know if I ever see myself. Hard to say, I have been training myself to be upbeat through crushing optimism, practicing gratitude, and cognitively emulating others for so long that it just feels like there isn't much of me left at this point. 

It's pretty damn euphoric when I do see myself and not just like it but find myself giggling for half an hour that I can, "even look like that". 

Derealization

• Your surroundings seem alien or unfamiliar, even if you’ve always been there, like someone has swapped out your house for a stage replica.

I have never experienced this

• Moving through the world feels like you’re walking on a treadmill, with the buildings moving around you instead of you through them.

Stressful stations feel this and times when I feel intensely isolated from people and lonely which is maybe once a month for a few days.

• Feeling emotionally disconnected from people you care about, as if you were separated by a glass wall, or like they are just actors pretending to be the people they claim to be.

I often feel like this. Like I imagine what would happen if loved ones died and I know I would be sad but thinking about it I can really only consider my mechanical responses. I think I have practiced how I will sound when one of my parents calls me to tell me that my grandparents have passed. Again this is not all the time. I commonly genuinely worry if I am mentally challenged and people are just nice to me because they want to feel good and I can't tell the difference.

• Surroundings that appear distorted, blurry, colorless, two-dimensional or artificial, or a heightened awareness and clarity of your surroundings. Leaves on trees feel like they have extra sharp edges, for example.

I have never experienced this outside of a hyper awareness due to being incredibly anxious at a given moment.

• Distortions in perception of time, such as recent events feeling like distant past.

Outside of COVID lockdowns not extremely. Most people complain of this during the academic quarter so I don't think my experiences fall outside of the norm here.

• Distortions of distance and the size and shape of objects

I have never experienced this outside of physical vision issues that I have had all my life

• Feeling like a passive observer in the events of your life

Holy shit this one. Continued below

I don't know if I really actually like the academic path I have gone on. Everything has just felt like more "turn the crank" and "well thats the next thing to do I guess". I mean what kind of person goes to get a PhD without knowing if they like the thing they are doing. Like I have well rehearsed things that I said and say about this kind of stuff, but I don't know if I believe any of it. In highschool I picked something that sounded interesting, had a career where I was confident I could provide for myself at the end, was vaguely sciencey and that would make my father and grandfather proud of me, but beyond that it was kinda soulless. 

I do sometimes feel passionate about what I do but so much of it just seems to be the path of least resistance. Which seems so odd to say as I have done some truly awesome and difficult things that I am proud of. But none-the-less the actual decision to do the thing often has little to no passion in it. I just kinda watch as I go about doing these things one after another after another and things seem to be going well.

It's only when I feel my back against the wall, and that there is a goal to rage against that I become passionate. Only when I am surrounded by good colleagues and mentors that I really feel like I can work even remotely well. I don't work on projects till I get a slack message asking me how that thing is going, then I fucking launch like a bat outta hell to get it done and make that person like me. I figured this was daddy issues tbh.

My media of choice that represented some kind of escapism that I seemed to hold onto for a very long time where Agents of SHEILD (I loved the idea of being stuck as a science officer in a bunker somewhere) and Avatar the Last Airbender (I was obsessed with the idea of just having a quest to crank on with friends that leads to adventure). I also had physical locations where I would imagine myself, eating, sleeping, and living (often alone) and just working all the time. One from middle school was the public library, another one from college was a strong desire to go work at McMurdo or South Pole Station or some other observatory where I could be more or less alone. I had actually applied for a number of these jobs after undergrad. The weird part is I don't want to be alone, I love people!

I love working so hard that I forget I even need to eat, and am surprised at the time. I had always associated workaholism with either my Mormon upbringing or coping mechanisms related to childhood and adolescent trauma

I have always been a starer. I can remember getting made fun of for it in elementary school. Still do it to this day. A Sunday tradition is to get a cup of coffee at Tried and True downtown and stare at the patterns it makes. I used to go drinking at squirrels every Tuesday night and sit at a table and stare while I drank my beer. I love it when my eyes just lose focus and my mind can just be blank for a minute. I don't know if anyone would describe my eyes as "dead" tho. 

When I was in middle and early high school, at the end of my 3min showers (I was proud of how short that was) I would lie on the floor of the shower and just try and let every muscle in my body go limp. I used to call it surrendering and it was is often the thing I would look forward to the most at the end of the day. The water would cascade down on me filling every exposed orifice, yet I would just lay there until every single part of my body had given up and just relaxed. No thinking, no moving, barely breathing just surrendering to it all and letting the water come down. I still do this from time to time maybe once a week. Kinda hard to do when your so big tbh.

7. Social Dysphoria

It is hard to sort this one out. I keep coming back to the question, "is that just the general social anxiety that exists in my family or is that something related to dysphoria."  While I do have male friends I love with incredibly deep and meaningful connections, I have often found myself wishing that the interactions where always one-on-one rather than in a group. In the group I feel lost, and panicked. All the sudden the people I know and love become something very different and the group is no longer something I want to be a part of. Specific memories involve two primary groups: one from high school that I still hang out with who call themselves the brovengeres (we used to drive into the next town over to see every marvel movie); and one group of goobers who call themselves the gup gang (gg) from my undergrad

• GG: Labor Day 2021, I was camping with these friends near the Oregon Coast and we went to Lincoln City for an afternoon. Got absolutely kickass parking right by a beach house my family used to go to every spring break. The entire time I felt like this group of people I was with just hated me and wanted me gone (I KNOW they did not). Like nails on a chalkboard to even want to take my shirt off. I did and played frisbee, kinda got over alot of my anxiety, then I saw a picture of myself and wanted to go home.

• BV: Hot tub times, in highschool I used to go hot tubbing with friends. We'd have to jump the fence of a local subdivisions pool area. I can remember how panicked I used to get when I even thought about being in the changing rooms with the other guys. I assumed this was because I was gay or bi (had some major confusion about that at the time)

• I am really bladder shy. I don't mind using the urinals but if someone is next to me I can't. I also have this problem when someone uses the stall next door.

• Internships: I have been on a few internships (see Wildflowers of Argonne) and everytime I would have the hardest time making friends. I remember it was the 4th of July and someone asked me to play bags (cornhole for us non-midwesterners). I can remember the shear and absolute terror as I playing with all these guys-guys (I am also terribly hand-eye-uncoordinated.... I know so surprising), the country music was playing and I ate shit at the game and was shaking when it was over. Again I had assumed party or generic social anxiety but who knows

Drinking has always helped with this stuff and I just figured it was "party anxiety" which is super common in folks. Only this happens every time I am around these groups of people who I love and have known for a good chunk of my life. 

I also remember moments with lovers (people who I at least had a conversation and cuddled with) and even the only long term boyf I have had. The world would melt away as I watched his face resting on the pillow. I am a chronic starter, and when he would notice me just looking at him, this beautiful fucking smile that felt like the holy ghost itself was shining on me would break like the dawn after a storm. He had a dimple on his left side that wasn't on his right, his hair was often draped over his face before he got it cut, his powerful eyebrows would rise and fall as his eyes darted over my face. What did he see? I wonder if he knew. I wonder if he could've helped me, saved me even. I can't imagine how much easier this would be if I just had one fucking person to love and support me through this. I am so tried of being alone. I always feel alone.

I am going to try and find a thing I had written up chronicling how we broke up, I never dreamed I'd post it but I think I want to. Updated: I did

8. Societal Dysphoria

Here is where my experiences as a person who identified as a Gay Man can sometimes part ways with those of the authors. You're already queer and have a bunch of those labels associated; you're already "aren't normal". A lot of the things they discuss are just part of the queer experience, or atleast have been part of mine. Many of the sections going forward have this caveat associated with them.

Especially when it comes to dating and courtship gay men don't have as defined rolls, as they state. They can in the top/bottom interactions but these don't really come into play until actually fucking in my experence. I have always tried to have a firewall between a how I build a relationship and the kinks I have in the bedroom with that person. If you read some of the next section I think you'll see why. Although I do feel that I have been pushed into the dom-top roll more often due to my size and that I am willing just so I can have sex with that person. 

I have always had issues in trying to be visibly gay. I often act gayer just to make it clear that I am to avoid very awkward interactions with people when they find out I am (see homophobia on the beamline). This builds into the aforementioned "always lying" thing. If I acted in the way that often feels most comfortable people tell me I usually come across as excitable straight passing. When they tell me that I am really disappointed in this as I often feel like I am acting very feminine.

I often have had a hard time taking my shirt off infront of others. So much so that long term friends of mine commented on how they never imagined I had so much chest hair after I have known these people for years. Recently this issue has more or less gone away due to a sexual liberalization I have undergone in the past year or so.

I don't feel much shame about being queer anymore. I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell my extended family about my queerness (I haven't informed them of the gay stuff), but I don't know; my life didn't blow up when that happened. I have some incredibly awkward and some mean experiences with that but it's been more-or-less fine. Lonely but that's another cup of tea

Things that could be internalized homophobia that I have definitely noticed within myself could also be internalized transphobia. 

A Note about the Gay Identity

For a very long time I had alot of internal conversations about weather or not I was bi, or gay, or even straight sometimes. Each identity didn't seem to quite fit and I really didn't feel all the comfortable with any of them. I lost my virginity when I was 21 and started dating my first boyfriend when I was 22, we broke up when I was 23 and I can quite confidently say he broke my heart. That pain reinforced the fact that I really did truly love, him really pushed me to identify as gay. Even if it was incorrect, I had the receipts (and the cute vacation photos that make me cry).

9. Sexual Dysphoria

Again being a gay man alters some of these experiences. For example: they go into detail about how a closeted AMAB trans person might interact with women and how it's awkward and they might say something like, "you're just not like other guys." Well my solution for that has been I am gay and that's exactly how a gay man can act. Before someone knows from me that I am gay I do feel this incredibly awkward reaction where I want to assure the women I am around that I am not a threat.

When conversations shift to points to chauvinism in the workplace (mechanical engineering is a pretty conservative environment) I have often felt like an outsider and been kinda crushed by that. I got into an unfortunate pissing match with a lesbian friend about some of this stuff and she ended the conversation by saying, "well you're still a man" which really hurt me for some reason.

Although I identify as a gay man I definitely don't look at women as a gay man. I can often find myself captivated by their presence. And do indeed ask myself, do I like her or want to be her very very frequently. I usually do not get an erection and do not fantasize about them so that answers that, at least these days. I originally came out as a bisexual as I was confused about this very topic. I think my parents still think of me as a bisexual lmao. I have probably had sex with about 50-75 men and only 1 woman (and that was just to fuck her husband lol) so I feel like that might damning evidence.

Sexually I define myself as switch-vers but when I can chose I often find myself going for the sub-vers (often this becomes bottom) role. But I do still enjoy domming and topping folks.

I do look at trans porn often but I almost exclusively like cis-man-dom-top and trans-woman-sub-bottom. I do have a forced feminization fetish and have had it for as long as I can remember, even before puberty I can remember fantasizing about being turned into a woman (I remember the show Totally Spies very vividly). I often really dislike porn centered around forced feminization as it very quickly becomes racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic in very unhealthy ways but when I am horny those valid criticisms and better angel are overlooked. 

Attached below are some very light examples of some of the forced feminization stuff I am into. Even these really light ones make me fucking drool. I've always made jokes about being a housewife...

The point is I hate the fact that I am into some of those things that seem so counter to my ideologies. It all especially flies in the face of my limit switches which hornyiness (usually mixed with alcohol) has been the only thing to usrp. I was completely out of control this summer. But sometimes I just want to be used and abused in these incredibly fucked up ways that make me question things. And it seems pertinent to this discussion.

10. Presentational Dysphoria

While I don't hate how I look, I don't particularly like it either when in male gendered clothing. While I really want to ware bright and loud close, I find that my wardrobe is full of hues of gray and blue. I always figured this was just cus those are the most common, and cheep, clothing for men. When I do find something in the yellows or reds, "It just doesn't look right." Clothes shopping has always been incredibly difficult. Both looking through what is there as well as when trying it on. Some of my most tense arguments with my mom surrounded clothes and cloths shopping. I am incredibly relieved when I finally find something which looks fine so I can just leave. 

I always look fine: never good, never great, never hot, never sexy, neve cute, just fine when I am in mens clothing

I have been growing my hair out from almost three years and I absolutely love it. Even when my stubble is showing and I feel bad about that I can look at my long mildly curly, often very frizzy hair and be giggle a bit. At this point I know its super damaged and brittle and I need a trim but I seriously cant bring myself to do it. I really want bangs lol.

I usually immediately take my pants off when I walk into my apartment. More often then not I am winnie-the-phooing-it, at my door, by the time my shoes are off. I then switch into sweats and baggy shirts (or into women's clothing as of late) to be comfortable. This has been my routine for as long as I can remember all the way back to elementary school.

11. Existential Dysphoria

I went through alot of this when coming out as gay. I am kinda mad at everyone else or at least all the stright people. I feel like what I want is what everyone else has. I feel like the world spits in my face for asking for the things that shouldn't be hard to get. It seems that all my friends from high school, undergrad, and grade school are married, engaged, or have live in partners. Most of my siblings do too. It's not for a lack of trying I am approachable, witty, smart, I put myself out there, ask people out on dates, and go on those dates, I am a quick respond on tinder and bumble and okcupid. I know that that's kinda the gig for queers in smaller cities but alot of the time I wonder if people know what a fraud I am and avoid me for that.

What makes hurt all the more is that I had it for a brief moment and those where some of the happiest days of my life. I feel like this would be so much easier to explore if I had a person to bounce ideas off of and support me, maybe this is the work I need to do before all that can happen. I read this comment on reddit at onpoint which has stuck with me for a while, "some people just don't get to find love in their life, you should accept that that might be you."

I used to have this goal that I wanted to be married by 25 and have kids by 30..... I don't think that'll happen

I also really really want kids and feel bad that I don't already. My older brother and the cousins I grew up with are all starting to pop em out like little potatoes. They are building the things that will give them decades of fulfillment and maybe even true happiness; meanwhile what am I doing? Still going to school for something I don't know if I even like and fucking questioning my gender.

Jesus fucking christ, maybe if I had just lied to myself and gotten married to a woman I could have a family and that'd be enough for me to be happy in spite of all this other bull shit. I mean I know it would've turned into resentment, anger, cheating, and probably cancer... but I still wonder.

I think this again is mostly just queer dysphoria not specifically related to trans issues.

12. Managed Dysphoria

Above there are maybe fifteen anecdotes from my personal life. I thought the kernel of many of them where either trauma responses or other stressors, but the thesis of trans seems to fit alot of them them pretty damn well maybe even better then the previous explanations. I am going to list some of the coping mechanisms that come to mind. Remember that I am being incredibly charitable to the idea that I might be this thing we've been talking about. I might be repeating myself here:

Alleviating Day to Day

• Grew out my hair long cus I liked it and, "I could over covid"

• Have always kept my facial hair short

• Lots of porn, lots of kinks that have a clear relation to this stuff (e.g. forced feminization)

• Lots and baggy clothing from costco, often in the grey and blue hues

• Maybe the gay identity, putting a label on my queerness even if it is the wrong label probably helps

Attempts to Fix Myself

• boy scouts

• Getting really into cars (I also genuinely love mechanical things and I love working on my car)

• Going into mechanical engineering (one of the most conservatives STEM fields)

• Going to a rural very conservative school for undergrad then almost taking a job at a lumber mill

Escapism

• Workaholism

• Obsessive consumer of media (lots of people are like this)

• Drinking alot (I am also in grad school)

• Mindless sex

• Binge eating from time to time

If the shoe fits, eh?

13. Imposter Syndrome 

Boy-gosh-golly-gee am I familiar with this. I am just gonna use the auto-complete suggestions from the google equivalent in my head after typing the phrase, "I am not trans." In spite of how ridiculous some of these sound written down they are 100% real and actually cause me angst:

• I'm not trans, I am just doing this for attention. I am a middle child and I need people to like me

• I aint no transgendered: I'm doing this just so I (a gay man) can sleep with straight men (I believe this is autogynephilia)

• Have I been transed by a therapist I deliberately sought out for this specific issue?

• Am I trans or do, I just have anxiety?

• I am not trans, I'm just insecure?

• There's no way I am trans I like working on cars and can name airplanes and shit... that's guy stuff

• Who me, trans? Nooooooooooooo I like my cock and or balls

• What kind of stupid son-of-a-bitch wouldn't be able put 2 and 2 together for 24 fucking years.... you really think your that dumb.....no your just not trans

• I'm wwwwwaaaaayyyyyyy too ugly to be trans

• 6'2" is to tall to be a woman! Have you seen your calves! Your bushy eyebrows

• Even if you are trans you'll never be a real woman so why even try?

• Being trans is going to prevent you from keeping yourself safe and stable

• Why would you give up all the privilege of being a cis white man and make things deliberately hard on yourself

• what will your grandfather think

• what will your grandmother think

• I mean you already are headed for outer darkness for forsaking the one true church so why not slap this on there too 

• Jesus christ how dare you endanger yourself like this, you're gonna get yourself killed by some dick in the street

• Just suffer you ass hole suffer like Kimber, Schavendevelt, Schwartz, Neal, Donnelly, and Morgan before you. Eat, shit, and die; don't upset the order

• No one will ever love you, not that anyone ever has.

• You are alone, always have been. From the moment you where pushed into this world and immediately taken from your mother's arms to be placed on a ventilator. You are alone, you are alone

YOU ARE ALONE, YOU ARE NOTHING, YOU ARE NO ONE. HOW DARE YOU.

Ooff shit well that got dark lmao, stopped being trans stuff there at the end too lol. 

Long-short is I have been dealing with some combo of this set of ideas rushing into my head every time I start to ask questions. That's how I knew I was onto something. So here's to you negative self talk, you in your auditory self righteousness where one of the first things that told me I was right. Eat shit!

14. Am I Trans?

I don't know why are you asking me, you jack-ass

You read this rambling arraignment, this misguided charging document, this accusation...for some godforsaken reason

some might even describe it as damming

Yet somehow I am far too fucking dense to see the incredibly, painfully, obvious answer after 24 and ½ fucking years of life

I mean what fucking person spends their entire life fantasizing about being a girl?

commenting about being a girl?

dreaming about being a girl?

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckfuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

a girl might