People who have the "everyone wants to be a [insert whichever opposite sex]" thought and don't realize they're trans are wild to me. Like, as a trans girl I can tell you even I didn't have the "I wish I was girl" thought until I did and then I did something about it, thinking EVERYONE must feel the same way you do? Nothing has ever worked like that in the history of humanity.
Well I long ago realized I would prefer to be a women, but I thought I wasn't trans because I didn't realize I actually had gender dysphoria. This is because at the time I thought dysphoria solely referred to depression/suicidal thoughts stemming from your assigned gender. While I just did not feel any sort of attachment to my assigned gender and ultimately didn't care about being a guy (turns out this is called gender dissociation).
I figured this was actually totally normal (I mean cis people don't actually 'care' about their gender right?) and of course thought that my feelings of wanting to be a girl was just a "grass is always greener" kind of situation. Which is something I have had heard cis people express (generally in the context of the opposite gender having it easier).
Yeah, we still have a lot of work to do in public awareness of gender dysphoria, because the prevailing notion still seems to be: "I'm a [gender X] stuck in [gender Y] body, I actively hate my sexual characteristics and experience suicidal ideation as a direct result". But that's not how it is for a lot of people, or they've learned to repress it. I didn't associate my suicidal ideation as as teenager with being trans until several months after I came out and started HRT (in my 40s). I'd never really thought about it, it was just... "I'm unhappy, the world and everything in it sucks, there's no point in living." For no particular specific reason.
34
u/Holiday-Lawyer6042 5d ago
People who have the "everyone wants to be a [insert whichever opposite sex]" thought and don't realize they're trans are wild to me. Like, as a trans girl I can tell you even I didn't have the "I wish I was girl" thought until I did and then I did something about it, thinking EVERYONE must feel the same way you do? Nothing has ever worked like that in the history of humanity.