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The following is a mirror of a Twitter thread by @NightlingBug. It has been mirrored here for the purpose of preservation since the internet archive is unable to preserve Twitter threads well. The original thread was created January 10th, 2020 and can be viewed here: Nightling Bug on Twitter.
Gender Dysphoria Twitter Thread
By Nightling BugFish don’t notice water. It’s all around them. Most fish have never left it. And often, trans people in denial don’t notice the gender dysphoria that suffuses their daily lives. I’m just going to list some idiosyncrasies and discomforts that I didn’t realize were dysphoria:
(My perspective is going to be that of a transfeminine person, but if you’re transmasculine or some stripe of nonbinary, feel free to chime in with your own.)
When you get ready to go, you just roll out of bed and throw on whatever. You don’t really do any self-grooming, or care about what’s on your body. You’re a little proud of your lack of vanity, your deeper, non-appearance-level existence. Your clothes are chosen almost entirely for comfort. And for you, comfortable means loose and baggy. You can’t stand wearing clothes (that others claim are flattering!) that are close-fitting in the wrong places, that draw your own attention to certain parts of your body. Clothes shopping for yourself is a hassle at best and a source of stress and anxiety at worst. When you do find clothes that fit and look okay, they don’t make you happy. You don’t feel more confident in them. You’re just relieved you can go home.
Occasions where you must dress up, like weddings and funerals and job interviews, are the worst. Even after all of the grooming and wardrobing, you feel self-conscious and awkward in formalwear. It makes you feel fake, like a lump of sludge pretending to be a fancy person. You have an underlying sense that you are “not like” most people. Your friends might get you, but you draw an instinctive and unconscious line between you and “normal” people. When you interact with a “normal” person, you’re not sure what to say or how to act. When you interact with very masculine men, you’re nervous. You don’t really know how to carry on a conversation with them, or want to. You feel an expectation, from them, to be something you’re not. You quietly judge them for being too “bro”-y, “basic.” Being vulnerable around strange men is terrifying. You’re anxious when you use the public men’s room. Changing in a gym locker room is unthinkable. You do not feel ownership of these spaces. You are very concerned about strange men observing you, or your body.
You’re awkward at social touch. You might crave touch, like most people, but you feel like you’re almost entirely incapable of receiving it warmly. When giving a hug, something about your torso feels like it will be offensive to others. (Whatever it is, they don’t notice.) You can’t talk about sex, or attraction, or the bodies of people you’re supposed to be attracted to. Even when your commentary is solicited, everything you could say feels unwanted and inappropriate, even if it’d be fine coming from someone else. You freeze up. You struggle even to voice innocent physical compliments to others, like “Looking good!” You are hyper-aware that virtually anything could sound like unwanted sexual attention, coming from you. You feel like your attention is uniquely, universally unwelcome. When an AFAB friend expresses disapproval, you’re devastated. You scramble to get their approval back. You’re worried you’re coming across as a simpering “nice guy,” all of whom you despise. You just value your AFAB friends’ opinions more highly, for reasons you can’t explain.
You find it hard to prioritize your own feelings. You’re aware of emotions you should be feeling, but they’re distant and fake-seeming. When someone else is upset, it’s much more real and urgent. You believe this is just your stoic, protective nature. You often feel directionless in life. When asked about career goals in High School, you didn’t really care about your answer. Even careers centered in your interests seemed kind of intolerable. You struggle to imagine a future for yourself where you are happy or fulfilled. You only take steps to better your life when external forces make you. You’d rather withdraw and self-minimize and focus on escapist hobbies. You’re just not motivated to attain nice things for yourself. (You tell yourself that this is a zen acceptance, a freedom from desires.)
Your inherent sense of different-ness from “normal” people makes you think that maybe you’re supposed to be a creative. But the art you would want to make is about another gender, and you know that your authorship would be regarded as inauthentic (or, worse, fetishization). You’re worried that you might be homophobic, even though you believe in gay rights, because “LGBT+ stuff” fills you with a deep discomfort. It all seems so flamboyant and overtly sexual. It makes you want to shrink down and disappear, before you die of secondhand embarrassment. Later, when you meet real queer people, or your friends come out of the closet, you start to idolize them. But you’re also jealous. They’re free and real in a way that seems impossible for straight people, like you. They have huge, real person worries and desires and lives.
… I think I’m done for today, but people are welcome to share more. My experiences are very specific, and transness is very diverse, so I’m sure a lot of folks felt different expressions of gender dysphoria and led very different lives while in denial. If a lot of this hit home for you, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re trans, but you should investigate the possibility.
And the awesome news is:
Coming out of the closet, transitioning, and talking to other trans people can help you heal
from all of these feelings! For more clarity on the feelings of fake-ness described above, I highly
recommend this article on depersonalization by Zinnia Jones, which helped me finally accept that,
yes, transitioning might make my life less intensely
difficult: Depersonalization in gender dysphoria
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