Transgender/Gender dysphoria symptoms?

[JMG]

Has anyone of you, or others you may know, experienced something similar to what I want to tell below?

I need to tell, however, there might be triggers in this message.

This is what I have been experiencing: To start with, I have no clear memories of my childhood that points to me wanting to be a girl as a young kid, but I have some vague memories from early school time about 8 years old or so. I started School in 1981.

I remember I had a female playmate who got ashamed when I started to cry, which also ended the games we played. Afterwards I remember how I hated crying. When someone cried I was really feeling bad. 

 

In school one day, when I was rocking in the swings, I had taken my

shoes off. Then I was bullied by a boy by him stealing my socks. After that, I got a maniac idea of becoming like him, that felt like a "crush".  But I hated myself for some reason.

Soon, a year later, twin girls moved into the school and I soon wanted to become a "third sister" of them, I looked a lot like them already because we were of the same "constitution" and they did not dress in girl clothes and had short hair, which made it easy.

I would probably not find any issues about wearing girl clothes if it had not been such a taboo.

My adoptive father hated anything that even remotely looked girlish or me giggling or crying. He even complained how I gripped the textiles in the laundry room, like carefully instead of grabbing them. I also hated my given name a lot, even though it was similar to that daring bullying guy who I idolized

 

But it continued wanting to be like the twin girls, I wanted to become like them, especially the more extrovert of them. Others thought I just had a crush... I thought it was something really wrong with me...

 

Then I got into puberty. I had several paraphilias about tight clothes and sensory deprivation since young ages and I remember how I was curious about my biologically assigned gender. There was no disgust at this time though, only some feelings of discomfort and I could not sleep without clothes on or the discomfort would upset me.

My adoptive parents did never have any issues about my sexual maturing, they never said it was "dirty". In fact they told me it was normal...

I have never felt any "auto-gynephilia" either, but only attracted my more gender-neutral body parts. I am attracted to men also so I have found some more male muscles attractive, at later years even on my own biologically assigned male body, which is a paradox really. That was one of the reasons I wanted to ask about this...

 

But after a year into my puberty, I really started to disgust my biologically assigned body, at least those parts typical for my biologically assigned gender. But I also

discovered erogenous zones on places not that common on men as well, especially the neck.

 

Also there were people on TV, a woman who saved a detective in a WWII thriller. She was also one of those I wanted to become.

 

But those wishes faded away, and I started to want to become a girl, a female version of myself, and that badly. There was a TV a series about a girl who grew up to a woman. How much I wanted to be like her! ("Sparrow's Eye" in Sweden)

I wished UFO people would change me, I wished I could be reborn as a girl, and so on. But at the same time, all this scared me! And that for a reason.

My adoptive mother got just worried and angry like "you just stop! how would that be like?" And so on, surely I felt very bad. I had a school counselor, but I never dared talking about it in other means than metaphors she never understood. I started to find threats everywhere, even where there were none and build up a strong anxiety that up to today has haunted me.

 

I hated the gym class because that was horrible! Hated ball sports, hated being among the guys in a team division and the teacher complained about my long bangs.

I got my only F in the gym class, I hated the shower, I also got strange bumps under my nipples which I did not know what it was so I got scared someone would think it was a disease. Up until college I wanted to be a girl, my class mates even suggested I would be the "queen of Christmas" even though there was a boy with long blonde hair who would fit better. I was surprised, but this faded away because all the hate against female clothing I had to endure. It was simply not possible. I probably started to suppress it. School went bad too because of this and the teacher being arrogant and childish did not help either.

Later on, suppressed concupiscence, made me insane, I started to believe in "supernatural bad powers" and such like and got hospitalized at a youth mental hospital. It was then in the beginning of 1990s.

During the years of 1991 to 1997 I did not even want to look at the typical male parts of my biologically assigned body, and I also I bought hair removal too and washed away body hair like it was dirt.

In 1992, I left hospital and got an insurance so I could survive, but I still went on with religious ways of suppression.  That was until 1998 when I met a black "priestess" of sorts who gave me some kind of blessing, when I only got more of those concupiscences I stopped visiting her, but I sooner grew and learned to accept and even embrace the sexuality. I had no feelings of longing to be a woman by then though, but I had a male identity that I felt I had "taken" from a book. But I thought of it as "me" and then came out as gay. I had grown my hair long though. Love it that way!

 

 

I met a boyfriend and had a relationship, but after a long time, when I was 40, the urges to

want to be a woman came back. I really thought it was just some strange ideas and suppressed it, because I felt so much fear and the guy I was in a relationship with did not support it at all. He was just angry at me when I brought it up. Also, when I talked about wearing female clothing on Facebook, I got trolled. I suppressed it again, I had bought clothes but I bagged them in a storage room and cut my hair short.

I got ultra sensitive for sounds, got anxious, no one wanted to believe me about that. I started to become paranoid, only now I understand that this wish of being a woman but being scared of what people may think, is what may cause the anguish.  Fear of aging like a man also makes me pushing this away.

I am 47 now. And it has come back again several times. The sound sensitivity has made one of my ears physically bad. And I was once interested in making music.

 

I don't know if some of this is "transgender symptoms", gender dysphoria, or just some kind of defensive reactions.  It is why I ask if anyone has had similar experiences before I visit a doctor because if they say I do not need any gender treatment, I would probably be extremely disappointed, and that could be very dangerous, therefore I am pretty scared.

The GD about my biologically assigned body was only there after puberty but I think I periodically had a form of GD about my identity throughout my life, at least since after 10 years old as in wanting to be a girl/woman. There were anxiety attacks, make idols as well, and had very few friends.

 

 

[Jackie C.]

Salutations @JMG! Lovely to meet you.

 

That's a lot to unpack but let's start with this: Cis people do not generally question their gender.

 

Now let's look at your dysphoria and oh boy there's a lot of that. Wanting to be one of the girls. Uncomfortable in "male" spaces. Just generally doing things like a girl. All that fun stuff can be signs of dysphoria. The best way I can describe it is like a mosquito constantly buzzing in your ear. A friend of mine said that to her it was more like having a low-grade migraine all the time. Basically, we all feel it a little differently, but it's something we regulate to background noise because we don't know any better. Especially when we're kids. When we're kids we just accept it and think that, "Everybody feels this way, right?"

 

So what do we do? We build a fake personality based on our "maleness" or how society expects us to act. We build it in layers and make it up from things we see in books, movies and TV. I mean that's how a man is supposed to act so we build up this thing and we carry it with us through our lives. The thing is very heavy, but like a turtle shell it protects us from all the people around us who don't approve. Because this shell is very heavy, sometimes our inner selves say, "Enough!" and we struggle to put down the shell. That leads us to the next point: Gender euphoria!

 

Gender euphoria is the good stuff. It's that feeling you get when you dress up in clothes that feel right, look at yourself and imagine the woman you were supposed to be. There's a little bit of her shining through in your reflection. Once you lay down the shell and set it aside, you feel amazing. You're authentic self shines through. She stands up, stretches and your heart just sings.

Doctors tend to focus more on the dysphoria aspect than the euphoria in their practice. Though that's changing and can be different from doctor to doctor. I think it's important though. To me, transitioning is about becoming the best version of yourself that you can possibly manage.

 

So yeah, you sound like you're suffering from gender dysphoria to some degree. Exactly what you have to do to feel comfortable in your own skin is still up in the air. That's different for all of us too. My advice to you would be to find a gender therapist and talk it over with a professional. Together you can come up with a plan that works for you.

 

In the meantime, welcome to TransPulse! We're glad you're here!

 

Hugs!

[VickySGV]

A general rule of thumb we have here on the Forums is that if you are questioning your gender at all, you are not Cis gender.  You do not find contentment or fulfillment in the gender you were assigned at birth with all of its expectations, and you have been taught to feel a trainload of guilt for those feelings.  You have done a lot of self diagnosis and found you do not 100% fit any of the "abnormal" ideas of gender either.  You show you are not Cis gender, but you have eliminated the really creepy  ideas of gender that do exist in paraphilias.  The concept of Autogynephilia has been debunked almost completely although some people who have not had adequate psychological counseling hang the label on themselves and sit around reading pornography instead of enjoying who they are.  Being Transgender is being part of a spectrum which you will get the picture of if you read our posts here.  Where you fit on the spectrum is what you will have to discuss with a Gender Therapist who will help you find ways to overcome the fear, shame, guilt and anxiety about your gender that you talk about.  

[Davie]

15 hours ago, Jackie C. said:

Salutations @JMG! Lovely to meet you.

 

That's a lot to unpack but let's start with this: Cis people do not generally question their gender.

 

Now let's look at your dysphoria and oh boy there's a lot of that. Wanting to be one of the girls. Uncomfortable in "male" spaces. Just generally doing things like a girl. All that fun stuff can be signs of dysphoria. The best way I can describe it is like a mosquito constantly buzzing in your ear. A friend of mine said that to her it was more like having a low-grade migraine all the time. Basically, we all feel it a little differently, but it's something we regulate to background noise because we don't know any better. Especially when we're kids. When we're kids we just accept it and think that, "Everybody feels this way, right?"

 

So what do we do? We build a fake personality based on our "maleness" or how society expects us to act. We build it in layers and make it up from things we see in books, movies and TV. I mean that's how a man is supposed to act so we build up this thing and we carry it with us through our lives. The thing is very heavy, but like a turtle shell it protects us from all the people around us who don't approve. Because this shell is very heavy, sometimes our inner selves say, "Enough!" and we struggle to put down the shell. That leads us to the next point: Gender euphoria!

 

Gender euphoria is the good stuff. It's that feeling you get when you dress up in clothes that feel right, look at yourself and imagine the woman you were supposed to be. There's a little bit of her shining through in your reflection. Once you lay down the shell and set it aside, you feel amazing. You're authentic self shines through. She stands up, stretches and your heart just sings.

Doctors tend to focus more on the dysphoria aspect than the euphoria in their practice. Though that's changing and can be different from doctor to doctor. I think it's important though. To me, transitioning is about becoming the best version of yourself that you can possibly manage.

 

So yeah, you sound like you're suffering from gender dysphoria to some degree. Exactly what you have to do to feel comfortable in your own skin is still up in the air. That's different for all of us too. My advice to you would be to find a gender therapist and talk it over with a professional. Together you can come up with a plan that works for you.

 

In the meantime, welcome to TransPulse! We're glad you're here!

 

Hugs!

Thanks, Jackie C. This is helpful and well-said.

[JMG]

Thanks for the replies! Well this requires me, in order to keep a clear communication to mention some sensitive topics. If you are not fine with it, please warn me ASAP. What really made me doubt was that strange sexual attraction to my own biologically assigned male upper body. But I guess if I do a transition, that symptom would go away or change? Now, many psychologists, nurses and assistant nurses I have seen have all said it is healthy to be sexually attracted to the own body but this was not really compatible to the GD, but I always felt "drained" and jumpy after I did such a healthy "solo act". So ofcourse there must be something more to that. But it kept me in doubt, and some bad relationship as mentioned, for very long now. Any ideas about this?

[Ivy]

Welcome @JMG

[JMG]

On 2/23/2021 at 12:40 AM, Jandi said:

Welcome @JMG

Thank you so much!

[Ava87]

Welcome to the forum 

[Linda Marie]

Gender dysphoria, what magic words.

When I was diagnosed gendered dysphoric I had my answers, and I wasn't insane.

I can look in the mirror and honestly say I'm normal. 

I also say I don't give a .....what the neighbors think.... 

 

 

 

[Drayse]

Any good psychologist isn't going to tell you anything that you don't already know. If you're at this stage wondering if what you're experiencing is gender dysphoria, that you don't feel your gender identity lines up with your assigned sex, you've pretty much figured it out yourself. Your psychologist will just help you face it and lead you to make a decision on what to do about it.

 

Welcome to the forums @JMG. ?

[JMG]

What causes confusion is that some people seem to have, or work after a certain criteria that claims:  in order to be transgender, one has to have the feeing of being the opposite gender since a pre-school age or at least pre-puberty, and have female interests/behavior, and/or being left handed. I read that in a book, I got sceptic, because I did not have a sister or any girls nearby to compare myself with at that young age, even though I never liked any "boyish" games. There are people who don't realize they are transgender until old ages. I watched a video on Youtube by a transgender woman who had a very typical, for a boy, childhood. I also know about transgender women who love  hunting or fishing. What is more important is that I believe that  transgender people can suppress their feelings of true identity and develop a life in emulating what is expected of them until they believe in it themselves. Also the book claimed being transsexual could be traced in the DNA, it was where I closed the book. If that were true, one could do a simple blood test to determine if someone is transgender or not. But it is not that simple. So where to find information to trust? I believe this is not always in the "biology" of a person, it could as well be in the "spirit". Maybe there are transgender women who do not even do makeup and dress in jeans+T-shirt? What I fear is the psychiatrist is one of those who use such criteria I discovered about in the book, and, heaven forbid, use DNA as a guide.

[Drayse]

I agree, that book is trash.

[Ivy]

5 hours ago, JMG said:

I believe this is not always in the "biology" of a person, it could as well be in the "spirit".

I agree.   I believe we are more than our physical bodies.