I Didn’t Think I Had Gender Dysphoria… Until I Started My Transition
What I wish I had known when I was questioning my gender identity
My whole life I’d had a vague sense that something was wrong, but it was not until my junior year of college when I was lying in bed one night trying to fall asleep that I finally allowed myself to think, “maybe I’m trans.”
I fell asleep that night with a feeling of peace and euphoria that I hadn’t expected. Some part of me that I had ignored for years felt validated and affirmed just to be acknowledged. But the next morning, that acknowledgement brought up question after question. I took to google, determined to figure this out. The need to have answers and certainty felt urgent, desperate. But the more I researched, the more those early feelings of euphoria vanished and doubt began to creep in.
The trans people I read about online seemed so sure of themselves. The trans YouTubers I watched were happy and confident in their identities. I was none of those things. I was anxious and confused. The trans people online talked so much about their gender dysphoria, how uncomfortable it made them, how it drove them to transition. But I couldn’t even tell if I had it.
After all, I’d made it twenty-one years without questioning my gender once. If I was really trans, I thought to myself, the idea should have occurred to me sooner. I wasn’t really that unhappy with my long hair, with my feminine clothes, with using she/her pronouns, was I? Yes, when I imagined myself with short hair, a flat chest, and a deeper voice, I felt an overwhelming ache and longing. But I didn’t feel that all the time. When I went about my daily life, I could distract myself and forget about it.
And it didn’t help that as I searched for answers online, I would come across trans people saying that gender dysphoria was a requirement for being trans, that those who didn’t have it were fakers or “transtrenders.” I doubted myself more, desperately searched inward for any sign of gender dysphoria. I was afraid that I wouldn’t find it, afraid that if I didn’t, it would mean that I wasn’t trans. And if I wasn’t trans, that meant the validation I’d found in finally discovering what had felt wrong in my life for all those years would vanish. In hindsight, that logic was incredibly flawed and those feelings were a sign that I very much was trans, but at the time, I couldn’t see it.
The questioning and doubt continued for months. I felt like I had to be sure that I was trans before I took any steps to transition. The idea of coming out and then later realizing I was wrong made me cringe with embarrassment and shame. But at a certain point, it became clear that the only way I would ever get any kind of certainty would be if I started to explore my gender in more tangible ways than just thinking about it.
And so, I cut my hair. I cut it short. I couldn’t quite work up the courage to ask the hair dresser to give me a men’s cut, but it was masculine enough. As I was leaving the hair salon, feeling wind brush the back of my neck for the first time, I panicked for a moment, thinking I had made a terrible choice. Because while I loved the haircut and loved my reflection in the mirror with short hair, all of a sudden I couldn’t stand the feminine clothes I was wearing, the way my chest wasn’t flat. I didn’t understand at first, what I was feeling, and then it hit me. I was feeling gender dysphoria.
As I took more and more steps to transition, the dysphoria became more and more noticeable. The more I realized the way things could be, the more I realized how uncomfortable I was with the way things were. Each step in my transition came with its own anxiety, but after it was over, I knew there would be no going back. Once I cut my hair, I could never have it long again. Once I started wearing a binder, I couldn’t be in public without it anymore. Once I changed my pronouns, I couldn’t stand to hear people use my old ones.
“…gender dysphoria can take many forms. It can unfold in ways you never expected..”
If you’re reading this because you’ve been scouring the internet trying to figure out if you need dysphoria to be trans (believe me, I’ve been there), the answer is no, of course not. It’s not a requirement. Every trans person’s experience is different and there’s no one right way to be trans. But you should also know that gender dysphoria can take many forms. It can unfold in ways you never expected as you begin to transition. The more you become sure of yourself in your identity, the more you may begin to realize that the dysphoria has been there all along. You developed coping strategies, ways of ignoring it. You rationalized it away as anything but something related to gender. But it’s been there. Always.
I know how hard it is to be in the place of feeling like you need answers about your gender identity immediately. I know how hard it is to be uncertain about whether or not you’re trans. I know what it’s like to feel like you have to have it all figured out before you transition. If you’re in that kind of place right now, I want you to know that it’s okay to take steps to transition even if you aren’t certain. Sometimes that’s the best way to gain certainty.
You can take really small steps. Try a new haircut. Try some new clothes. Transition isn’t a linear path; there’s no required start or end destination. You can take whatever steps you want in whatever order you want. And the feelings that come up when you do, the gender dysphoria or euphoria that you feel at different stages, will help reveal what the right choices are for you.
Before I realized I was trans, I only ever felt apathy toward my gender. It was a thing assigned to me that I was never interested in. I didn’t realize that gender could make you feel something. I didn’t realize that gender could make you feel good. In some ways, transitioning made my gender dysphoria worse, at least temporarily, but it also gave me more gender euphoria than I could have imagined. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
And if there’s anything I wish I knew at the start of my transition, it would be that it’s okay to live in the uncertainty for a while. It’s okay to let your gender dysphoria/euphoria reveal itself to you as you go. Once I let go of my need for certainty, I found euphoria in unexpected ways, in small moments of gender exploration.
So have fun with it. Explore. Allow your gender to make you feel good. In the end, that’s what matters most, more than finding the correct label or identity. The words to describe your experience will come later, trust me. For now, it’s enough to just experience it.
