The Little Things That Hurt: Daily Gender Dysphoria

Can’t I just be normal?

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash

A few days ago my wife came home with my youngest daughter. They brought me socks and underwear. Yes, underwear for a man. Boxer shorts for a man. What else?

My wife told me my daughter said of the underwear packaging: “That man looks like daddy.”

Many men would have felt honoured by that because of what an underwear model looks like — muscular, well-defined. A washboard stomach, a dream of a man. I, on the other hand, was heartbroken. I don’t want to look like a man anyway, no matter how unrealistically great or normal he looks. But I can’t say that.

I should have been trying on the underwear for days and I refuse. I’m sure I’ll wear them at some point, but it upsets me that I’m supposed to flaunt myself in them. I don’t like it anymore. I prefer to pack this body up as soon as possible so I have to see as little of it as possible. But just putting it on display in a pair of boxer shorts, that hurts in the meantime.

By the way, my wife brought not only underwear for me, but a beautiful new pair of sports leggings for herself. That too, the most normal thing in the world, for me felt like a horror. Because while I got something I don’t want, she got something I do want. And I already know the bout of dysphoria that will come as soon as she wears it will send me straight to depression hell.

It’s these very small things. I can’t stand any more of it. Even if it’s just my children deliberately addressing me as a man. It’s a disaster.

Now that was very short and easy to read. And it’s all extremely succinct for cis people, I think. But you cannot imagine in the least how bad all this is for me, when everyone actually only means well.

The boxer shorts are nice and I’m sure this body would look good in them. And surely my wife would be happy about it. But just thinking about wearing them brings tears to my eyes.

But on the other hand. I think about the leggings. And my physique, which doesn’t resemble a woman’s in the slightest, I don’t feel like wearing them. I’ve worn leggings and it just looks like shit. Pardon the language, but that’s a fact. Those manly legs, then of course — you know what — and the manly buttocks. It looks dorky. And I’ll never get there either. No matter what I do, they would look better on that other body.

So, why am I even bothering? A rhetorical question to conclude.