My experience as a gender dysphoric child
Because Transgenderism is such a hot topic; I've decided to share my experience with gender dysphoria.
I experienced Gender dysphoria approximately from the age of 7 or 8.
I intensely wished I could be a boy. Prayed day and night that my breasts would disappear; even though i knew they wouldn't. And that I would never get a period. I did; around my 11th birthday.
My whole life long it has been obvious that boys got a better deal. And adopting boyish behaviors didn't get me boy privileges.
Like the boys got to use the clubhouse even though I had discovered it. I talked to the other girls, tried to spur them on to fight for our territory, but they just shrugged.
I just wondered why no one else seemed to notice or maybe it was me who was crazy.
My gender dysphoria dissipated more or less at age 14 upon assuming a heterosexual identity, and my body hatred morphed in to an eating disorder. Imagine I could hate my body AND become more sexually attractive to men all at once; a solution to good to be true. Wishing my breasts away was transformed into wishing away my thighs and my belly. (as for wishing periods away; i discovered tampons on my own after about 3 years of menstruation, so I could pretend i wasn't having one).
Fortunately for my health, i loved food too much for this to last long; so I kept eating in spite of myself, and then hating myself and my body for it all over again. Instead, I worked out obsessively which was viewed as a healthy habit. Objectively it was; I still reap the benefits to this day, although it didn't come mentally from a good place. A part of me even still fantasized about bulking up, subconsciously because I had already absorbed that too much bulk on a woman was icky.
I mention "assuming a heterosexual identity" with emphasis on identity, not on the development of heterosexual feelings, although obviously the identity was powered by the feelings. I had been getting warm fuzzies around men since around age 10, in a way that I didn't around women, spurred on by trashy romance literature. But I didn't incorporate it into my self identity just yet- I didn't experience it as something that was supposed to affect all other aspects of my personality.
That is, until i became of age in which that was the normal and socially expected thing. I see myself in Freud's theory; I learned to express my desire to be a man as a desire to be a desired by a man, the closest i could make it. (although it was never focused on the penis for me; but more on that lean muscular physique. either way i beleive that both are symbols for freedom and power).
So I tried to become acceptably feminine, and have reasonably filled a feminine role most of my life. From a rebel, I became a nurterer. Not always consciously. Sometimes I wonder how I would have turned out if I had been lesbian. Or conversely if I had had more feminist validation when I was young.
What a difference a decade makes. If puberty blockers had been available to me at the time; I would have found them a godsend. I am glad they weren't; today there is nothing I appreciate more in life than having a healthy body. As for "social transitioning" I can't imagine that if people would have agreed to pretend with me that I was a boy; that I would have been so gullible as to believe them.
Despite having grown out of gender dysphoria, well into adulthood, I have experienced flashes of longing at the sight of lean muscular male bodies. Not a longing to have it (although that was there too); but a longing to be it. Those have dissipated as well; because most of the men my age don't look that way anymore, and at least I have a head full of hair, while they don't.
I experienced Gender dysphoria approximately from the age of 7 or 8.
I intensely wished I could be a boy. Prayed day and night that my breasts would disappear; even though i knew they wouldn't. And that I would never get a period. I did; around my 11th birthday.
My whole life long it has been obvious that boys got a better deal. And adopting boyish behaviors didn't get me boy privileges.
Like the boys got to use the clubhouse even though I had discovered it. I talked to the other girls, tried to spur them on to fight for our territory, but they just shrugged.
I just wondered why no one else seemed to notice or maybe it was me who was crazy.
My gender dysphoria dissipated more or less at age 14 upon assuming a heterosexual identity, and my body hatred morphed in to an eating disorder. Imagine I could hate my body AND become more sexually attractive to men all at once; a solution to good to be true. Wishing my breasts away was transformed into wishing away my thighs and my belly. (as for wishing periods away; i discovered tampons on my own after about 3 years of menstruation, so I could pretend i wasn't having one).
Fortunately for my health, i loved food too much for this to last long; so I kept eating in spite of myself, and then hating myself and my body for it all over again. Instead, I worked out obsessively which was viewed as a healthy habit. Objectively it was; I still reap the benefits to this day, although it didn't come mentally from a good place. A part of me even still fantasized about bulking up, subconsciously because I had already absorbed that too much bulk on a woman was icky.
I mention "assuming a heterosexual identity" with emphasis on identity, not on the development of heterosexual feelings, although obviously the identity was powered by the feelings. I had been getting warm fuzzies around men since around age 10, in a way that I didn't around women, spurred on by trashy romance literature. But I didn't incorporate it into my self identity just yet- I didn't experience it as something that was supposed to affect all other aspects of my personality.
That is, until i became of age in which that was the normal and socially expected thing. I see myself in Freud's theory; I learned to express my desire to be a man as a desire to be a desired by a man, the closest i could make it. (although it was never focused on the penis for me; but more on that lean muscular physique. either way i beleive that both are symbols for freedom and power).
So I tried to become acceptably feminine, and have reasonably filled a feminine role most of my life. From a rebel, I became a nurterer. Not always consciously. Sometimes I wonder how I would have turned out if I had been lesbian. Or conversely if I had had more feminist validation when I was young.
What a difference a decade makes. If puberty blockers had been available to me at the time; I would have found them a godsend. I am glad they weren't; today there is nothing I appreciate more in life than having a healthy body. As for "social transitioning" I can't imagine that if people would have agreed to pretend with me that I was a boy; that I would have been so gullible as to believe them.
Despite having grown out of gender dysphoria, well into adulthood, I have experienced flashes of longing at the sight of lean muscular male bodies. Not a longing to have it (although that was there too); but a longing to be it. Those have dissipated as well; because most of the men my age don't look that way anymore, and at least I have a head full of hair, while they don't.
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