Gender Dysphoria

New description (March 11, 2017) It has been almost two years since posting this, and in a couple months I will be 26. I am still very proud that I was able to write this, especially because so many people have been affected positively by it. I consider this a safe place, and I will defend it. I am not always good at replying to positive comments because honestly I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that I do not know what to say, but I just discovered some very negative and a very nasty comment, and I want everyone to know that I WILL hide comments that compromise this trans-positive safe place and I WILL block people who I think say something nasty enough to warrant it. To those of you who intend to say nasty things, I want you to know that you are wasting your time. You will not affect who I am, you will not even dampen my day and I will not waste thoughts or feelings on you beyond pity that you are so close-minded and bigoted and I will be hiding your messages to protect my fellow trans and non-binary people. To those of you who are here to feel safe, for well-intended curiosity, for community and support, both allies and LGBT+, I hope you all have a beautiful life and a happy future, and please know that eventually things will get better for us.

Since writing this I have become more secure with myself and I have more of a sense of who I am and how to say it. (I'm leaving my old description because some people have expressed liking it.) I am a non-binary boy. I do not feel manly in the stereotypical way that guys are depicted, but I do feel that I am a guy, just a rather free-spirited androgynous guy. I do not plan to take hormones for personal reasons, and I am unsure if I will get surgery in the future, but I very strongly do not identify as female. A little bit of background here: I grew up with very close-minded parents who did all they could to force femininity on me and the first time I heard of someone being trans was when my mother was watching a documentary when I was little and she was a bigot about it. I have felt strongly that I am an androgynous guy since I was about 5, but I was too afraid to tell anyone. The first time I tried to come out I was 15, but I was pushed back into the closet and kept it a secret until I was in my twenties. In fact, writing this poem was part of the slow process of me coming out and getting more comfortable talking about it.


Original description:

I am nervous about sharing this... Recently I have been dealing with trying to get my parents to accept that I am trans. One thing they especially don't understand is that gender dysphoria is a real feeling. Since I told my mom a bit about it, she has begun to make progress with respecting and supporting me. I wrote this in hopes that it will help my parents understand what this is like for me and that how I feel is real.

So basically the first part is a collection of some of the things that are said to me that make me feel intense dysphoria and the second part is how I feel and think when thing such as those are said to me, or I otherwise am circumstantially made to feel like my body is wrong. ( For that part I actually just typed in what I felt as it came for that part and cleaned it up before submitting.) The last part is my overall message of how I feel about being trans and what I want my family to understand. I already live as a man in my own way, so most of the time I do not feel gender dysphoria very strongly, but things such as the phrases in the first part (plus all those awful gynecological exams and periods) really get to me and make me feel it very strongly, it hurts.

I feel very lucky to have a fiance who strongly supports my gender identity and a close friend who is trying to help me with opening up about it.

Just to clarify: Most of the time I am in between male and female, but I consider myself male, not male by the gender stereotype, but rather a unique third gender type of male. Simply put, I am a Lauren, and a Lauren is a type of male. I have mixed feelings about how my body looks, my ideal look would be an androgynous male body.

*Minor edits done 5/21/15* Rewording a couple things and added a couple lines, including what I think is a better ending "and my lies steeped in denial turning into truth".

EDIT: (May 31, 2015) Changed the ending again! This will probably be the final version, as I now feel I can show it to my family without them misconstruing it. Plus, it was driving me crazy that I did not put in anything about how happy being trans makes me overall, so I'm glad I finally got to put that in.