Gender Dysphoria - a year later (almost)
It's been almost a year since I first openly acknowledged to myself, and then my therapist, that I am transgender (it was sometime in February). That got me to thinking last night about gender dysphoria.
Early on I had read many accounts of people's experiences with GD, and I was having a hard time relating - most included comments about "knowing from early childhood that I was a girl trapped in a boy's body," etc., and I didn't really have those memories (I also recognized that at 48 years old I don't have a whole lot of any childhood memories). Then I started seeing other stories - including Janet Mock's - that resonated quite soundly with me! It was more about experiencing being the "wrong gender" as opposed to consciously knowing it. So I settled down, and the road has been much smoother since then.
Anyway, on the point of GD. The best evidence that I now have that I had it is that I clearly no longer have it - it's in it's absence that it's most noticeable! On that day last February when I came out, a lifetime of depression and malaise lifted immediately and has not returned (not that i don't have down times, but it's not the same existential crisis that it used to be).
I get really annoyed/angry when i hear about those who question if GD is real, or how serious it is - I know what my life was before and since, and my GD was very, very serious, even if I didn't recognize it as GD (for a good part of my life I don't know if the concept of GD even existed).
Just some thoughts on the approach of my anniversary :-) (well, one of my anniversaries - I just have to figure out what date it was)
xoxo
Chrissy
(BTW, I'm trying out "Chrissy" as a nickname)
2 Comments
Recommended Comments