Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there's a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity.
So what does it feel like to have gender dysphoria? Well, I’ve no idea. All I can say is what it felt like for me to have gender dysphoria – and to quite a large degree I still feel it. The definition says “discomfort or distress”. I suppose that covers it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been distressed, but discomfort – well that’s a start, but it doesn’t go very far towards expressing how I felt.
I have to try to put aside my feelings toward men (and in a much milder form towards boys, when I was one of them). I despise men, but I’ll try as hard as I can to see through that to the actual gender dysphoria – the two are not really been related, I think.
Unfortunately for this post, but fortunately for me, I remember almost nothing about my childhood. I don’t recall refusing to wear typical boys' clothes (but then there wasn’t any choice for me, and no girls in my life before the age of four, or after the age of six), nor do I recall disliking taking part in typical boys' games and activities, other than that I didn’t like doing them with boys. So that’s two early indicators that I didn’t (as far as I recall) have.
As an adult, I did (and do) feel trapped inside a body that didn’t match my gender identity. Phew. But that’s a simplification. I felt it, but not strongly – there was also this feeling pushing back against it, because I didn’t trust my feelings, thinking that they might be ideologically influenced, or a result of my bizarre and cruel (it seemed to me) upbringing. So I suffered this for decades. The most marked aspect of it for me was the feeling of a mismatch of gender expression – though I didn’t think of it in those terms. I wanted to wear women’s clothes, to wear makeup. I think I felt though, even if only subconsciously, that I was not a woman because my sexual orientation was to women, totally. So I’m a man, right? With hindsight, this seems so stupid – with me a fucking feminist for fuck’s sake – that I am astounded that I didn’t twig¹.
It’s very hard for me to articulate my feeling back before I took control of my identity. I suppose it’s like going undercover, complete with the ever present fear of being caught. It created over the decades a huge void inside me, and now it seems that emptiness is here to stay. But the rest of the badness is either gone, or at least I can see a time when it will be.
I did not feel that any change, other than cosmetic (literally, in fact) was needed for my transition – some mild change to my gender expression. But I talked with my daughter, and somehow, that I can’t explain, I came out of that conversation with a realisation that I do need to undergo hormone therapy, and possibly some kind of surgery. I won’t be accepted for what I am if I don’t.
¹Commonwealth English word meaning to gain a grasp; to understand.