Pain
So something a lot of trans people talk around while discussing transition, hormones, surgery, and other technologies we may or may not access is the idea of dysphoria or dysmorphia or dissonance. That is, the clash between what your body appears to be and what you know your body should be. Trying to maintain this dichotomy is known to be harmful trans people’s mental health.
I don’t know where this dysphoria comes from, or what causes it, but I’m not interested in the etiology. I have no idea whether trans people are socialized into being trans or it has a genetic cause, or a developmental cause, but then neither does anyone else. Being trans has no known etiology and everyone who claims otherwise is trying to sell you something. So just forget about etiology now. Work on practical needs. The DSM-IV-TR describes diagnostic criteria for gender identity disorder as:
A. A strong and persistent cross-gender identification (not merely a desire for any perceived cultural advantages of being the other sex). In children, the disturbance is manifested by four (or more) of the following:
repeatedly stated desire to be, or insistence that he or she is, the other sex
in boys, preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; in girls, insistence on wearing only stereotypical masculine clothing
strong and persistent preferences for cross-sex roles in make-believe play or persistent fantasies of being the other sex
intense desire to participate in the stereotypical games and pastimes of the other sex
strong preference for playmates of the other sex
B. Persistent discomfort with his or her sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex.
C. The disturbance is not concurrent with a physical intersex condition.
D. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
First of all, these criteria are completely cissexist (and allows for no one outside the binary), but that’s not really the point. I also think that many cis and trans people miss the language in D. that says “clinically significant distress or impairment.” A lot of cis people like to theorize all kinds of things about trans people and our lives, why we transition. And the popular narrative is a kind of softer, defanged narrative that says “All my life I felt I was assigned the wrong sex.” Said in any number of ways. But this narrative, however it’s worded, fails to convey what this is like.
What it is like for me is pain. It is the pain of having your skin wrapped badly around your body, fitting awkwardly at best. Reminding you that everything is wrong whenever you move, whenever you go to the toilet, whenever you undress, whenever you shower, whenever you wake up, whenever you go to bed, whenever you see a mirror. It is a constant pain. Everything reminds you of it – the pronouns others use for you, the name others use for you. The clothes you wear.
It’s like living in a world where everything is made of sandpaper and it’s always grinding into your skin – your skin that does not fit your body.
You know what your body should be like, should look like. That you have parts you should not and do not have parts that you should. Your body does not behave like it should, move like it should, smell like it should. Your skin is the wrong texture. Puberty changes your body in ways that alienate you further from your own ill-fitting skin. Your voice is wrong, your face is wrong, your chest is wrong, body hair and facial hair are wrong. Some of your internal organs are wrong. In some ways, your skeleton is wrong.
This is not about “I want to play with dolls, wear dresses, go to the hairdresser, go shopping, wear makeup,” or any other insulting and superficial characterizations of trans women’s femininity. That is placing the cart before the horse. What it’s about is this pain and doing what it takes to ease the pain. And you learn that all you do is ease the pain. Because it never stops. The romanticized stories of transition to surgery and a woman happily after? Those are the approved narratives that were told to the public. They were shaped to cis expectations.
But the truth is that it is still difficult. Hormones help a lot. After a time, your skin fits a lot better, but you can still see and feel and hear every single flaw. Flaws that cis people may never notice (but many will helpfully point to other flaws you may have missed!). Sometimes you might not even be able to judge what or how you look because the flaws you can see dominate everything else. But, just in case you happen to forget this even for a little while, you are reminded of the entirely naturalized idea that being trans is such an abject state you deserved to be mocked and attacked – even killed – just for daring to exist, daring to make peace with your own body. Even surgery (any surgery) does not fix this, fix the fact that you live in a transphobic – a trans hating – society. While it can do wonders for your comfort in your skin, it does not always do wonders for your history of living with dysphoria, or even correct all the dysphoria you have now.
Medical transition is the only treatment that helps. Medications don’t, electroshock therapy doesn’t, adminstration of hormones for your CASAB doesn’t work, psychotherapy doesn’t, nothing else works. They have all been tried.
And I am sick and tired of reading cis people’s extremely uninformed beliefs about why trans people are trans, and the motivations they believe we have for transitioning. You’re all fucking wrong: It’s pain.
Edit: One commenter suggested my writing universalized this a bit. This is my description of my experiences, and I am glad if others identify with similar or if they have their own experiences of dysphoria. The point is that this is not something that you can collapse down into something simplistic and benign, as many seem wont to do.
Thank you for your post. This is something I was thinking about, because someone close to me once again asked me to explain (as in “explain myself”) how transsexualism fits into their gender-philosophical theories.
I think I’ll instead ask them to explain why it hurts and why transition helps. Theories are supposed to explain observations, not make wild assertions and demand contrary observations explain themselves.
Thank you.
Joe
7 Sep 10 at 4:09 am
The way i’ve described it before, trying to explain why my transition was my priority in my life above everything else is that its like being covered in shit.
If your covered in shit you cannot feel good about yourself or have any confidence. And everything you do will be focused on washing it off or getting to a place where you can wash it off.
estrobutch
7 Sep 10 at 4:55 am
I want to quote the whole of this. Thank you, Lisa.
“You’re all fucking wrong: it’s *pain*.”
Yes. Yes, oh, this. I need to remember this every time I get into the mental whirlpool of “What made me trans?” (or, on a bad day, “What made me think I’m a man?”) The answer is that it *doesn’t fucking matter*. I was in pain: constant, exhausting pain that finally became too much to bear, and after that I still bore it for several more years. That’s what matters. I’m still doing my best, every damn day, to alleviate that pain.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jack
7 Sep 10 at 4:56 am
Ohhhhhh yes. Thank you, Lisa. This will be a help in explaining things to some people having trouble understanding me.
Hidden Heart
7 Sep 10 at 7:41 am
A resounding YES to all of this. Every single word of it. This is the thing no one else seems to comprehend. Thank you for stating it so well.
Diana
7 Sep 10 at 7:47 am
Thank you for this! As a cis woman, I really appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the personal/internal (as opposed to the public/external, I guess) aspects of being trans.
Something I’ve been curious about for a while is, are there any positive or well-done portrayals of trans people (individually or as a group) in movies/TV shows? The only portrayals, period, that I’ve seen are in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and an episode each in Law & Order: SVU and NCIS (both of which were fairly early in the series, I think).
Seamyst
7 Sep 10 at 7:53 am
Theories are supposed to explain observations, not make wild assertions and demand contrary observations explain themselves.
I kinda want to make t-shirts that say that, pass them out to all my scientist friends, and then spraypaint the same lines over a couple people’s computer screens.
I think section D of the guidelines up there also has some implications that get lost in ciscentric discussions about trans people–that the point of any transition step (be it medical, legal social, etc) isn’t to become more gender normative or cis-like, but to alleviate some aspect of that individual person’s pain. Forgetting that leads to a lot of ridiculous theorizing about why there are so many ‘types’ of trans people, rather than simply acknowledging that not every person will have every type of distress, and that sensible people won’t want to waste energy, time and money on transition steps that won’t help them personally.
(that is, leaving aside the pressure to do things you’d rather not in order to avoid other people’s transphobia. For example, I didn’t feel any personal draw to legally changing my name, but past a certain point, it became more of a hassle to explain myself any time I had to show ID. So I ponied up the money and did it just so I could get out of awkward conversations with bank tellers, employers and cops)
Radical Scientist
7 Sep 10 at 8:32 am
I’m glad it resonated with people.
Radical Scientist: I wanted to keep things a bit simple so I talked about my own dysphoria and tried not to generalize more than I absolutely had to (and there’s one spot where I did, but it’s really only the business of one other person). But yeah, there’s a lot of different ways to be trans and to experience pain and I hope people don’t take that away from my post.
I could have talked about being forced to do things to alleviate other people’s transphobia regardless of the effect on myself, but didn’t think of it at the time. Thank you for mentioning that.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 8:36 am
*claps heavily*
I’m adding this post to my resources section as a 101. XD
genderbitch
7 Sep 10 at 8:41 am
Seamyst, was this really the place to ask about positive portrayals of trans people in the media? Talk about missing the point of the post…
velvet_tipping
7 Sep 10 at 8:53 am
The media portrayals bit in the post is kind of clashy with the rest of it, but this was a pretty raw work, and I wasn’t in the clearest frame of mind when I wrote it.
Seamyst,
I’m glad it helped you understand and I hope empathize. I mean we all know what it’s like to feel pain and try to cope with it, right?
Edit: I took out the sentence about the media, since I didn’t go anywhere with it. It’s not really the point of the post.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 9:04 am
This is so good and pain-fully resonating.
kon
7 Sep 10 at 9:06 am
Yes, this. All of this.
As far as I’m concerned, even the most sympathetic cissexual portrayals of what “it’s like” to be trans undercut basic empathy. Of course we’re depressed because we don’t fit into society as we’d like to, don’t get to wear the clothes we’d like, etc., etc., but yes– this is exactly putting the cart before the horse.
If we lived in a world where everyone treated us with respect, our lives would *still* be crushingly depressing at times. I hate it when cissexual folks talk about how a genderless society is utopian, using us as a justification. No. I’m on record as opposing gender (and binary) based oppression, but no. We know exactly who we are, and yet our bodies and our lives don’t work the way they should. It’s not merely an issue of oppression, but also about a cosmic fuck-up of epic proportions.
eastsidekate
7 Sep 10 at 10:07 am
I like to think that if we were accommodated better, that this would help a lot. Like, cissexism means we get to learn how to hate ourselves for not being cis on to of the dysphoria itself. And I think a lot of the comorbidities come from that.
Doesn’t mean there’d be no pain, but that we’d get help relieving that pain instead of being treated like crap for daring to have the wrong kind.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 10:13 am
Also, I’ve tried to reject the idea of being a mistake or having the wrong body. I mean my body is my body, and as little light said there’s only one escape. It’s the one I’ve got, and being trans is a normal variation in humanity (as painful as it is for me to be trans at times).\
(not disagreeing with above comment, just having thinky thoughts in response)
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 10:33 am
@Seamyst – to answer your question – the short answer is “no”.
The longer answer is, there are portrayals that try hard to present a sympathetic portrayal, but since every single such portrayal has been done by cis people, they totally miss the points that Lisa is making here – that we are suffering from *pain* and that our actions are attempts to reduce that pain, and wind up falling back to the same cis narratives that Lisa discusses.
It’s rather depressing, and I don’t think that that landscape will change until we trans* folk tell our own stories. And that will be difficult outside of the context of a few blogs, since trying to get mainstream media – which is controlled by cis people – to express any interest in our stories is a nearly insurmountable challenge.
I also want to point out that mainstream media portrayals of trans folk are nearly always of white middle-class trans folk, and that whatever media acceptance of self-narrated stories there is, is mediated by that. For example, the film Prodigal Sons saw greater interest from mainstream media because it was told by a trans woman who is white and middle-class (Kimberly Reed). I’m not saying that in a denigrating way – her story is quite valid and quite painful and I’d suggest you watch it – but that it is that much harder for trans folk who are of color and/or working-class to get their stories even noticed, let alone publicized.
(For the record, I’m white and middle-class.)
GallingGalla
7 Sep 10 at 10:48 am
Website for the film, Prodigal Sons
Please understand that this is one woman’s story, and does not represent “The Trans Experience”.
GallingGalla
7 Sep 10 at 10:50 am
[...] Harney takes a direct approach in a post called succinctly: Pain. What it is like is pain. It is the pain of having your skin wrapped badly around your body, [...]
Painfully Accurate « Salad Bingo
7 Sep 10 at 11:00 am
In my experience, it was only pain when it wasn’t numbness. I went through years of numbness.
Marja
7 Sep 10 at 11:43 am
@Lisa–Oh, that wasn’t criticism, I was just having a rambly ‘Wow, that was interesting, and made me think of this’ moment. I think I just had my pontificating hat on.
Radical Scientist
7 Sep 10 at 12:27 pm
I was just responding. I wasn’t as clear on that as I wanted to be and I appreciated what you said but didn’t have a clear response of my own.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 12:44 pm
For me, not pain exactly. A constant cold incompletion, as of holding my breath for years on end, and putting up with a bad smell. I could push it aside, keep my patience and wait for a chance to fix, but I can’t make it go away.
Julian Morrison
7 Sep 10 at 1:15 pm
I like that description. Thank you.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 1:17 pm
Personally, Fear has been just as close a companion as the pain – and often a more intimate companion, since some things could make me forget the pain, but the fear is always there, at a low ebb, in the back of my mind.
Cate Johnston
7 Sep 10 at 1:21 pm
I posted this in a comment thread elsewhere about this article, but I also think it might be relevant to post it here(because I agree with the article plus more):
I agree with the pain. I would say it isn’t only limited to the body, but how the world works around you. To never experience childhood or teenage years that would have fit you more. To constantly try to assume a role that feels forced and inappropriate. To try to be a sane person when everything feels insane. To always feel a certain dissonance to other people because fate played a cruel trick on you.
Svanhvit
7 Sep 10 at 2:08 pm
Thank you, I did forget that part, and it’s very important.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 2:16 pm
GallingGalla – thanks for the Prodigal Sons recommendation! I’ve added it to my Netflix queue.
I can certainly understand the pain of being different, of not fitting in, in religion (I live in the heart of the Bible Belt and am not Christian), sexuality (hetero, mostly, but with a very strong asexual tendency), and weight (I am fat). I’ve accepted these in myself, but getting others to accept them is very difficult.
Seamyst
7 Sep 10 at 2:27 pm
Yeah, I hear you on that. Acceptance is always the rough point with some people. :(
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 2:33 pm
<3 This is really good. Unfortunately it kind of triggered my dysphoria feelings which is why just now commenting and didn't this morning.
Nicole
7 Sep 10 at 3:00 pm
Sympathies, Nicole. :(
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 3:01 pm
The bit about skin not fitting certainly fits with my experience.
As for the diagnostic criteria – I guess they’re framed in cis terms because otherwise less experienced cis psychs simply wouldn’t be able to comprehend without a long, long lesson. Trans psychs of course don’t need anyone to write this stuff to diagnose and understand… they simply do!
Zoë O'Connell
7 Sep 10 at 3:17 pm
This emphasis on pain does not resonate with me and my experience. Perhaps this is because as soon as I realised I was trans I started taking steps to transition, so I haven’t had to live while actively trying to suppress my self-knowledge? I don’t know. I realise you’re trying not to generalise, and trying to leave room for other narratives in your post, but I think emphasising pain above all else runs the risk of excluding other histories.
I do like your description of “having your skin wrapped badly around your body, fitting awkwardly at best” – when people I trust ask me what it feels like, I can only describe it as a crawling sensation under my skin, a kind of gut-sickness or nausea that I can ignore or not be bothered by for long periods of time, but which is very occasionally overwhelming.
nix
7 Sep 10 at 3:37 pm
The post is my narrative, Nix. I’ve already taken down one post because people felt excluded by things that happened to me in my own life, and I’m kind of defensive on this point now.
I hope that people who want to speak their own truths do so, and I do not want to stop them from doing so. I also hope that no one tries to use this post to link-drop in the middle of arguments as the one true path.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 3:43 pm
[...] sketch [ETA: as well as completely incorrectly suggesting that, as a cissexual person, I could know the experience of body dysphoria]), I described myself as a “butch-to-femme transsexual.” I felt like the canonical [...]
body image and the effeminate guy « femme guy!
7 Sep 10 at 4:06 pm
I’m sorry you felt that as an attack. Perhaps it was the generalised ‘you’ in your post, along with the title and concluding sentences that made me feel the post was emphasising pain as the reason that all trans people transition. I in no way want to question that this was your experience, or to question any of the commenters that have also experienced their transness in this way. I did, however, want to add a comment to give a differing perspective, and to suggest a reason it might be different – in fact, doing exactly what you say you hope people do (i.e. speaking my own truth).
nix
7 Sep 10 at 4:24 pm
Thank you for this post, Lisa. It very well describes my experience. Whether or not it fits perfectly or even nearly with other people’s experiences, the point is that we do not transition for the reasons that cis people fantasise we do, let alone do they know why we’re trans.
Lucy
7 Sep 10 at 4:26 pm
Oh and thanks for the second paragraph. I had a hard time putting that into words that I was willing to release. I am on some level not fully happy with this because it was raw and I was in a really bad emotional state when I wrote it, but I wanted to put it out there whatever its state.
And yeah, I am kind of defensive about stuff like that because of the other occasion. Thank you for clarifying. I didn’t think you were attacking, but, well, I’ll e-mail you and explain more when I’m in better shape (not your fault on this count).
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 4:26 pm
No worries. I could have been a little less blunt in my wording, too. Take care, and let me know if there’s anything I can help with.
nix
7 Sep 10 at 4:36 pm
I do want to do a more coherent post that takes social stuff into account and is less about one thing and more about a general, IDK. I can’t describe dysphoria for everyone, but I can at least open things up a bit, you know?
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 4:37 pm
Perhaps it’s because there memories from pre-transition seem hazy and cartoonish, perhaps it’s something else, but (like Nix) I don’t recall feeling much pain, specifically -before- transition.
The bulk of the pain hit after I transitioned and was so far from my end goal that every reminder of the distance left to run – how incomplete I was – caused great pain.
Then again, before the advent of HRT, I was an emotional wasteland and I’m not sure I was really capable of feeling much pain. Or perhaps my coping mechanisms were too good.
Whatever the case, the real pain started after transition, not before. Part of that is no doubt the pain of going from a privileged and fully accepted member of society to a reviled and oppressed one.
Cate Johnston
7 Sep 10 at 4:57 pm
Edited to clarify it’s not universal.
Cate,
Thank you for writing your story. I think there’s a lot of that.
And yeah, although I’d argue that pre-transition you’re already part of an oppressed group and been raised in a culture that hates trans people, but that’s a systemic thing and not about how you experienced it.
Lisa Harney
7 Sep 10 at 8:16 pm
That’s definitely true; as explored in the recent guest article, there can be a great deal of internalised and externalised hatred of trans people by trans people themselves due to the social programming we are expected to absorb.
For example, I was a horrible, vile transphobe when I was a teenager and it only got worse when I signed up to the army; I had a massive amount of self hatred for what I was. Growing up hating a core element of yourself is a pretty oppressive and damaging experience (though obviously not one exclusive to trans folks).
It’s just really sad and awful that some people (like myself) not only contributed to transphobia in our pasts, but were victims of it at the same time.
Cate Johnston
7 Sep 10 at 8:43 pm
Wow, that description is… me. I’ve basically been lucky enough to experience a fairy tale transition from the word “go,” but blending in doesn’t erase the hurt and the hate that festered within my broken shell for the previous two decades of my life. I can’t look at photos without risking days of deep depression, and I still see that fucker, or at least certain aspects of him, in the mirror far too often.
Being trans is forever, and that’s probably the thing I hate the most about it.
snarez
8 Sep 10 at 12:59 am
@ Lisa:
Wow – great post. That descrition…is spot on.
I’m not saying that being Trans* is a disability, but disability theory is something I’m way familiar with.
But it seems that being transsexual in this culture is kind of the same as disability in that the basic problem is there, but how society handles it makes things way WORSE instead of better.
and I recently stumbled on this article talking about the difference between transgendered & transsexual.
http://tgnotwhatyouthink.blogspot.com/2010/08/its-not-about-how-girly-you-are.html
/Thought Dump
Cereus Sphinx
9 Sep 10 at 3:33 pm
This is a fantastic articulation of what being pre-transition is like, that thing that’s so obvious to us and so counter intuitive to cis people that it’s often completely overlooked. Thank you for saying it. It’s pain.
Zoë Blade
10 Sep 10 at 9:26 am
Word-perfect, Lisa, well-played, ma’am.
I describe the reason I’m so happy now (18 years post-transition) as being quite simple: I had one wish, one goal, one thing I wanted above all else, from the moment I was old enough to know what ‘want’ meant, and I now have that.
It’s the hidden silver of this life: how many people truly get to live what they’d always dreamed of?
Caitiecat from Shakesville
10 Sep 10 at 9:49 am
What you write could easily describe me, a woman who hates her body because society hates women. Every moment I’m reminded of my physical body: pain. Every fucking second. I want to escape my body every moment. It is a body dysphoria.
But I’m not transgender. I just hate what I’ve learned to hate. I know what I hate isn’t me, because I don’t hate me. It’s this dichotomy that is the problem.
Liberate-Her
10 Sep 10 at 7:03 pm
I totally believe that you have pain similar to this although I don’t think I can identify with it when being female actually alleviates so much of my own. That doesn’t mean I am at all happy with sexism or misogyny, or that I don’t have body issues because of sexism.
I’m glad if my writing resonates with your visceral reaction to institutionalized sexism.
Lisa Harney
10 Sep 10 at 7:07 pm
CaitieCat,
Transitioning made everything so much better for me too (started 23 years ago). I don’t mean to sound like these days I’m all pain all the time, but I do have some issues with my body and society because of being trans as well as being a woman and they can hit me pretty hard.
That happened the other night, which inspired the post.
And yes on living what you dream of.
Lisa Harney
10 Sep 10 at 7:17 pm
@ Nix. Shared. I started transitioning before I knew I was trans so the, hopefully lesser, pain came after.
@ Lisa. Not sure if I’m crossing a line here ; please call me out on it if that’s so. The thing is I’m wondering whether there isn’t some kind of link here with ADHD. I find living with a possibly unfulfillable need for surgery very hard. The only way I’ve got of coping with it is by not coping but distracting myself at the whiff of a thought about it. To have to go through years of this I could easily see as severely reinforcing several ADHD symptoms. If that were to be the case then it might be possible that the range of therapeutic options that could be of use should be wider than normal.
Pain is not the best teacher in the world, as well as making a lousy companion.
Sophia
11 Sep 10 at 4:47 am
What do you mean by range of therapeutic options?
I’m… not really sure how to describe how I think ADHD and being trans intersects internally, although I would say it probably had an impact on me transitioning as young as I did. But I don’t really know?
I also know that when I let my estrogen get low, it impacts my symptoms, but that doesn’t mean estrogen treats my symptoms so much as a change in hormones can exacerbate them.
I don’t know that dysphoria has severely reinforced my ADHD symptoms, although I do think my coping skills have become a lot less effective over the past several years – but that’s in the wake of some other psychological stuff that had a lot to do with trauma.
I agree with your last sentence.
Lisa Harney
11 Sep 10 at 7:50 am
In my tween and teenage years I remember distinctly the anxiety I experienced whenever in a situation that would draw attention to my external gender. It wasn’t that other people would notice this gender, but that I had to confront it myself. It was scary. I think my family didn’t see it coming (my transition) because I had learned to dissociate myself from this presentation. I would avoid looking at myself in the mirror, because otherwise I would stare at myself with a tearless cry. That is pain.
This December will mark three years on HRT. The pain is still there at times. Some days I feel completely at ease, something I had never experienced before transitioning. Others I feel the pain just as much as before, because I am fighting it head on. More and more though I learn to forgive myself, and accept my internal gender externalizing itself. This includes allowing myself to present gender queer at times, a presentation I hadn’t the confidence to perform before transition, before my body itself felt more like me.
To me external presentation, the body (secondary sex characteristics), and genitalia are all elements with different importance at different times. It bothers me when ignorant cis folk (and some trans too) focus on genitalia. I don’t see my genitals in the reflection of store windows. My genitals don’t change how people interact with me at parties. My genitals don’t respond to text messages from girls and guys that think I’m cute. It doesn’t make me any less of a transsexual that they don’t contribute to the pain and dissonance like other aspects of external gender and sex do.
Sorry if I’m ranting, but I wanted to illustrate the nuances of my personal experience with dissonance. It’s a narrative I never hear of in mainstream medical communities or media.
Madeline
11 Sep 10 at 3:55 pm
Yeah, you’re not ranting at all and the focus on genitals is all too pervasive when talking about trans people.
That said, for a lot of trans people, genitals are a huge source of dysphoria, and I think it’s okay to talk about that. It’s not okay to extend that to other trans people’s genitals (as I’ve seen some do) and defining their gender and sex and life in terms of which surgeries they’ve had or one assumes they’ve had.
Lisa Harney
11 Sep 10 at 4:02 pm
Something that i find incredibly frustrating is the tendency (I’ve experienced it mainly within the trans community) to believe that people ‘are’ their genitals.
I see it repeatedly in the statements to the tune of – if someone (trans feminine references) is pretty, feminine, has a nice voice etc then they must have had lower surgery, and conversely if someone doesn’t fit this description then they must not have. I’ve had people apply that logic to me both ways and frankly I find it offensive either way.
My disphoria had a great deal more to do with social presentation pre transition, my face being the strongest physical factor, and while other factors were still very relevant I wasn’t ‘as’ focussed on the same parts that seem uber important to many people.
I’m fine with whatever needs another person has, and I know that it doesn’t affect me at all, but I still find it intensely frustrating that questions like “Are you a ‘real woman’ yet?” are considered to be legitimate from strangers who happen to be trans.
I personally refuse to discuss surgery that I’ve had in relation to transition unless it’s with a person who has some legitimate right to know (doctor, prospective partner, etc), or unless it’s relevant to a conversation about legal stuff for instance.
Beyond that I simply fail to see how people should be treated any differently either way – If someone says they’re a man, or woman (or androgyne for that matter) then I just take their word for it.
But pain – yes, I had that and it became huge – to the extent that it seemed inescapable at times, I still have bouts of it periodically, but it’s much less frequent these days and I often go for long periods without it raising it’s head at all.
Em
11 Sep 10 at 5:32 pm
Yeah, I don’t get it all that frequently (I think I implied more in my post) but rather that transitioning doesn’t mean it goes away completely.
And like I have so much trouble even judging what I look like. I’m incapable, even in the best of states.
And yes to the bullshit about people “being their genitals.”
Lisa Harney
11 Sep 10 at 5:47 pm
[...] 12, 2010 by Diana_W Last week I linked to a very powerful post talking about the pain of gender dysphoria. I had more I wanted to say about it then, but I [...]
Another Attempt to Explain Transition « Salad Bingo
12 Sep 10 at 8:22 am
“Pain” describes what I feel too. But I also suppose it feels very much like sexual abuse. Like being cosntantly sexually abused by my own body and at the same time by everyone else, because they identified/associated me with my state of disgrace and expected me to enjoy it, and despised me and made fun of me when I refused. I still feel like something filthy because of that, and I’m also very tired.
C.
14 Sep 10 at 9:33 am
[...] Transphobia: Pain: But this narrative, however it’s worded, fails to convey what this is [...]
Miscellany: T-shirts, Sun TV, Ex-Gay Charities, Trans Blood as Bad Blood, and Recommended Reads « Dented Blue Mercedes
15 Sep 10 at 2:02 pm
Thank you very much for this article!
It reflects very well my experience, and this was the main reason for me to start transitioning. Getting better now. I couldn’t have described my pre-transition experience better than you, though I think for FTMs it’s a bit more like you feel you haven’t grown up yet (beard missing and body hair missing etc.) PLUS have weird female characteristics on your body.
Only thing which was different for me, it was not like sandpaper, somewhat less hurtful, more like knitted wool directly on your body which is uncomfortable and scratchy.And then I looked at the mirror and felt silly for my feelings, cause well it was not me there, but at least the woman there looked good. Also, often it was not pain but numbness, as another commentor wrote.
Robin
22 Sep 10 at 12:15 am
P.S.:
Sorry I sent the message too early. What annoys me is that quite a number of people don’t get this even if you explain it. Especially my gender shrink asked almost only questions about gender roles and identity and whether I played with boys or girls as a kid etc. and almost completely dismissed this experience. Though I told him about this physical side in detail and that it was my biggest problem.
Also, in the psychiatric literature, me seems, this important aspect is not represented well, if at all, it mentions this concerning the genitalia and not the other 95% of the body. The focus is almost always on gender roles and identity.
Robin
22 Sep 10 at 12:19 am
[...] is more than “cosmetic,” and more than “preventive.” As Lisa Harney recently wrote at the blog Questioning Transphobia: What it is like for me is pain. It is the pain of having your [...]
What the Delisting of GRS Illuminates About the Alberta Health Act Proposal « Dented Blue Mercedes
11 Oct 10 at 6:56 am
The American Psychiatric Association (publisher of the DSM) has information about proposed revisions (changes, removals, additions) for the DSM-V (expected to be released in 2013). This is the link to the proposed revisions for the diagnostic criteria for gender identity disorder. http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=482
One of the major changes is to eliminate the gender binary by using the phrase “or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender”
Just thought this was interesting.
Eliot
11 Oct 10 at 11:58 pm
[...] Let me say that again: You don’t need to experience dysphoria or dissonance to be trans. Many people do, and it’s easiest to know if you experience these, but it’s not necessary. Either kind of dysphoria, none at all, or a kind I missed may drive someone to transition. Many trans people are driven entirely by body dysphoria: one example, another, a third. [...]
Introduction to Gender Questioning « TAL9000
20 Feb 11 at 12:39 pm
[...] the best description I've ever read of what being trans actually feels like on a daily basis: Pain at Questioning Transphobia __________________ Now that I think about it, the Narnia books make being in the closet seem way [...]
Trans/Queer/Sexuality/Kink/Etc. Megathread - Page 43 - Fires of Heaven Guild Message Board
26 Mar 11 at 1:28 pm
Although one extremely important and pertenent area of dysphoria wasn’t initially mentioned (as noted by Svanhvit and immediately acknowledged by you) this is possibly the clearest articulation of a fairly common (though, obviously, not universal) condition suffered by many transpeople and transsexuals in particular.
My own experience has been a mix of what you describe and what some of the other posters describe as their contrasting or somewhat different experience. I think the point here is that gender dysphoria, in its many forms, is real and intollerable. This, I think, is ample explanation for any cissexists who keeps on insisting I need to explain (meant, justify) myselves and gender as real – deserving recognition, respect and legal protection from any form of systemic and/or pesonal trans-hate/invlaidation. (Side note: IMHO, most transphobes aren’t phobic to any degree as much as just being hatefilled bigots, and it diminishes the reality of people who do suffer from phobias, so I’m going to stop using that term.)
Pre-adolescence was the most excruciating time for me because of the anticipation. Fortunately for me, I was an extremely late, slow, and partial bloomer when it came to developing secondary sex characteristics. Unfortunately, time did catch up with me. Dysphoria for me has been somewhat alleviated as I’ve begun to transition. I’m actually surprised how much at ease I often feal in social situations presenting female, in congruence with my gender, despite so many people in my A.A. community where I socialize the most being very aware of me being trans and not all of them at peace with this yet. I still get the sideways glance at times, etc., which is pretty tame, and had to deal with one complaint about me using the women’s room, yet I feel more comfortable now that I’m living in my gender 24/7 than I ever felt before.
Does this mean I don’t need or want SRS? I still have intense genital dysphoria, but some people have assumed that because, I seem so much happier now, I need not transiton further. When I tell them I’ve barely begun my transition and am seeking SRS, these well-meaning cis freinds are often surprised; though not ever in any “well-that-would-just-be-going-to-far” kind of way like I anticipated. I’m fortunate to live in and associate with a fairly open-minded community, though; so I know this is far from the normal reactionary experience most of us have. I have gotten my fair share of that elsewhere.
There’s a lot of ignorance about what it means to be transgendered and specifically about the specific needs of transsexuals. More ignorance than actual hate, I hope. This approach to informing cispeople who are curious about us and misinformed and ask us questions in a non-judgemental way will likely go a long way toward having and enlisting more effective allies.
Thank you Lisa.
Long live diversity in all its beautiful forms.
Christina Shannon
10 Apr 11 at 5:22 pm
[...] well said: What it is like for me is pain. It is the pain of having your skin wrapped badly around your body, fitting awkwardly at best. Reminding you that everything is wrong whenever you move, whenever you go to the toilet, whenever you undress, whenever you shower, whenever you wake up, whenever you go to bed, whenever you see a mirror. It is a constant pain. Everything reminds you of it – the pronouns others use for you, the name others use for you. The clothes you wear. [...]
this dysphoria | through the wormhole
20 Apr 11 at 5:26 am
[...] know how the story is supposed to go, for a trans woman. It’s supposed to go from unbearable pain pre-transition to happiness post, a journey that culminates with SRS1. This is the triumphant [...]
Guest post: Sadness is my boychick (or girlchick) | Raising My Boychick
29 Jun 11 at 9:52 pm
This article is well written. It’s not conclusive, it doesn’t generalise. And it speaks well for a large portion of us Gender Dysphoric sufferers.
But I would like to point out. That I do dream of the day, when there will be a very reliable substantiall biilogical factor in our missmatch. I do think this will shut up the negative theorists out there who have caused us so much harm.
When I think of my gender mismatch. I tend to think from a biased society assured position. I tend to wish I was not Transsexual. Just merely “wish I was born a normal girl” I think a large portion of us feel the same.
I think this connotation of thinking is beneficial twofold. Firstly it does away with the ultirior motive for why we feel this way approach. And secondly it tends to fit in to societies expectations. And so ultimately this approach is ironic in it and of itself.
Jessica Madele
1 Jan 12 at 1:37 am
Thank you so much for this. As a ciswoman who is constantly trying to help to understand what trans people MAY be going through and trying to figure out how best help(for lack of a better word) get them accepted as people (as I honestly see them since gender is not important to me on who I talk to/associate with/make friends with). You’ve actually help put a lot of things that my trans friends have said more simply and made them click a lot better. I have some letters to write now to government officials. But once again, THANK YOU so much. I can emphasise with the pain part of it and the feeling like your skin doesn’t fit your body (only mine is a tad different since I don’t feel it is necessarily the wrong gender just proportions which is kind of superficial but it is still how I have always felt). It is terms I understand is what I was trying to say.
April Marie
31 May 12 at 3:05 pm
I stumbled upon this article and found it to be extremely powerful. If it all possible, I may be interested in featuring it on my website as something unrelated to things I normally “post” about. (normally, as in fiction, gaming, media and guest posts about random interesting things)
Of course, I won’t link to or quote/paraphrase anything from this website without permission.
But… I believe awareness and understanding is the only road to love.
Ryan S. Fortney
29 Jul 12 at 4:49 pm
It’s perfectly fine if you post an excerpt and link back here. Thank you for the kind words.
Lisa Harney
30 Jul 12 at 8:43 am
Okay, I have a post scheduled for 10:00am PST, tomorrow. I’ll probably share it on Reddit, see if I can get some traffic coming your way. :)
Hope all is well and, until next time, peace!
Ryan S. Fortney
30 Jul 12 at 12:24 pm