“Nearly every social event I have attended with [communists] has inevitably had some conversation about linux, furry culture, obscure leftist history, tabletop games, or other equally nerdy subjects”
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As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.
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I’m sorry fellow internet stranger. I feel a lot of the same things a lot of the time too. It’s also hard for me to find appropriate places and people to vent about it to, and I’ve been similarly frustrated with therapists. I hope you’re okay with me adding just a little shared misery, feel free to ignore it if you can’t handle hearing about someone else’s struggle with dysphoria right now. My intention is to give some comfort through company, not to make you feel even worse or more hopeless. Whether or not you read it, I want you to know you’re not alone.
More Discussion of Dysphoria, self-harming behaviors, internalized transphobia
Have you ever self-harmed by obsessing over gender theory, or trying to find the perfect argument to destroy any transphobic/TERF ideology from its foundations? I tend to do that when I’m feeling particularly bad and it never really helps. Sometimes in turns into this horrible spiral where I’m trying to like, argue myself out of my dysphoria. Like, oh, I’m only dysphoric because of bullshit patriarchal cishet standards and conceptions of “natural” sex and “real” gender anyway, so if I read something water-tight convincing enough that undercuts those ideas, I can somehow talk myself out of it, make it go away. But it always makes it worse, because in doing so I only end up focusing more acutely on where the pain is coming from, and inevitably I end up reading pages of explicit transphobia, ostensibly to find all of its flaws and pick it apart and make it feel less true, but I’m reading it anyway and it ends up sinking in and making me feel like complete shit, sometimes for days or weeks.
That is to say, I really relate to feeling like an imposter in my own skin. That I’m somehow less “real” than what I am. That there is an ontological gap that cannot ever be completely filled.
But sometimes, I feel a real sense of pride in these same things. I have my friends and my partner and the occasional queer acquaintance who I feel truly do see me for more than what I see in myself, who make that realness tangible in ways that it doesn’t anywhere else. Sometimes I’ll find a particular piece of art or writing that I really do think just gets it and I’ll feel seen in a way that doesn’t feel like being exposed, but embraced.
And sometimes, very rarely, I’ll manage to see that in myself, if only for a moment. And in those fleeting seconds, it all feels worth it.
sorry to anyone who feels this is an inappropriate use of this space. i understand there’s sort of a taboo around venting and using shared spaces as therapy sessions because, well, i’m sure we all know where endless, normalized pessimism can lead. we’ve all heard of 4chan. i’m very much not trying to cause a chain reaction and I promise not to make this kind of posting a habit. I just, idk, something about this specific comment really struck a chord with me, so I really wanted to reach out and share my own experiences with the same sorts of feelings. I hope this is ok.
if anyone feels like they want to talk about any of this, ask me questions about it, or just feels like shooting the shit with someone who might be in a similar situation, my DMs are open
all love to all my trans comrades. thanks
spoiler
I can confidently say that I do not do that. My coping method is to distract myself and not think about it. Of course, this is not healthy and tends to just delay these thoughts until it becomes explosive like you see here. For some reason, researching things as you outlined is simply more damaging to my psyche because it just makes me feel faker than I already do for some reason.
Thanks for typing that out though. It does bring comfort and I don’t feel alone for once. Whenever I come in here, it just seems like a bunch of people enjoying their early days of HRT and being so happy. Then I look at myself and see a few years of HRT and two GAS and just feel miserable. It’s hard to find people to relate to on the surface because the circumstances are entirely different for the most part it seems. It’s painful. I wish I could be so optimistic as I was in that first year.
if you've read this much you already know why this is hidden
God that’s so real. I’m like almost 4 or 5 years on HRT myself and I remember when I started, seeing people post timelines and feeling so much like anxious hope looking forward to seeing so much change. And now I’m where they were or further and I look at myself and so often I just see a slightly older and softer version of the same person with the same face and the same build… and yeah sometimes it feels like I drew the short stick there. for some people, looking in, it seems like it happens so fast and effortlessly. But logically I know that isn’t necessarily true. That they’re probably only showing their best and editing out the rest, and that they probably feel the same way about themselves at least sometimes, and that largely we’re all in the same boat in terms of the ideas about gender and sex that we’re surrounded by and ultimately internalize. But it’s cold comfort when I still feel, inadequate I guess? In my own head I still feel less “real” than them somehow. But yeah, that definitely isn’t just a you thing.
I think part of it might be that online trans spaces can skew kinda young, both in age and in like transition time. I think a lot of the older people might end up feeling similar to us and just leaving, maybe with better real life support networks than they had when they first started and needed to find that online.
Anyway, I’m rambling now. I’m glad my stupid words could be some use. I hope you start to feel better soon, it’s been nice sharing this discussion with someone else who’s been through similar stuff, I rarely get to talk to someone else who really knows how that feels