Admin of lemmy.blahaj.zone
I can also be found on the microblog fediverse at @ada@blahaj.zone or on matrix at @ada:chat.blahaj.zone
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- 3 yr. ago
- Posts
- 40
- Comments
- 957
- Joined
- 3 yr. ago
It devinetively is caused by my quite big desire to be a woman
This is dysphoria
So becoming what i dream of is the only way of combating this
This is dysphoria
on other days it feels like an flesh made nightmare that you cant escape.
Dysphoria
Whenever the void appears, it is guarded by this huge desire to transform into a woman.
Dysphoria
that when i look into a mirror, that I cant really connect to the face staring back at me.
Dysphoria
This lack of obvious signs of dysphoria is the reason, why i am starting to think, that what I experiience is my bodys way of manifesting dysphoria.
Believe it or not, it's almost a cliche how many trans folk describe their experiences of dysphoria, whilst simultaneously talking about how they don't experience dysphoria.
I can't tell you what your dysphoria means, and I can't tell you who you are. What I can tell you though is that similar experiences to yours have been shared by many many trans folk before you.
Currently I dont really experience the typical symptoms of dysphoria (hating yourself/your body...).
They aren't the typical symptoms of dysphoria. Dysphoria is commonly portrayed like that in media aimed at cis folk, and so it's commonly seen that way, but I'm reality, it doesn't typically manifest as hating yourself or your body.
medical settings are the one place where it is sometimes important to disclose your gender assigned at birth.
It's more complex than that. On the medical side, doctors treating trans people as their assigned gender is just as problematic as assuming that they are cis. Which is to say, the majority of the time, it's just not an issue, but sometimes it is, and when it is, they need to deal with our specific needs as trans folk, not as if we are the gender we were assigned at birth.
On the other side of that is transphobia. Depending on where the treatment is occurring, out yourself as trans opens you up to transphobia. Sometimes its outright refusal to give treatment, sometimes it's referrals elsewhere, and sometimes it's "trans broken arm syndrome", where every issue you have is first filtered through the fact that you are trans, as if that is the real problem that needs to be dealt with.
I live in an accepting country, with laws that protect me. Yet, if I end up in hospital and I out myself as trans, I'm most likely going to end up in a room by myself, whilst having people smile at me and tell me that treating me differently to everyone else is somehow a gift, because I'm getting a "private room".
So yeah, sometimes, to get safe and effective treatment, trans folk have to out themselves as trans. But more often than that, to get safe and effective treatment, we have to stay closeted. Navigating those conflicting scenarios is something that most trans folk have had to do at some point :\
When I was still a kid, I experience my dysphoria in a couple of ways Physically, my body was always wrong, and I wished it were different. I'd dream it was different, I'd pray that it would change, and as puberty kicked in, my detachment from my body increased. Socially, I resented being grouped with boys and missing out on things that girls could do.
This was in the 80s and 90s, so I didn't have the words to understand what was happening, and I didn't even know trans people were a thing. I didn't have a feeling of "I am a woman/girl", rather, I experience it as "I should have been" or "I wish I was".
And ultimately, it mostly didn't change from that for many decades. The language I used changed, and my awareness of trans folk increased, but I still didn't see myself as being trans or being anything other than a guy who should have been a girl.
I used to dream about it in the way I'd sometimes fantasise about winning the lottery. I'd imagine how my life would be different, and how life altering it would be if this wish came true. But the key difference between thinking about the lottery and thinking about my gender, is that I never stopped thinking about my gender. It was always there.
It wasn't until a couple of folk in my life came out as trans about a decade ago and I had a chance to talk to them that I realised I was the same as them, and that I'm trans. It was the first time in my life I was able to talk about my experiences to someone and have them understand what I was saying, without having to fumble around trying to explain myself.
And for a little while, that changed my dysphoria. Instead of a vague feeling of discomfort with being gendered as a guy and a wish for a body that I didn't have, the shedding of my denial crystalised my dysphoria and sharpened it. In some ways it felt worse, but in some ways it felt better, because now I understood it, and knew what I could do with it.
And I spent the next few years after that chasing social and medical transition, and these days, I don't really experience dysphoria in any meaningful way. I still have moments, even when it does pop up now, it's background noise rather than a debilitating and painful awareness that dominates everything.
Touchpads and trackballs are my go to input devices!
Yeson's glottoplasty doesn't use lasers, and they have an unparallelled amount of experience.
My VFS surgeon (in Australia) can perform FemLar, but didn't think I needed it, so wanted to do the less invasive glottoplasty.
I've had good outcome with it
Yeson does a variation of the Wendler glottoplasty, which is basically just a shortening and thinning of the vocal cords.
A more advanced (and invasive) VFS option is FemLar, which shortens your vocal cords and lifts your larynx. FemLar surgeons are harder to find, but I know at least 1 in Australia offers it, as does at least one Thailand.
just dicking around on my own for testing purposes.
Start with this, and if it gets traction, you can always move it to a more serious setup.
That's pretty much what happened with this instance
Ok, first, to get some important things out of the way. Voice surgery, or even voice training isn't ever necessary, or at least, it's not something that someone else gets to tell you is necessary. It can help with dysphoria, and it can help with cis passing and avoiding transphobia, but even then, whether that makes it necessary is an entirely personal decision.
As for why people will tell you that your voice passes as cis? There are several reasons. First and foremost, for people who have known you a long time, they often, honestly just can't tell anymore. Secondly, the whole pressure to cis pass that we push on to members of our community is not a positive thing. Like I said above, it's something that people should be deciding for themselves based on their own needs. And I really feel uncomfortable being part of that pressure. So if someone asked me if their voice cis passes, I'd be very hesitant to answer, because the act of answering itself suggests that cis passing is a goal you should be seeking.
The way to get what you're looking for from people here isn't to ask them if you're cis passing, it's to ask people whose voices you find inspiring how they achieved various things. "How did you voice train? How do you shape your vowels like that? Who did you get VFS through?" etc. You're not putting them on the spot and asking them to assess you and your validity, but asking them questions that can have objective answers, rather than subjective answers loaded with judgement.
Now, with all of that out of the way, I had VFS (in Australia), and whilst it hasn't been perfect, it's been a strong positive for me overall. The thing that got me wasn't my day to day voice. It was androgynous, and people didn't know how to read it, until they knew my name or saw what I looked like. The exception was when I was coughing, sneezing, or cheering/yelling. My voice training did nothing for those things, and I got VFS to help me with them. As a result though, my voice now cis passes, but it's also quieter than it used to be. I can yell at my old volume, but making myself heard in a noisy restaurant, or in a workplace meeting without yelling is pretty much impossible now.
And the other consideration is that VFS isn't a magic bullet. The way to think of it is that it will give you more for less from your existing vocal training. After VFS your training will take you further than you were able to achieve beforehand, which means that training is a worthy goal, whether or not you want VFS, and whether or not your voice can cis pass
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No background, AMA
Did you deliberatelyskip the background section when you were doing character creation or was it accidental? Do you regret this character configuration? Would you create the same character if you were starting again?
For what it's worth, "Do I want to do her or do I want to be her?" is a whole thing with cis lesbians...
Yes, I can hear you Clem Fandango
What in USA is considered “left” more-or-less align with what is considered left outside of USA
What is considered left in the USA is largely considered center or center right outside of the USA
Nothing. It will always be worth it
But maybe this is less rational and more psychological, maybe it’s just more satisfying to pass in front of a transphobe, maybe it’s more emotionally validating if the person who thinks the world is crazy for letting men into women’s restrooms sees that “man” is a woman.
Whatever you're looking for here, you won't get it. If a transphobe doesn't read you as trans, you don't get a reaction from them. If they do identity you as trans later on, or if you out yourself to them, they won't question their beliefs, they won't second guess themselves, they won't give you more legitimacy. They don't care about your appearance. They care that you're trans, and all of the bigoted stuff that they attach to that. The only difference that cis passing makes with transphobes is that it gives you a break from the directly targeted hate they bring.
The only way to buy legitimacy in the eyes of transphobes is to turn the transphobia on yourself and your community. And even that's not legitimacy, it doesn't get you off their hate list, just lower down on it.
In my experience, being around folks who talk transphobia who don't realise I'm trans just leaves me feeling dirty.
You can change minds, but not of people deep down the rabbit hole. And the folk who aren't so far down get changed by your humanity, and by the realisation that they are hurting people who don't deserve it. And you can only achieve that if they know that you're trans, and care that their words hurt.
Passing culture is awful. The desire to avoid targeted transphobia makes sense, but the sense of extra validity, of extra legitimacy we are taught to attach to being able to pass as cis is poison. It doesn't lead to anything positive. It takes time to reframe how you see chasing cis passing, and to undo the baggage that we as a community attach to it. It's ok to feel relief at not being harassed, and it's ok to deal with dysphoria if that's what you need to do. However, the idea that the opinions of transphobes (or anyone else) on your appearance is connected to your validity is something you can only benefit from by challenging.
I deleted my account before the reddit exodus, when it became clear to me they were heading the way of all centralised social media
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Permanently Deleted
Hey. I'm learning Spanish, I'm a volunteer, and I run and cycle on the regular!
Somehow, that doesn't stop you sounding like a bigot though...
Stop trying to tell me my own experience. You don't experience gender. Stop trying to speak for people who do.
That appears to be hardware, not a distro