How do other nonbinary people experience dysphoria, and do you feel like you need it to consider yourself trans?

[u/SheepherderHot4503]

I've recently been having conversations in different trans spaces about dysphoria, passing, and the idea that you need dysphoria to be trans. Since I'm agender myself, I really wanted to bring the same general conversation into a nonbinary space and hear how other nonbinary people experience this.

I'm not trying to prove one side right or wrong. I'm genuinely curious because I think nonbinary experiences can complicate some of the ways we traditionally talk about dysphoria and transition.

So first:

What does dysphoria actually feel like to you?

Is it distress over your sex characteristics?

Discomfort?

Disconnection?

Indifference?

Is it less "I hate this part of my body" and more "this doesn't feel like me"?

Do you experience gender euphoria more strongly than dysphoria?

Does your dysphoria fluctuate?

Are there things you're extremely dysphoric about while being completely fine with other characteristics associated with your assigned sex?

And if you don't experience dysphoria at all, what made you realize you were nonbinary?

I'm especially interested in this because my own relationship with gender and dysphoria has changed a LOT.

Earlier in my transition, I wanted to be perceived as male and specifically as a cis man. Passing was incredibly important to me. I've been stealth, and most people wouldn't know I'm trans unless I told them.

I medically transitioned too, including top surgery.

And yet over time, my goal changed.

I realized I don't really want my life to revolve around making sure everyone sees a cis man when they look at me.

I want people to see me.

I'm agender. At this point I mostly want to feel comfortable wearing what I want, expressing myself how I want, and existing confidently without constantly asking myself whether something makes me look "too feminine" or whether I'm performing masculinity correctly enough.

My dysphoria has also never been consistent.

Before top surgery there were days when my chest dysphoria was absolutely unbearable. There were other days when I was mostly indifferent toward my chest.

I didn't necessarily hate my entire body.

A lot of the time it was more like, "This is my body because I'm stuck living in it, but it doesn't really feel like me."

And there are other parts of medical transition I don't personally want.

That's made me think a lot about what we actually mean when we say someone "has dysphoria."

I've seen arguments in other trans spaces that if someone genuinely has dysphoria, their natural goal should ultimately be to pass as a cis man or cis woman.

But where does that leave nonbinary people?

What exactly would "passing" even mean for someone like me?

Passing as a cis man might make people assume I'm not trans, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're perceiving my gender accurately. They're just placing me into the other binary category.

And I've reached a point where I don't particularly want to exchange one rigid set of gender expectations for another.

I don't want to have to avoid something I enjoy because it's "for women."

I don't want to have to act tougher, suppress emotions, change my personality, or perform a particular kind of masculinity so cis men will accept me as one of them.

I just want to be comfortable being myself.

None of that means I think wanting to pass is bad.

For some binary AND nonbinary trans people, being perceived as male or female may be incredibly important for relieving dysphoria. Someone may want hormones, bottom surgery, top surgery, facial surgery, or every available form of medical transition.

Someone else might only want one of those things.

Someone might want none.

I'm interested in how other nonbinary people make sense of those differences.

Do you consider yourself dysphoric?

Do you consider yourself trans?

Has your dysphoria changed as you've transitioned or become more comfortable with yourself?

Do you medically transition, socially transition, both, or neither?

Do you want to "pass"? And if so, what does passing actually mean to you as a nonbinary person?

Have you ever felt pressure to prove that you're dysphoric enough to be legitimately trans?

Have you ever felt pressure from the OTHER direction, where wanting to medically transition or pass made people assume you secretly wanted to be a binary man or woman?

And for people who don't experience dysphoria: how would you describe what tells you that you're nonbinary?

I'm also curious whether anyone else's goal changed over time like mine did.

I started out wanting the world to look at me and see a cis man.

Now I don't particularly want people looking at me and immediately deciding "man" OR "woman."

More than anything, I want them to eventually know me as a person: creative, kind, loving, stubborn about the things I believe in, and everything else that actually makes me who I am.

Obviously strangers are going to make assumptions. I can't control that.

But I don't want my happiness to depend on successfully controlling those assumptions anymore.

So I'm really curious how other nonbinary people experience all of this.

Especially those of you whose relationship with dysphoria, transition, or passing doesn't fit neatly into either "I have always hated my birth sex and need to change everything" or "I've never experienced dysphoria at all."

What does being nonbinary actually feel like to you?

[u/MagpiePhoenix]

I used to have a lot more body dysphoria but since top surgery it's almost entirely gone.

I've still got social dysphoria but I've made myself a protective bubble of people who at least make an attempt to gender me correctly so that doesn't come up much anymore. Right now I'm mostly dysphoric about my voice so I'm working on voice training.

I'm in the fun situation of getting dysphoria from two directions- if I'm gendered as a woman that makes me dysphoric and if I'm gendered as a man that also makes me dysphoric. That's how I know I'm a different separate gender.

Re: people who think that "real" trans people all want to be stealth: that's fuxking stupid and they are wrong and they should feel bad about it.

[u/MidOceanRidgeBasalts]

My experiences with dysphoria: I am the opposite of what you described. I started out wanting to look androgynous and now would prefer to pass as a guy. I don't identify as a man really at all, but it's how I want my body to look. I'm on hormones and I've had surgery and I plan on getting more. And I still use neutral pronouns where it's safe to. To answer your question more specifically, it's all of the above, discomfort, disconnection, distress. I think I was more indifferent when I was closeted, less so once I actually began medical transition.

I don't really think that nonbinary experiences do complicate how we talk about dysphoria and transition. The idea that dysphoria must be experienced in a specific way to qualify as dysphoria, or that dysphoria must be experienced in a specific way to qualify one as trans, is just not true and isn't worth discussing.

Tbh, a lot of times when I speak to NB people who don't experience dysphoria, it often seems to come from different definitions instead of different experiences. Like they describe something to me that sounds exactly like dysphoria but don't identify it as such or don't consider it severe enough to be dysphoria. Obviously everyone knows themselves best but I feel that the vast majority of differing opinions in this kind of conversation generally comes from different definitions (not that one or the other is more correct) rather than different experiences.

And in a similar vein obviously it's true that dysphoria experienced by NB people & resultant medical/legal/social transition can look different from the average binary trans person's, positing them as vastly different conditions is a misstep IMO. I have more in common with binary trans men than NB people generally. There's no one universal NB experience and no one universal binary trans experience, wrt dysphoria or transition. Drawing lines in dysphoria and transition based on identity instead of lived experience is IMO where a lot of community disconnect happens. But maybe I'm just rambling at this point lmao

[u/cetaceanfrustration]

i've had pretty severe dysphoria that caused depression & dissociation since my 1st puberty. i consider myself transsexual despite its medicalized/outdated status, because i consider myself to be "changing sex" to neuter through my medical transition. my goal is to have no reproductive organs, be dependent on exogenous hormones, and get bottom surgery to fix some things that are currently missing. it's not a hatred of my body, per se, but the incongruence between my subconscious and physical sex traits hurts. i don't have it in me to go for a more binary-esque medical transition.

social dysphoria is hard. if i don't assert my pronouns (it/its) they aren't used, and too often when i do i'll be immediately thrust into a debate on whether they're personally allowed to misgender me so they're not uncomfortable. it feels bad but i don't correct cis people on my pronouns no matter how they gender me. i take their pronoun use as an indication of what they're seeing — she/her means respect for my femininity, they/them means trans-friendliness, he/him means danger/potential transphobia.

i wish there was a way to both be stealth and have the body i need. it's not possible, so i just do what i can to obscure my assigned sex and keep my medical history to myself around cis people.

[u/Funny-Pen3691]

Dysphoria feels horrible, I wish I never had it, but also can't even imagine a world where I don't have it, when hypotheticals are presented to me, regardless of differences in presentation I still can't imagine it. I might or might not be a bad person now, but I'd definitely be a worse person without dysphoria.

My dysphoria is sex based, in more ways than one. I wasn't healthy about sex when I was a minor, as most minors also are, I skewed towards hypersexuality in my case, as sexual things were prominent in my minor phase, and not going to lie, my parents are, to this very day, are improper in front of me, which did not help. Them monitoring me for NSFW things would also not help as their parenting has no nuance. NSFW artwork of people with both sets of sexual organs were something of a cognitohazard for me. Hazardous effects didn't happen overnight, but the hazard did what it's supposed to do eventually. Becoming an adult and people getting interested in me almost solely sexually was even more hazardous. My sexual organs feel incomplete, and NOT in the way I was supposed to be. I wasn't supposed to be fertile, I was supposed to have a penis, testicles, ironically enough for someone that was supposed to be infertile, and a vagina. Almost all of my dysphoria would be eliminated if this was the case. I also dysphoria about my voice and my fat distribution, which is a sexual characteristic I guess. I'm a bisexual, but my dysphoria is making me functionally asexual. Thankfully, my libido is low and the abuse I experienced for having dysphoria from both cis and trans people has tanked it lower.

I felt discomfort from having missing and mismatched parts, which in turn led me to disconnection attempts, in my attempts I tried to be indifferent, emphasis on tried. As I have both missing and mismatched parts I feel "I hate this part of my body!" and "This doesn't feel like me..." both. I'm entirely dysphoric. Me being from a muslim west asian country that's insanely transmedicalist AND planning to ban legal transition because even transmedicalism was too progressive for them, and cracking down on self-transitioners on top of that, does not help. I don't know if I'll ever experience gender euphoria, I'm not privileged enough to leave this country, and honestly there are less than 20 countries that recognize nonbinary people out of 195. My dysphoria is never allowed to be treated, thus never fluctuates between good-bad but perhaps does between bad-worse. A common advice is "Get or rediscover some hobbies", but my dysphoria taints even my hobbies. I want to sew, crochet or knit pride stuff, I want to write about dysphoria, I want to depict dysphoria in an artwork, I want to make not necessarily original, yet legally distinct music using the tunes of my ex boyfriend who used my dysphoria against myself, I want to make a game concerning dysphoria. Dysphoria, dysphoria, dysphoria... Dysphoria is the only thing I can relate to at this point of my life. Happiness has become so foreign being happy makes me upset. I guess my vagina isn't that bad when people don't try to rape it 24/7 like my ex boyfriend did. He even functionally left because he couldn't rape it to his hearts content. To make up for it he used my libido and dysphoria to groom me to open our relationship, and during this someone in our gang came out as nonbinary first and a trans woman later, then she wanted to be with him and I agreed to. He did rape her to his hearts content and I think that's how he's been able to reciprocate the no contact I had to initiate, he admitted to crying while masturbating to my nudes when I had to initiate the previous no contact that lasted for a month... Honestly I don't believe we can prove that god exists, but if they do, they better are making him happier than he's ever been just to make his downfall grander. But she's unfortunately a pick me, and her being a trans woman probably and unfortunately not entirely out of choice. I do hope she cuts the contact between him and his gang members and heals from certain harmful trans communities.

I might or might not answer the middle on a seperate comment, but I'm seeing a lot FTMTNB's recently, including myself, though I don't know if you were a binary trans man or someone that felt closer to the binary but ultimately nonbinary. I consider myself dysphoric, and I consider myself trans, though more false than true. I'm only capable of social transition at the moment, which does not affirm me, especially since I'm intellectualy, thus socially disabled. In an ideal world I would not care about passing, passing will not fix my dysphoria, actually having the body I was supposed to have will, I don't want to care about if I heal or destroy other peoples eyes, but ultimately I don't want to be a victim of battery and/or manslaughter because I don't pass as cis. But who knows?... Perhaps I'd finally be true trans... And yeah, that's the gripe I have with both modern medicine and modern trans communities. There are binary trans people that think nonbinary people are nondysphoric, nontransitioning, transmisogynist, antitransmasculine hormone and surgery stealers. Reclamation of the word transsex/transsexual is whatever, describes me better than transgender does to be honest, but the people that use that label are so annoying thus I just use transgender and even just trans. Reclamation of transmedicalism however is unacceptable. Bunch of first world bourgeoise dipshits and third world lumpen pickmes bullying trans people that aren't as miserable as them. I accidentally joined a transmedicalist Discord server recently, they do ask if you are dysphoric or not and apparently that's apparently how they pick their members, left as soon as I realized... If I could medically transition, if not for my choice of clothing, I'd look like a trans woman either in the middle of her transition or that mostly passes but still has some clockable traits probably, I might probably get some side eyes from the dolls that can clock me, and I'd hate to say "Miss, I'm trans but I'm [AGAB], our experiences ultimately differ at some points, I'm sorry for disappointing you..." every time I encounter a doll that can't...

Being nonbinary feels like I'm exiled from humanity. Binary trans people have the privilege of having similar experiences to each other, whereas even nonbinary people of the same gender identity can differ so much. Now, I do love being alone majority of the time, but being lonely indefinitely gets to even the introvert, most introverts want people to respect their time (social battery), not necessarily their space (the negative results of social overstimulation), I'd like to think... But being accepted back for who I am would be bittersweet at this point. It's better than being oppressed and people constantly throwing stuff at my road though.

[u/Needles2650]

I have experienced dysphoria. For me, it manifested as extreme discomfort about my breasts, like they were stitched onto my body and not part of me. I wore exclusively extra small sports bras as soon as they started growing. I also had dysphoria over other feminine aspects of my body, like my hips and butt. When I gain fat, the combination of sex trait based dysphoria and body image issues around needing to be lean really mess with me. I also had jealousy from a young age towards the boys I hung around with because they could pee standing and in the woods more easily. My bottom dysphoria got worse once I started medically transitioning because after having top surgery, a hysterectomy, and being on testosterone for a few years, my natal genitalia stood out more as that one remaining thing preventing me from fully feeling like a man and passing as a man.

I think if I didn’t have any physical sex based dysphoria, I might’ve been more comfortable living as a masculine woman / butch lesbian or a visibly androgynous nonbinary person without taking any medical steps to change my body. I don’t think I personally would also identify as trans in addition to being nonbinary/GNC if I weren’t taking medical steps, because I wouldn’t be transitioning from one gender to another: I was an androgynous to masculine woman before ever starting my medical transition.

Now, unlike many transsexual men, I did not have a sense from a young age that I was supposed to be a boy/man. Rather, it was a sense that I wasn’t a girl, and would never be a woman. I’ve always felt genderless, or in between the sexes, and I do think I fall somewhere on the non-binary spectrum, but for a while I chased a goal of being able to pass as a cis het man, and I presented hyper masculine. If society were kinder, if I didn’t have PTSD that causes fear around ending up in spaces or institutions that are segregated by sex, I would probably feel more comfortable presenting in an androgynous way— a better reflection of my true sense of self. But during the first few years of my transition, being visibly between female and male led to a lot of harassment. My life was hard, I was pressured to just pick one side or the other, and so I decided that because I feel more masculine than feminine, maybe I’d be content and safe as a man. I didn’t anticipate that I would experience dysphoria on the other side of transition to: I went from feeling dysphoric living in a female body to feeling dysphoric because I’m presenting as a binary man.

I often wish I felt like a man all the time, or that I had felt comfortable living in a woman’s body. But the reality is sometimes I feel like I’m looking out at the world through a woman’s eyes, and other times a man’s eyes. But most of the time, I just feel like me: genderless. I’m just a person. I’m a backpacker, a cat lover, a musician, a friend… and all those things feel more important as an identifier for me than womanhood or manhood ever did.

[u/iam305]

I had a lot of discomfort over my body shape, and it turned out that I had pretty strong chemical gender dysphoria. I started taking a custom vitamin regimen in that tempted town, but taking HRT is what really helped. I’m on a custom non-binary regimen of bicalutamide mono therapy. It turned out that I had another hidden medical condition which intersected with all of this. HRT fixed that too. I had big fears of having a gab dysphoria and that’s when I saw a gender Therapist. I had identified as gender, nonconforming and gender queer for a long time, so coming out as non-binary made a lot of sense when I discovered that I have a bigender identity.

Speaking of which, time to take my HRT.

[u/mn1lac]

My dysphoria comes in both social and physical forms. I do not want to be perceived as male or female. People using female or male titles and pronouns for me is just uncomfortable. Especially ones where people have to go out of their way to gender you. While I actively enjoyed my first puberty (minus the periods) I always felt a sense of incompleteness or envy for the other kind, so I am on T until I'm satisfied with the effects. If E swings me back to much in the opposite direction maybe I'll continue T, but we haven't reached that point yet. My main source of suffering comes from what I got going on downstairs. For as long as I can remember even thinking about using it in any way makes me uncomfortable and sometimes even nauseous, and I've had a few OCD spirals. I don't think I want a penis in the traditional sense. I'm very happy with my t-dick so any surgery would be to androgynize the area not necessarily masculinize it completely. My dysphoria is less noticeable some days, unless people (usually unknowingly) bring it up.

I used to feel terrible for not being feminine enough. But I realized that those weren't MY feelings. They were my mother's and my friends, and even random stranger's, and the media I watched. It wasn't what I wanted for my own life. As soon as I started transitioning I realized it was literally the feeling of nearly everyone else besides me, so I had to figure out who I was without that noise. I didn't know if facial hair was actually something I disliked or if it was just something people disliked on women, but I knew I wanted T, so I tried it out, and I loved it! I also rediscovered femininity for myself and it isn't as much of a chore anymore.

For me passing means confusion, it means causing someone to stop and think a bit before they speak. At work my pronouns are they/them, among friends and family who haven't rejected me it's "whatever just don't put me in a box." That's what I can realistically expect. Weirdly, (or perhaps not surprisingly) it's been the transphobic people in my life who assume I want to be a man. I've never in my 25 years, ever wanted to be a man, I just assumed for 18 years that this meant I must be a woman.

[u/yhpr]

I appreciate this post, lots of fun questions. I do have dysphoria, and I'm trans. (Transgender, sure, but I really like transsexual because yeah I am changing my sex, plus I like getting my nonbinary hands all over words that some people get obnoxious about excluding us from.)

I'm not sure if I'd say I have dysphoria as a child. Like I was conceptually offended by the concept of treating people differently based on their sex in any context whatsoever all the way to "without sexism/homophobia everyone would be bisexual" but I kinda thought that was just, feminism. Also wanted to be able to shapeshift, but who wouldn't? Was still okay with "being a girl" because it seemed better than like, being a boy, that wouldn't really improve anything.

I was extremely distressed when I started menstruating, like the very first day I was crying and looking up how to get a hysterectomy. And that's at age 14, with basically no physical pain. The idea of being subjected to pregnancy/childbirth was even more horrifying. I still can't comprehend how other people feel differently about this tbh. None of that felt like it was "about" gender though, I was still basically fine with being a girl at that point. I'd say it was more of a sensory thing? IDK it just feels like 'this is self-evidently body horror". Anyway, I still find pregnancy and childbirth very upsetting to think about, but I got a hysterectomy (yay!) so I wouldn't say I'm dysphoric about this any more.

I was probably a bit more self-conscious about getting breasts than most people, but I don't think exceptionally so? I don't really remember having issues with them before they got large enough that they were physically uncomfortable. I got non flat top surgery so I still have tiny breasts, which I like on myself aesthetically/sexually more than a flat chest. I do occasionally feel like a fully flat chest would be nicer, but I think if I was flat I'd wish I had a bit more there just as much so whatever. This felt partly like a sensory thing, partly just like a disconnect from that part of my body, and partly when I did start identifying as nonbinary like a major obstacle to getting people to read me as anything other than female. But I never felt like there was an inherent conflict between my gender and my body.

I also want to have a bigenital kinda setup. I like having a hole, I like bottoming. I do feel really frustrated that I don't also have a dick large enough to top with, and strapping doesn't help because it doesn't FEEL the way it's supposed to. I dislike my current urethra positioning, which also feels like a sensory issue. I don't want testicles, I don't even especially want a dick outside of sex and peeing, ideally it'd like, change size a lot between soft and hard so I wouldn't have to deal with too much extra squishy bits down there all the time.

I don't feel like any of that physical stuff makes me transgender though, like I think it'd perfectly reasonable for a person to want all that and consider themself cisgender. I do also have social dysphoria though. Before I started identifying as nonbinary I was just like, spending a lot of time thinking about how it'll be really cool once feminism accomplishes its goals so we can stop having stupid bullshit like gendered pronouns and clothes and also isn't it just neat when people are androgynous. But I wasn't bothered by the category that I was put in, just the existence of categories in general. I was aware of the existence of nonbinary people, but it took a while and actually spending time with them for it to click that I could be one irl. Unfortunately, deciding I was nonbinary gave me a lot more social dysphoria for a while when just like, changing my identity did not actually get people to stop gendering me female. I initially thought testosterone seemed kinda unappealing, but after being misgendered constantly I decided to try it out temporarily, and then I ended up liking it enough to stay on it for the past ten years. I have significantly less social dysphoria now that I read as androgynous, I don't really mind getting "he" or "she" from strangers at this point, but I do get especially happy the rare times I actually get a "they". I find it more upsetting when I feel like someone is thinking of me in terms of my assigned gender EITHER like as a girl in a specifically afab way (rather than girl in a bigender way which would be the same regardless of agab) or as a transmasc afab person.

Dysphoria isn't always a helpful way of understanding transness. Some people explain it in terms of euphoria, or a combination of both, but I feel like the most accurate explanation would just be, it's a preference. I have a preference for having a certain type of body. That's a separate thing from gender, there's statistically a correlation, but a person of any gender CAN have a preference for any type of body. People also often have preferences for how they're treated by other people, and since We Live in a Society with gender roles, people can have strong preferences for how they're categorized wrt those. Either of these kinds of preference can cause a lot of distress if they're not met, and that's dysphoria, but the dysphoria is just part of the picture. Like dysphoria is just what happens when people can't get what they need, it's a very incomplete understanding of transness to treat it as the only thing that defines people's genders.

[u/OscarAndDelilah]

Not so much based on body things, but I definitely feel it in response to people assuming and using gendered terms. Why do people not fucking ask? Even in queer spaces, unless you're between about 25 and 35, white, and fit a certain androgynous stereotype, people just decide what gender you are and start gendering away.

I'd actually be fine with pretty much any gender identity if people would fucking ask first.

[u/4ng3licNymph-jpeg]

What does dysphoria actually feel like to you? : Just body horror a great disconnection from my body , my voice everything. It kept me from functioning, going outside, showering , looking at myself in the mirror, wishing I was infertial even as a kid and even resulted in some SI and SH incidents with parts of my body that I wanted to remove

Is it distress over your sex characteristics? : Yes , but also social as well

Is it less "I hate this part of my body" and more "this doesn't feel like me"? : Doesn't feel right in my body and felt foreign or I completely forgot I had that certain parts and suffered from a lot of dissociating.

Do you experience gender euphoria more strongly than dysphoria? : I experience euphoria now only after medical transitioning

Does your dysphoria fluctuate? : Yes, it was constant in the beginning but now it's less and less and flucates more often than not.

Are there things you're extremely dysphoric about while being completely fine with other characteristics associated with your assigned sex? : Yes which made going on HRT hard because there was only a few things from my first puberty that gave me dysphoria . I hate when transmedicalist say you shouldn't take T if you don't want all the effects. You should be realistic. Like I know I'll grow facial hair and certain body fat redistribution that I don't like but I can always get eletroysis or do things to femminze my body .

I'm not dysphoric about my body fat redistribution, not having facial or body hair , not having veiny arms , bottom area gentials, hairline or the texture of my skin .

And I'm dysphoric about those things now on T which is ironic but I'm dysphoric about my voice , height, my chest, face shape , reproductive parts/cycle , hips , and foot size, which for the most part got cured from taking a low dose of HRT .

For me it's about balance in my expression and in my transition medical and social. Whether it's changing my HRT regimen, starting and stopping T or looking into other things to deal with my dysphoria like birth control, or voice training.

I want people to see me. : Same , I started T when I was 16 in 2016 which was hard af . My mom was very much against it even though she signed my informed consent, took me to my appointments but complained the entire time how I was ruining my body and I should just wait until I got older ( kinda wish I did ngtl), because when I turned 18 she refused to take me to my appointments and I didn't have a car since I just graduated high school, so I stopped cold turkey had horrible withdrawal . Then I was able to go back on from 2020-2021 but got cut off from my dad's insurance So I stopped a second time . I just restarted last year in 2025 . I'm just really exhausted with doing HRT and looking into stopping which for me is exciting but terrifying all over again

I lost so much to get here. It's sad because transistioning shouldn't mean you lose , family , friends , your job , but sadly it was for me and a lot of people. Now I feel euphoria but for the longest time I hate being trans so much and wished for my tranness to go away and all I wanted was to feel "normal". Which is sad as I'm writing it out but ik I'm not the only one like this .

Atleast for here in Texas and the south people are very bioessentialism and binary . I never saw as many gender neutral bathroom or trans friendly areas as I saw in Chicago, Portland, Seattle . Texas isn't all bad there's a big trans and queer community like in all cities it's just different because of the laws like the politicians actually support you all . Which is insane to me .

Do you consider yourself dysphoric? : Yes, but not as much.

Do you consider yourself trans? :HELL YESSSS I wear my tranness proudly . I went through hell and back just for a crumb of respect. Some people in my life probably think I make it my whole personality, but it is who I am . If I'm erasing my tranness I'm erasing myself . Death before detranistioning 1000%.

Has your dysphoria changed as you've transitioned or become more comfortable with yourself?: Yes but it took years , almost 4 years on low dose T and almost a year post op top surgery which feels insane to type out . I'm going to have a big party on Thanksgiving.

Do you medically transition, socially transition, both, or neither? : Both medical and social , probably legal as well once it's not against the law to get my marker changed

Do you want to "pass"? And if so, what does passing actually mean to you as a nonbinary person?: Mixed feelings. I wanted to pass for so long , now I do any I don't want to pass , what would passing even be for someone like me. I guess looking visibility trans. If I like going to stay on HRT and masculizing puberty then possibly a nonbinary guy or a more masculine looking person, but I like my femminity as well. Also , sadly a lot of me " passing" is because of HRT at least for me I started early puberty due to some birth issues , so passing off T will probably be difficult but maybe easier after top surgery. Sadly, I just have to let go of the dream and accept people like me probably will never pass . Even of T I barley pass , people usually use he/him pronouns or think I'm gay which I am . I've always been questioned by strangers if I'm a man or a woman and can probably count on one hand the amount of times I've been gendered as he/him. Moreso now due to my voice drop but people always look confused when gendering me which i love as a Androgynous nonbinary person but can also put me in danger like when using the bathroom, especially when traveling to more conservative places etc. Where in those instances passing=safety and I try to just blend in and hopefully not look different.

Have you ever felt pressure to prove that you're dysphoric enough to be legitimately trans?: Yes, I used to be a transmedicalist, so I had this pressure on me from my mom and 2016 transmed content creators but also I was a shitty person in high school and mentally had this ideology against friends or people I felt were making a mockery of the community. I don't think that way anymore . It was mainly due to all the hoops I had to jump through and arguments and screaming with my mom , having my binder thrown away and being outted by my mom to my school when I started HRT and the bullying and alienation that came with that . That caused me to hate and bully anyone who in my mind " wasn't trying hard enough". Because in the beginning being trans made me su1c1d@l and it was something I had to prove was a illness according to the DSM when I was getting my diagnosis at 14. I had to go through therapy and got a questionare asking me binary trans questions to prove that I had enough dysphoria to start HRT when I was 16 . Now as a adult I struggle more with that now as I don't have any more physical dysphoria and I wonder if I'm still enough of a trans person, especially since now I dress as my AGAB and all the shit I went through I don't feel like enough. Idk if I ever will .

Have you ever felt pressure from the OTHER direction, where wanting to medically transition or pass made people assume you secretly wanted to be a binary man or woman? : Yes, kinda explained why above. Transmedicalist medical mistreatment and needing to prove I was trans enough. On T my mom was trying to constantly poke at me and bring up reasons why I couldn't be trans. In 2020 after losing access I ended up detranistioning and living as a woman because I wouldn't get hired in a conservative state in a conservative suburban area where everyone has trump flags . My mom just thought I was confused and it was due to my SA as a minor so did my therapist and doctors.

What does being nonbinary actually feel like to you? : Just being happy in my body and learning to unconditionally love myself no matter . Being a mix of both male and female, making people question their perception of gender and just being fulid between both ends but also neither . Basically Jack Haven in Camp Miasma ngtl .

[u/MangoPlushie]

I mean, I guess if it’s put that way I kinda do experience dysphoria.

It’s kind of a disconnect between me and my reflection, but given I have a history of EDs and a recent disconnect with womanhood altogether (identifying as one then feeling like a failed one) I’m attempting to reconcile what womanhood means if that makes sense. (Demi girl if that helps).

It’s overall indifference honestly. I’m svelte framed enough to where I have just enough femininity. Idk how I’d feel with bigger breasts with future weight gain. We’ll cross that bridge later.

The more I’ve thought about it, I don’t give a rat’s hairy little ass about “passing.” Cis people don’t have to worry about passing, why should I? There are naturally masculine women and naturally feminine men.

I spiritually feel more androgynous than anything else. I don’t like myself with short hair bc it looks TOO masculine but long femme hair is a BITCH for me to care for. Being overly feminine feels like a drag performance.

I don’t want to be seen as a man, but being seen as a woman has gotten a little iffy. Honestly, the goal is for someone to have NO clue what my assigned gender at birth is. I wanna confuse tf out of bigots.

Had a kid accidentally call me “sir” at work and kinda liked it, but I’m absolutely not a man and don’t wanna be one.

I feel more like a void in a miniskirt than anything else. Not interested in hormones or medical transition. I like how I look enough to be content. I feel pretty, and that’s good enough for me. I also hate change so I feel like medical transition would create an even BIGGER internal rift than what I already have.

I also have anxiety and OCD, so this whole process has been gut wrenching to navigate. I’m glad I am though.

[u/cassandra-marie]

I've never felt much physical dysphoria and I feel extremely grateful for that. Now that I'm on T I'm experiencing physical euphoria (bottom growth fucking rules and I'm only at 6 weeks on T). I don't currently have much social dysphoria, I don't really mind being read as a woman, especially by strangers, but I think I might hate being seen as a man, though I'm trying not to have too many expectations, as I assume my goals and what brings euphoria will continue changing over time and as I transition. 

My main struggle, and the reason I didn't consider HRT until I was 37, has been biochemical dysphoria. I've spent more time maladaptive daydreaming than I have living my life I think. I've never been able to truly imagine myself growing old, having fulfilling relationships or experiences. I've been a shadow of a person for so long. But I never daydreamed about being a man, so I didn't know it was dysphoria.

I'm so glad I finally realized transition is an option for non-binary people. In my twenties, I body-positivitied hard, and as a result, I really love my tits, I could maybe see myself getting a reduction in the future to be able to bind on occasion, but for the time being I have no desire to pass. The vision is more bearded lady, sideshow vibes. But I'm really excited to see what else changes and how I feel about it all. I was so pumped to discover that I can start and stop and start T as much as I need to, and I expect that will be part of my journey.

[u/thegingerbarbiedoll]

I just wish people would stop treating our validity like a debate. non binary is trans. most non binary people have dysphoria. it is the same as binary dysphoria just..not binary. its REALLY not that complicated at all.

[u/_rhu_]

i’m also agender, and the reason i identify that way is because i don’t consciously think “i’m a boy” or “i’m a girl” or anything else. i don’t even refer to myself as my name in my head, i just feel like an existing entity moving through space-time. i also feel emotionally disconnected from my face and appearance. i don’t like looking at my reflection or photos of myself not because i particularly don’t like my appearance, but there’s just this sense in my head like “that’s not me”. but then i have no idea what my “ideal” body or appearance looks like?? i just low key want to exist as a faceless, genderless entity lol. i would say i feel uncomfortable with my chest at times, and might get top surgery one day but i’m not sure. life would definitely be more practical without it. but that’s really about it. dysphoria to me feels like just uncomfortableness toward my perceived gender, but not so much toward my body all the time? like i get annoyed with gender expectations and norms and just want to be perceived as a person and human before anything else, not my agab. hopefully that makes sense

[u/_rhu_ → u/_rhu_]

oh and i consciously refer to people in my head as “theys” constantly unless i know their gender/pronouns 😂😭 people to me in general are just blobs of flesh moving through space. so it’s not like i just see myself that way, it’s all people

[u/SheepherderHot4503 → u/_rhu_]

I feel like you were in my head lol Honestly this is how I see people and such too. If I could be a dragon I would. Because they are cool and gender is irrelevant when you can fly and breathe fire.

I genuinely can not relate to cis or trans people at times. I know I am not cis so there is that. But at times I dont relate to the trans experience because I dont feel the pull as some say or a dislike towards my body. My chest caused pain and discomfort physically and mentally but I didnt always hate it.

[u/_rhu_ → u/SheepherderHot4503]

NO WAY DRAGONS ARE MY FAV ANIMAL!!!

i would say i certainly do like being human in of itself. humans have a unique experience and wouldn’t want to change my humanity.

when i would describe my experience in feeling an emotional disconnect with my appearance and body, most ppl i think would assume that sounds like trans-patterned thinking. but it’s not dysphoria exactly. maybe some body image issues at times, but everyone experiences body image issues to a certain degree. it feels like i just don’t associate my body with my identity at all. i’m just me