I spent 34 years of my life playing a role, constantly adjusting myself to fit others’ perceptions of me just to remain safe. The few times I let the mask slip, I was punished for it. A bully constantly hitting at perceived femininity turns into a rape threat. Telling a girlfriend of my soft spot for wearing girl’s clothes turns into a locker broken into and property damage. Telling a future spouse the same turning into a promise to never ever speak of it again, I loved her so much, I made it 15 years.

The sheer toll of gender dysphoria is hard to completely feel until you’re mostly free of it. Having transitioned and lived now as a person more closely resembling my inner self, I look back now with horror over how I let dysphoria rule over me.

I was not a good person before I transitioned. I mean that. I never broke the law or anything. I didn’t have a substance abuse problem, I never did drugs, I only had one sexual partner in my life. By all appearances I did everything right. But truth is I was empty. If you knew beyond initial appearances, you’d have thought I was lazy and inattentive. Guilty as charged.

You know… it’s impossible to describe gender dysphoria in a descriptive way and I think that’s part of the issue at play here. Those who want to exclude trans women from “real” womanhood like to equate dysphoria with feelings, but is this accurate? I think dysphoria *provokes* feelings but isn’t necessarily a feeling unto itself. My own dysphoria felt like a constant buzzing in my head, like a swarm of bees. You know that sense you get that a situation isn’t quite what it seems? It’s a bit like that but it’s constant and rises and falls in intensity.

The feelings provoked by my dysphoria include disgust, shame, and guilt mostly. Shame that my body has betrayed me in such a basic way. I’m not stupid or delusional, I knew from a very early age that I wasn’t supposed to be this way. I tried very hard not to succumb to what I really wanted. When I would day dream about being assigned female at birth, being free of my body’s prison, I’d feel guilt afterwards. “Boys aren’t supposed to dream about being a girl, you gross fuck.” Disgust was a constant. Disgust at my body hair, at my receding hairline, at my flat chest, at my height, at my dick. I’m a woman with a dick and that’s exactly as embarrassing as it sounds, trust me.