One Of The Things That I’ve Learned

Is that we are all bitten with the Gender Dysphoria bug differently some get it really bad and some just have a mild case of dysphoria.

Not All Transgender People Have Dysphoria – And Here Are 6 Reasons Why That Matters
Everyday Feminism
By Sam Dylan Finch
August 13, 2015

I remember talking with a friend of mine who is transgender with the assumption that we both experienced dysphoria, which is the distress or discomfort that occurs when the gender someone is assigned does not align with their actual gender.
[…]
“Well, I don’t…” Kai paused. “Don’t judge me or anything, but like, I don’t experience dysphoria.”

At that point, I had never heard of a transgender person not experiencing some kind of dysphoria. But there they were, right in front of me.

My instinct was to be protective over my transness. The idea that dysphoria was not required, and that anyone could just identify as trans if they wanted to, seemed to water down the importance of my identity and the struggles of my community.

Take a look at the word “dysphoria,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it is “a state of feeling unwell or unhappy.” For a lot of trans people I think can cope without any intervention, they just life their life in their true gender and don’t seek an medical intrusion, while others need cross hormone therapy and surgery.

The article goes on to list the reasons it doesn’t really matter what level of dysphoria a person has.

1. It Suggests That Gender Identity Is for Outsiders to Decide
It’s weird that some trans people are totally on-board with making a rulebook for transness, instead of encouraging people to self-identify and declare their gender identities for themselves.

When we allow other people to make the rules, we strip away the rights of trans people to self-identify. If we tell trans people that their identities don’t belong to them, we uphold a culture where the naming of gender identities belongs to outsiders instead of ourselves.

I remember when I first started going to the Twenty Club there was a person there who didn’t believe that I was trans because I didn’t need GCS NOW! that I was taking my time to verify that this right for me because to her she needed surgery immediately and to wait one year was too long.

2. It Medicalizes the Experience of Being Transgender
The phrase “gender dysphoria” became the go-to phrase after “gender identity disorder” was deemed offensive and inaccurate. Since then, the two phrases have been used interchangeably in the medical realm.
Need I remind you that Western medicine has been less than kind to trans people historically?[…]
Placing the lives of trans people into an “illness” framework ultimately stigmatized their identities and left their needs to be dictated my “medical professionals” rather than trans people themselves.

The medical model disempowered trans people.
[…]
3. It’s a Eurocentric Definition of Transgender
A lot of trans folks will say that “transgender” as an experience didn’t originate in the West – and they would be correct. There have been “trans” experiences in many cultures globally, long before the West had any concept of “transgender.”

Some identities outside of the West that you might know of include two-spirit, hijra, and kathoeys, and they have a history that precedes ours.
[…]
4. It Equates Being Trans with Distress and Dysfunction
If someone came up to you and asked you what it was like to be transgender, it probably wouldn’t be as simple as saying, “It’s terrible.”

It can be terrible. The pain can be very real. But for most people, being trans is a very complicated thing that involves a whole spectrum of emotions.
[…]
5. We Privilege Some Narratives Over Others
I’ve been told before that I’m not “trans enough.”
[…]
At what point will we stop tearing each other apart and start lifting each other up?[…]
6. It Breeds Transphobia
There is a pervasive fear that if we leave “transgender” as a term that relies on self-identification, it will be rendered meaningless by people who claim it for the wrong reasons.

But this weirdly mirrors a lot of oppressive attitudes that are used against all trans people.

Take the trans bathroom debate, for instance. There is a widespread belief that cis people will pretend to be trans just to get into the wrong restroom and violate other people.
[…]
If trans people interrogate other trans people with disbelief, we are giving permission to the rest of the world to do it to us.

If we bully trans people and tell them they are deceiving other people, or following a fad, we’re telling cis people that they can accuse us of being imposters, too.

Long time ago at a First Event conference before I transitioned and I was still trying to discover who I was, I was sitting on a couch in the lobby and someone sat next to me and asked me if I was transsexual. When I said that I didn’t know she said “Oh” and walked away. I thought one of two things, first she wanted to talk about transitioning or two she was a snob and didn’t want to associate with a mere crossdresser. I took it as the latter because of the way she said “Oh.”

We are all on our own gender journey and no one else can define it for us, they can aide us on the journey but they cannot guide us, we have to find our own road to travel.