3. What's something that fucks a person up deeply but is hard to understand unless ...

What's something that fucks a person up deeply but is hard to understand unless it happens to you? [Serious]

Gender dysphoria/being transgender. Ah, fuck, where do I start.

I felt uncomfortable in my own body for years and years without really understanding it. It was always there in the background, casting a shadow over everything I experienced. I had a sense of being out of place in the world, where could only see me as someone I wasn't. And this was all before I understood what it meant, before I even knew what the word "transgender" really was! I lost 20 years of my life to living in a mask every day. I will never have a girlhood, or middle school sleepovers, or be asked out to prom. 20 years of my life -- a whole fifth of it, and that's if I'm lucky. And I'm transitioning earlier than a lot of people do.

Really, the shit starts happening once you realize there's something wrong and accept who you are. I'm still early in transition and I'm trying to live a double life, out as a woman among close friends but still a man to the world. Every single "he" and "his" and "sir" especially is another knife to the ribs, another bucket of ice cold water dumped on my head. Every look in the mirror makes me feel disgusting. The clothes I want to wear don't fit me right, but my old clothes is starting to fit funny too. I feel simultaneously stranger about and more comfortable with my body as I'm in this more androgynous phase but it still doesn't feel like mine.

The worst part is that whatever I do, I will never be cis. I will never know what it's like to have a biologically female reproductive system, will never have a period (okay, they suck, but it's an almost part of the female experience I can't relate to), could never bear a child if I wanted to.

And then all I ever hear about is hate against trans people. So many people don't want us to exist, and they're loud people too. Maybe they're right.

Don't get me wrong, starting to transition has unlocked happiness and satisfaction in my life I never knew I was capable of. But it's also been an insane rollercoaster of emotions. Gender dysphoria gets under your skin and slowly tortures your soul every day of your life. I don't think I'll ever be rid of it, but I'll keep chasing it away and trying to be who I am, because in the end it's all I can do.

Fuck. I'm probably gonna go cry for a while now.

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