Trans or nonbinary people often report a feeling of gender dysphoria. This is stress, anxiety, and frustration associated with being labelled as a gender with which one does not identify.
Gender dysphoria is highly prevalent among people who are not allowed to express their gender identity; it can affect self-esteem as well as mental health to the point of developing depression, anxiety or self-hatred.
I was scrolling through articles on LGBTQ-issues when I stumbled about this term. Gender dysphoria.
It would explain all my weird feelings lately.
The breakdown last concert as well.
The weird intense feeling of wrongness had finally a name.
I read more and more about the term.
To sum it up, well, gender dysphoria sucked.
I recognized more than a few of the common symptoms in myself.
I remembered how I felt uncomfortable with too many muscles and an angular face.
How colourful make up and skirts and braided hair made me feel all giddy and glowing and excited.
That one was the nice sibling: gender euphoria. When you feel perfectly consonant with yourself and your gender expression. I liked that one.
Weirdly, I liked gender dysphoria too.
Yes, it was a bitch and granted me a few sleepless nights and a panic attack.
But, somehow, I felt validated by it.
The feeling told me that I was NOT imagining all that gender stuff.
It was real.
Bad, yes, but real.
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