I'm a CIS guy, and trying to understand. Thanks for this post. I'm beginning to understand how dysphoria is kind of like (exactly like?) being the protagonist in some body horror movie. It makes me sad, I don't want this kind of pain for anyone.

What gnaws at me the most is that if society were more accepting, transitioning would be as controversial as changing one's hairstyle, and there would be none of this pain.

Rooting for ya, friend. 🩷🩵🤍🩵🩷

Super relatable. Interestingly, body hair is also what finally did it for me but in a much more roundabout way. I had known that trying to be a man was going to kill me for ages, but the idea of fully transitioning and living as a woman felt too impossible, too wonderful a goal to aspire to. I felt too tall and hairy due to genetics, too broad and muscular due to my weightlifting background, too old anyway (early 30s lol), so why bother if I was just going to break my own heart.

So, I tried to convince myself that I was nonbinary. I wore feminine clothing but kept my masc shape and hair. I modified my name to be more gender neutral and used they/them pronouns. I convinced myself that it was safer, more acceptable, to be perceived as a buff dude with a huge beard in a dress than to try and (inevitably, in my mind) fail to pass as a woman.

I might have been able to keep that up for a long time, but after several years the mental aspects of having all that testosterone rattling around in my head became too much. I was becoming increasingly hopeless despite everything else in my life going well, barring the slide of my nation into fascism. Fearing that I would start harming myself, I confessed to my partner that I wanted HRT and began seeking it out. One unnecessarily long and frustrating medical process later, I started hormones.

I cannot emphasize enough how incredible the estrogen was for my mental and emotional wellbeing. It freed me of shackles I wasn’t aware I was wearing and allowed me to feel depths of emotion that I didn’t know were possible. Still, for almost a year, I convinced myself that I remained nonbinary and was decidedly not a woman. Plenty of nonbinary people take hormones, right? So my gender identity was FINE thank you and I firmly refused to address it. I said something along the lines of “I am not a binary trans woman” to so many people during my coming out speeches. Oh honey. Oh no.

Anyway, fast forward a bit and the physical effects of estrogen are starting to get obvious. I was explicitly told at the start that I probably wouldn’t get much breast development because of my age, but there I was walking around with c cups stuffed into a binder. And I loved them. But I also had the huge beard and hairy body and broad shoulders etc etc etc. I proceeded to crack, twice. The first time I shaved my beard. This was a really big deal to me - the beard was central to my personal brand. Most people I knew had never seen me without a beard. My partner of over a decade had only seen me clean shaven once, on our first date. I was terrified that I would shave the beard, look at my unobscured face for the first time since my early twenties, and see my father looking back at me. And you know what? I didn’t. I saw someone else, a stranger. A stranger with a cute smile, even! Some time later came the second crack. I loved the ways estrogen had feminized my body, but hated how all my body hair obscured those changes. I was scared of the dysphoria that full body stubble would induce, but I managed to psych myself up and shave my entire body. It took a long time and unlike our comic protagonist I did cut myself several times. But in the end, there I was. And I could no longer deny to myself that I am a woman.

And so, I started testosterone blockers, changed my name again, came out to everyone again, started dressing even MORE fem (turns out I like heels!), and here we are. It’s a been a long, convoluted journey requiring many leaps of faith, but each of those moments of bravery saved my life and delivered me to where I am now. There’s more work to be done - I’m working on permanent hair removal now - but I am unendingly grateful to my frightened, closeted past self. You made it through, sweetheart.

Edit - some grammar.

Beautiful heart wrenching story. It also makes me so mad at gender norms around hair and who's allowed to show it, and how much, and what length.

I know more intense body hair is associated with male bodies, but I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone here that it isn't universal. Some men have no body hair! Some women have lots! Even if we're talking presumed cis people.

One of my neighbours, Rosie, has a powerful moustache, but is otherwise fem.

Anyway, we live in a society. Gender is a social construct. It has its signifiers. Gender matters, etc.

Of course it makes total sense, I just needed to rant. Because, like, it shouldn't be this hard.

Edit: oh shoot I'm on the egg community! Watch me rush to read the sidebar rules now... I mean no disrespect! Edit2: ok I think I'm safe. Rosie also isn't my neighbour's real name.

As a cis person, I can't imagine how hard that would be.

It was arm hair that broke me too. Realizing I didn't even see it as a choice, but it was, and I just had to see that. That sent me into a crying spiral the night before my finals but I was so psyched the next day I aced them anyway. There's nothing like just realizing the hair... is actually something you control, it belongs to you.

Damn, really hits this one.

Actually makes me want to shave too. Fuck. Welp. Time to learn something about myself.

Edit; actually I once shaved a small part of one of my legs to prepare for minor surgery and boy did I like the smooth feel of it.

Okay that starts to hit a little to close to home, imma headout now.

Omg for me it was arm hair, and then leg hair. Twinsiiiiies

Wowowow... source?

To be fair my first reaction was dysphoria trying some feminine clothes.