u/eloooelllooo0011

Personally, I haven’t, and I’ll get to what I mean by that later in this post.

The most I’ve done in regards to my gender exploration is privately dress feminine and do makeup, and online go by she/her pronouns, use a feminine name, and tell people I’m a boy but treat me like a girl (was young and didn’t know what trans was at the time).

Now at 29, I have dysphoria that hasn’t been this bad since I was 9 years old. I’ve been thinking myself to exhaustion about all of this for the past year, “am I trans”, “should I transition”. But it’s hit me, you can’t think your way out of mental distress, you must take action.

Think of a person with depressive symptoms. Is the first line of treatment to take SSRIs? I mean, I certainly don’t think so. I think the first action is:

1. Prioritize sleep
2. Eat enough and healthy food
3. Exercise
4. Socialize

Then see if that makes a difference, if it truly made no difference or you’re unable to even do those things, then maybe you do have clinical depression and should take SSRIs.

But basically:

1. You can’t think your way out of depression (or dysphoria).
2. You shouldn’t jump to SSRIs without trying the basics (or transition).

So here’s the point of my post, for those of us that have never taken our gender exploration to actually be in-person with another human, both privately and publicly, with feminine clothes, makeup, she/her pronouns, using a new name, etc. isn’t that what we should try first?

What if by taking these actions, we end up hating it in reality, and it actually reveals that we DONT have dysphoria, that we ARENT trans-repressors, and we can finally put all of this behind us and move on with our lives.

This is what I plan on doing, and I think it will either resolve all of this, or make me realize I’m actually dysphoric/trans then I’m back to square one or slightly worse. But I think it’s an idea worth trying, and at this point I’ll try anything.

29 AMAB, transgender desires started at 9, been dealing with it for 20 years. I’m very AGP, my desires have more sexual basis than non-sexual basis, but certainly both. Asked myself if I was trans at 22, said no. Complete mental breakdown at 28, had persistent crippling dysphoria.

As of a few months, I decided to continue repping forever. The main turning point for me was when I decided to start thinking of it as a logical vs emotional decision. A logical decision is faced with the question “will transitioning improve the overall quality of my life?” An emotional decision is faced with the question “will I regret being 80 years old never having been my 100% true self?” My belief is that gender dysphoria is a very serious situation that should be handled logically, not emotionally, even though the issue is emotional/mental at its core. But when I started looking at it from the logical point of view, the answer became obvious, transitioning will not improve the overall quality of my life. Transitioning would solve 1 issue, and create 10 more issues.

Overall I’m glad I processed this and finally had answers to the difficult feelings I’ve struggled with for 20 years. I know it will never completely go away, and even if I go through periods where it’s gone, it will always come back eventually. I can’t say I’ve fully made peace with it, but I have as best as I can. My take on it is that, you just don’t always get everything you want in life. I want to be a woman, but I also want to be a billionaire, and neither of those things are in the cards for me.

Sincerely,
- Future John50