I’m marking this as NSFW because I’m not super sure if this counts as discussing dysphoria. I don’t exactly know a lot about this if I’m being entirely honest. Feel free to tell me if this would have been fine or not :)
I’ve always considered myself a cis dude. I feel relatively comfortable as a dude I think. But there’s a lot of stuff that has me wondering things. For example, like a year ago I told one of my friends “Being a man is cool and all, but if I was given the reins at character creation, I would have chosen to be a woman.” That friend told me that was not very cis of me to say, and I kinda just wrote it off, but I still hold to that take as the way I feel. When I am falling asleep and I’m sort of day dreaming, I choose to daydream about the adventures of a female character I’ve invented. When I play video games, I almost always choose the female option if it’s given, because I found it’s easier for me to get into the story that way.
However, I feel totally fine being a guy. So like I don’t know if I’m gaslighting myself here, one way or the other. It’s kinda a thing where there’s a possibility I might be trans, but if I were to actually do it, I can’t tell if my life would get better or worse. I don’t think I would feel safe being trans in my area of the world, for example. So it’s like sure I might have chosen the female build in the game of life, but that’s not what RNG gave me, and maybe I’m okay with that?
Yeah. I’m fine with either way of framing. Some mean dysphoria and euphoria to only refer to extreme negative and positive feelings respectfully. Others basically use dysphoria much more broadly.
I think the problem with the dysphoria framing comes from listener and speaker using different definitions. When you say things like “gender requires dysphoria,” many eggs are going to see that and assume you mean the my strict definition of dysphoria, which they might not experience. Or even are experiencing it, but since they don’t know anything else don’t realize it is dysphoria.
Well put, that was pretty much the jist of the hangup I used to have. Extreme “oh I’ve always known” type stuff had me shy away from understanding dysphoria for awhile since it wasn’t what I’d experienced exactly. Idk, gatekeeping bad, being happier with your own gender stuff good