1. To feel intrinsically your whole life that you don’t belong in your body, to go to sleep every night, praying, wishing, dreaming, hoping against every rational thought that you’ll wake up in a body you’re comfortable with, to be reminded at every turn that you don’t belong, that you don’t work, and then to be victimised for wanting to change it.
It’s not a pain I would wish on anyone.
2. For me, it can range from “man this is mildly inconvenient” to “man why can’t I die already”.
For the longest time though, I’ve always felt like something was off, and it wasn’t until high school where I was able to put it into words: I really wish I had a dick instead. I really wish I had a more masculine body frame. I really wish I could express myself femininely but still be perceived as male.
Ehh, but it’s different for everyone.
3. I think it should really be easy to imagine, just imagine everyone in your life started treating you like a woman and there was nothing you could do to convince them you weren’t. Then imagine that since birth you were told people who look like you are women, and you develop a complex so every time you look in the mirror all you can see what everyone else tells you: that you are and will always be something you don’t want to be.
A lot of people don’t like the phrase “born in the wrong body” and I’m one of them. I don’t like a lot of things about my body, but I’m hesitant to say that it’s the “wrong body”. I think to say that is to put a lot of untrue and not useful distinctions on what a woman (or man)’s body can be or is “supposed” to be.
4. “Like a cosmic toothache” not mine originally, but it’s the best one sentance explanation I have seen. You can’t explain why it feels wrong that you have have chest hair, but you know it is giving you a panic attack. You really hate your facial hair too, not because you hate shaving it, or how it looks, (maybe you do hate shaving it) but because you just wish you could have a smooth cute face with plump lips and smokey eyes like that girl you crushed on in highschool.
Also you know that you have avoided any kind of strength training for years, because, when you stop to think about it, you are afraid of getting ripped. Other guys look good with well defined muscles, but not you. You don’t even like your well defined veins on your arms. Why can’t you have soft smooth skin like your last girlfriend?
And you might make an exception for squats, because you wish you had a butt. Actually, you wish you had a sexy hourglass profile. And why is it always about sex? Is this some weird fetish? Some people will tell you it is, and they will tell you that you had better man up. You are very handsome, and it hurts when they tell you that, because you wish they would say you are pretty. You wish you could be pretty.
I could go on. But another summary is: a constellations of desires and and dissatisfaction lead you to the conclusion that the simplest explation for everything is: you are trans, and if you transition, many of your long held hopes can come true, and your long suffered pain can be eased.
5. It is hard to describe it to someone who never feels that way. It is also hard to describe it to myself, because I never felt any *different*.
I noticed that I feel more “normal, that is how it should be” since I started transitioning, and there have been several instances in “ah okay, that’s more correct”.
Phrasing it into words… difficult. It’s like buying shoes that fit perfectly. No bruises, no “walking them for some days until foot and shoe match up”. No “okay, I need shoes, and these are the least ugly”. I had this feeling a lot this year, and I expect to have more of it.
I don’t like the “wrong body” analogy too much. It is mine, and it has odd bits and pieces that I do not enjoy, but previously arranged with. I do not want to focus very much on the “wrongness” of the past, but I want to work on improving.
I know that my way of seeing that canvas of a body does not align with 99% of the people, but to me, it just feels *correct*, and this feeling does not go away, no matter how hard myself or others try to convince me otherwise.
6. Grab a pen and write down the first thought that comes to mind.
Now, what you just wrote down doesn’t matter to this explanation—but look at the pen. What hand is it in? Right? Left? Why do you write with that hand?
You just do, right? You just know which hand to write with.
Exactly. But we have the added pain of constantly being forced by society to, shall we say, “write with the wrong hand”.
7. Shitty. It feels shitty.
At first you don’t realize it. Then you realize it. Then you realize that this is the reason you’ve spent 99% of your life disconnected and miserable. Then you realize you’re gonna lose like probably everything in your life you’ve ever cared about if you do anything about it.
Eventually it gets the the point where you’re actively planning a way to end it all. Then self preservation kicks in and you start doing something about it.
You lose most of the things you thought you were going to lose, so that’s not a surprise. But after a while, it starts to seems lik “hey y’know maybe it’ll all be ok and I can just be myself and live my life!” …
but then It all happens in an election year and the Republican Party decides to convince everyone that you are a predator, a threat to everything holy and, that somehow your very existence is “trying to cram your perverted lifestyle down everyone’s throats”
To calm yourself you take a trip to the local shopping mall. There’s a dude open carrying with a MAGA hat on … and now you’ve gotta make a decision about using the restroom …
That’s what it’s like. Every fucking day
8. It hard to explain. For me it’s just extreme discomfort and de-personalization. My chest (FtM) is something I don’t even want to think about. I can’t look down when I’m naked, can’t look in the mirror without something covering, feel extremely uncomfortable without a binder in public.
This also applies when people refer to me as a girl. I hear “she” or “her” when referring to me and it’s like my mind drifts away from my body. It’s like I can even process that they are talking about me so I distance myself from it. Everything they say to me after that point is just drown out by the “she” repeating over and over.
9. How does it feel to be born in the right body?
I’ve never experienced that feeling, so I have nothing to compare it to. I’ve just lived my entire life wishing every day that things had been different.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.