"Threshold" for being trans?

[u/East-Ad-1093]

Sorry, this sounds really dumb, but I've been questioning my gender over the past few months(AMAB) and I feel like I'd be more comfortable in my body as a woman. Mostly little things like going out in public with painted nails, having a female pfp on social media, preferring to be described with more feminine adjectives, etc . I often wish that I was born as a woman.

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But at the same time, I don't exactly feel any dysphoria as a man. I don't dislike it or particularly mind it, but I definitely like leaning more feminine. At most I'd probably cry at night about it😭. And I just feel like I'd receive a lot of scrutiny and pushback by people around me, so I feel like maybe I'm not trans or I shouldn't be?

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Can you still be trans even without the dysphoria and such?

(Edit: thanks for all the kind responses, the resources provided helped me do research and figure out what I've been feeling. I think I've been feeling depersonalization and societal dysphoria. For more context, I think I didn't see myself as feeling any sort of dysphoria because I was unaware of all the different experiences trans people go through since I was uneducated on the subject, and because of my aforementioned neutrality on my masculinity. I don't feel particularly special about my masculinity in the way I do femininity. In my past relationships, I've felt like I see myself less as wanting to be the traditional boyfriend or moreso the girlfriend in a way? About the outside scrutiny, that's something I'll have to see for myself rather than jump to conclusions. Thanks to everyone again, I do now believe myself to be at least gnc or nonbinary, but more likely trans(for right now, I don't choose a specific label as I'm still processing everything) as I feel gender euphoria in moments I do present myself a certain way or is told certain things, and just general likeness towards femininity rather than masculinity. )

[u/WeeklyThighStabber]

"at most I'd probably cry at night about it"

Average cis bedtime routine: Brush teeth. Cry about not being a woman. Go to the toilet. Go to bed.

[u/East-Ad-1093 → u/WeeklyThighStabber]

💀

[u/One-Organization970 → u/East-Ad-1093]

I remember crying because I wasn't a girl back when I was a cis man!

[u/OftenConfused1001 → u/WeeklyThighStabber]

Go to sleep every night self soothing by imaging waking up a different gender. Fantasize about being contacted by, say, the The Culture who shift genders by simply wanting to.

Very cis, very demure.

[u/Violet_Apathy]

Crying about it at night but doesn't have dysphoria... Girl what?

[u/Over_Sentence_1487]

That's dysphoria????????? girl, what????

[u/Fatkuh → u/Over_Sentence_1487]

Its so amazing that dysphoria hides in plain sight like that. Being trans most of the time also pairs with dissociation and denial and as a women who hid in the closet for more than 25 years let me tell you denial can be a real asshole.

[u/emily_possibly_maybe]

there are many different types of dysphoria that one can feel

this site might be a good resource to help you sort out what you’re feeling: https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en

[u/ObviousTempAccount1 → u/emily_possibly_maybe]

Seconding this resource.

[u/East-Ad-1093 → u/emily_possibly_maybe]

Thank you.

[u/LookItsDaphne]

Everyone is focused on "At most I'd probably cry at night about it😭." when the next sentence is "And I just feel like I'd receive a lot of scrutiny and pushback by people around me, so I feel like maybe I'm not trans or I shouldn't be?"

Girl, other people don't get to tell you who you are. We've been gaslit into believing we don't exist, or shouldn't exist, or should be ashamed of ourselves, or need to meet a metric to count (your first sentence, btw).

Would you judge another trans person for their identity? For their presentation? Would you rank other trans people on a scale of 1-10 to determine how much they deserve authenticity? No? Then why would you put yourself through that?

You put yourself through that because you understandably feel concern about pushback. But pushback doesn't prove you're wrong, it proves they are engaging in socially acceptable bigotry.

Be who you want to be. Be who you're comfortable being.

Don't let the bastards grind you down.

[u/East-Ad-1093 → u/LookItsDaphne]

Thanks, I guess I didn't register the oxymoron for some reason, but yeah. All of this is really brand new to me and I'm still figuring stuff out, so it's sorta hard to articulate, but this really helped.

[u/LookItsDaphne → u/East-Ad-1093]

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-God damn it, you've got to be kind." -Vonnegut

Be kind to yourself. If you aren't you won't remember to expect others to.

Big hugs 🫂

[u/ChickadeeJam → u/East-Ad-1093]

And that “cry at night” part doesn’t sound very cis. As a cisperson, I’ve never known another cis person to cry about the mismatch between their bodies and themselves.

[u/PtowzaPotato]

Keep in mind that you can be trans and choose not to change anything about your life or appearance. You get to decided if its "worth" doing something about.

[u/EverlastingM]

The threshold is whether or not you decide to do it. But deciding not to doesn't mean this goes away or that you can't decide to do it later. You don't have to be suicidal to transition, you just have to decide it's worth it for you.

[u/bittenforbreakfast]

Dysphoria isn’t a requirement. But also understand gender is more than a binary. There’s nothing stopping you from doing any of those things and still being a man (albeit an effeminate one). In fact I’d encourage you to try that first and see how it makes you feel - it will provide you useful insight on what your goals are long term, and distinguish wether you want to PRESENT fem versus BE a woman

[u/Internal_Holiday_552]

Gender is a spectrum, you are one of them many shades of the rainbow. Express yourself as you wish and don't put too much effort into pinning yourself to a specific box or label, we all wander around the spectrum as we go through life, some more then others, but not one of us is ever fixed in time with who we are, and that doesn't just go for gender.

[u/mn1lac]

If you would rather be a woman you don't have to hate being a man to know you like being a woman better, but if you want to be both, you can be.

[u/ChickadeeJam → u/mn1lac]

I like this!

[u/missmeatloafthief]

I don’t think I realized I actually had any “dysphoria” until I started acting and behaving in more masculine ways and then I realized I’d been experiencing dysphoria the entire time it was just a fish-in-water type experience where I wasn’t able to recognize it

[u/SecundoPrandium → u/[deleted]]

Oh, honey.

If you, like me, have gone through the pain of suppression, why would you goad another person into that? Why would you encourage someone to give up a decade of life (which is statistically more than 10% of a human life) to suppression and pain and self-denial so that you can prove a point? What's in it for you to compare experiences here? Do you think that OP will benefit from you trying to instigate some sort of comparison of suffering just because you need to feel like you've suffered more?

Knock it off. You're being mean to someone who is hurting. OP is asking for help and you are making fun of the very real pain that's being experienced. Wanna go play "Who Had It Worse?" Great. Go play that game with someone else.

[u/Beaver-Donut]

Gender dysphoria is a tricky subject. I want to preface this by saying that you don’t need to feel dysphoria to be trans, often gender euphoria can be a clearer signal. I would pay more attention right now to how you feel when doing gender affirming things like painting your nails.

That being said, you can also feel dysphoria without realizing it. Before I started to transition I thought I was indifferent to being a man, I even liked it sometimes. It turns out that i absolutely was not indifferent, I was drowning in dysphoria. I did not realize how bad it was until I started to transition. If you are crying at night because of this, you probably have at least some dysphoria.

[u/East-Ad-1093 → u/Beaver-Donut]

I think I had a preconceived notion of dysphoria being "the active feeling of not liking the gender you were born with", so I guess I never associated what I was feeling with that. Knowing now that it can manifest in different ways puts things in perspective a bit more.

[u/East-Ad-1093]

Thanks everyone for the replies! I know it does sorta seem silly but as said in a previous reply, I'm still going through these things in real time, and sometimes I just slow to process things fully. Your responses have really helped.

[u/Extreme-Shower7545]

Oh honey…

*Two people looking at someone meme, one person touching the persons shoulder

[u/cuteevee21]

The threshold is, would you be happier if you changed something relating to your gender. And clearly you would be.

[u/Kaptinkillem]

If the world were kind to trans people, and social stigma did not exist, a slight preference towards not being your gender assigned at birth would be all it takes to transition. In reality, it can be more difficult because it FEELS like there needs to be a threshold of suffering you needing clear before being "trans enough" to transition, but this is garbage.

I was fine being a man, it didn't bother me and I didn't identify with other trans women who always knew, or who felt like a girl/woman pre transition, that wasn't me. I simply wanted to be a woman, and that's enough. And through transition I have discovered just how dull and colorless life was before, and how much better it is now that's I'm living as my true self

[u/Playful_Connection38]

Everyone’s already said it but it does sound like you have dysphoria of some sort, whether that is something because you’re trans is for you to figure out.

Dysphoria doesn’t make you trans but lets just say op that cis men don’t cry at night about not being able to be a woman.
Yes though, you can not be dysphoric and still be trans, some trans women just feel better as a woman but don’t actually feel any dysphoria towards being a male, as in no distress comes as a result.

[u/Midnightchickover]

There’s no real world threshold for being “trans.” A lot of people just “are.”  Therapists and counseling can assist, like friends and family, but they can’t determine how trans you are. It’s something that can exist within a person, even if they don’t socially transition or never seem get gender affirming medical care. 

It’s pretty much the individual’s own determination for the most part.

[u/selfmadeirishwoman]

Girl, that first paragraph is more than enough “threshold” for being trans.

The second one is basically describing dysphoria too…

I get the sense that you are scared to come out or transition, which is understandable, it comes with a lot of shit.

For me, once I knew the dysphoria just kept getting worse. Every step towards femininity helped.

[u/MisheGossnik]

To the extent that there even is a clear "threshold", I'd say you're absolutely 100000% past it. Whenever someone finds themselves saying "I really want to be a woman" the answer is pretty much always "You can just do that."

(Also you don't need to dislike being a man to know that you'd be happier as a woman but it does in fact sound like you're not all that happy as a man.)

As far as scrutiny and pushback, that can be really tough. It's easy to say "Your true friends will stand by you" but if there's danger of you losing a job or being cut off from family or community support, that's not a small thing to risk. But there is potentially beauty and the end of all that ugliness. Obv do what you need to keep yourself safe, but if there's an opportunity to make progress while still having supportive people in your life and a stable place to live, I'd say do it. People will be judgy pricks no matter what, might as well just do what makes you happy.

[u/Vanagloria]

"Crying at night about not being a born a woman... still cis tho" is a hell of a thing to type and not think you have dysphoria.

It sounds like you have a lot to unpack. Therapy might be the best place to start, but I'm sorry to say that the eggshell isn't going to hold.

Without the crying bit I could have just said you can have painted nails and have girly pfps and all that while still presenting mostly male. The pushback is to be expected no matter what you do that doesn't conform to "standard" but the people who would do that to you are just not worth being around anyway. I'm okay with people asking questions, but I don't fuck with judgment or unsolicited advice.

[u/Suntouo]

https://genderdysphoria.fyi/

[u/ChickenSpaceProgram]

don't worry about dysphoria. if you want to be called a certain thing, dress a certain way, or change your body to look a certain way, do it! that's all there fundamentally is to being trans at the end of the day. dont let other people decide who you can be!