The reason I like Anne Vitale's descriptor “gender expression deprivation anxiety” so much to explain gender dysphoria, is because it so accurately labels what it feels like. There is an anxiousness borne out of repression which is constantly there, whether in the background or acutely in the foreground, which cannot be easily dismissed.
When you are young and find yourself denying and then sporadically obliging an expression which bucks against society, it can seem to take the form of a diet and binge cycle and it is only when you understand that you are being true to your nature that things make sense. But until that happens you might be tempted to think you are crazy. The mystery is unraveled once you accept that the gender expression you feel comfortable with is intrinsic rather than a vice. The extent to which we are successful in removing culpability depends on how much of the message you have swallowed. For some it can take decades while for others it can be easy to disregard.
We are all different.
Things align when we accept ourselves and realize we were like the salmon swimming upstream all along and, if we are fortunate, finally relax into an existence that respects the person we are so we can really live.
When you are young and find yourself denying and then sporadically obliging an expression which bucks against society, it can seem to take the form of a diet and binge cycle and it is only when you understand that you are being true to your nature that things make sense. But until that happens you might be tempted to think you are crazy. The mystery is unraveled once you accept that the gender expression you feel comfortable with is intrinsic rather than a vice. The extent to which we are successful in removing culpability depends on how much of the message you have swallowed. For some it can take decades while for others it can be easy to disregard.
We are all different.
Things align when we accept ourselves and realize we were like the salmon swimming upstream all along and, if we are fortunate, finally relax into an existence that respects the person we are so we can really live.
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