Vanity High

Why are trans people so reticent to acknowledge

That they may or may not have

Body dysmorphic disorder

In combination with, and/or separate from

Their gender dysphoria?

It explains

Almost all of the gray areas– including

Why some trans people have

Lots and lots and lots of surgeries– and why

Some trans folk have zero surgeries.

It also explains nonbinary people who

Don’t have gender dysphoria.

I’ve struggled with gender dysphoria

But the thing about it, is

In my experience, from my perspective–

Gender dysphoria

Is about gender and gendered interactions

Not really about your body, at all, honestly.

I’ve mostly come to term with this lately

As I have all male colleagues, and

All male supervisors and

Everyone in my company is dudely, so much so–

Nobody even asks what you had for lunch.

Never once.

It’s fucking paradise– I had no idea

There was a world like this, that I could find

‘Lo and behold, it was hiding in plain sight

The secret world of masculinity mostly men get to experience.

For me, personally, this has been both

Better for my gender dysphoria than

Any medical intervention has been so far, and also

Has had a steep learning curve, where I’ve definitely

Scuffed my shins a bit being dragged around.

TLDR: Gender is how other people treat you.

I assume that a lot of people

Lump genitals, tits, ass, sexy parts ect.

In with gender dysphoria, because they see these

Body parts as gendered, and causing them dysphoria–

Which is true, to an extent, however

There isn’t really a limit to that thinking, unfortunately…

You can just kind of keep on going and going and going

You can be like

“Men have x parts, women have y parts–

I have the wrong kind of parts and

That my friends– is called gender dysphoria”

Like…. maybe? IMO Nope. Sorry.

I think BDD affects a lot more people

In a lot more ways than most people realize.

I’m not saying trans people should be somehow

Free of BDD before they attempt transitioning– but I do think

It’s more than a bit risky, to tell someone

Who hates every inch of their skin

That they can change anything they don’t like

That surgery can fix everything– It can’t, and it doesn’t

Neither does therapy, but regardless–

You don’t want to be caught by surprise

When the vanity high goes away.