I feel like there would be a lot less Trans Distress™ if we chased gender euphoria instead of focusing solely on our dysphoria.

I personally have been there before in my own journey and felt that guilt that you're experiencing, like if I'm not crying myself to sleep every night I'm not trans enough.

But, I kind of liken it to taking a walk in chilly weather, you're uncomfortable, awkward, trying to cover yourself up, that kind of thing. Gender Euphoria to me feels like putting on a comfy coat on that chilly day- it feels nice, feels right, I'm warm now. I wasn't going to die walking around with no coat, but it sure does feel a helluva lot better with one, yanno?

I've been lurking around following your posts and I just wanted to chime in for a second. Hope it's not offensive or anything and really hope it makes sense. I have nothing but love and pride watching your personal journey unfold and whatever you decide, it will be a choice you made for YOURSELF and that's what's important 🥰

That "typical trans experience" is mostly the experience of freshly hatched and early transition trans people, because they spend a lot more time in public-facing trans spaces and make up the majority of users there. And there's a tendency for certain common experiences to be amplified and stereotyped and everybody who has gone through something similar pitches in with their own variant of "oh yeah i had funny feelings when i saw Ranma" or "this makes me feel so dysphoric" or "this gives me so much gender envy" while most of the people who don't feel that way stay silent and wonder if there's something wrong with them for not sharing certain experiences.

I used to die inside looking at old photos of me, now i just find them hillarious and love to post them. I mean, yes, i do look less radiant in a lot of them, but it's not as if i was never happy as an egg, i've had a lot of good days back then, too. Nothing wrong with that.

And when i look at timelines in my community, i see a lot of people who looked really hot before they transitioned. Usually in a way that aligns with how we rate hotness for their AGAB. And all of them still look hot now, just in a way that aligns with who they actually are. Going from hot guy-looking person to hot goth girl or from hot gal-looking person to handsome hunk or from hot binary-presenting person to smokeshow elf thembo is fairly normal. The idea that you fuck something up has no basis in reality, hotness isn't a question of your gender expression.

Idk I’m complicated. Then again, transition for me has always been more about chasing euphoria rather than running away from dysphoria, so…

I often feel like I'm making changes mostly because of "idk that sounds kinda neat. I should try it" rather than dysphoria or euphoria.

Like, I know if I *think *about it more that there's more to it than that for me. But its not how I feel. Wish we as a society were to the point where that feeling was generally considered good enough, so we didn't have to go through imposter feelings.