Hello everyone. I’m creating this journal to blog mostly about transitioning. My name is Hannah, I’m a 36 year old trans woman (so I’m male to female), pre-everything at this point. I guess I should talk about my journey thus far. And what it means to be trans.
Square one: Gender Dysphoria. I think I’ll start off here. I’m not sure how everyone defines gender dysphoria so I’m not sure if this is consistent among psychologists. I would define it as a perpetual discomfort of ones own gender. So if your internal voice keeps saying I don’t like being [the gender I was born into] and it is consistent then you may have gender dysphoria. I’m not sure what other indicators are used.
Step two: trans? I think this might be a bit more difficult to really define. It seems like there are a few schools of thought on transgender and how it should be defined. The oldest school of thought considers gender dysphoria and transgenderism to be a mental health problem. While mental health should be considered during treatment and becomes a focal point for the individual’s health it is considered separately from mental health problems. Typically gender dysphoria can come with a bunch of side effect including things like depression, depersonalization, social anxiety disorder, anxiety, and more. The latter schools of thought recognize transgender as an issue separate from mental health. One school believes that a binary identity should be transitioned into. The last school of thought accepts non-binary and I believe allows the individual more control over the ways in which transition should occur.
Anyway I hope to post more about transgender and my journey.