So my hairline started receding.
To which everybody says "Aw, well, I guess you take the good with the bad, right?"
Story time. It's a sad story, so if you don't like sad stories, don't read this paragraph. My hairline has been a stealth source of dysphoria for me. I don't really mind things downstairs, I can ignore my chest at least for now, my voice has never been terrible... but that hairline. It annoys me, because it has always shaped my face in such a feminine manner. I'd be looking in the mirror wondering what else I can do and that hairline would stick out. A couple times I actually yanked hair out because I was that anxious and dysphoric. That's not a story I tell very many people, because not messing with your hairline is one of those things I always tell trans men to avoid... because it's too easy to screw up and it looks weird if you want it to grow back.
Over something most men are self-conscious about anyway? My word, what's going on?
Gender dysphoria isn't about attractiveness. Well, sometimes there's a component to it. But generally speaking, it's not about how you look so much as what how you look reminds you of. And when I saw that hairline, it didn't matter that it would have been the envy of many cis men, it reminded me that I was biologically female, and so it bothered me.
When cis people, non-dysphoric people and people-who-think-they-aren't-but-really-are talk about the way dysphoric trans people describe ourselves, there's this downplaying aspect that's usually present. A cis woman hears a trans woman lament that her body is the wrong shape and the response is "Oh, I totally know, I have [this this and this problem]," a cis man doesn't understand why a trans man has a problem with his hairline because he'd love that hairline. And there's the "I don't know why you complain, you look great" attitude displayed by people who don't see what the dysphoric person sees in themselves.
These are meant to be encouraging statements, and most of us realize that, but they have they inevitably push the stereotype that being dysphoric and in fact being trans is about attaining a specific standard of attractiveness rather than a deep and largely innate discomfort with one's physical gender.
To use the classic transphobic example, a woman is so upset with how difficult it is for her to conform to sexist standards of beauty... she weighs too much, her nose is too big, her chest is too small, some other thing... so she transitions because she feels maybe she could attain a male standard easier. This is not reality... a few people report it, but it's not an average situation and people who consider transition for this reason are usually weeded out. I know you don't really feel that way, but it's the same mentality. "When a trans person doesn't like their appearance, it's because of stereotypes regarding physical attractiveness."
No, it's not. It's not some flush of butch women who believe butch isn't sexy, it's not a bunch of fat women who believe fat men have it easier, and it's not about wanting to look like Brad Pitt so we can seduce women. It's about what we're reminded of.
To use an unauthorized example, there was a trans man who had a mastectomy that left a little breast tissue on accident. It was this benign lump on an otherwise gorgeous chest that nobody would know existed if it weren't for this guy lamenting about how much it bothered him. But rather than support that this was a dysphoric response, people were insisting it wasn't a big deal because it wasn't visible.
And that's not the point. He knows damned well he's hot. It's not about how he looks, it's about the tissue there reminding him every time he felt it that there used to be breasts there.
For a lot of us this is never going to entirely go away. We may alleviate it with hormone therapy and surgery, and we may be extremely happy with the results, but dysphoria isn't about attractiveness, so there's always that risk that it's going to continue.
And maybe you won't understand it. People who don't experience it maybe can't understand it. Just know, though, that it might not be what you assume it is.
