Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re going to talk about something I’ve mentioned in passing a few times, but it’s getting a thread of its own. It’s one of the best things about being trans for me, and it’s also something cis people can maybe experience: GENDER EUPHORIA.
I probably link to the below post more than any other, but if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure you’re familiar with the other side of the coin, GENDER DYSPHORIA.
Again, not all trans people experience gender dysphoria (though the vast majority do, I think), and you need not have gender dysphoria to be trans. But it’s certainly a major signifier.
Gender euphoria is quite literally the exact opposite, it’s a feeling not just of contentment, but absolute, unbridled, utter joy brought about by, of all things, your gender. Which might seem strange, so let’s talk about that a little.
I spent my entire life being told I was a boy/man, and was expected to behave/dress/live accordingly. And that gave me a massive amount of dysphoria, even beyond the physical issues of feeling like I was in the wrong body.
So when I began trying to figure out why I felt that way, and coming to terms with my transness, I started experimenting with doing things that weren’t necessarily even feminine, but were anti-masculine, if that makes any kind of sense.
This involved a lot of things I’ve talked about, like growing out my hair, experimenting with makeup, and changing my clothes. If you missed those, here’s the first trans tuesday on HAIR.
And HAIR 2, when I got my first ever haircut.
And the trans tuesday on HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES AND TRANS PEOPLE.
If you read through those, I think you can spot the parts where they caused gender euphoria (I may have even mentioned it by name, but I haven’t re-read them recently so I don’t remember, give a gal a break.)
And okay, I hear you say, but those ARE “feminine” or “girly” things, at least to some degree. And so I will now direct you to the essay on BODY HACKING, which includes discussion of the first women’s clothes I ever owned.
Again, yes, they were women’s clothes, but you likely wouldn’t know it if they weren’t sold in the women’s section. A running hoodie is a running hoodie. It’s cut a little different from a men’s hoodie, but honestly I don’t think you can tell if you’re not wearing it.
I don’t need to go back and reread talking about that hoodie there, because I will never, ever forget the way it made me feel. I said it “felt like I was FLYING.” And it did, and it still does! Only now basically all my clothes make me feel that way (to varying degrees).
That was the first time I EVER felt gender euphoria, and friends, the only better feeling than gender euphoria is love. And like, yes, I am aware of sex and pizza and the way it feels to clean an itchy ear with a q-tip.
GENDER EUPHORIA IS BETTER THAN ALL OF THEM.
And it feels like flying because, as I mentioned in the dysphoria thread, and multiple other times throughout all these Trans Tuesdays threads, dysphoria feels like a crushing weight that’s just destroying you.
When you remove that weight, you feel weightless. And that applies to almost everything in life. If you’re overloaded with work, clearing it off your plate can sometimes make you feel better than if you’d never had it stressing you in the first place.
If you carry something heavy, set it down and pick up something not as heavy, it feels even lighter than it should. It’s a thing.
It’s part of the reason baseball players put those weighted donuts on their bat while warming up. It makes it feel lighter when you’re actually batting! I played a ton of baseball as a kid, that might be the first time I ever experienced anything like that.
Incidentally, I believe this is why Neo flies in The Matrix franchise, which is something you can learn all about in my book, BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX.
He also has multiple “dress go spinny” moments, which is a phenomena in the trans woman community where, when wearing skirts or dresses, we feel compelled to twirl so we can feel them spin around us. We can see it spinning, we can feel it spinning, it reminds us that it’s there and of all we’ve achieved in getting to be our true selves. It’s total gender euphoria.
What does gender euphoria feel like to trans folks who don’t have dysphoria? I can’t say, I can only speak to my own experiences, and not having dysphoria is certainly not anything I’ve ever been familiar with.
But I suspect it’s much the same. Maybe a bit less intense? But maybe not. When gender euphoria really washes over me, it is POWERFUL. It *really* feels like I’m going to levitate right off the ground.
It’s this amazing confirmation that I AM ME, I am the me I always wanted to be, the me I always was, but now made real and here in the world AS MYSELF and there’s just no feeling like it.
So what gives me gender euphoria? Anyone saying my name gives me a little bit. Literally that’s all it takes! That’s not one of the huge ones that makes me feel like I’m flying, but it does make me tingly.
The knowledge that I’m being seen, after spending my life not, is heady stuff.
When Susan noticed my voice was changing after I’d been in voice therapy for a while, that was a big one.
Several weeks back, in that blessed short time before the delta variant, where it seemed like things were maybe going to turn a corner, we went out to lunch for the first time in like 18 months. We sat outside, and there was distancing.
And when the server brought our food, she set down my plate. Hold on, I need to take a breath, I’m getting light-headed just thinking about it. Hoo.
She set down my food, and said, “For the lady!”
That’s it. THAT IS FUCKING IT. It was the first time a stranger had really done that, just SEEN ME AS ME, and I thought I was gonna explode. Just thinking about it gives me a lot of residual tingles. Kind of astonishing.
I can only speak to this as a person who transitioned as an adult. If you got to transition as a kid in a loving environment that let you explore these things, would you still have it? I think so. Would it still be as intense? No idea.
I think this is something that cis folks out there can (and do) experience, though maybe less intensely. Although I’ve never been cis, so I don’t know! But I’m curious.
I think cis folks probably experience something similar when you… well, I don’t know. It’s more than just having a favorite shirt or something. Do you have a… suit? Dress? Top? Accessory? Something that you KNOW you look FUCKING GREAT in?
Something that makes you feel like FUCK YES THIS IS ME, I AM THIS AMAZING BEAUTIFUL PERSON, AND THE WORLD WILL SEE ME AS SUCH! I look good and I fuckin’ know it, stand back world I’m comin’ through!
That. It’s THAT, *turned up to eleven.* Do you experience that, cis folks? Is it ever so intense that you just have to sit down because you might pass out from the overwhelming feeling that you’re SO VERY YOU, the woman/man you were meant to be?
If not, does that mean… you’re not cis? I don’t know, probably not. But maybe! Try on something different, something from the opposite end of the spectrum (or even something very gender neutral).
See how it makes you feel. Pay attention to everything your head, heart, and body are telling you. Explore, see where it takes you. At the very least, you might find you’re REALLY cis and just love being that way!
Or maybe you’ll HATE the way dressing as a different gender makes you feel, and you’ll get the teeniest tiniest little window into what gender dysphoria is like. Who knows.
Gender euphoria is one of the most amazing and beautiful things about being trans, but even that might not be uniquely ours. I think it’s likely universal. Experiment and find out. Let me know how it goes. 💜
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com