I personally have accepted the “terf” label. I am a radical feminist who is gender critical and does not believe males can experience misogyny, making me a TERF.

There is a lot of reactionary conservatism in some terf rhetoric, but just aligning yourself with an ideology doesn’t mean you support all of it. I would legitimately suggest checking out the radfem community on tumblr and reading some people’s posts and seeing what you think (#radblr).

I was also peaked by an extremely negative experience with a hypersexual AGP. Radfem theory has actually been very healing to read.

As for how I deal with it? I am very vocal about my beliefs on and offline. Most of my friends are also gender critical in part because I get on my soapbox and start talking about this stuff so often. I am extremely uncomfortable with MTF (though not GNC or feminine men) and just try to avoid at all costs for my own mental health.

I personally believe pornography is one of the main root causes for both ftm & mtf.

The way pornography is filmed inherently dehumanizes females and presents heterosexual sex as an aggressive, intrusive, and dominant experience above all else. This creates a situation in which “emasculated” males fall down the sissy/AGP pipeline where they desire to be the inanimate object of sexual attraction (female). Conversely females who are “masculated” (AKA not aligning with, relating to, or wanting to perform the passive/victim/female role as shown in pornography) may begin to project onto the relatively humanized male pornographic participant and therefore see themselves as “male.” The latter happened for me. Quitting porn, which for me was primarily based in feminism & human rights concerns, helped my dysphoria instantly.

I think the first course of “treatment” should be complete and total abstinence from pornography. I’d bet that only a handful of people would remain dysphoric (hypothetical “true trans,” which is problematic in and of itself).

For example, why are there no female esports champions? Could you imagine the pure sexist vitriol one would have to endure? What could possibly be worth it? There are a TON of popular female streamers and letsplayers who don’t sexualize themselves. It’s on YOU to find them and uplift them.

For science, what about Margaret Hamilton? What about Katharine Johnson? What about Marie Curie? What about all of the women who participated in the culture of citizen science during the 1800s?

For music, what about Björk? What about Beyonce? What makes them lesser than Mozart? Because men told you Mozart was better?

Okay, so are you celebrating women who are succeeding in eSports currently? Like all the women in the fighting game circuit? Cuddle_core, LOSTyGIRL? Or female speedrunner record holders?

What about Fiona Apple? What about Carole King, considered one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century? What about Billie Holiday? HILDEGARD OF BINGEN??? Have you ever interrogated how the canon of classical music was formed, by whom, and maybe who may have been excluded? Have you read any books on women’s history? Any feminist theory? How can you make up your mind on a subject that you haven’t even properly researched?

Ask yourself, genuinely, why is it so much easier for you to believe we as females are biologically inferior than to question if the narrative of male superiority is rooted in fact or socially created?

Please feel free to completely disregard my comment as I know that this is already a sensitive subject and my suggestion is more sensitive. Are you in a position where healthy weight loss is a reasonable goal AND/OR if you even think this is applicable for your situation. I lost a significant amount of weight and my chest dysphoria went away almost entirely.

Not trying to say you should or shouldn’t do anything. But attempting reasonable healthy weight loss is not significantly easier, cheaper, and way easier on your body than an elective surgery. Again, might not even apply.

Omg OP I went through a very similar experience but on the FTM side of things. Was able to socially achieve androgyny/masculinity with no hormones or medical intervention.

Caused huge issues amongst my other ftm because similarly to you, I have a more “androgynous” body type (small chest etc) and pretty quickly started “passing” more than other FTM i knew who were on T, voice training, etc for multiple years. They would hound me about going on T, probably because other than my height (average for women short for men) I think I would have had an “ideal” medical transition and they couldn’t understand why I was satisfied with social androgyny.

Anyway, being a GNC/androgynous person is SO AWESOME, especially the freedom it gives you to actually reclaim your sex and what that means to you. Cheers!!!!

Exactly my point! I mean, this literally happened to Rosalind Franklin, did it not?

Now imagine this happening to women in every industry, every pursuit, every medium, nearly every society, for the majority of human history. This is exactly how male supremacy perpetuates itself!!!

I HAVE!!!

Penis envy as you described it was one of the biggest contributors to my GD. I too feared that no men would like my masculine side. I was so, so wrong. There are an abundance of “submissive” men who want a dominant woman, be they masculine or feminine. The real issue is sorting out why these men want this, which then informs what you can do. My tips are as follows:

• Involve yourself in activities that would attract the type of man you are interested in (in this case, it sounds like you want a feminine man) - poetry readings, art events, LGBT events (if you can stand them lol), or other gender neutral hobbies
• Absolutely do not engage with men who consume porn on any sort of regular basis. I believe this is important for everyone, but it is absolutely crucial as a masculine woman in the het dating scene. The last thing you want is to have a partner who fetishizes you and uses you to enact their fantasy. Not to mention the fantasies in question are often deeply toxic and misogynistic, which is key to avoid.
• If someone has an extensive history of pegging/being topped/dominated, that plays into the point above even if they are not watching porn. Red flag for me, maybe not for you.
• I don’t have casual sex and I do not have PIV sex with anyone who would not let me top them. This weeds out men who either have some form of internalized homophobia or a misogynistic fantasy of breaking/feminizing a masculine woman.
• To build off of that, you do not have to have PIV sex if you do not want to. If that is a dealbreaker for you, make it one.
• A lot of men experience shame for being GNC, feminine, or submissive, and a good tip is to not go too overboard too fast with it. Understand they struggle the way you do and probably also thought they would never find a dominant/masculine/GNC woman.

If you have any questions please ask me.

Very plainly, I realized that I just really, really hated being born a woman. Some subconscious part of me believed not that the patriarchy was wrong, but that I had been unfairly assessed by it.

I explored this by reading feminist & history books. One that changed my life was “Women in the Picture.”