Find activities which make you feel at home in your body. Focussing on your chest itself probably won’t help, so try to find ways to feel comfortable in your body, and as you get used to that over time it will become easier to accept your body in its new form. Some suggestions: Sports which involve your whole body (climbing is amazing, running might work for you, just see what you like. An added bonus with climbing is that, in my experience, being (nearly) flat chested makes the whole thing a lot easier) Yoga and meditation Body painting (literally just get some paints and paint beautiful colours and patterns onto your skin) Maybe psychedelics - might not be your thing, but they definitely are mine I’ll edit if I can think of any more! All the best my friend, peace XX

I hear you and I feel this. You're not alone. I've come to believe that the ideology surrounding gender which most trans activist groups hold is really harmful to girls, women, and particularly gender non-conforming people, so I can't feel at home there. Equally, I don't want to be associated with the right wing, who harass gay, gnc and trans people for failing to conform. There isn't a good middle ground, but I really hope this sub survives because it's one of the few places I've found people who understand.

Are you sure you want to come out as detrans? You don't have to make an announcement, and if you do want to make an announcement you needn't do it via social media, unless you want to. For me, detransition is about moving past identity politics, and part of that involved moving past the need to announce to the world all of the feelings which I had about my body/my feminism/my sex/my gender. I feel a lot more comfortable just doing me without bringing the rest of the world in on it, unless it's on a person-by-person basis. You might not feel the same as me - I'm just commenting to let you know you don't *have* to come out on social media! All the best pal xx

The q ‘am I rlly trans?’ is probably less helpful than ‘do I rlly wanna transition?’ - like, taking a good long look at the realistic consequences of transitioning, is that the way you want your life to go? Maybe you do sincerely want them, and you’re happy to take the risk that you might be wrong and regret it because you think that you could ‘win big’ if you’re correctly assessing what you want; maybe you’re not sure after all, or you’re not sure the potentially bad consequences are ‘worth the risk’, in which case… don’t do it. It’s straightforward tbh. Hang around with trans people, and if possible with detrans people or at least gnc people, first. Imagine yourself in their shoes. Take some time to sort your sexuality out before you try to make big decisions about reconfiguring ur sex/gender. Idk, just take your time, and if you do wanna transition all the best, but otherwise.. that’s ok too

Yes! I relate to this so strongly. When I IDd as trans, I would actively avoid doing things that I would probably have enjoyed, effectively just for the sake of keeping up appearances. I hated the idea of coming across as if I was faking being trans (I had so much insecurity about my gender presentation oh my goodness), to the point where it didn’t even matter if I was with other people or by myself - if something was typed ‘girly’, I felt horrified by the idea of being associated with it, in case it undermined my whole gender facade. Transitioning was a good experience for me in some ways, because it liberated me to do things which were typed ‘masculine’, and to feel like I had a right to do them, but the cost was that I felt unable to do ‘girly’ things - the thought made my skin crawl. Since detransitioning, I have maintained the confidence I developed doing things which might be considered gender non-conforming, but I’ve regained my ability to relax and genuinely enjoy things that are more aligned with stereotypes for my sex. I thought that, when I IDd as trans, I had freed myself from gender stereotypes because I was doing all the things that women weren’t meant to do. In retrospect, I can see that I was still trapped by those stereotypes, because I saw so many of the things that women were meant to do as ‘off-limits’ for me. Now that I’ve abandoned gender identity and gender politics, I barely even think about whether something is ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ or whatever - I just do it if I want to. The result is that I sometimes enjoy feminine things, and I often enjoy ‘masculine’ things, and whatever I’m doing my sense of self/identity isn’t bothered. Honestly it’s one of the best things about having transitioned and detransitioned.

Sometimes transition is going to relieve dysphoria, and make a gender non-conforming person’s experience in our highly sexist and homophobic world easier, in a way that can’t be paralleled by doing the difficult work of self-acceptance, to the extent that they can’t be happy without it. For those people, go ahead and transition. I believe pretty strongly that most people will live more fulfilled lives, with a greater degree of self-acceptance and comfort in their own bodies, if they are able to stand up against the pressures towards gender conformity, and learn to love themselves with the bodies and minds that they already have, rather than editing those bodies because of a problem which is ultimately psychosocial and not physical - but I know that that isn’t going to work for everyone. I have no real interest in denying people the chance to transition, once they’ve had a decent shot at learning to be comfortable with who they are without transition. It’s a cruel world for gnc people, especially butch women. Sometimes it’s just easier to live stealth as a trans guy. Who am I to stop you?

Don't pressure yourself, but yeah if you can find exercise that feels good I hope that helps! Re. psychedelics, I've only got experience with acid but I think shrooms are quite similar. I think they help me process things - my experience of transition, and to a lesser extent detransition, was unsurprisingly kinda traumatic, and reflecting on it with the help of psychedelics has helped me make peace with it in a way that I don't think I really had before. That being said, psychedelics aren't 'inherently' wonder-molecules - it depends hugely on how you use them (and tbh I have a lot to learn there too). Have a look online to see what you can find out! I realise there's a legality issue, though, so don't do anything you aren't comfortable with. (Besides being really helpful for thinking about things in a new and less constrained way, I also think psychedelics can be a lot of fun!) I have no idea if you'd be interested in this, but my fave bit of research into psychedelics is Hewitt's paper on Psychedelic Feminism (it's not actually about the science, but it's got some really interesting comments on how psychedelics can be used). I'm not sure if any of this is your thing, though, so feel free to take it or leave it!

Read in the comments that you’re 15 - that’s about when my dysphoria was at its worst. The answer is emphatically yes, it will get better. Here are some things that helped me, and some things to avoid.

If you’re on trans tumblr, Twitter, YouTube or anything else similar, leave. When you’re immersed in conversations about gender and dysphoria, it’s going to be at the forefront of your mind. Even if you don’t realise it, you’re effectively going looking for these feelings, even if it feels good at the time.

Find a sport or outdoor activity which makes you feel powerful in your body, and which makes you feel able. In my experience, things like running or going to the gym have never been particularly helpful, but I fell in love with climbing and bouldering. Nothing has helped me feel at home in my body like that did.

It might feel clunky and awkward to begin with, and you might feel self conscious about it, but yoga and meditation can work wonders. Yoga teaches you to move your body in ways which feel right, and meditation asks you to sit with your thoughts and cultivate a calm and empty mind. I can’t recommend highly enough.

Assuming you’re female: if you can, it might help to try to surround yourself with independent and inspiring women who are not involved in trans politics. Being in same-sex spaces is liberating and might help you understand on a deeper level that there is space for a whole range people in the category of ‘womanhood’, including gender non conforming people, and people who feel like you do.

Read women’s history (again, assuming you’re a woman). This is a great time to be alive, but our culture is deeply misogynistic and increasingly porn-sick. There have been other ways to be a woman throughout history besides the ways which we are encouraged to perform womanhood today. I’m not sure if you’re gay/attracted to women, but if you are then I recommend reading Stone Butch Blues. It changed my life, and showed me that there have always been dysphoric women and butch women, and that while it might not be easy it doesn’t detract from your womanhood.

If you have the option, see if you can find a counsellor or therapist. You will have to be explicit with them and explain that you want to work through your dysphoria and find it’s root causes, because if you aren’t clear about this you run the risk of someone just ‘affirming’ you and pushing you into a transition which may not be right for you, but if you can find a professional to talk through these things with that could be fantastic.

Finally, time is a great healer. Puberty completely screwed my mental health and body image up, because I went from being a happily gender free child to having a body changing faster than I could keep up with. Over time, I learned to live in my body and to accept it as it is. You can do this too, when you find the strength in yourself to stop fighting it and grow.

I’ll add to this if I think of anything more, but for now, you can do this, friend. If you want to message me, go ahead. Peace xx

Edit: additions! Here we go:

I’ve realised you’re amab now, so some of the above advice may not be relevant, but I have a new piece of advice - I would recommend that, if you are watching porn at all now, you try to give it up. It may not be easy, but it really skews the whole way we see gender (as well as sex), and will probably be doing damage to your body image too. See if it helps, although even if it doesn’t I’d recommend going porn free because the industry is systematically exploitative.

I’d also suggest that you cultivate a healthy and porn-free masturbation habit. It might not work for you, but for me taking the time to work out what makes my body feel good (by myself, not with a partner!) did amazing things for my sense of being at home in my body. It might feel weird and awkward at first, if you’re used to wanking to porn or to never wanking at all, but I think it’s worth it.

One of the things that helped me feel more at home in my body is body painting - literally just painting in bright colours patterns all over my skin. It might help you?!

Generally working on your mental health is a good idea, but one of the things that might be a particularly easy fix is paying attention to what music you listen to. If you listen to angry or angsty music, I understand that it’s cathartic but try switching it up for something upbeat or happy. It might change your mood, and thereby a lot of the thoughts and feelings you have about your body.

If you’re 15, your brain is too underdeveloped for this, but to anyone else who might be reading: psychedelics have been incredible for my body image and my sense of being at ease in my body. I can’t tell you how much I recommend them.

Re. this, you’re right- thanks for mentioning it. I’m probably a bit too quick to recommend something just because it’s been good for me personally. I am mostly with you on this - drugs shouldn’t become a way to hide from your trauma, and shouldn’t become habitual. I think psychedelics should actually be viewed quite differently to many other drugs, because they modify your consciousness and brain activity in completely different ways - it’s worth looking at the research that is happening in this, esp. the current Imperial College research into using MD (I think) to treat PTSD and other conditions, and research from the 60s and 70s before psychedelics were banned as a part of counterculture repression. I’m not suggesting that you should conduct research on yourself or try to be your own doctor, but it’s good to know these things for context and can help you use them in a way which is productive. Thank you for adding this though - psychedelics are at most a complement to other healing, and should be used sensibly! Used in a good way, they definitely don’t need to become a new coping mechanism. Re. the hallucinations stuff, there’re a lot of misconceptions out there around this (e.g. psychedelics don’t actually make you see things which aren’t there - they just add movement, pattern and flow to the things which are there).

Hello! I can't help you with the trauma side of things, but here's my best attempt at helping you with the stereotypes/social dysphoria/physical dysphoria side of things.

My physical dysphoria predated my social dysphoria, but once I'd identified the discomfort I felt about my sexed body as gender dysphoria, I found that social dysphoria accumulated, so that I felt crap being perceived as a woman, whereas before I was uncomfortable with my body but had no issues with being perceived as a woman.

When I was transitioning, one of many motivations for me was that I didn't have any strong association with 'womanhood' or 'girlhood'. I kept reading (online) that being a woman involved identifying as a woman, or identifying with womanhood. Reading that, I knew that I wasn't feminine, that I felt very uncomfortable in my female body, and that I had no idea whatsoever what it could even mean to 'identify as' a woman. Taking these three things together, I concluded that I must not identify as a woman, so (by what I assumed to be the definition), I couldn't possibly *be* a woman. Once I'd formed that belief, I had even more reason to resent my female body, which was constantly at risk of 'giving me away' as a woman, which heightened my physical dysphoria (and created a vicious cycle with an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, an exercise addiction, and self-harm). It also gave me reason to resent anyone who assumed my gender (i.e. observed my sex...), which created and heightened my social dysphoria. Heightened social dysphoria made me spend more time trying to avoid looking female, which made me spend more time thinking about my appearance and trying to defeminise myself, which triggered yet more physical dysphoria, which was made even worse when people observed me to be female, and the cycle continued. In retrospect, I can see how self-obsessed/self-destructive/narcissistic/pointless it all was, but at the time it felt crippling, and yet simultaneously like I was fighting the most important feminist battle to be 'seen for who I truly was'.

Gonna copy and past a couple of paragraphs here from a different post on this sub, which have some thought which I guess you might be interested in relating to stereotypes, transition and detransition. They're a bit out of context here, but I'm hoping you might still be able to make sense of them!

'When I IDd as trans, I would actively avoid doing stereotypically feminine things that I would probably have enjoyed, effectively just for the sake of keeping up appearances. I hated the idea of coming across as if I was faking being trans (I had so much insecurity about my gender presentation oh my goodness), to the point where it didn’t even matter if I was with other people or by myself - if something was typed ‘girly’, I felt horrified by the idea of being associated with it, in case it undermined my whole gender facade. Transitioning was a good experience for me in some ways, because it liberated me to do things which were typed ‘masculine’, and to feel like I had a right to do them, but the cost was that I felt unable to do ‘girly’ things - the thought made my skin crawl. Since detransitioning, I have maintained the confidence I developed doing stereotypically masculine things, but I’ve regained my ability to relax and genuinely enjoy things that are more aligned with stereotypes of femininity. I thought that, when I IDd as trans, I had freed myself from gender stereotypes because I was finally doing all the things that women weren’t meant to do. In retrospect, I can see that I was still trapped by sexist stereotypes, because I saw so many of the things that women were meant to do as ‘off-limits’ for me. Now that I’ve abandoned gender identity and gender politics, I barely even think about whether something is ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ or whatever - I just do it if I want to. The result is that I sometimes enjoy feminine things, and I often enjoy ‘masculine’ things, and whatever I’m doing my sense of self/identity isn’t bothered. Honestly it’s one of the best things about having transitioned and detransitioned.'

'Honestly, all of this just convinces me that transitioning is about the worst thing that gnc people can do if we want to challenge gender stereotypes rather than enforcing them. I understand that some people will want to transition anyway, e.g. because obviously transitioning makes your life easier if the stuff you wanna do is stereotypically only acceptable for the opposite sex. To be honest, I think that's fair enough - nobody should be expected to sacrifice their happiness or safety for abstract feminist principles - but it's become clear to me that it's not the right way forwards if you're serious about wanting to embody feminist principles and/or dismantle the rigid gender norms that hold women back.

It feels like a lot of gnc people, especially lesbian/bi gnc women, face a difficult choice. Our first option is to be visibly gnc AND unapologetically female, to acknowledge that being gnc is a choice that we make because it makes us happy, and to know that anyone who tells us we shouldn't do gender our way is sexist and doesn't deserve our attention. Our second option is to explain away our gender non-conformity using trans identity, and to fit ourselves back into the sexist stereotypes that harm women, by claiming that we reject gender norms prescribed to people of our sex because 'we're men, actually, so we're allowed to perform masculinity - we're just *trans* men!' (or, equivalently, 'I'm actually non-binary, so you shouldn't expect me to be feminine!') At the end of the day, though, it's not true that being a man or being non-binary gives you a right to masculinity which women don't have - it's just that, in our culture, men are rewarded for performing masculinity, whereas women are punished for it. One of my biggest motivations for detransition was realising that, if I chose the first option, I could serve feminism and help break down/subvert the regressive gender stereotype that disproportionately harm women. If I chose the second option, I was effectively admitting that it was okay to correlate masculinity with being male: I was saying that, since I felt comfortable performing many 'masculine'-typed things, I should be a man. Arriving at the belief that I serve feminism better by owning my sex and rejecting gender roles anyway gave me the motivation and confidence I needed to detransition.'

I hope you don't mind the long response! Whatever you decide is best for you, I hope it all works out as you want it to. Don't rush anything, make sure that you understand the full long-term repercussions of any medical decisions you make, and don't let anybody (patriarchy or person!) tell you how you should live your life. Genuinely, I wish you the best xx