dysphoria & gender identity as a nonbinary person
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- I haven't talked out loud about all of my experiences with dysphoria & gender identity. it's hard to be this vulnerable, but it's important for anyone else who might be questioning to know they're not alone.
Instagram: / itsnathanemery
As a trans guy I completely understand what you are saying. I thought that feeling uncomfortable in your body was normal. I didn't understand how everyone around me was so happy about puberty and how their body changed. I felt so uncomfortable with every inch of my body. It took me really long to figure out that it was dysphoria and it took me even longer to figure out how to make myself feel better. I'm still pre medical transition but socially transitioning is the best thing that happened in my entire life. Seeing other queer people gives me hope and a feeling of not being alone. Thank you for sharing your experience with gender dysphoria. I know that talking about it isn't easy.
love this :)
I'm a trans guy, and today i just got my first gender-affirming haircut and an old woman called me "young man" (this is the first time I've been correctly gendered in public!), it felt so great and euphoric in a way i cant describe. I've still got a long way to go, but things do get better :)
Being neurodivergent added another layer of difficulty for me as I struggled in the neurotypical environment on top of having to deal with gendered expectations. Apparently it's common for neurodivergent people to struggle with gender identity, knowing that helped me not feel so alone with my struggles.
If I had to label myself I would say demigender. Not quite cis, but not quite nonbinary either. But to anyone who meets me in real life, I'm just a girl, because I don't feel comfortable socially transitioning in my country.
i get you bro 🙏 i didnt know it was common for neurodivergent people like me n you to struggle with that? i thought it was just me, phew. at least ik im not alone, now THAT would be even *more* scary.
I can't express how much this video resonated with me. For the longest time I never really had the words for what I was experiencing, and even once I started to question my gender and sexuality it took a long long time for me to realize who I was. Once I figured out I was queer I tried on the label of bisexual for a while and never even considered I might be trans. Then at some point I realized something was up with my gender, but even then there was a huge cognitive dissonance - the experience of "I wish I was born in a woman's body so that I could be non-binary easier" was an expression of dysphoria and I didn't even recognize it. I now know that I'm trans-feminine somewhere on the non-binary to female spectrum, and slowly coming out and transitioning socially. I wish I had had this four or five years ago, but I'm so glad it's here now. So much love to you and to everyone figuring out their gender and queerness. 💖💖
the cognitive dissonance is crazy looking back
Im a 24 year old mixed race (half ojibwe half white) Two spirit nonbinary person, I had just recently within the last year and a half been more outward with my identity, friends and partner adjusted pretty easily, my parents seem to be trying but they really only ever learned about binary trans identities so it's a bit of a struggle with them on that, but i know it's not out of malice or anything and I recognize they are trying. That's the most I can really ask for.
The feeling my dysphoria gives me is like I'm and actor, stuck in a role I didn't want and didn't audition for. because of my heritage from my mom, sicilian and polish, I'm pretty hairy, and once puberty started, i hated it. the stomach hair, the chest hair, the beard (which that part ended up changing eventually and I don't necessarily mind my facial hair anymore). I started getting really sick and this caused my body to react by attacking my hair, so my i had a bunch of bald patches and a gnarly looking hairline (my doctor confirmed it is NOT MPB). but I decided to shave my head. that's a double edged sword though. I wish I had my hair still. it's so important in indigenous culture. and without it I feel I'm even more white passing, and sometimes I feel like it makes me look too masculine, otherwise I like it. it goes with my personal style. but if i don't have time to shave, I find a hat, or I don't leave the house. I hate mirrors, because no matter what, the inside doesn't match the outside. I am not privileged when it comes to finances, so anything deemed "cosmetic" by my insurance company, is out of the question indefinitely. It's kind of heartbreaking. Also with recent developments in politics, Im so scared that I sort of just hopped back in the closet about my identity. took my pronouns off of everything, stopped the estrogen patches, and scaled back the feminine colors. It's so sad. I just want to be me, and for a second I felt that was within reach.
I used to think I didn't suffer dysphoria because my experience didn't fit what everyone else was describing. it wasn't until I started to feel genuine contentment in my skin once changes from T started kicking in that I was capable of pointing at my feelings growing up and calling them what they were. Beyond that, things would just have that "slotting into place" sensation (like finding my name, for example). The first time I got the sensation that something felt "correct" was some lady calling me a young man in the 5th grade during an unfortunate mullet.
And for me it's sort of like: Trans > Nonbinary > Agender with masculine labels (And I just stop it at the first label for the simplicity for everyone else's sake)
I'm non binary, afab & this resonates a lot. I didn't realise it at the time but in retrospect I've had gender envy when looking at men since I was a kid, but there have also been many times where I've been content with my femininity but I have always felt odd & not 100 percent comfortable in it, but I think that's also been due to how society can sexualize femininity combined with gender and body dysphoria. I remember a doctor accidentally calling me by the masculine version of my name at a hospital visit & I thought "oh I actually like this name a bit better?". I've spent a lot of time trying to find, or thinking of how to find the balance between femme & masc when it comes to how I present myself because that makes me the most comfortable. I'm hoping one day I'll legally change my name to the masculine version of my birth name & dress, as my friend described my old style when I was much more comfy & flamboyant, like a "2010s scene gamer bf mixed with 70s lesbian" again lmao.
Thank you for being so vulnerable about this, this was a really comforting video ❤
thanks for sharing :)
I appreciate your vulnerability online and sharing your experience! I recently have been reckoning with the fact that even as a trans man I sometimes want to dress femininely. I love 2000s fashion (ie the Olsen twins red carpet looks) and over the top j-fashion, and there is an internal struggle for me about wanting to engage in those fashions but feeling emasculated when I do. I hope we can all learn to be comfortable in our bodies and what makes us happy
truly this channel means a lot to me :]
it’s kind of funny, because i’ve felt the same way about being born a different gender just the opposite! it’s not like i feel as if i want to be a boy, but i just think i would’ve been happier being born one. i love having my gender as nonbinary!!!! it feels so comfortable to me. my story for when the lines started to cross was back in my 1st grade year, i was at my elementary school’s valentines dance. me and a old friend of mine were just running around and having fun, and we ran pass one of the school’s bathrooms. it was a boy’s bathroom, and there was a female presenting person trying to walk in it. another kid who was also by the bathroom started yelling at the person, telling them that their not allowed to go in the boy’s bathroom. the other person then just calmly said that they identified between both genders, so they could go in if they wanted to. i’ve never seen the person again. after seeing that, for the rest of the night i couldn’t stop telling all my friends and family that i was so proud of them. i still to this day think about who and where they are. of course it didn’t click right then and there, the feeling still grew over the years. i love this little channel, thank you for being open like this!!❤
I like the way you describe everything around gender and your experiences with it. As someone who is still trying to figure it out, it’s helping my brain think about stuff in a way I didn’t before. From when I was younger I remember two different instances of being referred to in a more masculine way with both name and pronouns and I remember how good I felt, even though both times were on accident.
Hi, I've been more or less out as a nonbinary person for quite a while now, but a few months back I've decided to come out to more people and try living more as myself in more aspects of my life. The past few months were not easy, but I feel more at peace with who I am and how I am as a person than ever. Thank you for sharing your story, it feels incredibly comforting to know I am not alone in this.
Love everything you shared here! I just had gender affirming top surgery - I’m nonbinary too - and am HERE for this journey you’re bringing us along on :)
woo congrats!
Hello. As a nonbinary bean myself, I have also felt off growing up. I always thought that what I was feeling was normal and that everyone felt this way. Stuff like not liking the changes in my body and how everyone else saw me. But in 2020 to 2021, I started learning that what I was feeling wasn't "normal" and I started thinking that something was wrong with me. It wasn't until my Sophomore year that I meant people that have had similar experiences to mine and I felt Validated. I still struggling with my gender dysphoria and body desmorphia a lot, but that doesn't stop me from going forward
i feel a lot of similarities here. long comment ahead! i’m a (genderqueer) trans man, i realised i was trans in childhood and told my (thankfully supportive, after a sort of buffer period of uncertainty) family when i was 13 years old. i’m an adult now, i’ve medically transitioned with hormones - had to wait until 18 for that, because of how horrifically the system for trans youth where i live is/was set up, lol - and am still waiting on top surgery, and then i will probably consider that all ‘finished’. people assume i’m amab.
but i spent a lot of time as a young kid just wishing i had been born a boy, whenever i was reminded of not being one. i always considered myself to just be one of the boys. i would spend ages dreaming up worlds where i was born a boy, but honestly nothing clicked for me about being trans until puberty began, and then i really started to feel something was wrong.
i was a big reader, and rule follower, so i insisted upon the traditions i had read about for different things of female puberty, but i never ever felt good about any of the changes happening to me. i’d never been comfortable with myself though, for a number of reasons, so gender wasn’t really the first thing i thought of. also, i was a child, i didn’t really know it was an option. i would also watch a lot of documentaries, and when i was maybe 10 i found and watched a lot about trans people. i thought, hey, that’s cool for them, but i’m not trans, this is just an interesting topic. but it stuck with me, the way they described their experiences. i started devouring anything i could find online about trans people, and when i was not much older, 11 or 12, i figured out i _was_ actually trans, i wasn’t just pretending to myself because i thought it was cool (imposter syndrome really didn’t go away until it was extremely clear to me that medical transition made me leagues happier and more confident in myself though, shit sucks). which makes it sound like a smooth process. from then began The Waiting, the time between then and when i turned 18 where i had nothing better to do than consider my identity, because when you realise you’re dysphoric, it takes up a lot of mental space, even when most of the time you’re distracted by other things.
i came to realise i was incredibly jealous not only of men, but in an incredibly specific case, of nonbinary amab people who were feminine but did not medically transition. i never really thought about it much, though, beyond ‘yeah, those people are cool, i want to be cool’. because i was a teenager, lmao.
it wasn’t until i was 18 or 19, had been on testosterone for long enough that i passed 100% of the time (faster than a lot of people, because my voice was my main tell. i was always tall, broad shouldered, and sort of androgynous looking anyway), that i sort of realised hey, actually, being feminine would be really nice actually. i miss having long hair like i did when i was 12. it was fun. i idolise people who are so androgynous people fight about their sex online. i wasn’t comfortable enough in how i was perceived until then to have that realisation. i didn’t necessarily want people to perceive me as a man, i wanted them to perceive me as male. which is so specific. but because of that, medical transition has been the best thing i’ve ever done. where before dysphoria occupied so much of my mind, now i barely think about it at all. i am the way my mind tells me i should be, and i’m free to give as much or as little of a fuck about gender and norms as i want. and i don’t really give a fuck. i do what i want.
and the best part is, even with all those dreams as a kid of being reborn as a boy? now, i don’t know if i would take that choice. if i could have my body now, but naturally produce my hormones? i would take that option immediately, the needles are not great. but swapping it all out to a cisgender body? i would still be genderqueer, but i worked hard for what i have now, i don’t know that i would give it up. i’m attached to my body’s ability to create life, honestly, even if i don’t plan to use it (for medical reasons, not even dysphoria, which is so awesome). i’m perceived the way i want to be, my body reflects who i am, and i’m proud of that.
i hope that everyone in these comments, who seem to be quite early in figuring themselves out, can achieve this sort of clarity and happiness with their gender and bodies, or as close to it as possible for them. i know a lot of people are dysphoric about their sex organs and genitalia, in ways not fixable by existing medicine, and i hope that will change in the future for all of you, too. the technology, not your thoughts, though i guess both work, lmao. if there were magic buttons i could press that would make certain changes with no other consequence, there are a few changes i would give my body, still, but i’m content without them.
My medical history reflects my nonbinary status. Having been born with a intersex sexual development body in addition to gender dysphoria i very much understand your position
❤
I'm right there with you. I grew up not really thinking about gender - i would always call myself a tomboy and rarely made friends with other girls, but to me that was just normal. Once I grew up, a bunch of stuff happened. I got more and more uncomfortable looking at my face and my body. I also realized just how much emphasis society puts on gender roles and because of that i experienced a lot of grief from being perceived as a girl. It's only recently that i've been able to name it as dysphoria, and even then i keep going back into denial. All I know is that socially transitioning has helped, and I probably want to get on T and have a more masculine body. It's really frustrating to be so unsure about my gender - i just want to have a label and stick to it. but there's a lot of joy in being trans, and im so happy i know trans people, IRL and on the internet. Thanks for the video
Nother trans guy here i remember when i used to come home after doing sport or music and cry cause it felt like the only time i could be myself. Experience is subjective don't let anyone let you feel like your holding yourself back
As a transmasc person I 100% hear you on the matter of 'if I could go back, I would not choose my original assigned gender'. Non-binary gender identity can be so tricky to figure out tho, physically I am much more comfortable after transition, but I'm still uncomfortable being seen as a man, but I'm also not comfortable completely denying the claim to 'man'. As it stands I like to imagine gender as space, there's a line there that goes from man to woman, and I'm floating way above it, casting a shadow on the area roughly around 'man'. I'm not there, but if you can't see beyond the binary, then yeah I guess to you I'm a man. If you can see the 3D space tho, hi hello, I'm queer up here!
PINKSHIFT MENTION 💯💯💯 love this series
Figuring out my gender identity *was* just kind of an "aha" moment. There were absolutely signs but I was mostly oblivious to them. I always felt like there was something wrong but couldn't pinpoint it. Maybe my ADHD meds weren't working, maybe I had autism? But having that egg crack moment, knowing after almost 20 years what it was, was cathartic.
You explain the feelings really well. For my part, born afab, its been interesting. I've wondered if maybe I feel the way I do because I'm a butch lesbian, considering the community does have a rich history, but I've come to know that doesn't have much to do with it and that they're selerate feelings when it came to me finally realizing that I am non-binary. The way I see it, slightly similar to you, is that if I were to get to choose how I was born then…it wouldn't be male or female. Highly customized, I guess. My mom explains it best, oddly enough. She recently said that when she thinks about me or sees me, she doesn't see a man or woman. Just me. No pronouns, no levels, and that was awesome, and pretty much how I feel on the inside. I'm just me, and any labels beyond that just don't feel right, aside from non-binary. Thanks for sharing your journey so far, it's a blast to watch and relate to.
I am afab transmasc and when i hit puberty and my chest developed i decided one day i am going to where just my sports bra around the house. And the whole time i felt extremely uncomfortable, like no one else was at home but i just coudnt handle it. Same with wearing clothes that are skin tight-ish. My mom and i went shopping for a dress and there was one that showed off all my curves. And looking the mirror i felt like i was looking at an alien it didnt feel right at all. And also i had a hard time labeling myself as a woman like i could never. My hips too i hated that all my fat went to my butt and hips and i tried doing cardio so i could look more masc.
Thanks Nathan for sharing!
It is so hard to find out what a feeling is when talking about discomfort is not normalized
Working in a very punk space a few years ago, alongside a load of other queer people and some enby folk, very suddenly I felt a lot more comfortable and supported using "they" pronouns.
john mayer if he was non binary 😭😭😭 jokes aside your content is great, and you do look awfully similar to john mayer (incredible musician)
I've been identifying as enby for about a year or so. Now im wondering if I'm trans. Im interested to know, do you still feel as sure that, given the choice, you'd want to be born in a female body, even after coming out as enby and using they/them. I thought enby fit but I can't deny that im beginning to experience new types of 'gender envy' about women's bodies. I don't know if I want to transition, but I am jealous how yeh, I can wear dresses, I have been, but they'll never sit/look like they do on women
Great video! I was thinking, how did you realize you're non-binary and not a trans woman? I'm personally trying to figure out whether I'm non-binary or a trans man, so I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic :)
You look so cute in this video!