Reddit mentions of Yes, You Are Trans Enough: My Transition from Self-Loathing to Self-Love

If you're like me, you're wading through a lifetime of learned feelings and presentation. Even though it's never been quite right, the pain of that has been low grade enough, that I've been comfortable enough in guy mode for so very long.

One of the markers for me is that I'm personally drawn to feminine things to such a high degree. I find that the more that I talk about my feelings, the more I feel open to feeling personally feminine. That said, voicing some desires and goals out loud feels wrong at times, but I think it's because I'm cutting down the defenses that I built over the years to make sure that I fit, and that my 'bad' desires aren't discovered. I think the older you are, the longer you've successfully lived with self-built walls, the more it's the case that you are your own most potent gatekeeper.

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So, as I'm building my army of trusted friends, I'm talking more and more as they have questions. This is serving to both strengthen these friendships, and to help me to see myself as a woman as opposed to as planning to be a woman (that was still a tough sentence to type!). The other thing that I'm doing is exploring feminine things online to help put my head in that space. It's a process, it's a little scary, but the more I do, the more comfortable, and the more positive it feels.

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I haven't read Yes, You Are Trans Enough yet, but I think it may be helpful for people like us.

>Like I said I generally feel a lack of happiness about gender but not "bad" about it.

This is kind of what dysphoria felt like for me. I imagine not every cis person takes every last opportunity to look at themselves in the mirror and say "Damn, gurl!" to themselves, but... in my case, it was more about how my baseline was just a general apathy about my features to sadness or active distaste for some of my other body parts.

Looking through your post history, I think you might relate to a book I recently read: "Yes, You Are Trans Enough"

The author, Mia, is a trans woman who spent a lot of years not feeling explicitly bad about her body parts; or actively engaging in hobbies that didn't align with her AGAB. She also reports that she kind of was waiting for someone else to bestow the label "trans" upon her, feeling that because her experience was not like the experiences of other trans people around her, it was not a label that would be appropriate for her to take for herself.

Spoiler: She is trans enough, and you are too.