antemortem
Moderator
Since this is the main portion you were seeking response to, I’ll snip this and hopefully something will be helpful but feel free to throw it out. I notice that you mention elsewhere an explicit motivation to pass and lack of interest in communion with pride/other Queer people. Anecdotally, I recall experiencing the most gender dysphoria prior to and immediately following interactions with my local Queer community where I’m from in Alabama (often known as the liberal haven of the state, don’t worry lol). After going to drag shows, bars, and expanding my circles to include more openly Queer people—what mattered most is that a lot of them were older than me, so their perspectives were completely unique in my life at the time—I felt beset with a lot of internal pressure to re-examine how I presented physically and also behaved in public. This period of frustration subsided when I reckoned with myself that the people I wanted to continue bringing into my orbit and vice versa weren’t the type to give a shit and a half about whether how I look and behave behind closed doors (and this includes my romantic and professional partner of the last 2 years) matched how I present and behave in public. This sounds like I’m saying it’s as easy as a few weeks of toiling and some trips to therapy, which it is for some, but this process isn’t linear or monolithic. I just happened to think of it as a mental game because there are so many societal and trauma-related layers that create this cognitive dissonance for you, me, and every other Queer person to ever exist. Your body hair and comfort clothing, for instance, shouldn’t instigate discomfort/obsession for you; it should be quite the opposite! Which I’m sure you’re well aware of and agree with.Collette said:I also wanted to mention a third variable that I'm finding myself struggle with recently, that I'm sure exists for other people.
As of the past 10 days or so I've entered my first relationship with a cis woman who is primarily attracted to other women, and in addition to holding myself to the standard of beauty I see them in(not wanting to see myself as less attractive than them in a vacuum, feeling a stronger motivation for furthering how pretty I am because I'm in a relationship, etc) I also have a new, different desire/insecurity revolving around feeling extra pressure to be explicitly and obviously a girl, for them. My subconsciousness says something along the lines of "they're attracted to girls, if you don't look enough like a girl, regardless of how often they compliment you, they won't be attracted to you. It's like I'm suffering from 2 sources of gender dysphoria, my own, and the fictional expectations I'm projecting over her. In addition to complicating physical intimacy, some examples of how this is changing my behavior include
1: buying more clothes, as normally I'm mentally fine when I'm at home in very comfortable, but explicitly masculine clothes, but now I feel pressure to be fem any time I'm around them even when relaxing
2: shaving my face with obsessive frequency, I've been on hormones for a while and my facial hair growth has slowed quite a bit, and I'd gotten into a rhythm of shaving my face and arms whenever hair is VISIBLE to a passerby, not when it's THERE. But now I'm taking time for it as much as twice a day, just because the idea of them feeling friction on/near my face/lips is absolutely mortifying to me.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the her words/actions they're constantly supportive and accepting and reassuring but this is a completely involuntary thought process. For now, as I'm not burned out, I'm really enjoying having this person as a motivation to feel so much better about myself and be prettier and more well rested and healthy, but I'm also aware that I'm being obsessive and have zero control over my actions regarding this and that isn't healthy.
Apologies for the slight tangent but it's very related to the topic imo and if anybody has any thoughts/experience on this that you think would be helpful to me let me know.
All this to say is that I needed to dip my toe into the pool the rest of the Queer menagerie around me were bathing in to be able to look inward and discover what parts of myself don’t need re-arrangement for satisfaction of anyone. That goes ESPECIALLY for a romantic partner, who we are never obligated to give ourselves over fully to, much less change ourselves on a daily basis for their comfort.