
I got your message, but I can’t seem to get the reply through.
Here’s what I wrote back:
I think you get to define that the way that fits best. Calling it gender euphoria can be understandable by a large audience. We called medical treatments “gender affirming” when they were still gate-kept for cis people. Breast reconstruction or testicle implants, laser hair removal, and hormones for elder individuals, for just a small list. But, let me challenge the idea in a different way. If a person loses a body part that is intrinsically linked to how they experience, or want to experience the world, what should we call it when they can get that function back? A cis man who has surgery to return function to his penis could feel gender euphoria. I actually know someone who had an adult circumcision who explained it that way. On the other hand, an amputee can experience euphoria when they’re able to hold their child again, or a hearing impaired child when they hear their mother’s voice for the first time. Plastic surgery often has the same effect.
For me, I feel dysphoric about the female parts of my body, despite the fact that I’m still fem presenting. And likely always will be. It’s my body that’s wrong, not my presentation. So, I think for me it is gender euphoria even tho I don’t have a gender in my head
I have tried telling people my pronouns, but the town I live in is stuck in the 90s where trans jokes are still “funny” and enby’s are just confused. Only the small queer group I’ve joined has used my preference. I’m afraid to even try now with cheeto dust settling into every nook and cranny across the states.