Midnight Gender Pain Explained to the Cisgendered

Welcome to the world of gender dysphoria!

Imagine every night you are awoken with acid indigestion and you can’t get to sleep. What if it was a back pain or leg cramps or a headache or a back itch that you can’t reach and it happened every night?

You try everything in your medicine cabinet the first night and nothing works. Out of exhaustion you fall asleep.

You know that we have had nights like that.

But what if that happened again the next night. You eventually fall asleep, but in the morning you know that you had another lousy night’s sleep and then another. Off you go to the drug store in search of over-the-counter medicine to solve the problem. You buy one or more products depending on your frustration and lack of sleep.

You try them all but they don’t work. Another day or possibly days of interrupted sleep follow. Like trying to ignore the drip, drip, drip of a leaking faucet, you try and ignore it…but you can’t.

Out of desperation, you see your doctor who then prescribes a stronger medicine. Days go by and still no cure. In absolute frustration, after weeks have gone by, you go back to the doctor.

You are sent to a specialist. At this point you are exhausted and short-tempered with everyone and everything. You pray the specialist has “The” answer.

You are diagnosed with a condition that almost no one has. It is a lifetime chronic condition. The prescription is to apply a medication that smells so foul and repugnant that no one wants to be around you but you don’t care because finally you have relief. There are no other alternatives and you need to sleep.

Welcome to the world of gender dysphoria!

Those of us that have gender dysphoria live with it for our entire lifetime. It generally gets strong over time. It is a warning alarm that something inside you is not working right. The longer you ignore it the louder it gets.

The only remedy for most is transitioning on some level. It is the only relief for our “back pain or leg cramp or a headache or a back itch”. For some of us it is actually a cure. When that happens, you will witness someone who can define pure joy. The relief, the cure and the freedom from pain to finally enjoy our lives is immeasurable.

You are not transgender so gender dysphoria is a very foreign concept. I am going to define some of the keys elements that I feel best explains it. These definitions are not up for debate. I have a headache from all of the nit-picking semantics. Accept mine as my opinion or simply stop reading.

Gender dysphoria is a condition that occurs when someone has an incongruence between the biological sex they were born with and their inborn sense of gender. In many cases that person is transgender. For the majority of people, their sense of gender and their biological sex are in alignment. They are referred to as cisgender.

So, instead of acid indigestion, back pain, leg cramps, a headache or a back itch, your late-night pain was a rotating series of doubt, shame, fear, anger and a deep sense that your gender was all wrong despite the obvious gender-specific physical attributes that are attached to your body. All of these elements then churn inside your head banging into the walls of your brain in a cacophony of jarring, discordant noise whose echoes seems to reach the very depths of your soul.

Imagine that and then realize it happens all day too, 24/7.

Intensity can vary from person to person just like transitioning varies from person to person but I would defy anyone with level of pain to not consider suicide to escape it at some point.

If this is happening to you, please stop and seek help immediately. That can be a doctor, a therapist, a suicide hotline or at least a close friend. Do not try and go on alone. Suicide is not the answer! Please be good to yourself.

Once you understand that suicide is absolutely not the answer, what is your alternative?

Rather than spend time going through all the alternatives that don’t work, (the internet can fill your days with those if you choose) and assuming that you don’t have a herculean capacity to absorb endless pain, at this time, the only effective medical solution is to transition.

Transition is a private journey of finding the right gender expression that works for you, whatever moderates or cures that terrible gender itch. Generally, it won’t go away on its own. There is a phrase that many have used to describe the unique nature of each person’s individualized solution, “YMMV” or “Your Mileage May Vary”.

What are the elements of gender dysphoria?

Gender dysphoria is a mental pain that can have some physical manifestations. Negative thoughts are locked up inside your head. They generally include: doubt, shame, fear and anger. They endlessly churn inside you head 24/7.

The essence of gender dysphoria and the agony it causes is like an acid that slowly eats away at your soul.

Dysphoria is very draining.

As someone said to me recently: “Living in the closet is emotionally and psychologically exhausting, and damaging too!”. You have to deal with suppressing the need to express who you are worry about being found out. I hate having to hide. I find it demeaning.

To live a free and open life of true self expression is part of the key to happiness.

Ultimately, each of us balances what we lose and what we gain by transitioning. Unfortunately, the corrosion of gender dysphoria can, over time, tip the balance regardless of what you think you can tolerate.

I thought I was a tough guy and I thought I could tough it out for my family. It was like holding back the flood waters of a dam with my bare hands.

So, if you are cisgender and you have read so far, you can at least begin to appreciate the pain gender dysphoria causes for those who are transgender.

If you have a better solution, please share it because for the last four years I have tried desperately to find it and have found none.

I am always open to a better idea than facial electrolysis, gender surgery, hurting my family, isolating my friends and joining a group that seems to be attacked by everybody for just wanting to go to the bathroom in peace.

It would be nice to have a good night’s sleep.

Emma Holiday

Writers note: If you have read any of my writings on Medium you will have noticed a definite theme: the incredible pain of gender dysphoria and all the difficult aspects of just being transgender.

My writing has three specific goals:

1. Writing is my therapy. I have a very limited outlet for my thoughts so I write to find a way to process the most profound experience in my life. I need to understand and I need to accept myself to move forward.

2. Being transgender, for me, is a very lonely existence and if I can share some of the things that I feel and think as I go through the process of transitioning with others who are transgender and, in some way, lessen their pain and sense of loneliness, then all of this public exposure of my personal thoughts is not a waste.

3. I write to help cisgender people understand that all trans people want is to be simply understood, accepted and treated as a normal person. We are.

Thank you for reading my work.

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