I’ve noticed a pattern: when I feel female either I feel rubbish or I feel ridiculously happy, like a teenager or a child on a massive sugar high. It happened today and I started doing stupidly cute poses in front of the mirror (I have a female hoodie with fur around the hood). But other times I just feel rubbish and angry that I can’t express my female side. Does anyone else have feelings like this or am I simply mislabelling my feelings?
I think that's normal, especially depending on how you've been raised, what characteristics are naturally expected of you, or what sides of yourself you express. For example, I'm often kind of melancholy or indifferent or just have a flat, low mood when I feel more like a girl (I'm AFAB) but I don't have as much dysphoria. Also oddly enough, I'm far more confident when I'm actually able to express myself as a boy when I feel more like one, even though I often get more dysphoria accompanied by the switch, since being a boy doesn't "match up" with my body. I think its because other people expect certain things of me as a female, and that makes me sad even though my body doesn't feel wrong, but as a male, I feel I can be more confident and like myself since those expectations I don't like aren't put on me, so it helps me to cope with the dysphoria better. So its an interesting combination, but I don't think that's abnormal.
Sure. I think every trans person feels some level of frustration and happiness at one time or another. Also, what's up with so many transwomen liking hoodies? Every trans girl seems to mention their hoodie.
Both of those are really common experiences for me. When they're mine, I call them "gender euphoria" and "gender dysphoria", because that's what I understand that feeling as, but without the name, yeah, it's feeling great and happy to be myself, vs. upset and feeling like I'll never get to be the me I want to be. I'm genderfluid, so I get both of these at different times for different reasons, sometimes coming and going quickly and with or without reason. It's still distressing, but I'm getting better at handling it.
