Trans Women Unexpected Genital Dysphoria! Why Now?
Dr. Z addresses trans femme individuals who are suddenly experiencing an appearance of genital gender dysphoria. You may have felt neutral about your genitals, felt like "I don't really like my genitals, but I don't really hate them to the extent where I want genital surgery," felt some mild dysphoria, but nothing that warranted thinking about potentially getting genital surgery. And now suddenly there is quite an increase, quite a distress, or just an element of awareness that you're having genital dysphoria at all, where in the past it was not.
First of all, this is a very, very common experience. Dr. Z can tell you she had worked with many trans femme clients who have always felt like "Hey Dr. Z, I don't think I'm going to get bottom surgery, I just don't really feel that distressed in that area, my genitals don't really seem to bother me that much." Or "I'm not that comfortable with my genitals, but it's really not that big of a deal, I'm in a relationship and totally fine using my genitals, and I want to be sexually functional." Then to suddenly experience genital dysphoria can be destabilizing to say the least—it can be confusing and can also shift the trajectory of your gender transition.
Dr. Z also wants to be very mindful to say there are a lot of people who never do ever experience an increase in genital dysphoria at all and who continue living their life as women with their genitals without actually going through any kind of surgical modifications—that's also very probable and happens all the time.
Watch this video as Dr. Z addresses why genital dysphoria may have been in a state of dormancy (like a volcano that's asleep until one day it erupts), why genitals aren't visible like facial features so the dormancy effect is common, why fear of surgery keeps feelings in deeper dormancy state, and why as you become more aligned with yourself (breast growth, feminized features), genitals suddenly don't fit the picture—like looking at a puzzle with one big chunk that belongs to a completely different puzzle set.
