Identity — Gender — Youth

Words of affirmation

As part of GCN’s ongoing collaboration with Belong To in which we platform young voices, Ciara Kelly shares a powerful reflection on her experience as a trans woman and how she challenges rigid narratives.

How to describe gender dysphoria?

I could give the medical definition. The NHS states that it is “a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity”.

I could also give melodramatic metaphors. It feels like being trapped in the wrong body, like I just want to crawl out of my own skin.

Still, it doesn’t quite capture the nuances of the lived experience. Medical institutions and the media often perpetuate a certain narrative of what dysphoria looks like: the image of a trans person who loathes every aspect of their body and is in a constant state of suffering.

Early in my transition, I doubted whether my dysphoria was valid because of stories I had seen online. The reality is that it can look different for every trans or non-binary person who experiences it. Whether you fit into a rigid narrative does not determine your validity. Sometimes, it manifests in ways that are not obvious, loud, or easy to articulate.

In everyday life, it is more often fluctuating than constantly unbearable for me.

For instance, I struggle around my voice being ‘too deep or masculine’. Most of the time, my voice does not bother me, while on other days or in certain contexts, I would rather not talk. I become self-conscious about how it sounds.

I remember I was making videos for Belong To’s social media campaign, ‘12 Days of Self Care’, and I took so many takes because every time I listened to myself, dysphoria would be hypercritical about my vocal pitch and how it would impact people’s perception of me.

Along with that, sometimes when I am around cisgender women, it can be difficult not to compare my voice to theirs. In those moments, I try to remind myself that women’s voices come in a wide range, and I shouldn’t hold myself up to an idealistic expectation of femininity. Voice training seems like an obvious solution, and while I have considered it numerous times, the thought of the long, exhausting process of

‘correcting’ my voice makes me procrastinate.

Embracing the authenticity of my voice has been a part of the journey of accepting myself as I am, despite dysphoria.

Misgendering is another big trigger, and even though I have loved ones who support and respect my identity, I deal with it from strangers every now and then, whether it be accidental or intentional. Accidental misgendering has looked like being referred to as ‘he’ in a new group setting, which I quickly correct and move on from.

Intentional misgendering has looked like me minding my own business on a walk, listening to music, when someone (usually a gang of lads) shouts a transphobic remark at me like, “That’s a man!” or laughs and asks sarcastically, “Is that a male or a female?”.

Keeping my head down feels like the only option there. In both cases, I try my best to take the dysphoria in stride and go about my day. I know who I am after all.

However, sometimes the moment lingers and replays in my head, gradually wearing me down until it becomes overwhelming.

I have been on hormone replacement therapy for two and a half years at this point. I can say that it has greatly alleviated the severity of my dysphoria in general, while at the same time not being a miracle cure that has made it disappear.

Although I haven’t woken up overnight to find my body radically different, over time I’ve started to notice small changes that make me smile.

Patience has definitely been a virtue for me when it comes to the process. Going back to voice dysphoria, unfortunately, oestrogen does not alter your voice like testosterone does, which shows the limits of HRT as a total cure for dysphoria.

While dysphoria persists, there are some practical strategies I use to help manage it when it spikes.

I write down gender affirmations, which can look like “I am beautiful”, or “I am woman enough”. This helps me break down the distorted narratives.

Secondly, I talk to someone, usually my boyfriend, since he is also trans and understands dysphoria’s nuances on a deep level, even if we experience it differently.

Thirdly, I do something that brings me gender euphoria, like making it a routine to get my nails and eyebrows done.

It can be the little ways of expressing my gender that bring me a lot of joy and calm my dysphoria in the moment. In my experience, finding what most helps alleviate its impact has been part of the transition process.