Self-Discovery and Dysphoria

Zoë Ariel Dunning
Jan 8, 2021
2 min read

Updated: May 26, 2022

I haven’t felt like I look like “myself” in a month or two.

A lot of my uncertain sense of self has been due to me drastically changing my wardrobe and hairstyle because of my shifting and expanding sense of my own gender and existence.

About two months ago, I shaved my head when I had bob-length blonde hair dyed nearly to my dark brown roots. Now I have a fuzzy brown head. I am dressing much more masc and androgynously. I’ve grown out and let remain a beautiful mustache.

I feel like I’m just starting to go through a second puberty, one that I never knew I needed.

I experience variable moments of gender euphoria and dysphoria daily. Sometimes I see my reflection and feel confusion and panic. Other times, I make eye contact with myself and experience intense familiarity and understanding.

I sometimes still experience a desire to dress socially and traditionally “feminine” (fem), but I don’t yet know how to express my femininity while still maintaining my comfortable sense of gender...and have my gender still be accepted and validated by society.

Try as I might to resist conformity and black-and-white concepts of sex and gender, I feel the pressure to conform even more now that I stand in direct opposition to social norms...especially when I don’t fit neatly in the “male” or “female” categories.

I am not a man. I am non-binary and trans-masculine.

Non-binary is a vast umbrella term that encompasses, in simplest terms, any gender other than strictly male and female.*

Trans-masculine means that I was assigned female at birth (AFAB) but that I identify now more with a masculine identity than I do with a feminine one.*

The whole process of discovering my true self and gender has been bewildering yet enlightening...frightening yet comforting.

I’m even considering wearing binders, packers, and getting on T eventually. More on that later :).