Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re discussing something I told you in a past thread was coming, and if you’ve been following my feed you may have noticed a recent… change. So here we go with PHOTOS 2: aka THE NEW DYSPHORIA/EUPHORIA aka THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE! 😱
This is, like, a 300-level trans class, so be sure you’ve met the prerequisites of GENDER DYSPHORIA.
And the prerequisite of PHOTOS.
And the prerequisite of GENDER EUPHORIA.
Before we get into things, I want to reiterate something I’ve mentioned several times before, both in these threads and just in general: trans people often take a lot of selfies. After a lifetime of not seeing ourselves, we have a lot to catch up on.
And seeing OURSELVES is euphoric, or can be. Also, in this society that wants us to not exist, that tries to legislate us out of public life by excluding us from sports and bathrooms, that wants to take our health care away and force-detransition us…
EVERY SELFIE A TRANS PERSON POSTS IS AN ACT OF DEFIANCE. It is us standing up against the system and saying NO, YOU CAN NOT SILENCE ME. YOU CAN NOT MAKE ME DISAPPEAR.
I. EXIST.
And fuck you if you think I shouldn’t.
Okay, now that you’ve done the homework and are prepped, let’s dig in. A while back, something happened. I don’t know what, and I don’t know when (though the latter will become apparent as we go), but part of my transition… changed.
Actually it wasn’t my transition that changed, but my response to it? I guess? Not on a conscious level, but somewhere deep inside my core my Morpheus was like… hey, this isn’t the same anymore, did you notice that, Tills? DID YOU?
I dunno how you could have missed it, but if you haven’t seen my super lengthy Matrix trans allegory deep dives, then you need to check out BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX!
Photos of me pre-transition used to spike my dysphoria something awful. It was really, really bad. I hated seeing them. I couldn’t find the date this one was taken, but it’s immaterial because this is EXACTLY what I looked like for all of my adult life.
This is what I looked like in the wedding photos I have with Susan (though I was clean-shaven there). It’s what I look like in all our photos since then, until I transitioned. It’s what I look like in all photos with our kid taken before transition.
It’s still incredibly painful to know I will never have any of those photos with ME in them, but there’s nothing I can do about that since we humans stubbornly refuse to experience time in anything other than a forward linear fashion. We’re the worst.
See THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US for a reminder on how it forever screws with trans people who transition as adults.
So I have a frame over my desk that I see every day, and in it are 16 different photos of our family life together. Susan gave it to me as a gift pre-transition and I love it dearly… despite the fact that the true me does not appear in any of them.
I mention this only so you understand I have daily, constant reminders of what I used to look like. And in a way I’m glad I do, because otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed that over time… photos of myself from pre-transition spiked my dysphoria less and less.
I didn’t know why that was, but I eventually figured it out and we’ll get there in just a minute. Now to be clear, pre-transition photos aren’t great. I don’t like them or anything, and I’d be fine if I never saw them again. But they’re no longer making my dysphoria worse.
And it’s because early in my transition, I still saw the person in those photos as ME. But that’s NOT ME, and thus it caused the dysphoria spike. But now? Now I… do not identify with the person in those photos at all.
My brain, my heart, my soul all know that’s not me. I don’t know who that is. It’s just some guy I’m completely disconnected from, standing in for me in photos of MY past, where he does not belong.
This is why I don’t like them, because those are MY memories and he shouldn’t be there, *I* should. But the dysphoria they always brought me is gone, because my connection to that person has been severed entirely. That was never me.
A photo of one of my friends who’s a man, or even just a random man, don’t spike my dysphoria, so why would this one? Which is what I’m trying to get at. I have apparently gotten far enough in my transition I’ve completely dissociated from that dude.
Which is a joy. BUT- there’s always a “but.” I’ve encountered a new problem, and a new source of dysphoria I could never have anticipated… photos of me early in transition!
Photos I LOVED at the time, because they were the first hints of the true me coming to the surface, now give me dysphoria something awful because they have now become what old pre-transition photos used to be: me-but-not-me.
The absolute worst is the one I posted in my public coming out thread, July 5 2020. It’s just… well, I hate it. I ~~~HATE~~~ IT. I could go back and delete it from the thread, but that would be disingenuous. It’s part of my journey.
As you’ve seen in these threads, I’m trying to be as open and honest as I can, sharing things that maybe make me uncomfortable to share, but I do it anyway because it helps people. I know because you’ve told me. And trans folks being open helped ME when I was figuring it out.
That photo is JUST as bad as pre-transition photos were all my life and early on in my transition. Maybe somehow even worse, because it’s the slightest move closer to the real me, yet still SO far away that it hurts (not just emotionally, but physically, because dysphoria sucks).
Just as bad is this photo, which was the closest I could find to when I started HRT, from July 17 2020, and so I have been using it as the base to track changes over time.
You can learn more in the trans tuesday on HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY.
And can read my ONE YEAR OUT AND ON HRT RETROSPECTIVE.
What’s interesting is just a few days later (!), I noticed a significant drop in the dysphoria my photos gave me. Mind you it’s still bad, this photo does bad things to me now, but it’s noticeably less than the previous two. And it’s from July 21 2020.
There’s not much difference in my reaction to any of them until we get to December 11 2020. It was by far the best photo I’d ever had in my life up to that point. Now it’s dysphoric, but not quite as bad as the previous one.
Unfortunately we then hop to May 2 2021, in my first photo wearing the bow from my childhood as discussed in my thread on The Past. This is a step BACKWARD, for reasons I cannot explain. It causes more dysphoria than the last pic, but not as bad as the coming-out pic.
But then I got my bangs, and they helped a ton. I discovered I like them longer than they are in these two, but they still helped a lot (and the one with makeup helped even more). These are mildly dysphoric for me now. From May 23 and June 19 2021, respectively.
Then we get to my one year retrospective check-in from August 7 2021, and it backpedals again. I’m not sure why, but this one’s really dysphoric. Which is weird, because next to the one from the year prior, I can see so much positive change. But it bugs me.
November 20 2021, things got better again. I don’t LOVE this one, but the dysphoria dropped back down to a lower level.
Now here’s where things start to turn. December 11 2021. This pic still gives me a bit of dysphoria, but it’s the least amount I’ve EVER experienced in a photo of myself for my entire life at that point. Is it the combo of longer bangs, bow, and makeup? HRT magic? I don’t know.
BTW, if you don’t remember/missed/want a reminder of why bows became important to me and are actually tied into my transition, and my sexuality, and extricating the two from each other, see the trans tuesday on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER.
December 28 2021 is a milestone. It’s the first time I’ve been able to wear a unisex-style hoodie and not feel dysphoric. It’s loose and baggy and hides my form, all things that I used to do/wear all the time to hide the body I never wanted to see and be reminded of.
It causes mild dysphoria, but that I can wear something like that now, and tolerate a photo of myself in it, is extraordinary. Jumping a little out of sequence to March 6 2022, here’s another one in a hoodie with no makeup that causes STILL LESS dysphoria. It’s sticking.
Going back to the linear timeline (because we’re humans, ugh), January 7, January 14, January 16, January 22, 2022, are four of the best photos I’ve seen of myself ever. I am agog. I love them. All in the span of a couple weeks, all with very minimal dysphoria.
January 29, February 6, February 9, February 20, 2022, continue the trend. Minimal dysphoria, photos I love a LOT that cause me almost no discomfort. It feels like a gift.
And then April 14 2022. I didn’t know it at the time, but I can now tell you this is the EXACT photo where, for the first time in my entire life, there is NO GENDER DYSPHORIA. NONE. I look at it and all I see, ***ALL*** I see… is me.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1514627508561276933
The trend somehow continued only two days later on April 16 2022.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1515404516786548736
And April 19 2022. You can already see me kind of freaking out and not knowing what’s happening to me.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1516548533494575108
April 23 2022. The confidence is growing. I’m starting to think this might be a real thing.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1517969993022906369
April 30 2022 and it’s just celebratory at this point.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1520446391792717825
May 7 2022 is my least favorite of this streak, but it still causes? No?? DYSPHORIA???
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1522988203405287426
May 8 2022, just one day later, no makeup, no effort, taken right after I ripped my heart out writing my MOTHER’S DAY/TRANS PARENTS thread. The trend still marches on.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1523384819719188481
Here’s that TRANS PARENTS (Mother’s Day) essay if you missed it.
https://www.facebook.com/535350732/posts/10159527948410733
May 11 2022, a totally spur of the moment, unplanned photo because I liked the lighting in the car, no makeup, hair screwed by the wind… No. Dysphoria.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1524504085315014656
May 13 2022, the no-dysphoria streak somehow continues.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1525220568924008448
Culminating on May 14 2022, the first time I’ve ever looked at a photo of myself and not only felt zero dysphoria, but thought I might actually be a… cute/attractive woman? Somehow?? This is presently my favorite photo in my entire life.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1525544042523570176
I can only hope new favorite-photo-ever selections are to come. I hold no illusions that photos will remain non-dysphoric forever. I’m sure the streak will end at some point, and there will be times to come where I’ll struggle to find myself in them again.
I wish that weren’t the case, but that’s dysphoria for you. But I couldn’t have ever anticipated this when my transition began, and certainly not at any point pre-transition. It’s got me on the verge of tears, but they’re tears of JOY. And I don’t know how to react.
I barely dared to even hope this day would ever come. That it ever got even a LITTLE better at all felt like a miracle. To be where I am now? It feels unreal. Surreal. Anti-real. An impossibility made possible… because I refused to let my fear stop me.
I hope down to the atoms of my heart every trans person gets to this place. Actually, I wish that for ALL of you, trans or otherwise, wherever you are.
Everything you want may be on the other side of fear, but please don’t let that stop you.
The fight is worth it.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
ADDENDUM:
August 12, 2022. New most favorite photo of my entire life. The most ME that’s ever been captured in a photo.
So much so it’s the author photo on the back of my book!
September 25 2023. Now this is my new favorite photo of my entire life.
