Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Today we’re going to talk about something referenced in a whole lot of these essays. It’s one of the best things about being trans for me, and for most trans people, and it’s also something cis people can experience too: GENDER EUPHORIA.
I probably link to this essay more than any other (for obvious reasons), but if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure you’re familiar with the other side of the coin, GENDER DYSPHORIA.
Again, not all trans people experience gender dysphoria (though most do), and you need not have gender dysphoria to be trans. Just Say No to TRANSMEDICALISM.
Gender euphoria is quite literally the exact opposite, it’s a feeling not just of contentment, but absolute unbridled joy brought about by, of all things, your gender. Which might seem strange, so let’s talk about that a little.
I spent my entire life being told I was a boy and a man, and was expected to behave, dress, and live accordingly. And that gave me a massive amount of dysphoria, even beyond the physical issues of feeling like my body wasn’t mine. See BODILY AUTONOMY for more.
So when I began trying to figure out why I felt that way, and coming to terms with my transness, I started experimenting with doing things that weren’t necessarily even feminine, but were anti-masculine, if that makes any kind of sense.
This involved a lot of things I’ve talked about, like growing out my HAIR, experimenting with makeup (which had always terrified me, see HALLOWEEN (and the fear of embracing your true self)), and changing my clothes (see HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES AND TRANS PEOPLE).
If you read through those, I think you can spot the parts where they caused gender euphoria, even if I didn’t mention it by name. Though I think I did? Listen, I don’t have time to go back and check them all right now, give a gal a break.
And okay, I hear you say, but makeup and women’s clothes are “feminine” or “girly” things, at least to some degree. You don’t have to shout it at me! And so I will now direct you to the essay on BODY HACKING, which includes discussion of the first women’s clothes I ever owned, and the first time I ever experienced gender euphoria.
Yes, the first women’s clothes I owned was just a running hoodie, but you likely wouldn’t know that if it wasn’t sold in the women’s section. A running hoodie is a running hoodie. It’s cut a little different from a men’s hoodie, but honestly I don’t think you can tell if you’re not wearing it.
I will never, ever forget the way it made me feel. I said it “felt like I was flying.” And it did, and it still does! Only now basically all my clothes make me feel that way to varying degrees.
And friends, the only better feeling than gender euphoria is love. And like, yes, I am aware of sex, and pizza, and the way it feels to clean an itchy ear with a q-tip.
Gender euphoria is better than all of them.
And it feels like flying because, as I mentioned in the essay on GENDER DYSPHORIA, and multiple other times throughout many Trans Tuesdays, dysphoria can feel like a crushing weight that’s just destroying you.
When you remove that weight, or even lessen it a little, you feel weightless. And that applies to almost everything in life. If you’re overloaded with work, clearing it off your plate can sometimes make you feel better than if you’d never had it stressing you in the first place.
If you carry something heavy, then set it down and pick up something not as heavy, the new thing feels even lighter than it should. It’s just how our brains perceive things.
It’s part of the reason baseball players put those weighted donuts on their bat while warming up. It makes it feel lighter when you’re actually batting! I played a ton of baseball as a kid, that might be the first time I ever experienced anything like that.
Incidentally, this is why Neo flies in The Matrix films (and it’s why there’s a gif of him at the top of this essay… I’ll explain the text on that gif in a minute). For more on the intentional and deeply specific trans allegories of The Matrix franchise, well whaddaya know I wrote a whole book about it!
What does gender euphoria feel like to trans folks who don’t have dysphoria? I can’t say. Not having dysphoria was certainly not anything I’d ever been familiar with.
But I suspect it’s much the same. Maybe a bit less intense? But maybe not. When gender euphoria really washes over me, it is powerful. It really, truly feels like I’m going to levitate right off the ground.
It’s this amazing confirmation that I am me, I am the me I always wanted to be, the me I always was, but now made real and here in the world as myself. There’s just no feeling like it.
So what gives me gender euphoria? Anyone saying my name gives me a little bit, even all these years into transition. That’s not one of the huge ones that makes me feel like I’m flying, but it does make me tingly.
The knowledge that I’m being seen, after spending my life not, is heady stuff.
When my wife Susan noticed my VOICE was changing after I’d been in voice therapy for a while, that was a big one.
The first time my wife and I went out to eat after I came out, it blew my mind. Because when the server brought our food, she set down my plate. Hold on, I need to take a breath, I’m getting light-headed just thinking about it. Hoo.
She set down my food, and said, “For the lady!”
That’s it. That is fucking it. It was the first time a stranger had really done that, just seen me as me, and I thought I was gonna explode. Just thinking about it gives me a lot of residual tingles. Kind of astonishing.
It’s not as intense when it happens now, but I still delight in it every time.
One of the things that gave me the biggest hit of gender euphoria early on, and still does, is super common among transfems. In fact it’s so common there’s a name for the phenomena within the community: dress go spinny.
Ah, now you see the reason for the text in the opening Matrix gif. My friend Adam made it for me after my initial social media threads on the trans allegory of the films. It’s so good!
But there’s something about seeing and feeling a skirt twirling around us… perhaps that it makes it flare and be more visible, perhaps because we can feel it moving around us and so become more aware of its presence… but it’s a really common thing that brings joy to a whole lot of us.
And just to talk about The Matrix for a second longer, if you’ve not read my book, the gist of the entire franchise is that Neo is a trans woman, on a journey to her true and final self-actualized self: Trinity. Yes, really. No, I’m not going to explain it here. That’s why I wrote Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix.
The point is that the Wachowski sisters, who wrote and directed the films, couldn’t put Neo in a dress. But a long coat? Yeahyoubetcha. And every time Neo twirls the coat in the films is while flying, and is another moment of gender euphoria. It’s dress go spinny everywhere.
There’s ample evidence for all of this! Really! Read the book, buy my book, get my book from a library, book book book!
It’s also worth mentioning that flight as a metaphor for gender euphoria also shows up in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, BARBIE, REAL GENIUS, and I SAW THE TV GLOW, in various ways. All of which I’ve done trans allegory deep-dives on!
I can only speak to gender euphoria as a person who transitioned as an adult. If you got to transition as a kid in a loving environment that let you explore these things, would you still have it? I think so. Would it still be as intense? No idea.
Before you go and get your brain all smoothed out, lemme remind you no trans kids are getting surgeries and for trans kids, transition is all largely social. And yes there are facts to back it up. Trans kids need your support, and if you can’t bring yourself to do that, at least leave them the hell alone. See TRANS KIDS 1: FACTS AND DANGERS and TRANS KIDS 2: TRANS FLIGHT AND THE INTAKE EXAM.
Gender euphoria is something that cis folks out there can (and do) experience too, though maybe less intensely. Although I’ve never been cis, so I don’t know! But I’m curious.
I think cis folks probably experience something similar when you… well, I don’t know. It’s more than just having a favorite shirt or something. Do you have a… suit? Dress? Top? Accessory? Something that you know you look fucking great in?
Something that makes you feel like “hell yes, this is me! I am an amazing beautiful person, and the world will see me as such! I look good and I fuckin’ know it!”
That. It’s that, turned up to eleven. Do you experience that, cis folks? Is it ever so intense that you just have to sit down because you might pass out from the overwhelming feeling that you’re so very you, the woman or man you were meant to be?
If not, does that mean… you’re not cis? I don’t know, probably not. But maybe! Try on something different, something from the opposite end of the spectrum (or even something very gender neutral).
See how it makes you feel. Pay attention to everything your head, heart, and body are telling you. Explore, see where it takes you. At the very least, you might find you really are cis and just love being that way!
A lot of cis people are afraid of that, though, because maybe they’re afraid they’ll like dressing in clothes associated with a different gender, and then what would that mean?! Babes, it may just mean you’re a dude who likes skirts or a lady who likes suits. Or it could be a window into how maybe you’re not actually cis, I don’t know! See HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE TRANS if you do end up questioning. It’s okay! It’s not the end of the world. Welcome.
Or maybe you’ll hate the way dressing as a different gender makes you feel, and you’ll get the teeniest tiniest little window into what gender dysphoria is like. Who knows!
In fact, for trans people without dysphoria (and even for some of us with dysphoria), following our gender euphoria can be what leads us to realizing we’re trans and choosing to transition!
After a lifetime of dysphoria, of pain, and misery, and isolation, of drowning in the depths, euphoria rockets us up into the sky, flying free and full of life and joy at the mere thought of our own existence.
Gender euphoria is one of the most amazing, magical things about being trans, but even that might not be uniquely ours. I think it’s likely universal.
Experiment and find out, whether you’re trans, or cis, or unsure.
Let me know how it goes.
Maybe you’ll find something magical.
And I’ll be waiting for you in the clouds with open arms.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com