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Comment by titanomachy | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like for you personally, the “body dysphoria” is less of an issue than the “social expectations of a man” dysphoria? I wonder how common that is. Maybe a lot of people’s gender dysphoria would be lessened if society can decouple behavioral expectations from physical appearance.

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Decoupling behavioral expectations from physical appearance would be great! But that would be a titanic task, and shouldn't fall solely onto trans people, whose mental health often depends on seeing oneself as and being seen as the gender they identify as.

In addition, there is an undercurrent here that suggests "changing your body is bad," or perhaps some appeal to nature. If you hold these ideas, I would like to ask why, and perhaps reexamine why you believe so.

I don’t think that’s a belief I hold: I support people changing if that’s what they want. But not all the people who experience gender dysphoria choose to change, and it would be nice to make life easier for them as well!

I'm non-binary. Some days the body dysphoria hits hard. Some days it's not a big deal at all. I am mostly unhappy I can't just float between them day by day. The body dysphoria I feel is mostly a dissatisfaction with how permanent bodies are. (There's a reason so many trans folks are also transhumanists. Gimme that cyber body please.)

That’s funny, most of my existential crises revolve around how impermanent my body is.

It seems to me this is much more general than just the gender?

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