Weight gain and dysphoria

Byronic_Ryu

My profile says female but I identify as transgender. I choose to go with my biological sex on the profile because I wasn't sure if putting male would have MFP miscalculate how many calories I need to burn. Male wouldn't have fit completely into my identity anyways but it would be more closer to how I identify. I do wish MFP did have more gender options to put on the profile.

I don't know if anyone else experienced this but I didn't have a huge issue with dysphoria until my weight gain reached 40+ lbs. Suddenly my curves were in my face and looking at myself in the mirror caused me a lot of grief. I feel my dysphoria will be better once I lose the weight. Does anyone else experience or experienced something similar?

Byronic_Ryu

Sorry for the poor grammar. I haven't been able to get much sleep.

Lottiotta

I can relate to this a lot. After I got top surgery my weight stopped bothering me nearly so much. I'm now just trying to lose so I can fit into all the clothes I own! For some reason even having a hysterectomy reduced my physical dysphoria.

I also hear you so hard on the gender thing here on MFP. I'm set to female because it matches my hormones but the site then genders me all over the place incorrectly, mostly with pronouns - and no way to hide that incorrect gender on my profile. It bugged me a lot so I started a thread about it asking them to improve the system, so chip in and say "I want this" if you do!

Bleurgh dysphoria. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I'm sorry things are hard for you right now, @Byronic_Ryu .

nuttyengineer

Yeah, the gender thing in the profile is annoying. I occasionally will set it back to female to evaluate what my calorie goal should be, because that is consistent with my hormones, but then I will switch it over to male and manually enter my goals so that it genders me correctly.

As for weigt gain and dysphoria, yeah gaining a little bit of weight definitely made it worse for me. I have a really hard time finding men's pants that fit over my hips without making them obvious while not completely drowning my lower body (all of my fat is in my thighs, so I have a fairly thin waist and torso, skinny legs and thunder thighs). I am also paranoid that if I start gaining weight again that it will make my chest bigger.

mandieinheels

I set mine to female. Even though I was given this male body, I do plan to transition one day. SO i went with female figuring I want to lose weight and look more and more feminine so I might as well start with the calories. Plus to see it say "her diary" makes me smile everyday!!
As for dysphoria I have only recently experienced it some. I really never knew or at least understood what I could be trans or what it meant until this year. My first experience was this summer, I was going to the beach and taking my shirt off all of a sudden it hit me like,wait I'm a woman I need a top I cant go on the beach topless!!! then calmed myself down and remembered I still present as male.

Byronic_Ryu

Thank you all for your responses and support.

@Lottiotta

I don't know how long ago you had your surgery but would it be ok if I congratulated you on getting it? Regarding the hysterectomy, I have heard from transmen, who had the procedure, on how much of a relief it was. For some transmen, the thought of being able to be pregnant because of their reproductive organs is a heavy burden. I have a phobia of being pregnant myself. I will definitely read up on your thread. Personally, dysphoria makes my skin feel like it is crawling and burning.

@nuttyengineer

I have a big chest size (DD's). My chest is rarely a trigger though I do have moments where I do wish I had a chest of a cisgender man. My stomach is definitely the worst because that is where all the weight gain went and it reminds me of a pregnant stomach. Pregnancy is a big fear for me. I would like to have my own bio children but the process of myself giving birth is something I mentally block out.

@mandieinheels

Best of luck to your transition. It's interesting you mention about only recently experiencing dysphoria. Because of certain unfortunate circumstances and the lack of awareness and knowledge available at the time, I wasn't in a position to sit and figure out what was going on with me until I was 19 years old. I thought understanding what was going on would make my "transgenderness" (I just made that up on the whim. Lol.) easier. While I have clarity on the issues and consequences of being trans, it intensified my dysphoria and it's been kind of getting worse as I get older.

Gretchen_To_Be

I thought about setting my profile to female but I'm not far enough along in the spectrum to do that yet. Regarding weight gain; I think losing weight will help with my dysphoria. I hate how my broad shoulders and muscular arms look in dresses and blouses. Last year I was able to slim down enough to fit into some dresses I had previously purchased but that were too small. This year I'm getting more serious.

I wish you all the best!

Gretchen

Byronic_Ryu

Thank you Gretchen. Best of luck to you too.

Lottiotta

Byronic_Ryu wrote: »

I don't know how long ago you had your surgery but would it be ok if I congratulated you on getting it? Regarding the hysterectomy, I have heard from transmen, who had the procedure, on how much of a relief it was. For some transmen, the thought of being able to be pregnant because of their reproductive organs is a heavy burden. I have a phobia of being pregnant myself. I will definitely read up on your thread. Personally, dysphoria makes my skin feel like it is crawling and burning.

@Byronic_Ryu Thank you for the congratulations! Surgery has been a huge relief to my physical and mental health, and I'm glad of it every day. I'm sorry you have to deal with horrible dysphoria, blaeueueuegh it's rubbish.

Byronic_Ryu

@Lottiotta

I'm trying to do my best with overcoming things that trigger me. I had recently completed training for becoming a doula. I had to see videos of women giving birth vaginally. I was horrified at first (I kept it together externally) but I am now somewhat desensitized. I generally don't think negatively of someone else giving birth but me with a pregnant stomach and having the baby pass through me is just no. I have an aversion to the idea of myself being fat because of the culture I belong to. I am working very hard to try to get better. I look forward to the next year when I will probably get treatment for my physical disability. It will lift my spirits and help me lose this extra baggage.

BadgerFaced

Hey, I am just going to agree with everyone on here about the gender thing and MFP lacking in it's options. I chose male because I was starting HRT and luckily weight loss has been working (minus personal downfalls).

Anyway! I have always been overweight, so for me it was REALLY hard to lose the weight and look good. Dysphoria made me emotional, I'm an emotional eater; I ended up getting really fat really fast and eventually it didn't matter that my hips were big, that my chest was big, that my thighs were big, etc. because the rest of me was big as well. Any time I would lose weight I would keep the weight in my thighs, hips and chest which ended up making those areas look bigger as the rest of me shrank. So for me weight loss was what set of my dysphoria and it hasn't been til now that losing weight doesn't make me feel like an emotional wreck.

awaywewander

The whole calorie discrepancy thing between male and female is super annoying. Previously when I used my fitness pal, I set it to female because I had just started testosterone and didn't know what point you would switch it over. I posted on tumblr about it but nobody offered any insight. I have now been on testosterone for 1.5 years (ish) and feel that my body and needs match up more with what a biological male needs than female. I have it set to male now so we will see how that works out.

On the dysphoria front... weight gain definitely doesn't help. I haven't been able to manage getting funds together for top surgery and i experience much more top dysphoria than anything. I have been trying to put on muscle and feel that may help but we will see. I use to wear a binder daily but I have never been one to bind while working out. Now that I am living in Texas and work a job that is a bit physically demanding 5 out of 7 days a week, I have just stopped binding all together. I am sure people at work are confused as to why this boy is wearing a sports bra but whatever... I have no hips and very broad shoulders so that works in my favor.

Most days I just push all the hurt about my chest to the back of my mind and try to stay busy because I know I won't have the funds any time soon for surgery but some days it is really hard and it really gets to me. I found that when I was smaller, my chest still bothered me but it didn't bother me as much because I focused a lot more on the parts of my body that looked "right" than the parts that didn't fit.

Gretchen_To_Be

It's interesting how differently FTM and MTF view this issue. Right now I have a good set of "moobs" that with a Nubra and padded bra (and shaved chest of course) give me decent-looking cleavage. As I lose weight, I'm going to lose the moobs, not a good thing! I suppose HRT will fix that, but I am not there yet.

ValleyDoll

@Byronic_Ryu I've definitely had this experience, though in reverse; I started losing weight + trying to gain muscle to try and achieve a more masculine body, to the point where I've gone underweight. Now one of the main things stopping me from gaining to a healthy is a fear of looking feminine again. At the moment I pass almost perfectly as male without having to try, so that's not something I want to lose.

Byronic_Ryu

@shibumicd @BadgerFaced

It is interesting to hear how weight gain can be helpful in relieving gender dysphoria.

@notsosecretlytrans

Have you thought of doing a gofundme page to help with costs?

@ValleyDoll

I feel one of the reasons why I am prone to anorexia is because of my gender dysphoria.