About

Many gender dysphoric people are crushed by the weight of not feeling right in their bodies, not being able to identify as people with the sex they were assigned at birth. Some people experience this as trauma, and the intensity with which it is felt varies by person. Some call such people as trans, or non-binary, or just dysphoric. Thankfully there are more and more words to describe this.

Some of us are overwhelmed by the trauma that dysphoria represents. Suicide rates amongst trans people are very high, not just for the dysphoria but also for the consequences of it. Others manage it and have healthy and productive lives. I cannot judge, all I can say is that I am a survivor.

Outwardly happy and successful, outwardly playing the game and participating in society without making too many waves doesn’t mean that inside the feelings of dysphoria don’t rage with varying intensities. There has not been a single conscious day of my life where I haven’t felt it.

D/s: In the year leading up to me beginning to blog and write about these topics, I began to explore something that has always been very much a part of my psyche. That is the world of Dominance and submission. I know that BDSM is laced with kink, and while I may touch on some kink topics here, I am not interested in judging or being judged. My own interest in D/s has been to understand better how the sexes relate to one another, how sexuality is tied up into identity, and what it means to be Dominant or submissive.

I am submissive, not in my general life, but in the way I relate to the world around me, how I feel about things. I don’t fully understand why or where this comes from, but what I do believe is that my submission is a source of immense personal strength and motivation. It is intimately tied to my gender dysphoria and feelings about women, femininity, and life. It is curious that I am not generally submissive, but that I am intensely submissive to people whom I choose to submit to, and this is mostly not at all sexual, but rather an integral part of how I show love.

Why Blog: I am writing this blog for several reasons. The process of writing helps me to think things through. The interactions I get from this platform and others when people write to me and engage help me to grow and learn. I cope, and some of the things I write about here are the things that help me cope: I married a strong woman and we live a relationship that has many of the trappings of FLR, I am a “to the right of the slash” person in the world of D/s and have the freedom to explore with some wonderful people what that means outside of my primary relationship, I am a father who has the opportunity to raise and be part of the development of “woke” children and to be with them as they debate in themselves gender and social issues that all children face as they grow. I also participate through my actions, through charitable contributions, through volunteer work, through my behaviour and my words.

Today, people who grow up dysphoric have many more avenues open to them than when I was pre-teen: counselling, a more aware society, medical options, real transition possibilities and role models…I grew up totally unaware of those things and consequently made a choice–to try my best to live as a “man” in a way that is expected of me.

This blog shows the compromise. Why a blog? Because these topics of identity can be awkward for friends and family to process. It can make people uncomfortable. I am “out there” so that the people who depend on my vanilla life don’t have to be forced into discomfort.

Dysphoria is beautiful: If you believe as I do that what makes us different is also what makes us unique and beautiful, then you will understand what I mean. Dysphoria is a fundamental, all-consuming feeling, emotion, way of looking at the world. It is more than a quirk or a kink or a paraphilia. It is fundamental. At my most fundamental level I cannot accept that I am male, and that realisation, that truth, has meant that I see the world through eyes that are coloured deeply by that thought. How I interact with people, how I think, my creativity, my approach to everything is fundamentally informed by this. I believe that no small part of my success in life is directly attributable to me being so bad at being a man. And that has given me power, incredible power, one that has allowed me to challenge the patriarchy from within, and to push the boundaries a little.

Thanks for reading. I welcome constructive engagement.