That's great that you can be so clear about a goal like that! I am not sure what I live for, I like making people happy but I also like trying to encourage them to experience new things.

Well... do you think encouraging them to experience new things is likely to make them happy?

I think this is what let's me be aggressive without feeling uncomfortable; the knowledge that everyone else knows I would never seriously be aggressive.

For me, it's just tiring. I want to be making people happy, not competing and winning. I like doing things that are awesome, and I like doing things that are challenging. But I don't enjoy defeating people. I can get angry enough that I'm able to be very aggressive and not feel drained by it, but I almost never get that angry.

You did. : )

Oh good!

And I'm still trying to figure out my sexuality but I'm probably some form of pansexual too.

Cool. (:

nor have I seen any male person display a feminine personality with the same sort of depth and internal integrity, nor have I seen any male person convincingly give the appearance of having thought out the nature of feminity to that depth.

I have I have!

flies over and says something to Eliezer

Does this mean my personality has no depth?

Absolutely not! It just means Eliezer is working from a biased sample and therefore his perceptions should not be taken as scientific fact.

I am sorry you're having such problems, Liza. I kind of relate because I didn't even believe in gender for a long time. Then I realized that there were a few things about me that I had never accepted and couldn't seem to change:

1. I live to make other people happy. This is a very feminine trait - probably related to maternal instincts.

2. I have never been as aggressive as I want to be. I force myself to be aggressive when life demands it, and I'm very proud of this -- but the fact that I have to force myself and that I feel proud of it are signs that I'm not naturally aggressive. Men often have a natural aggression that ... actually allows them to have fun while being aggressive. I don't get that, and I want to, but I don't.

I hope you have encountered alternative gender labels like "genderqueer". You do not need to choose between male and female! There are even more options. You can also be N/A, gender apathetic, not believe in gender, or make up a new gender term and define your gender for yourself. Not saying everyplace will always have a drop down for that, but there's no reason you can't do something other than pick "male" or "female".

There's a TED talk on gender (I forgot the exact ted.com URL but it shouldn't be too hard to find with the search) that explains that human bodies can have soooo many variations when it comes to gender that there are hundreds of combinations and sometimes people can have both male and female parts and not realize it because they are internal. The video makes a pretty good case that our binary gender concept is a false dichotomy.

If I was you, I'd feel comforted to know that there are some who are attracted to people regardless of their gender. I am one of them. And I don't just mean that there are bi people who date the binary "men" and "women". There are also pansexual people who will date people of any gender (genderqueer, gender N/A, etc.) or most of them. I call my orientation "sapiosexual" because my attractions are to minds - physique and gender do not stop my attractions.

I am no gender expert but I hope I made you feel better.

1) Unless you are considering surgical or hormonal modification, there is no reason you can't change your mind later - though it does get confusing to others, that's far less important than your comfort.

2) It's okay to be in a socially in-between state. There are other identifications, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer

This is really more a matter of preference than a problem that can be solved through logic.

I cannot imagine myself as a helium balloon. I can imagine a helium balloon and attach the label "me" to it, but this does absolutely nothing for me in terms of self-image or emotion.

Attaching the label "me" to the image I see in the mirror is essentially all I do when thinking of myself as my body. What are you doing apart from that?

I don't understand how feeling like you're in the wrong body manifests as suffering.

Me either really. It just hurts when I notice it. You may as well ask how feeling a wound on your flesh manifests as suffering.

I assume you meant the wound thing as an example of irreducibly simple suffering, but actually I've spent quite some time investigating things of this kind through meditation, and they do break down further, in ways that make them much easier to deal with. In fact, physical pain is one of the forms of suffering most amenable to this.

What I was trying to get at with the balloon question is are you troubled by your body being gender A, or by it not being gender B? Is it an aversion, or a desire, or a restlessness, or what?

Many of the trans women and most of the trans men I've known are okay with their primary sexual characteristics. Women's T-shirts reading "I heart my penis" exist for a reason.) My sample is rather biased toward the less-than-binary, but still it goes to show that this isn't rare.

BDD looks social, not physical, to me but I'm not an expert. (Not that social dysphoria is irrelevant, anyway.)

I'm in a similar boat as yours. What I recommend is:

• Don't panic. Litany of Gendlin; whatever your true gender (defined as the gender you would be happiest living as, to appease the anti-essentialists) turns out to be, it's already itself and knowing it will make you happier than denying it or making something up for the sense of closure.

• It's okay to be whatever you turn out to be. (Yes, even "someone who guesses wrong and tries to live as the wrong gender for decades".) I never really had a problem internalizing that but Internet strangers telling you it's okay seems to help.

• Try it on for size! Use text-based support groups, with people sufficiently open-minded that they'll happily comply if you tell them you're trying names and pronouns to see how they feel and change those every few weeks.

• You've probably tried all the things you can do in private with no medical intervention (with clothing and hair and changing your apparent body shape and posture and so on). If it's feasible for you, maybe try to do them whenever you're in private for long enough that it becomes routine, and see how it feels when it's not an extraordinary thrill.

• Some subsets of the trans community are binarist essentialist judges of Who Is Truly One Of Us. Avoid those.

• Share your anxieties. I don't know if that'll help you, I just want to feel less alone.

I'm afraid I'm not following. What is the judgement you are attempting to accurately make which your identification is interfering with?

I don't understand how feeling like you're in the wrong body manifests as suffering. If I woke up as someone or something other than what I feel like I am, I would react positively or negatively on a case by case basis. Whether my self-image matched my body would not be at all relevant.

If you were transformed into a being with no sexual characteristics at all, say, a magical non-anthropomorphic helium balloon, would you expect your suffering to be abated or partially abated or unchanged?

Would you still strongly desire sex reassignment?

Yes

You have physical dysphoria independently from perception of gender by others. How does that not clinch it utterly and completely?

Maybe think of it as not a disorder, but rather an unusually weak match between your identity and your genitalia (and/or societal gender norms), assuming this is what you feel. Would you still be suffering if there were no behavioral expectations of you? Would you feel normal and happy if a lot of people were like you and you associated with them at will without any stigma attached? Would you still strongly desire sex reassignment?

I know what you mean. Maybe if you give more specific details about which aspects of GID you are struggling with, we can give more helpful advice?