Trigger Warning: Trans dysphoria

This post is not intended to put other trans people down. It is meant as a metaphor for my own dysphoria.

Being trans feels like being gluten free bread. I'm trying to imitate wheat bread, but I'm just not the same. I'm made differently, I taste worse, and I know it. People will always choose the real thing over gluten free bread - they'd only buy gluten free if they're out of wheat bread, or if they have a gluten intolerance. But they don't want to hurt the gluten free bread's feelings, so they tell it that it's just as delicious as the wheat bread, and they can't tell any difference between them. Yet weeks later, as I've been watching the wheat bread fly off the shelves, I'm still sitting on the same shelf, feeling the mold spores spread throughout my body. Try though I might to believe in it, the bread lovers' hugboxing rings hollow, and the reality settles in: nobody likes gluten free bread. And the worst part is, I can't even blame them.

I'm only a "real woman" so long as nobody has to touch me.

(I know there are people capable of loving me and finding me attractive; I'm seeing one of them now. They're just very few and far between.)