I am still very early in this whole process, and there is still a lot of self doubt, so I am reading a lot of literature on “Am I trans” and dysphoria.
One concept that people often like to propose in these ressources is the button that makes you the opposite gender, and, crucially, also makes everyone else believe that you have been that way forever.
I don’t really like this, because my time as a boy/man is part of who I am. I would not be me without it, and despite all of the problems I had and have due to my gender, it is still part of who I am. I fought through all of this and worked to find out who I want to be by myself. I wouldn’t wanna be cis, and I also don’t want to cease being the me born out of this struggle.
I rewatched the video and linked it in my first comment. Got watch it and let me say that this is not denying gender dysphoria. It is real and should be treated as such.
For me this viewpoint of “gender as a doing not a being” helps me to accept trans and non binary people. In the past, it helped me to think of trans people as “born in the wrong body” with a brain of their identified gender. But when I encountered more and more trans people, I felt like “would all of them pass the brain test?” and “is non-binary really a gender identity or a political statement?” If gender is a doing not a being, removes the burden of prove from trans people.
This doesn’t mean that there is no truth in the “born that way” narrative. The guy who made the video says that it still resonates with him. You are free to disagree with me and I guess “more radical” is the wrong word. These are different viewpoints that can simultaneously be true.
When I first read the mention of differing brain scans the first thing I immediately thought was, “I probably wouldn’t have those scans so I’m not genderqueer” or something along those lines. It’s an absolutely disheartening feeling.