Questioning

Questioning refers to the process one goes through to determine if they identify as trans or reject that they are trans. Some trans people do not question, and questioning is not required to be trans (Golden Rule).

There are two primary activities that happen during a questioning phase; they are not required and may happen in any order or not at all.

Experimentation - a person may explore their true gender identity
Validation - a person may validate or invalidate that they are trans

Experimentation

The concept of possibly being trans often encourages one to explore other activities that cause gender identity alignment.

Common methods of experimentation:

Experimenting with social transition

Exploring a new name and pronouns
Wearing clothes or other accessories to match their true gender identity
Coming out to trusted friends and family members

Making body changes (e.g. shaving more, losing weight, growing/cutting hair, or buffing up)
Researching or experimenting with medical transition. Medical transition is the process of altering one’s body with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or surgery. Medical transition is not required to be trans (Golden Rule). Please see Appendix A for more information about transmasculine medical transition or Appendix B for more information about transfeminine medical transition

The results of experimentation can be:

Additional gender identity alignment
Uncovering additional parts of one’s true gender identity. One may find that their true gender identity is different than they thought in the beginning (some people start thinking they align as a man or woman and then find they align nonbinary and vice-versa). This is not because one’s true gender identity changed, but because one’s uncovered more of it and sees it more clearly.
Changes in dysphoria (development of dysphoria if it wasn’t previously present, more dysphoria or less dysphoria)
The development of obstacles, which are conditions that stop one from thinking they can realize their true gender identity (see the obstacles chapter for more info on what these are)
Development of imposter syndrome, which is when one feels like a fraud for thinking of themselves as their true gender identity or attempting to present themselves as their true gender identity. Imposter syndrome can exist because of dysphoria or without it.

Validation

When a cis person questions their gender identity, they quickly find validation that they’re cis and let it go. When a trans person begins to question their gender identity, they are often (but not always) a dual agent:

One part of them is looking to confirm that they’re not trans because they are afraid of being trans.
One part of them is looking to confirm that they are because they can sense they are.

Validation will normally come from authoritative sources written about being trans, online communities, therapists, friends/family, one’s own experimentation, or one’s own assessment of themselves or their past.

The amount of validation each person requires to identify as trans is variable and depends on the person. A person who has read this book knows that no validation is required at all because of the Golden Rule.

Some people do not find the validation they are looking for and this helps them reject themselves. Sometimes validation will act as permission for a person to experiment with being trans. At other times a person will experiment without validation to see if it is right for them.

Identification as Trans

One of the two outcomes of questioning is that a person agrees that they are trans and identifies that way.

I highly encourage my readers to not look at identification as trans as a success metric because the outcomes of identification are different for each person. While the outcome of identification is usually a happy one, occasionally it isn’t. For example, some identify as trans because they can’t convince themselves otherwise despite wanting to reject themselves. They may look at their being trans as a curse of untreatable dysphoria and choose to live with it.

Additionally, identification as trans is not a permanent state. For example, a person who identifies as trans can still re-enter questioning, reject themselves later (meaning that everything in the rejection section applies to them), and can still experience obstacles and dissociation from themselves which might cause them to reject themselves in the future. This can happen even after decades of a person identifying as trans.

A better success metric is the amount of self discovery a person has done and how satisfied they are that they both understand and are representing who they truly are.

Rejection

The other outcome of questioning is that a person rejects that they are trans.

If a person who is cis rejects themselves when they are questioning, then nothing will happen. However, if a person has experienced a revelation event and rejects themselves, then they will have an experience like the person who goes back into the cave in the first chapter.

Such a person who re-enters the cave will always remember the light, and that is exactly what happens to trans people who reject themselves - they will be continually nagged by the true gender identity that they rejected. In order to make the nagging (and dysphoria, if applicable) go away, a trans person will often turn to dissociation (see the Methods of Dissociation chapter), but this will inevitably fail. The result is what I call the dissociation cycle and I have seen it hundreds of times.

The dissociation cycle is characterized by alternating periods of questioning and dissociation. During dissociation a person will feel less or no gender identity alignment or dysphoria, which inevitably return at points that lead them to start questioning again. Each time a person in a dissociation cycle re-enters the questioning phase, they are often looking for one or more of the following:

Explanations for why nagging thoughts or dysphoria keeps coming back
Ways to deal with nagging thoughts or dysphoria that don’t involve accepting themselves
Permission to accept themselves as trans because they don’t think they can
To be unblocked (see the obstacles chapter)
A hug (some people are terrified of identifying as trans and need someone to comfort them)