When I was still a kid, I experience my dysphoria in a couple of ways Physically, my body was always wrong, and I wished it were different. I'd dream it was different, I'd pray that it would change, and as puberty kicked in, my detachment from my body increased. Socially, I resented being grouped with boys and missing out on things that girls could do.

This was in the 80s and 90s, so I didn't have the words to understand what was happening, and I didn't even know trans people were a thing. I didn't have a feeling of "I am a woman/girl", rather, I experience it as "I should have been" or "I wish I was".

And ultimately, it mostly didn't change from that for many decades. The language I used changed, and my awareness of trans folk increased, but I still didn't see myself as being trans or being anything other than a guy who should have been a girl.

I used to dream about it in the way I'd sometimes fantasise about winning the lottery. I'd imagine how my life would be different, and how life altering it would be if this wish came true. But the key difference between thinking about the lottery and thinking about my gender, is that I never stopped thinking about my gender. It was always there.

It wasn't until a couple of folk in my life came out as trans about a decade ago and I had a chance to talk to them that I realised I was the same as them, and that I'm trans. It was the first time in my life I was able to talk about my experiences to someone and have them understand what I was saying, without having to fumble around trying to explain myself.

And for a little while, that changed my dysphoria. Instead of a vague feeling of discomfort with being gendered as a guy and a wish for a body that I didn't have, the shedding of my denial crystalised my dysphoria and sharpened it. In some ways it felt worse, but in some ways it felt better, because now I understood it, and knew what I could do with it.

And I spent the next few years after that chasing social and medical transition, and these days, I don't really experience dysphoria in any meaningful way. I still have moments, even when it does pop up now, it's background noise rather than a debilitating and painful awareness that dominates everything.