The Inclusive Lens

Most people don’t think about their bodies much. You wake up, brush your teeth, grab your phone — your body just... works. It feels normal, automatic, invisible. But imagine if every single moment, from the second you wake up to the second you fall asleep, your body felt wrong. Not just “ugh, bad hair day” wrong. Not “I wish I was taller” wrong. Bone-deep, system-failure wrong. The shape of your hands? Wrong. The sound of your voice? Wrong. The way people look at you? Completely misaligned with who you are inside. That’s what gender dysphoria feels like. It’s not a passing discomfort. It’s not about hating yourself. It’s the constant, brutal experience of knowing the world sees something that isn’t you — and worse, your own body reflects that lie back at you, over and over, every time you breathe. And for me, it doesn’t stop at gender. I also experience species dysphoria — a deep, persistent knowledge that I’m not supposed to be human at all. I know that might sound strange, but it’s true. It sounds strange because the world wasn’t built with people like me in mind. But it’s real. As real as your reflection. As real as your memories. As real as the breath you don’t think about taking — because your body just lets you exist. Mine doesn’t. At the core of me, something vital doesn’t match this skin, these bones, this whole setup. It’s like being trapped in a costume you can never take off, performing a role you never auditioned for, with an audience that insists you must love it because “that’s just how it is.”

How do I survive?

By turning survival into a list of tasks: wake up, get dressed, eat something, drink something, speak to humans, keep pretending. It’s not living. It’s maintenance. Food isn’t pleasure. Water isn’t refreshing. Even brushing my teeth or standing up is just another checkbox ticked, because if I don’t, things fall apart even faster.

My system’s way of coping? It cuts off signals. Suppresses emotions. Suppresses physical needs. I become a ghost riding inside my own body, just to make it through the day. But shutting everything down comes with a cost. Missed signals pile up. And sometimes that means my body betrays me even harder — accidents happen. On my worst days, I’m stuck with diapers because my own body can’t even be trusted with the basics anymore. No pride. No self-pity. Just another task: adapt, survive, endure.

My sense of “right” and “wrong” is outsourced

Another thing people don’t tell you about being built differently? I didn’t come with a ready-made moral compass. I don’t “feel” right or wrong inside the way most people say they do. Instead, I built my sense of good and bad based on the people I trust — the few humans who stuck around, earned my trust, and showed me by action what matters and what doesn’t. Their compass became mine. Not because I wanted to be helpless, but because it was safer than trusting instincts wired for a system I was never built for. And honestly? It works better than the broken mess I would’ve gotten otherwise.

Here's the part no one tells you about

You don’t get to “turn it off.” There’s no break. No reset button. No “good days” where it all vanishes, and I get to pretend I’m normal. There’s just me, learning how to carry the wrongness without it cracking me open. Some days, I carry it better. Some days, it feels heavier than gravity. Some days, I wonder what it would feel like to just exist without constantly negotiating with my own existence — no static, no friction, no grief for something I can't reach. But I keep going. Not because it magically gets better, or because “I learned to love myself” like some Instagram slogan. I keep going because this is my reality, and I deserve to exist inside it without being erased, mocked, or pitied. If you’ve never felt this way, that’s lucky. But don’t mistake your luck for universal truth. There are more of us than you think — living quiet, stubborn lives inside wrong homes, learning how to stay alive anyway. Believe us. Listen to us. Make room for us. That’s all we’re asking.