Pre-filter

Most transgender people (especially older ones) will first pre-filter their psychology through how others perceive them. In other words, they will ask themselves how their ideas and actions are weighed within the confines of the coordinate system of people who aren't like them; which turns out is the vast majority of society.

The first thing this filtering will potentially do is introduce negativity and fear since we know most people won't understand us and will at best empathize. This has the net effect of reducing our stance to a more apologetic one which ostensibly says "how can I make my existence more palatable to you".

This was my biggest challenge and there are still remnants of it left. We cannot help but go back and compare ourselves to a baseline that most people live within and we ourselves were educated under. However, the more aggressive our dysphoria the more difficult this process of escape could be since more is typically involved to get a new baseline where we feel whole. The further we distance ourselves from the familiar, the scarier it can be.

In essence, to free ourselves we need to avoid comparison which is very difficult to do when your life contrasts so sharply against that of others. Here our worst enemy, as always, is ourselves.