Avoiding Physical Gender Dysphoria

Distancing means staying away from things or people that trigger your gender dysphoria or cause you harm. It can be a helpful way to deal with gender dysphoria and anti-trans or transphobic discrimination.

This strategy works best when you’re already feeling a lot of gender dysphoria and want to avoid making it worse. It is also a good strategy when you are tired and don’t have the energy to deal with gender dysphoria.

Distancing involves three actions: distancing from physical gender dysphoria, distancing from social gender dysphoria, and distancing from places.

Distancing from physical gender dysphoria involves taking actions to avoid your triggers when feeling really intense physical gender dysphoria. For example, you could avoid looking in mirrors, seeing pictures on social media that remind you of your body, or changing clothes in public places.