What you’re describing is very common. Once we have finally accepted ourselves, the dysphoria, which was often an all pervasive background noise becomes sharper and more focused. Not necessarily stronger, but the focus changes, because now, we know what is going on, and we know what we want, and not having it, makes things stand out more.

The silver lining though is that now, you have answers, and when the opportunities present themselves, you know what you can start doing to help. When it’s background, directionless dysphoria, it’s not as sharp, but it’s also not something you can do much about. Now, you can do something about it. It might not be quick or easy, but you have a path forward!

I went through all of this too, and transition is weird in that it simultaneously decreased and increased my dysphoria.

When I first transitioned I wasn’t bothered by my deadname at all, but after a few months it really started to bother me and I even started to feel weird that I had ever been called that. It’s like the way I thought about the name had been rationalized and seen as “genderless” and just “me”, and only once I started going by a different chosen name did I have the space to see my deadname more objectively - the way it is gendered and used in a gendered way, and how poorly that fit “me”.

Also, yeah, I paid little attention to my voice before I transitioned and once I transitioned and started paying attention to my voice for practical reasons like wanting to pass for safety, I suddenly realized how horrible my voice sounds and how it isn’t “my” voice, etc.

On the other hand, there were also lots of moments of gender euphoria happening - dressing the way I’ve always wanted in public, and integrating as a woman socially was like a dream come true, a dream I had buried and suffocated and tried to kill but which somehow miraculously came to life anyway.

From what I’ve read these are common experiences - I know it seems weird for dysphoria to suddenly appear, but I think as coping strategies like denial and repression melt away, there is some instability as you pay more attention to your body and details that before you successfully ignored.

This is a challenging part of transitioning, but all I can say is that repression really is worse than transitioning and that it does (slowly) get easier. Also, the mental health improvements and joy that come from transitioning are a lot more than I ever could have expected.

It definitely morphs and changes over time.

I used to never have any dysphoria from having a beard.

Later, the slight hair growth I got in between laser sessions made me feel hopeless.

Now, I don’t love my facial hair but also feel sort of good at being more visibly trans when my facial hair is having its bad/intense days.

It’s also common for folks to not have genital dysphoria for a long time, only developing it years into transition when everything else is dealt with.

I wonder if your brain is finally accepting that things will change and the impatience is manifesting as dysphoria.

I hope it gets better soon!

Oh yeah, that slow slide over the first few weeks / months from “I don’t mind my body” to “I am not OK with this at all” as you realize just how much you’ve been repressing all this time. I originally thought I wouldn’t bother with bottom surgery, but now it can’t happen soon enough.

OTOH, taking care of the things under my control that were bothering me (hair, posture, clothes, weight, voice etc) really helped me get over the nagging feeling that I wasn’t serious about transitioning. That way everything becomes a positive, and self-care becomes feeling good about myself for once.

I’m in the exact same boat right now! My wife got me out of the apartment in women’s clothes for the first time a couple days ago, and when we bumped into someone she was in school with, she introduced me as her spouse and we had talked about using the word wife, and i thought I’d be fine with it, but I was shocked by how much it stung! Dysphoria is weird, and I keep saying meat was not meant to think lol

That sucks. I’m on my way to getting counseling for some of what I feel. I’m using non-binary gender identity as a way to bridge to where I’m going, but a lot of American institutions under the dictator are forced into black-and-white logics. I can only reassure you that hairy arms are normal for most adults, including my mother. It isn’t hard to shave them, though I recommend hair removal cream around the wrist bones to avoid cuts.

I know exactly how you feel if that makes anything better… The closer to my imagined ideal I get, the bigger even little things seem to feel. Sometimes it’s hard looking at old pictures where you knew how good and feminine you felt when the picture was taken and seeing for example even the slightest shade of beard under the makeup that you didn’t even notice then… If anything that probably means you’re making progress, getting used to your new self and taking it as the new normal, so it becomes the new baseline for your brain, like getting used to sunlight after stepping outside from a dark room instead of a lit one. It’s all relative.