Hi, trans girl here. I’ve made a handful of jokes about how being belittled or harassed by men is gender affirming in the past, but that doesn’t mean it’s something that I seek out or something that I enjoy outside of the affirmation. It’s something that cis women also experience, and that makes me feel affirmed in my gender, but I’d definitely prefer if it didn’t happen at all.

On the topic of hair stuff, you’re projecting your own experiences onto others there a lot. I find a greater sense of euphoria from being completely hairless because it makes me feel more feminine than just shaving, especially because hair comes back so fast from just a shave. There’s a factor of overcorrection as you mentioned, perhaps, where people choose to express their gender in some extreme ways, but that’s a choice that each person gets to make and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. There’s a massive difference between society pressuring every woman into being completely hairless and someone deciding personally to do laser hair removal because they find that feeling affirming. In no way is this meant to imply that cis women are in any way less valid in their experiences than trans women, and I fully support the right of everyone to choose how they express themselves. I love it when cis women decide to go against societal gender norms and show off muscles or body hair, but that’s not something that I want to do as I associate those feelings with my life pre-transition and masculinity which brings about feelings of dysphoria.

As for the feeling afraid to go out alone at night and limited social opportunities, I can’t imagine that being a completely serious comment. Obviously the fact that women are mistreated in society sucks, a lot. I don’t think any of those comments were meant to belittle the struggles of any women ever. However, experiencing those same difficulties as a trans woman means that society at large essentially views you as a woman in every context, not just in ways that benefit you. It’s a sort of social side effect of transitioning. Its not a goal, but it is a side effect that affirms your identity. It essentially equates to a desire to pass at all times rather than just when “girlmoding” or whatever, which is very gender affirming even if it obviously sucks that all these challenges exist and society would be better if nobody had to experience any of them.

I can understand the confusion between gender affirmation and thinking these things are good experiences. Something can make you feel like a woman without being a good experience, and that can be difficult to understand for people who aren’t trans. I don’t want to belittle your experiences, say they’re not valid, or anything like that.

By the way, I don’t appreciate calling gender affirmation a fetish, that really rubs me the wrong way.

something i have to remind myself is that the average person kinda sucks and most people often have bad takes, and that's true for small minority groups. and obvi, the smaller the group, the smaller the sample size ppl meet. gender is also like a weird thing, since it's intertwined with physical and social difference, and we're living in a moment where i think both corporate and political interests are vested in amplifying what differences there are for their own gain. and, i think a lot of ppl early on in transition just don't understand how to navigates themselves and the world, but idk

so, just to help you diversify the pool of women you know that are trans--i've got winter leg hair, and a whole lot of angst about how profoundly diluted a lot of feminist discourse is in america right now, even in academic circles lol

The word in trans communities for this is "ew-phoria". Calling it a fetish is also kind of... Not great. Fetishes are tied into sexual gratification and gender euphoria /dysphoria is an independent mechanism that ties more closely with identity. It doesn't make trans people horny and the idea that that's what is what is happening is used often to trivialize trans experiences.

Think of the typical nature of being cis as (mostly) ascribing no value to sexually dimorphic physical features. Like you can have feelings about whether those things are attractive and the validation you receive for meeting a social standard but that's an external reinforcement system working its way inward.

Being trans is the opposite. Every sexual characteristic is not value neutral. Perceiving sex characteristics in relation to yourself either makes you feel amazing like someone has shot dopamine directly into your soul or bad like you are not actually a human. All forms of perception of these characteristics causes this effect and it is automatic and instant. Logically even if you believe these things should be valueless, obtainable by all genders if you have this feedback system you don't get to decide on how or what these things make you feel or in what proportion. The source of the feedback is entirely internal which is why it is often is at complete odds with external systems of validation and if you tried to logically explain it or lessen these feelings with logic you often just can't. The heart doesn't only want what the heart wants the heart has a shock collar on you.

In the case of facial hair particularly because it's not something you have to experience with your eyes to know it's there touch is fundamentally important. Remember dysphoria is more than being strictly about being perceived by others it is about being perceived by yourself. Other people looking at you and using your pronouns is just another way of perception of yourself. Like other people performing the job of being a mirror. Experiencing your own body however is in things like how you move, what bits of your body bump into things, your height, your weight distribution. Imagine if everytime you touch your face the slight scratch of the existence of thicker hair caused your neurological system to fire depression meds directly into your system. That's what's happening. Touch perception.

Sometimes this internal reward systems finds things about a social portion of experience that people that sucks really bad but because it equates to other people reacting to your body's sexually dimorphic characteristics when it happens to them it hits the same feel good button of other positive external recognition by a third party of having those sex characteristics.

So even while you experience the massive illogical dopamine hit from the internal reward system you can recognize logically at the same time that the phenomenon causing the reaction is a societal problem that is bad and should not exist.

Hence Ew-phoria.