๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท 
โข
@TwippingVanilla Stages of Transfem transition:
- I wish I was a woman.
- I think Iโm a woman?
- I know Iโm a woman.
- I believe that Iโm a woman!
- I feel like a woman!
I think I finally hit stage 5 in the last few months. Internal doubts I didnโt know I still had have been silenced.
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla I donโt feel scared of womenโs bathrooms any more. I worry about my voice causing a false impression, but I donโt feel like Iโm going to โget caughtโ any more.
Iโve started to take it for granted that people will see me as female, even on days when my dysmorphia is bad.
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla I think this is why my bisexuality has become so large and in-charge in the last quarter. There is no part of me that thinks of myself as male any more, and that has freed me from internalized androphiliaphobia.
Iโm free from all the brainwashing of my youth.
Stargazer Lilly 
@Lillinator13 @TwippingVanilla iโm firmly entrenched in stage 6 - iโve forgotten what it was like before transition.
Azalea Jane @azalea__jane @TwippingVanilla Interesting that believe comes after know for you. For me, knowledge is more confident than belief. I feel like I've recently moved from believing I'm a woman (possible) to knowing it (certain). Can you explain your distinction?
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla @tangopianista Know = Thought
Believe = Emotion
You can cognitively know something without believing it emotionally, because emotion happens below cognition, and happens faster than thought. My therapist hammers this home over and over again.
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla @tangopianista Emotional reaction happens instinctively, based on your core values and principles, which build over time and are not easilly wavered.
For example, my mother knows I am a woman, because my word and all the evidence in front of her says I am a woman. But she doesnโt believe it.
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla @tangopianista Belief also plays a huge part in why people who you have been out to for a long time will still misgender you.
Azalea Jane @azalea__jane @TwippingVanilla I see! Yes, I often make that distinction too: I will intellectually know something and yet feel differently. Usually having to do with emotional insecurities.
Azalea Jane @azalea__jane @TwippingVanilla In this case, my "knowledge" includes an intuitive and integrated body knowledge. For me that is more of a certain and complete knowledge than belief, which to me implies uncertainty. I see knowledge as a subset of belief.
These words are hard to nail down sometimes!
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla @tangopianista The thing that led me to write it like this was from my experiences in EMDR. The goal is always to replace a negative cognition about yourself caused by the memory with a positive one. At the end of processing a memory she asks me to rank 1-7 how well I believe the positive cog.
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla @tangopianista And I will sit there and logically know that the cognition is true, that the meaning of the memory is what we say it is, but deep down I cannot accept it because I donโt believe it. So then we go back into EMDR to retrain my subconcious.
๐๐ธ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ต๐๐ท โข @TwippingVanilla @tangopianista EMDR is pretty neat shit, itโs like a shortcut around all the brainโs self defense barriers.