How to properly offer support to someone experiencing gender dysphoria, a thread:

I've noticed that people who don't partake in the trans community will often not understand how to properly comfort someone experiencing gender dysphoria, so they'll try to help, but end up not helping or maybe even saying the wrong thing.

So this thread will be a guide on how you can best support the trans and nonbinary people in your life when they're feeling dysphoric.

Sidenote: Remember that not all trans people experience dysphoria, and everyone who does experiences it differently and will have different ways they deal with it. These are just the most common methods I've seen in my experience.

With that out of the way, lets get into it

First of all, its most important to validate their experience and their gender identity, and to avoid gaslighting or otherwise making them feel dumb for having the feelings they have. Its hard to explain this, so here are some examples:

Do not say "Hey dude you're more handsome than me, you have nothing to be sad about." This is gaslighting and will probably make them feel worse.

Instead say "Hey you're a really handsome dude, and you will achieve your goals eventually."

Do not say "Hey don't feel bad, plenty of girls have body hair." Most trans people already know this, so this doesn't help.

Instead say "Hey you're a really pretty girl, and you'll get your body hair off in time."

To summarize, you don't want to try and convince a trans person that they have nothing to be dysphoric about, or that they should just be happy in their own body. That doesn't help at all. And if you don't know the best way to validate someone's gender identity, then ask them!

Next, if validating them directly doesn't work, you might want to try suggesting a distraction. Ask if they want to play a game, watch a tv show, or get something to eat. Generally, the more focus the activity requires, the better.

For example: "Hey I saw you were feeling dysphoric, wanna play a bit of Among Us as a distraction?" or "Wanna bingewatch Avatar: The Last Airbender again?"

And, if it's really bad, try to ask them to talk to a therapist or a doctor if they have one. Dysphoria is a tough beast to fight, and only medical professionals can offer long-term solutions such as counseling, HRT, permanent hair removal, or surgeries.

Now it's important to note that not all trans people will have access to these professional methods, and not all of them might *want* these methods. Everyone's experiences differ. Just be sure to encourage them to do what's best for them.

Finally, one of the best ways you can help is to just ask them how you can help! All trans people are different and we all have different ways we like to be comforted. Some of us just like to be left alone to chill, others might want to hang out, and it's all valid.

That's it for this thread.

And again, this thread only covers the most common methods that I've seen in my experiences, but there's so many other ways to help that are specific to each person.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you learned something. Be sure to give me a follow if you want to see more tweets about trans stuff, and always remember: trans rights!