Yeah learning that a lot of dysphoria symptoms are, in fact, not commonly experienced by most people was quite the revelation to me.

I’m sure it’s sufficient for two players, but I don’t know how the game rearranges the interface with four. It might be a little crowded.

I can confirm that Barony is a fun couch coop experience for two on a steam deck, so long as you are prepared to die and have to start over a lot. It might be tricky with four players, as there is a lot of inventory menuing. You might need a really large screen.

OP I hope this is what you needed to hear. I spent a long time convincing myself that I must be cis, despite that pretending at manhood was making me miserable. It’s a long road to accepting that you’re “trans enough”, whatever that means to you.

I reacted to what I now recognize as dysphoria with avoidance for most of my life. A lot of others have recounted similar symptoms - disliking the way I look in pictures, hating shaving, and generalized depression that I unconsciously avoided addressing. I was never invested in conventionally masculine interests as a child. I got way into video games, which I now recognize gave me a way to roleplay female identities through feminine avatars without directly addressing the source of my discomfort in meat space. Unfortunately, my body trended masculine as I aged - thick beard, taller than average, prominent facial features, etc.

I leaned in during my twenties and got into strength sports as a defense mechanism, because I was afraid of being seen as a target to cis men. This actually helped, as I became friends with several very strong cis women who helped me to decouple “physical prowess = masculine, frailty = feminine” in my mind. I recognize now that I had several misogynistic ideas imprinted from my childhood that I had to unlearn.

As a result of all this, I am now visually very masculine presenting. I am tall, have a large beard, and am visibly muscular. I sometimes view my body as something other than myself, like a trusted bodyguard rather than my own form. This is probably not healthy, but it is better than my earlier state of generalized nonspecific depression.

I’ve been making an effort to be visibly queer at work in attempt to make something positive of what I’ve done with my body. I wear skirts and dresses, use they/them pronouns, and introduce myself as nonbinary. My goal is to “tank” negative attention away from other GNC folks and normalize free expression in the workplace, which I am primed to do both as someone who has accumulated some prestige and power and as someone whose physicality tends to illicit deference in others. Paradoxically, I feel that presenting as a “muscular dude in a dress” is received more positively than if I were to attempt to pass as a cis woman, although that is speculation on my part.

I dunno how sustainable this posture is, as I often find myself envious of trans women who are brave enough to abandon masculinity all together. However, I am still afraid of losing the protection and privilege that comes from walking around in a physically intimidating body.

This description matches my experience closely. I haven’t started HRT for several reasons, but I am curious to know whether it would address the depression that has been the background radiation of my adulthood.

Why would you hurt me like this?

I played a Druid a few years back whose magical focus was narrowly on stone and earth. The idea was her culture (from which she had been exiled years prior for failing to fulfill some of her clerical responsibilities) considered the world to be a huge grave, and her role in said society was to interact with and advocate for the decomposed and petrified remains of the long dead. So she considered herself something of a necromancer, just for the dead that are so far gone as to become the landscape. 5e isn’t built to support this interpretation of the Druid class, but we managed it with some minor reflavoring and homebrewing. It was a fun concept but her beliefs and goals ended up becoming too at odds with the rest of the party, so I retired her to avoid friction.

Boring boomer humor.

Unfortunately for you, you are not the authority on what is and isn’t a slur.

It has been used as a “term of contempt towards women” for “over six centuries”, and is a slur that fosters sexism against women. It has been characterized as “an archaic word demeaning women since as early as the 15th century” that seeks to control women.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitch_(slang)

It’s always disappointing to see people who think themselves reasonable delighting in the usage of slurs when given the opportunity to tear down someone they perceive as disliked by their community. It is much more damning to them than the object of their ire.

Greene is a symptom of the cancer metastasized on our civilization, but deploying gendered slurs against her is counterproductive and pitiful.

You’re gonna need to find a new fascist dog whistle.

I will never understand how the cruise industry still exists. I cannot fathom the appeal, nor how the companies survived Covid.

Extreme wealth and a love of authoritarianism, name a more iconic duo.

Why do people always focus on women’s appearances when discussing topics wholly unrelated to appearance?

Because misogyny is pervasive in culture and when most people perceive a woman as “bad”, it suddenly feels ok for them to reduce her to her appearance. Most folks are not nearly as enlightened as they like to think.

For real. Each sentence made me want to throw up in my mouth. This misogyny combined with wealth worship and zero-sum outlook on life is an unforgivable character flaw. What a vapid, worthless existence.

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