#cognitive cissonance

I have a hard time relating to people who don't understand gender dysmorphia, partly because it demonstrates a spectacular failure of empathy and imagination, but also because I have a very vivid memory of recognizing that I was cis (although I would have lacked the vocabulary to discuss it).

When I was 6 or 7, my friends and I were really into the Dukes of Hazzard, so we decided to play a pretend game. The girl whose house we were at claimed Daisy, and just like that all the girl characters were taken. She'd represent the good guys, so I had to be Roscoe P. Coltrane. I decided I didn't want to play.

It wasn't because the sheriff was a dummy, it was because I felt deeply uncomfortable pretending to be a boy, and even felt specifically embarrassed and awkward that people would be thinking of me as a person with a penis. (Although, really, that particular piece of information about the character would probably never cross my friend's mind, it weighed heavily on mine.)

It's a superficial example, but I can still feel the extreme discomfort of that moment and recognize it as a rare moment when I, as a cis person, actually actively considered my identity relative to gender and felt consciously committed to the ID I was given at birth.

Surely other cis people have had that experience to greater or lesser degree, whether they've acknowledged it or not. How is it so difficult to conceive that someone might have an epiphany along those lines but with an opposite or just different conclusion?

Omg anon, you are flawless and I love you

Cisgusting