: Re: How to portray a character with gender dysphoria? Context In my fantasy novel-in-progress, one of the two main characters has a close friend he's known since childhood. Both of them are greatly

@Ravi5107385

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Firstly, have the right reasons for writing this story. (This paragraph won't speak to the one scene you're stuck on, but it's worth fleshing out a point here.) If you realise you don't, that's fine; you can write something else (and by that, I could mean a different story that still features such a character). There are excellent reasons for including a trans character in a story; even today fiction doesn't do enough to represent trans people, and especially trans males. But there are also bad ones, such as using their being unusual either as a source of humour (in this respect Mrs Doubtfire, which at the time was a vital commentary on divorce, hasn't aged well), or even if horror. For some reason society thinks "they're mentally ill" is enough reason for someone to be a serial killer, even if it means inventing an illness or lying about how one works. And while gender dysphoria is a valid modern term for a certain constellation of problems trans people can face (but it's not synonymous with being transgender), a story's usage of a GD character will err if this is used to amuse or scare us instead of to humanise the character to the point of sympathy. It sounds like you're not making that kind of mistake in the scene you describe, but bear it in mind elsewhere.
Secondly, since your story's setting is modelled on a very specific time and place, it's important to research it well. Look into what people said at the time, and whether private actions reveal something different. (To take a different but not entirely unrelated example, Victorians enjoyed sex a lot more and in more variety than they publicly acknowledged.) And if you can find what trans people at the time said about their own experiences, so much the better. Similarly, if you can find other real events that closely mirror what you want to write about, e.g. a child facing transphobia from family, learn about those too. At this point you don't necessarily even know what form the event would take, let alone how it would feel.
Lastly, have an eye to the effect on the story as a whole. Your scene won't be hermetically sealed. This isn't just about making the portrayal more respectful; it speaks to issues writers always face such as characterisation consistency, character development, making twists surprising on a first reading but obviously hinted at on a second, how other characters are affected, and so on. I realise the trans male isn't the main focus of the story, but having such a friend will inform an MC's trajectory ever so slightly. I know I'm a slightly different person for having had the eye-opening experiences I've had with many kinds of diversity, including trans people.

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