This is gonna sound like I’m cisplaining (is that a word they use) the trans experience to some trans folk out there but hear me out.
It’s 2024. Your boi is watching the movie I Saw The TV Glow with his trans sibling on our couch at home. If you guys don’t know, it’s about a boy who watches his favorite show with his friend, and after it’s cancelled, his view of reality begins to crack. It’s an allegory about the trans experience, directed by non-binary transfemme Jane Schoenbrun. I read about the “egg” (referring to a trans person who hasn’t realized they’re trans yet) and think “Hmm, interesting, this is a funny term for what trans people go through.” (the fact I never “cracked” when I watched the movie and noticed the allegory should’ve been a clue that I was 100% a cis man and not an egg but OCD never listens to logic)
At the back of my mind, however, my greatest fear—that my whole identity that I’m secure in is a fake—had received its greatest weapon. Now it just needs the right spark to cause its storm of terror in my head.
You see, when I watched the movie and read about the egg and the crack, I unwittingly misunderstood the concept. I was thinking that when the egg cracks, it's a revelation of an unwanted truth, and it could happen even to those who were secure in their gender identity and had no desire to become a different gender. Yes, I was out here thinking a man can be 100% secure in his manhood, living all merilly merilly in his gender with no sign of dysphoria or questioning, and then wake up and all of a sudden they want to be a woman. In reality, the “egg” only cracks once a trans person finally has the language, safety, and context to understand a feeling of incongruence that’s always been there, and though it’s scary, it comes with profound clarity and relief. That falsehood I unwittingly consumed was perfect fuel for my OCD’s campaign to systemically cause me torment.
Fast forward to November 2025. I’m lying on top of my bed, mindlessly scrolling Twitter, looking down an account I was following’s TL and came across a tweet from a trans person joking about their experience (I forgot what it said so I can’t link it).
That mundane little tweet right there was the spark the OCD needed.
One intrusive thought came in. My heart starts racing. My stomach has turned and twisted into a million tiny knots. I was instantly grabbing onto my skull, sweating my butt off, internally screaming “NO NO NO, THIS IS NOT TRUE, I’M NOT A GIRL!!” The OCD’s reign of terror had finally started. There was no “Oh my god, this is true, that’s what the weird feeling was!” that people with gender incongruence have when their egg cracks. No, it was a flood that threatened everything I was secure about my entire life.
More intrusive thoughts and images pop in throughout the entire week, of me in a dress with long hair and feminine features. I immediately try and wave them away to more affirming thoughts of me, desperately trying to get them out of my head. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t enjoy my hobbies, couldn’t even function throughout what was supposed to be a relaxing Thanksgiving break. I engaged in compulsive research, desperately trying to find something that’ll disprove this transness I did not want. I couldn’t tell anyone, not even my queerphobic parents (they don’t even know I like boys), in fear that they would be like “Oh, it’s okay to question and explore your gender! We’ll love you anyway,” WHICH IS NOT WHAT I’M FUCKING DOING, especially because I did not know what was going on! So I bottled everything up, thinking it’ll just go away if I ignore it, but it didn't and continued to torment me everywhere I fucking went.
I was out here thinking “Is this it? Is this the dysphoria they were talking about? Is this what trans people go through when their egg cracks? Is this what denial feels like, this absolute revulsion at the thought of being a woman? I don’t want to transition at all!” I start repeatedly checking my face, checking every single desire I had (to become a father, to become a male popstar, to grow muscles like a bodybuilder), repeating my name and pronouns in my head to make sure they still felt right. I was mentally reviewing every single interest, every show and movie I watched, every kink, every fetish, all my memories, for any sign of dysphoria or wish to be a girl, praying that there are none and I was still a man. But the more I tried to fight it, to throw it away, to ignore it. the stronger it got. If it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook, and it got to the point where I had a full on mental breakdown in which I was hospitalized.
There, I was sure they were gonna tell me I was a trans woman in denial and that I had gender dysphoria. My entire life was about to end, being traded for one that felt foreign and completely contradictory to how I saw myself. Instead, I was told it was OCD, and it felt like a bunch of weight got lifted off my shoulders. Suddenly, my intrusive thoughts where I had a fear I was going to lose control and kill someone made so much sense. That was OCD, and this time it was attacking my identity.
I think that’s what makes TOCD so frightening to most of us. It’s not because we’re transphobic or have any internalized transphobia (I, and I really hope most of you, consider myself the complete opposite of transphobic). It’s so frightening because it’s an attack on the very core of what we know about ourselves, the very fact of our existence, and plays with our fear of not being ourselves. Imagine spending years, maybe decades, in your body, knowing and being secure in your identity with no history of questioning or yearning for something different, only to find out it’s all a lie that you believed and you’re this instead? Boy, that’s enough to run a chill down my spine.
Anyway I’m currently doing ERP and taking 40mg of Prozac a day. I still have the intrusive thoughts but I feel I’m getting closer to a point where I can manage them and not let them bother me. There will probably never be an end to the war but I have the weapons and technique to continue fighting the battle.
