Moving away from Dysphoric Centric Model

When trans people speak about their experiences, they often talk about apathy, disdain or discomfort towards their own appearance, body parts, manners and how they are socially perceived by society by their given name, gendered words and norms. And it's pretty understandable, patriarchal society is very hostile to us; we are largely defined by our oppression. But many trans people realised that "being dysphoric" described them with little accuracy. So the idea of "you don't need dysphoria" became popular, much to the ire of a lot of cis people and a certain subset of trans people.
So why trans people are saying this? If suffering and alienation regarding gender is so center to a lot of trans people, how can it be true? So we will have a discussion over this right now, largely reflecting on my own experiences. Of course, this also means you got a content warning about dysphoria and heavy feelings.

1. Dysphoria

What is really dysphoria? Well let's pull out my check list: "Do you hate your own body", "Did you feel like your body don't belong to you", "Do depression hits every time you look at mirror?", "Do you hate your clothes 24/7 and tried the opposite gender clothes?" If you feel this you are trans, if you are not you are not trans, sorry hon... would tell the mainstream narrative about transness. Yeah but...
Gender is not that simple.
Certainly no one who knows they are talking about would deny the existence of dysphoria. Our problem is it's too narrowly defined, in reality, trans feelings are very complex. Dysphoria is a beast that has multiple dimensions

• Where is the dysphoria directed at? Body parts, presentation, perception by other people, gender-coded behaviour, memories regarding such things or a combination of these aspects? Trans people are often accused of enabling gender stereotypes but actually the sources of dysphoria is highly personalized and unique. I don't really hate my penis, nor have too much problem with my flat chest or lack of hips. I actually enjoy being tall too. But I really detest my body hair, it's one of the things that can really make me sour my mood and despair. I am averse to anything overly masculine coded and it's draining to not being able to dress like I want.
• How dysphoria changes you? Hatred towards yourself, depression, insecurity, reclusiveness, intrusive thoughts, sorrow? Or you are disillusioned from yourself, feeling apathy and a lack of identity, or a constant state of self-doubt? Apathy is an understated aspect of dysphoria. Often trans people are simply too tired or repressed to care. This is one of more difficult things to pinpoint about yourself because it's centered around lack of something. My feelings are usually much closer to this, such as so it took me a really look time to find out my transness.  For example I actually feel disillusioned from my body hair, I can't even bring myself to shave. I truly don't care about what I wear. I don't even like to taking showers often, any effort towards my body feels vain, occasionally I wish my body just wasn't there. But it took me so, so long to they are all related to gender.
• The scale of dysphoria. Do you feel okay outside of engaging in certain activity or seeing certain imagery (pictures or mirror), do thinking about it makes you feel sad, hollow? Or you burst to the tears , feel half-dead, suicidal even? I am more on the luckier side, if I can find busy enough, not much thoughts come to my mind. When I think about being a girl, usually good feelings usher in. However, sometimes looking at mirror looks really painful, seeing other trans girls transitioning or even a girl wearing cute clothes occasionally feels with me jealousy, sometimes I really, really want to feel like a girl but then think about myself and despair. Oddly enough, these feelings came to surface when I found out I wanted to become a girl. Most of my self-doubt stems from this, I often think I don't suffer enough to be truly trans, if not for a very helpful community, I think I would never found out being trans or brave enough to admit my feelings.

2. Do you need to have dysphoria to be trans

People who insist on dysphoria as a requirement of being trans never seem to answer one question: How we can figure out dysphoria exactly? They never seem to propose a coherent model that is inclusive to complex feelings, yet they insist on clinging on a narrow stereotype of a trans person and see themselves fit to interrogate everyone whether they are actually trans and supportive of a medical authority that gets to decide who is and isn't trans? But again, how?
How someone can be expected to be able to find out whether someone else is dysphoric or not let alone being alone to discover themselves in a society that constantly presents binary heteronormative behavior and appearance as the ideal, makes people repress themselves so hard their true selves gets hidden away even from themselves, tries its hardest to make sure that you think your feelings is a phrase or something to get rid of and put you into a constant state of self-doubt, make trans people invisible so that you cannot find a role model for yourself and defines transness in a constant state of agony and misery, tries to straighten out your identity that is already getting crushed under capitalist alienation?
You can't! Dysphoria is unquantifiable, messy, complex, damning to even think about, easily masquerades as something else, often mixed up with one's other mental problems. You will end up hurting many people who has dysphoria, everyone whose feelings isn't obvious by a mile, everyone who is not a master of their own emotions, people with unusual trans experiences. It asserts that being trans itself something to fix, rather than dysphoria is something people have because they can't truly live as someone they want. This is the first sin of dysphoria centrism
Of course, dysphoria-model is just excludes non-binary people wholesale even though many non-binary people feel dysphoria, after all you must be in pain for the *ahem* opposite gender right, if you hate long hair and your breasts you must want to be a man. This is the second sin of dysphoria-centrism. It equates gender dysphoria with gender euphoria, feeling good about in a gender that is not assigned at birth. Trans feeling must be a pipeline; you give body hair, deep voice, penis in and get breasts, thin voice and vagina out or vice-versa. Any variation doesn't exist and should not exist, otherwise they could not pretend everything is simple and dysphoria is just an easy puzzle.
The third sin of making dysphoria a requirement for a valid trans identity is a common  logical mistake. "If you have dysphoria you are trans" and "If you are trans you have dysphoria" are not same truth value. Logical equivalent of the first statement is "If you are not trans, you don't have (gender) dysphoria" being trans just means being a different gender what you are assigned at birth, it doesn't in itself imply dysphoria as a requirement. I myself "didn't have" dysphoria until I discover I was a trans, yet I am 100% trans, I am sure about myself more than I was ever sure in my life.
So it's clear that using dysphoria as an indicator to trans feelings cannot be effective in a large-scale. Then our question should be this: Do one needs dysphoria to figure out themselves being trans? After all figuring out you are trans and being trans is really the same thing, trans is not really something you do but something you are.

3. Gender euphoria

Thankfully, the answer is no, because we have a much better feeling to help people guide in their discovery. It's positive so it sticks in the mind more sharply and provides something to aspire to rather than despair. You now the feeling fellow trans feelings. It's when you feel good about being in the gender you desire!
This is actually harder to relate for cis people than having negative feelings about yourself. If you eat food regularly, you won't feel starvation. But someone who was hungry for a long time feels very differently when they can finally obtain food. It's really a feeling of finding something dear back, filling up something hollow. Except, this is about your own identity, so much that trans people sometimes can feel like an entirely new person!
Gender euphoria is usually associated with trans people who are actively being transitioning. Many express hormone therapy often gives this feeling almost immediately, or when their voice comes into a certain level. But that's not the only way gender euphoria manifests, it can also exist pre-transition, even in brief moments. It comes in many forms including but not limited to:

• Perception: I sometimes feel really good when people call me with my name, with feminine-coded words or even just "she".
• Changing appearance: There is a reason why trans people post pictures so much. They feel good amount themselves. Trans people often have that moment in their childhood where they tried the clothes that is typical to the gender they actually are and feeling just right about it. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a chance to experience this, but even sometimes by just imagining it, i feel really good.
• Connection to fictional characters: When I can choose the gender of the player in video game, I almost always choose female. Normally that doesn't indicate anything about transness but I always immersed in the game much better when I did. The best example would be my Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim play through, where not only I played as a woman but actively role played as a mother, my heart was tingled every time my daughter in-game called me "mother" or I heard being called "lady" or "she" from various people.
• Various fantasies: Some people try to discredit transness as just a fetish but even when there are sexual aspects it's essentially a way to trans people try to find themselves. I day dreamed about a certain girl since I was 5, I imagined stories and adventures from her in my head, she was quite close to me personality wise just a tad bit idealized maybe, she was the really the person I wanted to be and when I discovered my transness, I no longer imagined her as a distinct person but merely myself and it felt, again just correct. A lot of trans people fiction enjoy gender-bending or cross-dressing too. For example, being intimate with my girlfriend, sexual ways included, is one of the most validating things to me regarding gender identity.

One peculiar thing about euphoria is that it's not a very distinct or separate feeling from dysphoria, in fact their sources are usually the same and a lot of trans people just switch to one to another, with being later in transition experiencing dysphoria less and less. But I always felt in more certainty than my dysphoria, I didn't "hate" my body for the most part but I always felt and still do a strong desire and validation for being a woman, living like a woman and being seen as a woman. The thing that helped my discovery the most that "I could indeed be a girl if I wanted to", not searching for whether I hate myself enough to qualify as trans. Even for trans people whose experiences that fit traditional narrative, the signs of potential euphoria is much stronger.
Looking at euphoria is better for non binary experiences too, because trans people often always think hating your masculine body would necessarily mean they must be a woman but that's not the always the case. Some people just don't fit into binary but a name like "genderfluid" or an unusual pronoun might feel the best.
Obviously, when people talk about euphoria side of transness, it reflects trans experience as a positive thing. While a lot of things related to being trans is quite bad, most trans people just wish they were cis, but it's mostly just the oppressive society or exterior things that can be changed, again made more difficult by the oppresive society. But despite everything else, I can easily say finding my true self was one of the best things that happened to me and I wouldn't exchange this to the situation I had in 2016. Showing the positive side of transness really helps potential trans people to find themselves.
Emphasizing euphoria is important because many trans people think those feelings are trivial, just a phase, fantasy, fetish, they think it's something everyone else has or they don't know what it means because of lack of knowledge. I didn't think day dreaming about literally same fictional girl every day for two decades was shared by everyone but I saw no reason to share it with anyone, I didn't think it was just same as my other daydreaming sessions.

4. You don't need dysphoria to be trans

Now, one thing I don't want you to think that I am in any way trivialize dysphoria. Oh definitely not, it is a very important experience for a lot of trans people, I certainly know the total despair and worthlessness it brings. But centering it as sole true trans experience is harmful and wrong. Euphoria and dysphoria are equally important to trans experience, felt differently among different trans people, after all each trans person has a unique journey. This is why my desire is not really making anything to center, we don't need a single narrative that covers every trans person, individuals will make their discovery in their own way.
There is something interesting I have to add: I have actually never seen a trans person without any dysphoria. Every trans person I know has some kind of problem about themselves, even something relatively miniscule as changing some clothes or calling themselves with different pronouns. I don't know whether it's even possible to not have dysphoria as a trans person in our gender-obssessed world. But it doesn't matter at all. If someone says "I don't have dysphoria but I wish I was as X", I will definitely respect that, trans people including myself said the same sentence despite finding out having dysphoria in the end.
So when we say "You don't need dysphoria to be trans" we fully mean "Trans experience is greater than just having dysphoria, euphoria is just as important to transness and is often a better sign of transness and no one should be interested in interrogating someone else's bad and confusing experiences doesn't help questioning people, so dysphoria should be abandoned to determine whether someone is trans, as it's harmful and unneccessary.". We really don't care about the theoretical existence of a trans person completely devoid of dysphoria.
It's quite irrational to getting alarmist about someone just pretending to be trans, not only being trans really doesn't gain them any favors in people's eyes, but pains and problems of people who feels dysphoria but has unusual experiences are thrown away for a mythical problem. There is no dangerous pretender waiting into corner to harm me, but the gatekeeping system is really harmful.

5. So then...

Someone might ask here: "Do you need euphoria to be trans?". No, you don't. Our purpose is eliminating obstacles to keep people discovering themselves, not to add others. While it's usually more certain, people can also be equally confused in their euphoria too, remember trans people often have other mental problems haunting them, making them even less sure of anything.
The only thing to be required to be trans is, calling yourself as a gender different what you are assigned at birth. And if you can feel good about that, congrats, that's some gender euphoria for you! But you don't need to have a certain x feeling to be trans, you don't need to desire certain things, present in certain way, want to get hormone therapy or surgery. Your transness is still 100% valid and beautiful.