Chris C., 26, is nonbinary and transmasculine (a word that describes someone whose gender identity is partially or fully masculine and is different from the one they were assigned at birth). Chris was raised as a girl and started transitioning to becoming more masculine in their early twenties. Five years on, one thing in particular they feel is holding them back from being perceived and respected as masculine is their height.

“I want to present myself in the way that feels most authentic — how I envision myself — but as much as I try, society is still going to look at me a certain way. That feels super invalidating,” says Chris, an international business developer based in the Bay Area, who is 5'3". “There's just kind of the feeling that I'm never going to be perceived in the way I'm wanting to present myself.”

While they’ve taken other steps to present as more masculine, such as choosing certain clothes, hairstyle, and body language, as well as undergoing top surgery, their height feels like a factor they can’t do anything about. That being said, when they saw an article about leg-lengthening surgery (defined by Mount Sinai as a corrective surgery for various conditions), they considered it, even considering how extreme that would be.

“I don't feel like short masculine people receive the full respect they might have if they were five inches taller. That lack of respect feels solely based on height,” Chris says.

Chris is describing the feeling of “height dysphoria,” a term that has been defined by researchers as a psychological burden caused by dissatisfaction with one's height.

What Is Height Dysphoria?

“Height dysphoria is a sense that your height is wrong, that there's a sense that you are too tall or too short,” says Alo Johnston, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles and the author of Am I Trans Enough? How to Overcome Your Doubts and Find Your Authentic Self.

For transgender people, this can relate directly to society’s gender-specific height expectations. “Trans women and transfeminine people [may] have the sense that if they were cis[gender] they would most likely be shorter, and trans men and transmasculine people [may] have the sense that if they were cis they would most likely be taller,” Johnston says.

It’s one type of gender dysphoria, which is psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

Chest dysphoria, voice dysphoria, and bottom dysphoria (relating to genitals), as well as others, are other types of gender dysphoria that can affect transgender people. It happens when parts of someone’s body feel to that individual misaligned with society’s perception of how they should look.

Hormone therapy and gender affirming surgeries can alleviate these types of gender dysphoria, but for most people, height is a trait that can’t be changed.

If someone meets certain criteria, gender dysphoria is considered a clinical mental health condition, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, 5th ed. (DSM-5), the standard classification system used to diagnose mental disorders.

How Feelings About Height Affect Trans People (or Those Considering Transitioning)

Eli Lawliet, PhD, is a gender doula in the Bay Area who coaches people through their gender explorations and transitions. Previously he researched transgender people’s access to healthcare at UCLA and UC Berkeley.

He says about the individuals he coaches: “Height will almost always come up as part of the conversation, unless they’re in a neutral range.”

Research suggests that bottom dysphoria and chest dysphoria tend to be more significant drivers of gender dysphoria among transgender people than height; but the data bears out that height still led to moderate distress levels.

For Colette Weekley, a 34-year-old operations manager based in Birmingham, Alabama, being a woman who is 6'2" isn’t an issue, but whether people around her perceive her tallness as feminine or not is one. “I actually really liked my height,” Weekley says. “But I was really concerned as to how it would read to other people.”

Her height even delayed her from beginning her transition for years. Eventually Weekley got to a point where she realized that her worries about how others would perceive her as a tall woman affirmed that she was a woman.

“I really convinced myself that the height thing alone might be enough to make the idea of transitioning not work,” Weekley says. “I'm very grateful that I was wrong about that.”

3 Tips for Coping With Height Dysphoria

Since leg-lengthening and leg-shortening surgeries are risky and expensive, almost all transgender people will need to find nonphysical solutions to treat their height dysphoria, and there are multiple ways tactics that can help.

1. Go ‘Grocery Store People Watching’

For those struggling with height dysphoria, Dr. Lawliet recommends an exercise he calls “grocery store people watching.” The client goes to a public place where people are going about their everyday routines (not necessarily a setting like a night club, where people might be more dressed up). Observe the diversity of bodies without judgment and start to see how much more variety there is in real life than what we consume in the media, he says.

“You notice, ‘Oh, like there are actually a lot of men who are short and there are actually a lot of women who are tall. And there are men who have ample hips and chests. And there are women who are very straight up and down,” he explains. “We can hyperfixate on the things about our body that we feel make us stand out. But when you actually look at the realm of possibility of the human body, there's much more crossover than we think of in our brains.”

He says just taking in the reality of body diversity instead of trying to live up to averages or ideals can help reprogram the brain.

2. Talk to a Professional

Chris and Weekley both say they sought out help from therapists through their transitions who helped to address their dysphoria about their heights, among other issues.

The National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network and the Open Path Psychotherapy Collective’s directory are a couple places to start. Be wary of anyone offering conversion therapy, which is an unethical and ineffective program designed to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

3. Find Trans Community

Besides talking about it with a professional one-on-one, talking with others experiencing the same thing can be very affirming and useful. Peer support groups can provide validation and a sense of shared experience for those with gender dysphoria, according to the APA.

Height Dysphoria: How Height Impacts Transgender People’s Confidence and Transitions