When I was a teen, I set out to search the web to find a name for the condition that I had…

I knew that there must be a neat little word to describe how I felt so squeamish… when I thought of ….. (ich *gagging*) ~butterflies~

That’s right. I must be the only trans* person, who’s afraid of the dang things!! And of course, if you’re wondering, yes, I did scour the web when I was a teen to find the word ‘trans’ to describe my experience, but that’s beside the point.

Butterflies have ALWAYS freaked me out. And I’m not talking about just a little shudder here and there… no – I’m talking about the blood-curdling-screaming-to-the-point-of-losing-your-voice-and-going-into-fetal-position-and-requiring-your-younger-sibling-to-resue-you-by-closing-that-browser-tab-you-innocently-opened-trying-to-find-the-name-for-your-phobia-but-Google-still-doesn’t-seem-to-get-it-that-people-might-NOT-want-to-see-pictures-of-the-thing-that-they’re-afraid-of-when-they’re-searching-for-the-phobia-of-the-thing kind of fear. When people say that they are ‘arachnophobic’, in my mind, they just mean that they’d rather not encounter the beasts when they’re taking a shower. And as someone with a pet tarantula, frankly, I’d rather not encounter my pet when I’m in the shower either, honey.

See, that’s why I know this is a phobia. If a phobia is truly an irrational fear, then it’s not exactly irrational to be afraid of something venomous that could getcha! 😛 But a colorful (I’m starting to sweat), winged (eeeeek), fluttering (YUCK) creature that seems to be the mascot of the trans community? Would a fear of that be irrational?! Yes. And could anyone be afraid of them?!? Yes. Yes, they could. This ‘they’, in fact.

So, case in point: I still don’t know the name of ‘the-phobia-of-butterflies’ because Google is STILL dumb.