Month: March 2018

surprising non-surprise, or not

So I’ve had a lot of comings out lately. What I have not had, is anyone expressing surprise. I don’t know why. Of course I would want it to mean I already always was so feminine or so genderqueer that it really was no surprise. I did try to prepare the path so as to achieve that, also. But more likely is perhaps that people simply don’t care much in the circles I move? Or that they are too polite to be surprised. I don’t know and I am curious. Have I come out to you as trans? Were you surprised, or was this entirely in keeping with what you knew of me? Let me know if you want.

drugs

Mishaps with meds proceeded but solved for now, kind friend lended me some hormones, trying a patch now for the estradiol. Feels fine. When back in my host country next week I can have my prescription expedited again.

Sort of thinking I should eventually look into progesterone treatment as well. Something to ask next endo about?

emo

I keep hoping my HRT will make me more emotionally alive, as some have reported. It may or may not be something that comes later. So far, since starting it, baseline volatility is if anything lower, and absolute amplitude may not be significantly different. However, it may be possible (trending significance) that my ability to shut down emotions on the mid-level time scale is lessening, emotions stay longer despite me not actively maintaining them. Seemed tonight like I was staying angry and/or sad despite realizing also emotionally that it was not constructive. This might be a change. More data needed.

living doll

There are multiple levels of probably unintended trans references in the latest erfworld update:

LINK

From the Buffalo Bill the Doller Bill who references the AGP demonized Silence of the Lambs character, to the makaleka doll. Specifically, a doll whose self-concept is a person. The self-concept, the strings, the Thinkamancy and Date-a-mancy and other -mancies, those can be there to let matter be aligned to identities and characterizations. The idea of that self-concept of a person perhaps artificial in origin, but nonetheless true on a fundamental level (and ultimately no more true for anyone, with the Titans the ultimate Dollamancers), and the base body and substrate as given being a doll, a thing, which comes to self-conceptualize under Thinkamancy and Date-a-mancy and Dollamancy as being a person… this comes close to some trans experiences.

EDIT: Or it actually comes to another conclusion. Oh, well, interesting nonetheless, somewhere.

Oh, and hanging out with mother went OK. She avoids or uses wrong names and pronouns, but I think now she knows this is me and this is what we have to work from.

gaos disgordian

This day was… hard, so far. Mostly for minor and weird reasons. I took too long to pack and prepare, washing hair and deliberating over makeup, as I want to look good for tonight – meeting mother for first time since coming out fully to her, and not sure how that will go. Then I realized I have less pills left than I thought – in fact, not enough for my current journey I embark on, writing this on plane – and realized eventually this is because I thought “90 tablets = 90 days” without remembering I have a 2-a-day regime. So scrambled to set things up so my endocrinologist can fax a prescription to a pharmacy in my birth country. Six days supply left. The thought of not having T suppression is not one I want to dwell on.

Then was late, and bus rides took long, and train rides were delayed separately, and then the second train was cancelled. Spent 150EUR on a taxi hurrying to the airport. Then had to bully my way into fast baggage checkin, fast pass through security, got an extra check there and had to nag them to actually resolve it, had to run – in heels, on moving walkways – to catch the plane and board. All stressful.

At least security checkpoint person called me lady without prompting.

Also trying to resolve housing issues that arose – may need to mortgage for a higher total than planned as contract spells out repairs needing to happen. Need to get a tax advisor to see if I can deduct any of that, too.

And was supposed to make headway on urgently delayed code work today. Did not happen.

I have another hour before we land, so I should start. Then tonight, will meet and have dinner with mother. I am anticipatory of that.

third movement

Lots of it now. Just spent a few days at retreat with my present department colleagues, last time before leaving them. Discovering last week I don’t want to go back to low shoes meant I didn’t, then I decided after asking several people to wear the bright red lipstick of giving no fucks while being classy. One partner commented “bright red lips means better not misgender me?“ and that was true. For once I have corrected people. Important thing: I then know they know I am trans, so I feel comfortable-ish taking up the mantle. Thus have used female changing rooms and bathrooms now with these people, and that means I will continue to do so, which feels woah. I’m all out at work.

Did it help? Yes. Together with bonding with girl coworkers as friends, including talking about woes and challenges and hanging out in the spa, I feel like I am here and like I am at peace, all else being equal. It really is amazing and it feels important.

Then… this weekend I will share a small flat with my mother. Right now, my default involves wearing a bra, heeled professional shoes and substantial makeup. I either still do this or I hide it, dressing up for the party sometime outside.

I will not stay in any fucking closet any longer. No way. No fucking way.

So I wrote finally a proper coming out letter with all the details, HRT included, and sent to mother. I wonder when she will read it, and how she will react. This is so so so scary. Support from my partners help, and feeling in my changing body how this is right, that helps too. This new calm me who can value herself and her own emotions, for her – she who is also crone, actually – for her this is still scary but it is clear she recognizes she must do this now.

It’s big. I feel. Time to sleep.

c-c-c-changes

I got high heels in a style I like. Essentially narrow laced brogues with 2-inch heels. I love them and never want to take them off, and when I do, my feet hurts from being flat again. What they do with shape and poise and walking, how I feel still gracious and empowered, the feeling of power from the sounds they make on floors… it’s like with the striped stockings, I feel like I want to wear them every day. At least I wore them when I was interviewing students and looking at apartments, because this really is a life which is mine to live.

Breasts hurt. That’s OK. Something happening. More to the point, had a brief moment of seeing subtle changes in my face, somehow, a… slightness… from some angle? Who knows if it really is there? Juli remarked she saw it before, but it’s so early still. But maybe there really will be something like that, more and more? Curious and exciting.

Also, men still smelling good. At least one woman too. Perhaps more than just me becoming more complexly bisexual, I am becoming pheromone responsive?

a toast to daniel mallory ortberg

So, this!

https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/daniel-mallory-ortberg-interview-heather-havrilesky.html

This was delightful for me to read. Because there is still sometimes that fear, am I driven by guilt over patriarchy, or autogynephilia, whatever. And then Daniel, with immense feminist cred and a brilliant writer extremely capable of nuance, comes saying almost the exact same things I would say, from the other direction. Getting in touch with emotions, beginning to want things, not just being a brain in a jar. Lots of it. And essentially highlighting how there are MtF and FtM experiences very similar to each other, like one might suspect if there exists a somewhat unified underlying phenomena… 🙂