Still in a state of somewhat movedness. Basically, I’m reminded that why there may well be clear and defined biological bases for my gender identity and for how my mind improves on sufficient estrogen, I cannot show this easily. The CAH research has the issues one would fear in that the surgeries they get might confound, for example, the guevesdoces findings etc. similarly may be confounded, and so forth. Data match my model but also match other models.

It’s clear that part of the reason I want to do multi-omics studies on HRT are to somehow demonstrate my validity in these regard; verify there is some trans neurology property which causes dysphoria unless hormonally treated. Perhaps I will. But I really must let go of that need, I cannot let it hold me back.

So instead, what to consider? Certainly my personal trajectory, my identity evolution, my dysphoria and my transition do not happen in any vacuum. It would look different under other circumstances and in another time period or culture. I even knowingly in part let myself construct it drawing on others around me. That does not make it any less important, or genuine, or beneficial to me. It remains that it improves my circumstances. This remains true even if there would turn out to have been other paths that could have made me function. It is also an ongoing process of evolution.

Some part of me still feels shame when confronted with the implicit or explicit question why I take part in any construct involving gender, as though its total ignoring and rejection would be the saner choice. For whatever reason, that doesn’t work for me. My emotions won’t work, I won’t be happy unless I live and embody and fully belong to womanhood. Whether this was there from the beginning or developed during my life, it is true. Regardless of my politics it is true. I don’t feel like being ashamed of it.

Instead then in comparison with gender/sex, I will reference another social construct built around biological “realities“, namely parenthood.

It’s extremely central in our societies, even if it varies between them. People often structure their lives around it. Laws and social frameworks assist and protect it. Fundamental laws around names and property and belonging are informed by it. Some cultures have parents changing their names to reflect their parenthood, including for adopted children.

It has a deeply fundamental place in mythology and memetics, and we tend to believe in and experience instincts and involuntary mental states around it. These are constructed and likely informed by some biological basis. It ties into sex and love and pair bonds, and we let it sometimes change and damage our bodies.

The urge towards it is regarded as biological reality (and likely its basis is similarly muddled and unclear as gender identity, with conflicting evidence, likely something there to be found, profound impact, and cultural variability).

It involves major sacrifices and life changes, affecting not only the person but also other people and society as a whole, sometimes in really costly manner. It ties into many other identity facets and social constructs.

Its meaning and motivation varies between the individuals who choose it, and that is something constructed in our social groups – cultures, clans, peer groups. Some people do subversive variants. Some do it despite it not being so practical then and there. Some people do conventional variants in spite of their politics and feel shame for it.

Some people cannot do it using their own biology without help, or at all. We generally recognize the validity of what they create without question, except that there exists a vocal activist fringe – anti-adoption voices – who does not.

Some people end up having genetic children without deciding to. In some cases they see themselves and are seen as parents regardless. In some cases they do not see themselves so, and others often agree but not always. In other cases it is decided, and acknowledged. And in yet others, again, children are not genetic but parenthood was decided on and respected – was constructed, as the biology has an opt-out/opt-in clause in both modern and ancient societies in this regard.

The analogy with gender, of course, is clear. And my possessing and acting on a female gender identity – to the point of requesting recognition from the world, and to the point of letting it affect my life situation, name and reproductive anatomy – is analogous to the choice that most people in the world make to become parents. I’m no less sane than they are.