Month: November 2018

still

Still hurting from that misgendering today. “He works very fast.“ in response to me having produced results during our meeting by multitasking. I’m sitting right in front of you, with my lipstick and my earrings and my pink blouse and skirt. You’ve not met me other than under my new name. Yet I am “he“ to you? “It’s she, not he“ I said, and it was not acknowledged. Not sure at all if you even heard it. We’re supposed to collaborate. Every time I meet you or think of you, I will remember how you likely think I am a man in a dress. That will eat some energy in all of our collaborations. They will not go as well. Had you at least acknowledged my correction, it would have been better. I almost wrote to you now to say, because it stayed with me, but thought better of it.

Then there’s the dysphoria itself. What was it? Was my comments and speech somehow too masculine, too assertive for you? Was it my voice? Was it my facial features? Left numb. What can I do to fix this? Only hope and pray and proceed and cry and continue. I never ever give up. This is what we’re made of.

xaos

So much at once good and bad. Good – adventure, walking in Finnish hospital tunnels, meeting collaborators for posh vegan food, fully OK threesomes, flying back and forth. Workshop on intimacy for AMAB people with dysphorias; heard stories of South American travestitas and hijra from Pakistan; including divisions within their communities. A woman who had bottom surgery last year offered to let me see her vagina and to put a gloved finger in it; not sexual, very enlightening and empowering, all things considered. Potential future hookups with yet other people. Spending an evening writing reports, with a friend coming over for company, then staying for what turned out to be conversation, cuddling and sex. Date with a guy tomorrow, another next week – I promise this was not supposed to be a post about my sex life. Had more bottom electrolysis this morning, then lots of meetings. In which one person misgendered me, and another mentioned immune system sex differences not hormonally driven, both of which make me a dysphoric mess, at the same time as I have to make lots of decisions on project reporting, paper writing, data analysis, statistics and administration. Plus looking so much forward to the party this weekend. Am I being my own stereotype? Maybe. I love this but it is intensive.

queendom come

Very speculative with no basis anywhere, but feelings need describing whether they have statistical significance or not.

If being completely speculative and anecdatal – which we totally do when we feel like, I’d describe this state of effectively mid-late faux-luteal phase as involving:

– Bloating (probably coincidence), feeling pressing need to urinate more often

– Feeling of tingly sleepy heat of peripheral blood vessels, like after being cold (this is a vasoconstriction thing somehow? makes me somehow think of cortisol)

– Emotional salience. Feeling close to affect, easily moved, easily anxious.

– But not active or vigilant, rather tired and non-urgent, staying at rest.

I feel very small and connnected to the world. My colour is more burgundy than purple, perhaps.

I wonder about this. If it really is there, it should persist until I go into faux-follicular phase on Monday. At which point I should experience clarity, wakefulness, vigilance, reactivity, urgency.

Wondering about the cortisol. Does that cycle in cis women, all else equal?

colour

It’s so hard to tell when something is a likely placebo, versus when not. I can not tell. But the last days, combining stress with some extra time to just be tired and do very little in the late evenings, seems new somehow, it seems like a somewhat new colour of me, feel of being me. I’ve had unusual (?) extents of afternoon haze, a little more tiredness, maybe unusual amounts of morning and other worry tendencies. I feel a little warm and, well, not swollen but raw? I feel I accumulate and lose water a little more maybe.

Probably just interpretation. But it could be that progesterone metabolites built up over 9-10 days, maybe that is part of a cycle mechanism in cis women. I will soon go down again to follicular phase equivalent, in a few days. Maybe this is more close to actual PMS? Is there a dimension of progesterone vs estrogen relative action?

Not sure, and that is all fine. The relevant part is it seems to my biased mind that this is a particular colour of feeling, of things a litle heavier, cloudier, but also of resignation somehow, of being calm rather than irritated, a little more vulnerable, a little more anxious, maybe a little more craving social interactions to soothe, craving bonds not input.

Who knows? I’m excited being me either way.

Also, trans culture is watching for other trans people all the time in public spaces, being uncertain whether we found one, and being super happy just if we thing we did, but not daring to signal too much attention.

Peace.

raw-war

Not quite sure how it happens, but today I have sensed myself being especially vulnerable, it has been easy to worry but more to the point, some sort of sense of dread in the background. This fascinates me, I am happy to observe, and curious that I cannot find the anchor. Though I believe it has to be, except I don’t feel it, that I was worried about my talk before the faculty.

Said talk went well. The same thing happened again that when I got to the penultimate slide outlining how I want to look at trans cohorts to understand sex-differential disease better, my body but not my mind reacted, I felt at peace internally but my voice got thick and I would have shook had I not prevented it. It slowly dissipated but slowly, and made me less eloquent. Obviously I fear talking about that in front of an audience because it’s a coming out and I feel exposed, it brings all the fears of not seeming serious, of seeming ridiculous, of being too much, probably multiple impostor syndromes simultaneously. It does nexus many of my fears so that does make sense.

But still odd I don’t emotionally sense it, whereas my body reacts whether I want to or not. Is this a sign of emotional repression? I’ve gotten so controlled over the years I can ignore affect and just move past fear without even sensing it, but the body still is deathly afraid and it shows in my body language?

Now a little worried that everyone could sense my voice tone shifting, worrying they look down or me or pity me, that they won’t work with me or give me tenure. But that’s also probably just the irrational fear, the same fears underlying it. I’ll act to ignore them, not feel them, just proceed with my work. But perhaps the ease with which I do that is precisely why it only can come out through my body tensing up?

prog rox

Nipples are sensitive today like they haven’t been since early on estrogen. This is another kind of sensitivity than the pressure-in-mound type of the months before. Dare I hope this means progesterone now makes me start evolving Tanner IV breasts? I do hope that. Hoping very much the nipples themselves will grow larger and fuller as this is something I feel self-conscious of when being intimate with cis girls, and that sort of gets to me.

econ

Got the hope today of maybe making some money through pharma consulting after all. That appealed because of one thought: being able to afford the SRS I want (?) faster. The thought of waiting feels unhappy. The thought of having it done feels appealing. I jump on options for having it done like I want (?) to.

weight

So, I seem to be in one of those modes/moods where things seem difficult and heavy and scary. It also makes me more dysphoric (“what if I was just fooled into wanting to be an anime character like Blanchard says?”) and prone to worry for practical matter (“how will I charge my phone if…”). It’s not quite the same as the PMS modes because things don’t feel tiring in the same way and I don’t feel angry, I just seem to have fear amplified. I do believe it was like this first day of Lenzetto spray, and it seemed like this on low dosages (whereas the PMS state emerged on high dosage at some point). And I just changed estrogen dosing scheme and added progesterone. So possibly there are at least two components to modes of this type and they may reflect either doses being too low (worry) or fluctuating/high (irritability/thin-skinned-ness/weariness). Well, we’ll see. I continue to observe.