multiplex

This is the first post on wordpress rather than tumblr, after migrating – lost tags and comments, but kept content. My tumblr is not yet removed but given their policy changes I fear an NSFW transition blog may not be welcome much longer.

I’ll be brief. Stress levels are high, social evolution is high. What feels relevant is that the past 10 days on estrogen only, no progesterone, have felt fairly bleak; I’ve been worried more easily, more dysphoric over my body, more prone to feeling unanchored socially and dissociating, feeling on edge. It may not be the same as pre-HRT entirely but I feel that the changes that happened early on with HRT are exactly those that are subdued now. I really hope that going back on progesterone on Monday will return me to the last blogged state, even if that mean being more tired.

I can only speculate on mechanisms behind this anecdata. Clearly not just levels -> mood. Perhaps relative changes building up secondary effectors at different time windows. Right now there is a feeling of unsafety at the microlevel and I want that changed. Should progesterone reliably keep that away (though I did not feel it in the intervening months) I might just stay on it rather than cycle. Perhaps a _drop_ in progesterone is the relevant thing, that such a drop causes something to be the case for a time thereafter that was also the case pre-HRT. It also resembles those states when my levels were low due to dosage, but of course I cannot know this.

May all just be stress too. Which will be dealt with.

On things which scare me, delving deeper now on that research discussed with me and it seems some metabolic and immune sex differences really are due to X-inactivation escape. That’s very very hard to fix without advanced genetic engineering. Again I’d take solace that in these regards I’m at least as alike to XX women as an XY CAIS woman is, she too has no X-inactivation and no XX karyotype.

Will still continue this research and noting it is a fine line to walk – I want to research hormonal impacts because I hope it will show as many regards as possible where my HRT makes me grow closer to XX women in terms of body and brain function. There will be cases like this where I am wrong and the differential has non-hormonal, non-intervenable origin, and there will be cases like with post-natal hormonal surges and developmental windows where I will have missed my developmental chance anyway. Those insights will always make me dysphoric, though I hope I will continue to cope well.

Is it weird or wrong to steer my research based on my wish to prove to myself that I at least am moving to be biologically female in as many ways as I can? Not sure, but I probably will do it anyway, and I think I will always aim to increase our powers of transition. Of course, we are no less our genders or sexes (as the word is used) even without medical transition. But I need it and I need the knowledge of my trajectory.