termidin

The following is something I wrote to comment on a reddit post defending the use of the term “sex” to mean “reproductive sex”, under which saying “trans women are biologically male” would mean “trans women can only reproduce with cis women”. I think my points are valid. But I wrote them to clarify my own thought process. If I post them in response to the poster pedant, there would be a long angsty discussion that would drain me at a time when I have to be 100% at capacity. I need to let it go. So my response instead goes here.

The main weakness is that in practice, when it comes to animals, we often do use a “master construct” of “biological sex” which means all the different subcomponents being aligned and pointing in either direction. In humans, retaining that use is highly problematic. The thought of myself as “biologically male” is abhorrent even if it was entirely uncoupled from role and position and. It is furthermore important to me that I am like other women in regard to all those other biological sex characteristics. Reproduction is the least meaningful of the biological sex continua, really. So I work to be “female” in all biological regards I can.

As long as you use the terms “male” and “female” to denote reproductive compatibility in some two-sex reproduction systems, what you say is true in the sense that we could describe the same reality and your statements would not be inconsistent under your language framework. However it is not the only way we could choose to define those words.

To me as a (somewhat established, now moving in to work on sex hormones and how they impact systemic disease) biologist, there are no formal terms that just state unqualified “male” or “female”. There are terms of karyotypic, specific genetic, endocrine, transcriptional, anatomic etc. “male” and “female” and they each describe concepts that almost always are continua, often have bimodal distributions, often have overlaps in those distributions, and often are correlated with each other, correlations which break down under intersex and under transition. I do not refer to someone as just “male” or “female” without qualifying which regard I mean. As a trans woman, I am presently e.g. karyotypically male, endocrinologically closer to female, anatomically closer to male (which likely will change), etc. E.g. my anatomic and endocrine sexes are not the same, and I don’t recognize as useful any master contruct of biological sex above the individual properties, if I want to talk about the correlation structure I can just do that directly.

When I do use unqualified “male” or “female” about humans in everyday speech it is not as a scientific term, it is intended to be understood as shorthand for the constructs of “man” and “woman” and carry the same opt-out, opt-in clauses as those do for me. More and more people are using language in this way, inside and outside of science and medicine, and I think it is good that we do. For lab animals in order to be quickly understood I will still use “female mice” e.g. as a short-hand for XX mice, e.g. in the sense of “ovarectomized female mice were supplemented with E2, then assessed for tumor growth”. But sex so used is a short-hand I neither need nor want for humans, and the animal use case is also an area where scientific terminology well may come to shift over the next decades.

If I wanted to address specifically what you talk of, I would talk of “reproductive sex” (leaving aside complexities that vary within and across species). I don’t think any practical utility is lost, whereas some is gained, by having that specified.

How do I start being consistent? Well, where space allows, and where I have enough clout (I don’t always), I might start specifying “genetically male mice” (implying endocrinology and anatomy following, even where we might alter both of these). Probably just using “genetically male/female” per default. It feels like a cop-out because then I am still using the ghost of the master construct, assuming typical development as it were, but if the alternative is full descriptive: “genetically, anatomically and endocrinologically male mice” which is too long, or unqualified, I’ll try to push this alternate term. Let’s see if it ends up in a paper sooner of later.

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Looking back into thread, OP is providing amazing responses to this that are better than mine and I want to meet her and buy her drinks. That aside, the insight with regards to the animals is important and I should get to work on that.

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Another comment in the thread makes the claim that someone’s womanhood is about whether others treat them so. As with sex and gender both, I want them at least implicitly qualified to who it is that assigns. And my sex, and my gender, if the two are not symbolic links to each other, is about how I label myself. Others inform that label. But stating I am not a woman in Texas because the Texans would not see me so does not match my use of the term. I am one equally there, in the sense that my own labeling of my own sexed body remains there.

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Need to regain focus and grasp hold on that science so it can get to where I need it.

soror tuck

NSFW?

So, ah, another thing I thought I would never do, done. Hearing how a trans woman I strongly admire do tuck in her pre-op state as a matter of course, and hearing it recommended from others to try to get a view on a post-op body despite dissociation, I tried it tonight.

Put the awful cursed gonads (now nicely shrunk from HRT, though still not all the way down to grape size – more like large olives) into the body somehow. Then using a gaff made by pinterest instruction from pantyhose parts, and a thong above that, and another pair of panties on that, and then intact pantyhose.

Then went out on the subway to one of my late night café haunts to work a while.

Did not feel much at first, not from the sight in the mirror, but I like the sight when sitting crosslegged. Some attention drawn to the area, as a drawback, but I do experience that I am not “protruding“ sensory nerves to some weird point in front of the body.

Still don’t know fully what I think about this. But the thought of being able to wear any underwear I want, and the feeling of not protruding out, that is interesting. A little cumbersome, but I think I will keep experimenting with this.

blackness

Another trans person wrote, in a secret forum, so as to vent:

“I can’t say I *am* a woman. Simone de Beauvoir said in her treatise ‘Second Sex’ "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. Without having all the biology (a lot of it surgically removed) or growing up as a girl, or having society classify me as a woman (and deny me male privileges and access and power), or have any of the experiences of motherhood, or been in a relationship (of any significance) with a man… nope, not really a woman. I wish it was otherwise, if nothing else than to make life easier, but I’m just gender-queer as F*ck.“

Reading this I feel like drowning, like my lungs fill up with cold water and as though I am blanking out. I go back to that state which used to be so common, when all my attention focuses on the fear and the words like on a serpent threatening me, I set aside the wants of life and survival and achievement and of social bonds and pleasures, all that remains is to defend from the nothingness which is my dysphoria. I feel tears coming up in my eyes. I feel weight closing in from every side. I stare at the screen and my body freezes up as the world continue around me without me, because I’m not a person who can be present in it.

Then I steel myself and resolve that I must get as close to all of those things as I can, however long it takes. It’s a challenge I will succeed in no matter how hard. Unless I am a woman I cannot be a person. I will work to "become a woman” in the Beauvoirian sense as long as there is any life left in me. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I will learn to pass if I have to, will do any surgery it takes, will train my responses if I have to. I will make the world classify my correctly and treat me as it treats women if that is what it takes for me to have the experiences a “real” woman should have had.

Because ultimately part of this is a wish to not feel like I don’t belong to a category I should belong to. It’s a social instinct, an ingroup pack instinct. It’s wrong and scary if I am somehow fundamentally unlike other women. And I’ll do whatever it takes not to be.

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I will not comment there, I will not go down that rabbit hole. I have a life to live. And if I must be a nothingness until I can be someone, then at least I will be a nothingness that does its best to become real. While there is breath left in my body I will work to realize myself.

I wish I could stop crying.

trajectory

Content warning: Weight and weight loss issues. What I want for myself, and to what end, is not reflective of how I see or assess or perceive others.

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Feeling a weird clarity. It’s strong, and emotional, but neither a pain nor a pleasure, nor a drive. Just a path, a fact, a trajectory. Once I manage to set aside the money, and once I get the appropriate hair cleared out, and once I lose another 15kg or so from my current state, then I can start trying to schedule SRS. This is there. It feels comforting, it feels secure, like something I can cling to. Largely a positive emotion.

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EDIT: Noting that it says something about me that I CW weight loss references and not gruesome genital surgery references. C’est la vie!

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This is not a definite decision, per se. Just a trajectory.

tension

I took extra estradiol today in case patch was running thin, so I am not low. But I am in a reactivity state that matches descriptions of PMS. The stresses yesterday, who knows how they contributed, or the shift to autumn, or sleep deprivation? Who knows if this is random or nocebo? I just know that I’m extremely easily frustrated, despairing (not actually! Just feeling like I do, and moaning and groaning), crying, very easily irritated, short fuse, easily saddened, yesterday and today. Low on containment ability, and high persistence of affect. A little bloated as well. Dark chocolate craved and helping. What a cliché. Never mind etiology, this is how I feel today.

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Marking this point. Should the same return later, that yields more data.

cornerstone

One good thing about having your own lockable office is that when you are reaching levels of stress from how much you have to do in a short time and you feel tears are coming on, which you can no longer stop, just delay, since starting HRT, you can go to your office and lock the door and you can cry and hyperventilate. And blog about it. And think that it will feel better in a few moments, and then later you can be calm and focus and get things done and they will be done and everything will be OK.

There is valuable truth in that I both can be overcome with emotions and remain in control.

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Happy that I can do this by crying instead of biting myself, at least. Healthier.

Don’t worry. I’ll be OK. I only accept a successful outcome. It’s just that for a while this evening, while working towards it, I will be crying.

crystal gens

Aaaaand… I’m returning again to longing for the proper genitals. Is that the word? It feels like what I am saddled with is out of place, meaningless. I’m suspecting the core is, my view of myself changed to one I am happier with, and that changed frames of reference.

(Was thinking of kink events, and how I too would like to feel OK with getting nude, and how I currently am not.)

Next steps in any case, set up perineal laser appointment and slowly save up for SRS. Also stay healthy, get fit exercise-wise and lose some more weight, all to become as ready as I can to undergo a medical procedure like that.

(EDIT: Huh. I literally feel jealous of cis women for something so basal as their intimate parts, for casually having that anatomy and being able to inhabit it in interaction without anyone questioning it. I suppose that is where I am.)

aspects & agency

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.

things

These are somewhat harsh times, I am under stress from many different work deadlines at once. Then as I started following more trans people on Twitter, I get their reposts of TERF stuff and sometimes at least briefly go down rabbit holes I would rather avoid, plus other things. Dieting, have not slept enough recently (because I had early meetings three days in a row, including laser), and ending up worrying about things. Not super happy with estradiol patches, will ask to try gel next time. Feeling the weight of stress and low sleep. I will make things better.

Would even more like injections, I now think, as it might have a spike+fall pattern actually similar to E2 levels in cis women (where some recent paper claimed those were on average the same as for cis men, but the data does not look like that for me). I’m speculating that occasionally _very_ high levels may trigger some differentiation. In theory I can use leftover material do to this myself occasionally though. Injections are not a thing in my country of residence. Looking forward though to next assessment. In best case might switch to patches+gel or something, and try out progesteron as well.

Continuing the discussion on hormones, looking around literature some (when I should have been working on other science), there are various scattered and sometimes incompatible findings pointing in different direction. There are also online communities of cis men doing DIY cis HRT, supplementing testosterone and reducing estradiol, some saying they feel bad from too high estradiol. I did not know this. Not scientifically validated but interesting, and it would make sense from a perspective of individual-specific optima.

Continuing the gender identity speculations, a recent look again at some papers show mixed conclusions on whether CAH people more often end up trans men. They may be, but it’s not clear if so if their medicine compliance during childhood plays roles, and at least some are raised as boys or reassigned girls quite late. These things might also confound some of the conclusions of that CAH vs gendered learning study I keep mentioning. Echoing my comment from two posts ago though; I am me, and retain my identity and needs, whether I can be sure there is some prenatal hormone effect driving my alignment or not.

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Oh, and also did the awkward and asked my laser provider if she can help me with genital hair removal in preparation for surgery. Language barriers salient but she seemed possible. So that might happen.