unstructured vents/rants/thoughts mostly or solely connected to gender
This was interesting and I must read in more detail:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322314007094?via%3Dihub
Essentially
longitudinal imaging in MtF and FtM under HRT. I _think_ what they
conclude are testosterone increases serotonin binding (so goes up under T
HRT and down on anti-androgens) which may affect mood. Sufficient E
supplementation may counter, meaning in some sense one wants to avoid
being low on both hormones. Again, need to read more.
The other day, was asked my old name. I saw no polite reason not to reveal it, but felt… shocked by it. I guess it is my deadname now and I might politely choose not to reveal it next time someone asks.
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Heavy period of stress, plus sleep deprivation and hunger, then got into a somewhat dysphoric worrying mood. Possibly hormonally low from poorly fitting patches too. I realize these things as I write about them are likely founding factors.
There are two things I would like to be true, that quite possibly are, but that I cannot control whether they are, related to my alignment. I cannot control them as they would be facts about the outside world. One being whether my hypothesis on same-vs-opposite-to-self alienation-causing dysphoria-foundational instinct as an actual biological thing is real and something building on mechanisms in trans and cis people both. The other whether the having-hormones-incorrect-to-brain-settings-causes-dysphoria in both trans and cis people hypothesis reflects reality. Both are models that imply a cause for my trans alignment – that is, for my female gender identity, and my dysphoria when not inhabiting it – that is likely inborn or prenatal, and that would be part of my functional brain architecture. Born this way, as Lady Gaga put it.
That in turn would be appealing because it would imply there never was any other option, no set of life circumstances would have made my brain cis, no alternate coping strategy to transition would have helped as well with the dysphoria. This would be an appealing truth even though I don’t really feel my transition has been particularly costly, I don’t feel that it has cost me much or that I have lost anything I cared about as I proceeded with it. I would more often worry about not being valid without it.
These things may well also hold true in the world (it’s one of few scenarios that make sense, after all, in explaining my various experiences and those reported anecdotally by other trans people), but holding on to them as cherished beliefs is still a crutch either way. I cannot control it so it is better – as I actually found quite some time ago too – that I don’t need that crutch in order to feel valid as a woman who transitions. I can’t know that these are the mechanisms behind my alignment, or that there really was no other way. I also cannot know that I fully correctly conceptualize myself. But from my horizon of action, I know I have become clearly happier, and I am accumulating a lot of data points suggesting that is persistent. Ultimately the fact that I really become fulfilled in this manner is sufficient grounds for my choices. My will itself is legitimate grounds.
So, some various things – book and standup poem having some implicitly trans identity denying undertones, each time leaving me with some dysphoria. Same with assholish person in FB thread being all reproductive essentialist. Common takeaway: I have become more vulnerable, in the sense that erasure of my identity causes a dysphoria surge in me. I am fine with this, but wanted to note it is there. I have gained some vulnerabilities, and my slowly growing closeness to the actual affects of my emotions (through their bodily feedback), that also underscores and strengthens it. Not a problem, just life, and interesting.
Also wondering if person without known science qualifications not getting my point and referring to “Science“ in said FB thread amounts to something like mansplaining? Because I would feel so validated if it did. I guess not really, but no fear! Surely, one day I too will be clearly belittled and ignored by men less qualified than me. The sad sad part is I really do crave this because it will make me feel more like a woman, just as street harassment does…
Weird. Contemplating “huh, maybe I really should become vegan now?“ with a similar emotional tone as “huh, maybe I really should aim for SRS in two years time?“. With the main difference is I keep returning more often to the latter, and feel like I sort of care more about the question.
I guess in some ways the former is the more important question, because if one sees it ethically and environmentally, it impacts lots and lots of lives of sentient, feeling creatures. But I am numb to that suffering, feeling it only on a detached, intellectual level. I guess my point here is, the same detachment is there for major painful surgery of my genitals and basic body configuration. Is it really like this for other people?
Randomly sir:red by flight steward. Have full make-up with eye shadow, pink lipstick, rainbow coloured nails. Hair in updo, long dangly earrings. Pink scarf, orchid purple short summer dress and high heels. As a service person on a flight he did not misgender deliberately, so it must be something about me which screams manhood deeply enough that none of the rest registered. He had not heard my voice, so must still be my looks. Feeling empty, looking around me full of sad and panicky thoughts, calm inside like a sad serpent at the bottom of a dried out river.
What are my chances? What are my flaws? What parts of this despicable shell of meat are even possible to fix? I know it’s not been long, I’m six months into puberty. There can be more rebuilding happening. I just need to break down so I can build up. Atrophy more muscle, break down more fat and tissue. Need to remember this feeling, this pain, need to let it drive me. If I lose as much mass as possible, anywhere, any tissue (except of course nervous system, because I need that to be me), then I can rebuild under the right developmental signals, quite possibly the right epigenetics. I need to break myself down and rebuild. I can only hope for this, and bear in mind this really is early. Everyone says this is what they experienced it. Just was not expecting it right now.
What else is it? Shape of facial bones? Forehead, length of face, nose? I thought I looked right in the mirror this morning. Jaw, somehow, side view? Forehead bossing? I don’t want to be one of those sad, sad people who keep listing anatomical measurement terms to explain their sadness; I see exactly the same lingo from incels and sad trans girls and I want nothing to do with it. I’ll just have faith, continue what I do, and then in a few years, if still wrong, ask for facial surgery advice.
This is sad. Then again, here is where I start. Here is where I start from.
I should have asked him what he said, corrected. I would want to. But in the moment I didn’t think of it. Need to try to make it a habit.
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Wanted to update though on other things anyway during the flight. Spending time by the coast let me relax requirements to myself; hanging out in exercise gear (so long as I wore the sports bra it was OK), not showering as often, no foundation, only sunblock, eyebrow pencil, kayal and mascara. Light lipstick. I could feel present in a “casual” sense, cycled, jogged, swam and suntanned. Wore a bikini for first time and felt great, not self-conscious. Went grocery shopping in this summer vacation mode. All this may seem shallow but actually is important: I need to experience and reclaim areas of my life while readjusting my self-perception within those areas. By doing so I can more contexts where I can stay at peace within myself.
In a way the whole journey to the summer house was one – such an important place for me throughout my childhood, and I’ve now reclaimed it as S, spent time relaxing as S. I now know what that feels like, I can do so and remember it. Similarly having family see me so mattered. And I went through my old boxes, threw out binders of old dysphoria-fuelled notes and scary papers, and repackaged other things. Saw my photos from 17 and 18 and noting how much more similar to my younger sister I still was. All in all, very good.
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Last, spent time with several trans woman friends in different contexts. Ending up very self-conscious of my voice, for I still keep dropping it almost all the time, and it really does bother me a lot. Saw some girls with great voices who have tiny scars on their neck, making me curious if there is surgery that helped them? I would probably still not do that. I fear losing my voice more than I do my sexual function (fascinated to note as I type it that it likely is true), I am a singer and someone who can console or coach others. So training is where it is. Here too I’ve been lazy. I must be diligent. I must escalate.
It’s like in so many other things I did that turned out to work. I must take a challenge fully and clearly seriously, and approach it with overkill as my goal. That too is who I am.
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Feeling privileged and narcissistic and shallow and dysphoric and all sorts of things. Meh. It will be good. Much love!
Just read this:
https://albertgator.tumblr.com/post/176720628219/yamino-this-was-originally-going-to-be-a-lot
Uncontrolled weeping, what else is new. But I think I understood something!
The emotional trigger for a lot of my crying is empathy. I have an empathy mode (and I remember as a child being effectively told to tone it down as I cried to easily and they were afraid I’d be bullied even worse – yay benevolent toxic masculinity training!) and I feel these very strong, very visceral things when going into empathy, what it is like being some person, what that feels like, my body feels those things and responds.
When I’ve opened and wept for myself recently, made more frequent and more strong under HRT, it is the _same faculty_ that I use. I’m sometimes applying empathetic processing to myself, to my own situations and memories. And then I care and I can cry for myself.
Is that how one feels things in one’s own life? By being empatethic to one’s own person and self? Can I learn to do that at will? Can I do it all the time?
No answers yet. But really important questions.
So, six months on HRT. Not disappointed. (Refusing the “tranniversary” term, I think.)
Feeling of calm largely still there (relative to life and all). Doubts largely gone, helped also by being fully out.
Body changes modest but there. Need to take weight cycling/loss seriously now. All the same, breasts slowly growing, hips may be slowly manifesting. Lips may be a little fuller. Body hair growing back soft. Feeling OK.
Plenty of other posts here already about my growing genital dysphoria and surgery ruminations, so need not repeat. Instead I’ll say laser has delivered – after a year now there still is the feel of stubble in places left to remove, but I don’t think I have much of a shadow any longer even without makeup, and shaving has become mostly a habit.
Sexuality evolution: Happily mellow bi girl open for almost anything but with more important things to think about? See also: I transition into the type of person I used to crush on.
Emotional availability: Crying and, to a smaller extent, laughing. Still not there where I want. I seek moments to express and feel emotions I don’t have a word or proper association pathways for. Given those exist, I think I still have not broken through dissociation fully, there is something in there that I want to reach. I’m moving slowly in that direction. Probably a matter of time, with the three aspects (medical, social, internal) of transition interacting. Will see.
I wonder where I will be after a year, or two, or five?
In many regards I have always genuinely wanted to be odd, different, special, to not fit in, to stand out. I certainly don’t mind it. I usually don’t want to be normal. This also means that in and of itself, I don’t mind being trans, don’t mind how being trans rather than cis makes me a minority. I have no drive to not stand out in that regard.
Except indirectly I do. Because I do have a drive to not be different, a failure, inferior, in regards to the statistical distribution of women. Only in my identity as a woman do I crave not to be abnormal, not to be a freak. I want to be a weird and abnormal human, but not for my weirdness to make me weird with respect to my womanhood. So indirectly I would crave to be cis rather than trans, because most women are cis rather than trans, so being a cis woman would make me less unlike other women.
So all in all, there are some few ways in which I do have an instinct to fit in. Gender is one. Whereas otherwise I usually do not. This I find relevant.
Having my cousin’s five year old son refer to me effortlessly by my new name feels immensely, incredibly validating.
Realizing just now that while I would pretend to be a cis man to get out of an immediately life-threatening situation, barring that, I never would. I could not go into male or androgynous drag for an event or for travel. I would refuse even if missing out on opportunities. Which I guess makes sense, given I really am all out now, given this is the person I have now started life as.
Like, if there was an event where everyone including cis women would go into male drag, so would I, and I would do it well. But I would never do so _because_ of my trans status barring a gun to my head.
lost in transition 