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.