TRIGGER WARNINGS: Dysphoria, body issues, weight, surgery. Also completely unfiltered pain. I share so you know but I don’t have the spoons to contain your emotions if this makes you worry for me. I will be OK, through the actions I am taking. I just want witnessing. Airport, as usual hard to think but I believe the cashier sir:s me as I buy my drink. I stay calm and resigned. It happens rarely, and as it bothers me due to its implications for me, intent does not matter. But it drives home, leaden-heavy, that my body isn’t ready yet. In the restroom I watch the body language of the other women, wondering if any of them are afraid of me but socialized too polite to say it. If a stranger reads me as male without thinking, how many times does that happen without me knowing about it? Those thoughts are dark like poisoned sludge, fallout-heavy pond water, that I drown in in the midst of the coldest possible winter. Cold in my dead bones. There is nothing to do but what I must, to do whatever I must in order for others to think of me as I need them to. I need for others to feel about me as just another woman (unique and weird as any other woman, but not standing out in my womanhood). I don’t know what tells those are, but I had not spoken when he sir:red me, just as I had not with that US gas station clerk either. So this is physiognomy, habitus. I am not too tall, but my head likely too wide, my neck. My overall body, if that looked more like that of women shown in public media, that could compensate for other properties. Losing fat and muscle alike could help. That will happen if I get really really diligent with dieting and exercise. Which is good because that would also counter the beginning heart and liver issues that my overweight and alcohol-as-nootropic consumption and stress may have driven, according to tests. So that has to happen. It can now, because finally I resolved most of the really difficult work tasks – filed the grants, wrote the papers, negotiated offers, almost at the finish line – I did all those things “at any cost”, which were these costs. Sugar, fat, energy drinks and alcohol and drugs, just to be able to meet more deadlines, rewards to dangle in front of me because when I have a reward to come, there is nothing I cannot persevere through. I may not be a genius, but I have grit, willpower and pragmatism. So now I have to take dieting and exercise seriously the way I did back in 2017 when I lost 30kg in a year while interviewing for JGL positions and finishing papers. I did it before, I can do it again. But this won’t be enough. There are other factors at play here too. My face is wrong. I keep frowning when I speak with people or on pictures. This, I have realized, is actually because that changes the position of eyebrows in a way which makes me look more like other women. Other things – nose and jaw, to some extent, some brow ridge. Mostly forehead though. Experts will be able to refine this better. And yes, becoming truly thin, that would change what my face looks like, and most likely resolve some of this. But I can’t assume any longer that will be enough. Some facial surgery will be needed. If what I want is to be sure that people know I am trans only when I tell them, and that the thought of me as “male” will feel instinctually wrong to strangers when they see and hear and smell me, because their senses remind them rather of other women, then it is needed. That surgery is the most expensive there is, and no insurance would cover it for me. I am looking at potentially up to 50k, though hopefully substantially less. I have no way currently to get that. So I have to succeed in what is to come in somehow becoming better paid. At least that motivates. There was a time I felt money was not so important, which is a privileged as fuck thing to think, but either way that changed when I realized that having my body read correctly would require costly procedures. So somehow I have to do that. I don’t know how yet, but I will work that out, just as I will resolve the losing-fat-and-muscle thing at any cost. And then, that remaining operation I was afraid of – risk of nerve damages, scars on face, drilling into forehead bones maybe, more recoveries. More anaesthesia, and perhaps eventually the risk of cognitive damage from too many episodes of that. Pain, not that I care any longer. These experiences have hurt me enough in worse ways that I don’t care about concrete pain or fear any longer. So I’ll work towards these goals then too. However long it takes, however hard that gets. And in the meantime, though I’ll be worried always that people look at me at some sort of man they are too frightened to call out, I’ll try my best to not hide away. I’ll stay in the world and I’ll try to be as happy as I can along the road. After all, any one of us could die at any moment. And I know how lucky and privileged I am. I’m in pain but more importantly, right now, useful numbness. I guess I will be for some time. And I guess I will use that constructively. Because there is nothing else I can do.
Tag: dysphoria
phylactery
At the moment I am stuck in some sort of quarantine together with emergency stormblown flatmates. They ended up homeless due to not having communicated with their planned hosts in detail, and I could offer, so I did. Then pandemic struck and now there is no housing market and a call to stay inside and isolate. So I am here with them.
Moreover, the pandemic means hospitals are not scheduling surgeries. Unsurprisingly. So window of uncertainty for SRS just became much larger and pushed forward. Chances of having it by 40 increasingly smaller. This affects me.
I don’t have good words for this emotional state because people say it is not dissociation. Detachment? Nothing feels like it is safe or happy or meaningful. All emotions are kept on hold. I act on them, I act as if I care about myself or others, but it is something like a play I put on because rationally I know it makes sense. I try to numb myself even further by ensuring I work as hard as possible on those things I can do, because that feels… a little less unsafe, a little less intolerable. But all in all, I watch myself and others hurt and it barely moves me. Bitterness and contempt for myself and others, a smile on my lips.
Once more my eyes avoid my body, my thoughts avoid my body. I have no social interest because I don’t want to be observed by others, because there is no acceptable me to observe. Everything is waiting for something else. It is a state of activated dysphoria, brought about by the emerging nearness of possibility of cessation of genital dysphoria then thwarted.
It’s OK. I can deal with it. This is what being detached from everything feels like. I could watch someone die, try to stop it, but not feel so much about it.
I realized on way to therapy that this is why I try to diet so hard now. I can’t fix my anatomy right now, but doing something to improve my body at least keeps away some of the deep, deep grief that comes from the thought of this lifetime being wasted. If I can get otherwise pretty and into shape, I will have that with me for later. Just as any professional successes stay with me for later.
So right now I am basically an anorectic workaholic who avoids social interactions, is largely disinterested in herself or others, and who is dangerously at risk of dependency of anxiolytics; hopefully the new antidepressive meds will kick in and simplify.
ssage
Coronavirus pandemic raging. My messed up mind mostly worries, what if they need all the ventilators so my bottom surgery gets delayed? It really makes me anxious. I suppose it is a sign how deeply I long for it now, to be able to move on. I can’t feel much else than urgency for that, and stress over the as-yet-unresolved scary work tasks. Otherwise my heart is battered and bruised and hiding under the couch, like a foundling stray cat.
Spot under my big toenail might be malignant, doctor says likely not, but I am not taking any risks. He will pull that nail out a weak from now and biopsy the fear away. It will be heavy, but I anticipate it also, because it is an opportunity to practice, to test myself and my life for what it takes to handle that. Again, not feeling much but an urgent need to get work done so I can be safe, wait for the divine mercy of a call to schedule my OP, and anorectic joy from sometimes succeeding in losing weight.
Meeting with the dermatologist, I have no idea how much he knew I was trans. I dressed down to panties and pulled my buttcheeks apart, still tucked. I assume he must have realized I am, but it was never stated or talked about, I was treated like any other woman. It happens usually like this. Either people are respectful to me, or I pass to them. I never know. It could be a lot worse.
hey apple
Calm and processing has me revaluating paper of last post in various ways.
First, all animals are gonadectomized without resupplementation, so even vast activational sex effects would simply be missed.
Second, it has no causality aspect. It highlights what happens somewhere downstream of stress and demonstrates organization/chromosomal neuroinflammation divergence there. But this may just tell us that such factors influence stress-related damage repair, and might tell us nothing about the actual mechanisms underlying MDD mental phenotype. If that is more individually variable than damage repair cascades are, makes sense it is also not seen in their readout.
So in principle, no reason for me to worry so over it.
death apple
CW mental health, stress, academic work, brain determinism, dysphoria.
Late last night drank again coffee so as to be able to work another two hours. It was a bad idea regardless because unlike in the past, 7dl coffee at 22 prevented me now from falling asleep at 03. In the end, slept some, possible through low-dose atarax and phenibut. Cancelled some meetings, cut others short, emotional but kept under control during day – felt disapproval of collaborator for how slowly we have delivered on one project, felt helpless from not being able (or willing) to force my postdoc to work faster.
Finally ended up on train ride. There is so much to do in regards to real work, and it frustrates me that I will have so little time for it during the next few days of my course; I will have to somehow do data crunch and coding and emails during the night, plus a planned phone conference. This causes a sense of fear because I know I have to do this, have to make it work.
To add insult to injury, I came across a new Nature article that fucks me up further ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-020-0742-9 ). It is not bad science, nor is the pursuit of this knowledged bad, nor are the methods so flawed. It moves Sry genes around and includes gonadectomies to test for sex differences between animals in a way that separates genetic (double X chromosome double expression dosage for genes escaping X-inactivation, actual Y gene expression in adults (Sry apparently expresses in adult mouse brain)) from organizational (sex hormone levels during development and puberty changing reactivities for later) from each other and from either anatomy (since you have XX mice with testes, XY mice with ovaries this way) or circulating hormone levels.
Long ago I blogged about major depressive disorder, how it corresponds to very different brain activation networks in men and women. Apparently, from these results, inducing MDD-like disease in mice from chronic stress similarly causes almost entirely different gene networks and interregion patterns to activate between XY male and XX female mice, in line with this. Phenotypes may be similar, but mechanisms (which are heavily immune linked, interestingly) seem robustly very different, and these differences trace to both the genetic sex effect and to the organizational influence.
While the same authors previously showed similar things (but without the whole transcriptome level data) on genes involved in GABA and anxiety, they also showed in that earlier study that circulating testosterone impacted these behaviours independently of either gonadal (organizational and mouse cultural, such as it is) and genetic status, this leaves me still with the heavily dysphoric observation that for a dyadic trans woman (not karyotypically intersex), none of the changes we undergo with HRT reduce this vast set of gene expression/mechanism differences that separate us from cis women (some of which represent development terminal differentiation, which a CAIS XY woman would not have, some of which represent dosage effect, which a CAIS XY woman would have). While there may well be even more differences emerging between non-gonadectomied cis men and women, this is still a major difference.
I saw before this being the case for liver, that inflammation and starvation systems differ majorly between cis men and women (by extension) due to chromosome direct effects in a way which I cannot currently eliminate through transition treatment. But liver is less important. Systems like depression and anxiety are core to who we are. Fearing their mechanistic difference (even under similar observed behaviour) between me and my cisters make me feel extremely and terribly dysphoric, worried that I cannot fully understand the experience of a depressed XX person as a result, that I am shut out, able only to understand the men. It evokes, through no fault of the study authors, perceptions of essential prisons. I feel such thoughts as lead-heavy, death-urgent dysphoria.
Probably it is not quite so terrible as it seems, because more systems may be more subtly involved. These groups of many correlated genes imply this is the effect of a few top regulator factors cascading, and the immune involvement implies a system at least in part separable from the pure mood phenotype (and does not reveal, in this manner, causality). But linked to the functional network views this still is very dire (though perhaps those network changes also reflect more a consequence than cause of the experiential phenotype).
But the way I respond is terribly dark. I feel again like I learned I died, like my loved ones died, disappeared. I sense waves of hate and disgust over my body – not just the deformed parts which makes people see and hear me as male, but right now I feel no pride or happiness over my brain or personality either. What if through my garbage Sry and lack of a second X, and the times of my life from conception spent misassembling my chromatin under testosterone poisoning, what if from that I am doomed to function (under stress, anxiety, depression but also their resilience and counterparts) in some manner which is unavoidably like male persons, leaving me unable to fully understand on an emotional level my sisters? It makes me feel fully and wholly dissociated from this rotting corpse body and from my thoughts and emotions, too, leaving me like a skull or shard inside something which holds neither thought or emotion. Dead. Never alive.
I had more coffee and two emergency phenibut, and I am glad I brought more on this journey in case I will risk being sleepless in next nights (fun fact: systems studied here ALSO are involved in phenibut action). I wanted to not use it so much, and hope to cease to need it, but this places me in such sad darkness. Of course it is not so bad as it seems. A Turner X0 woman or CAIS XY woman has many of these effects in place, yet is no less a woman for that. A CAH XX woman might have some of the other effects, and is also no less a woman (unless, like some elevated fraction of CAH people, he is a trans man).
Sanity requires I accept somehow that there are even important aspects of my neurobiology where my current husk of a body functions like men function, but that this does not diminish my womanhood. I am an atypical woman, like a combination of multiple intersex conditions as well as some unique ones. I am still female in all ways I am, for all that. I just feel dysphoric over my chemistry or transcription profile or epigenome in the exact same way as I do over my awful voice or big head or hands, or damnable genitals. Disgusting, but I change all I can.
Not for the first time I find myself wondering, can we build on this? Can we somehow activate these programs differently? Can we treat this in transition care? For liver I was hoping to rebuild the organ with the right karyotype and epigenetics, but of course eventually that might lead to immune incompatibility (or not? Perhaps cell differentiation cannot break the own/vs foreign influence?). But could we mimic the effect of an XX karyotype by somehow elevating expression of the genes in question? It would be hard, not least because this all might be tissue specific. If nothing else, then the fact these are interlinked gene networks would make it easier than it could be. But still risky, might lead to uncontrolled growth.
And of course there will also be direct hormone effects, relevant ones, and those I do fix. And some terrible cases where early exposure may mean I cannot benefit from my new estrogen balance the way I could have without early testosterone exposure. It is all terrible, and I see as yet no way to fix myself the way I would want. (And it seems XY genotype increases anxiety risks where circulating T reduces it, implying XX compensates a little through dosage compensation for lower T, and placing me as an XY woman in even higher risk of anxiety since I definitely want no more T. Be that as it may.)
Though I suppose as a mad science witch I should have goals. Defeating death is not enough, becoming biologically exactly the same as a cis girl is the other thing I need. But while the rest can be replaced, the brain is harder. Can’t clone a new XX brain and replace my present one with it, my individuality would not come along. Now even the thought of my mind and personality disgusts me, how much of it is dependent on these awful male-like system differences?
(Spirit. You should read this paper, it is good and will interest you. Understanding networks underlying major depressive disorder, which you almost certainly have, with anhedonic subtype, that is one application of network work and epigenomics that might address this major disease. It lies very well within your research interest and can be a further direction you go in, even. I suggest it because perhaps you can succeed within decades even if I don’t, in working out some way of medicating these networks to mitigate such effects on a clinically relevant scale. Then I could build on that research in turn to make something that lets me and other trans sisters function more like XX people. I envy you your body, for so many reasons, but I love you deeply and I am glad that you have it, even those parts which matter much less to you than to me. If I was AFAB XX, I would probably be even more like you.)
Never mind. I am myself. I am the woman that I am, and I will change everything about me that I can. Even if my resilience and perseverence might be affected by certain types of immune activation in my brain under stress that are characteristic of the male brain, that does not deny or make unimportant all the rest of me. And I will do studies that are the opposite of this, see what factors clearly do change under transition, and take some solace in them.
I feel such sorrow and pain and envy. For all those who don’t have to do this, defend this, seek this, just to be that which I need to be.
The medication is working, at least. I am more calmly coldly focusing. I will share this with my loved ones so you know how I feel. Then I will do some work on my own science instead. Make a small dent in the mountain, working towards safety. I will never give up my willpower or resilience. I will always strive towards my goals. I just wish the world did not make it so hard. I wish I had emerged in a different genotype and phenotype.
through-a-scanner-glitteringly
So on Gliske again, came across reviewer comments. Two named, not sure which. I believe first must be Ivanka Savic, she was mostly critical – though not for the eugenics or misgendering – but for not claiming credit of ideas she considers hers. From what I can see she has published a lot of interesting things, including re: how HRT improves sense of body ownership and changes sexed perception of scent. I sort of want to work with her, though I heard from people nearer she is somewhat of a nasty person to collaborate with. These comments if hers would paint a similar picture, less a bigot, more an uncaring asshole. Her papers have not been as bad terminology-wise.
One reviewer, apparently anonymous, is a sexologist, not neuro. They (I suspect he) explicitly asked for the Blanchardianism, claims young transitioners have no body issues (then again, not as sexed bodies then), and that aversion therapy hasn’t been properly tried yet, implying they would like for it to. Claiming it has not because Zucker disputes he has done so. Reviewers overall more accepting than I would like. Then again, this is what happens when we get to suggest reviewers. This is why we do so.
I no longer think this is a side project for Gliske, he spent grant funds to have the time to do it. In initial version there was apparently a lot of reference – removed by reviewer request – to sleep disturbances, which he has worked more on. He claimed based on too little data for reviewers to like it that this would be part of trans pathology. Parents, don’t let your children stay up all night, they might be transed!
But what mostly have me commenting, to get it out of my head, is in reviewer response he gets again onto the concept of gender being encoded as “same” or “different”. I agree on the level that the core gender-constructing brain response is a universal capacity to classify perceived bodies as same or other in sense of sex, which wired one way or the other leads to decisions on desire and competition and model learning. But the way he seems to imply a model for it, he perceives trans modality as wanting to be the bodies one classifies as “other” whereas cis modality is wanting to be the bodies one classifies as “same”. This model evokes body dysmorphia, plastic surgery addiction, continually searching for something new to transform into. It would predict that transition can never be enough, that full body medical and full life social transition would just give a new intolerable state one must escape into something else. This toxic idea, of course, was one of those I worried over, that kept me questioning myself.
Can it hold? It would predict that transition cannot enduringly reduce dysphoria, unless it indirectly leads to a change in the brain so that it comes to 1) wants now to instead embody sameness, not otherness, and 2) self-perception is that one has the gender one transitioned as, or rather, reacts with “same” to oneself. Alternately, one still sees ones self as “opposite”, and continues to crave “opposite”. End result same, only in the latter such idea, our genders would somehow be something qualitatively different than cis people’s genders. It is convoluted that one would continue to regard one’s own body as “opposite” once it has stabilized, and assuming then some virtual AGAB identification one happily feels one’s body is opposite to, also feels convoluted. And dysphoria-inducing, as any other scenario that implies there is some essential true identity as my gender that I could never attain.
Transition is complex though. I keep talking of the synergy between medical, social and internal transition. By internal, I mean the alterations in how one perceives oneself and others, how one reacts, how one feels. Some such are spontaneous, some require effort; transition involves making that effort. Moreover, there are mixtures of worries and memories and insecurities, euphoria and dysphoria and problematic validation, doubt, fears of illegitimacy, and the eventual rise of a new, more relaxed normality. In the end it is important I think for me to recognize I am legitimate by virtue of my subjectivity and agency alone, even had I had not been able to reference anything external.
My simpler same-different model echoes how we classify others as same-sex or different-sex. Additionally, I postulate, we do so to ourselves. Cis people inhabit bodies and lives which they classify spontaneously as same-sex as themselves. Trans people the opposite. Transitioning changes that, but beyond ourselves, does not alter who feels “same” or “opposite” with regards to sex, nor (mostly) how we feel about that. By changing what sex we can see ourselves as, we can go from seeing ourselves as paradoxes, mismatches, to simply normal. This reduces distress, reduces sense of lack of body ownership, and makes us eventually less preoccupied with gender. There probably are direct dysphoria reactions from various aspects of HRT itself acting on the brain, but the changes to our bodies are crucial also, something Gliske appears not to realize. Knowing others can see me as a woman makes me comfortable being seen. This is also why some dysphoria reduction can be achieved already by presentation and social transition alone, which again is not fully recognized by this “model”.
I followed up references made to a 2019 Savic paper where her team put 15 cishetero men and 15 cishetero women in a brain scanner and systematically showed them their own body, that of same and opposite sex others, and morphs between them, assing perception of “me/not-me” by self-declaration and imaging data. This is in principle highly relevant. They show own-body perception to involve mostly same brain regions in these men and women; Gliske references this in support for his same-other brain classifier dichotomy but of course it fits equally well with mine. There are other parts of the paper (Burke et al., 2019: Sex differences in own and other body perception [ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hbm.24388 ] ) that are interesting; seeming congruent with somewhat (N = 15+15, brain imaging statistics caveats, presumably overlapping distributions) greater salience of own body for women, others’ bodies for men, more possible inspect-for-partner vs inspect-for-rivalry in men, etc. The descriptions the paper makes of women sounds like trans girls honestly – own body critical and focused, identifying other women also as self, etc. But tiny, who knows what can be reproduced and then hardly absolute.
It would be a literature of interest to look into but it also severely scare me, because what if brain imaging gets better and more robust so that it would become emergent that trans women (or just me, the awful impostor…) did not react the way I think we do in terms of perception and response, but like twisted versions of our AGABs. Important to remember then – the subjectivity is what matters in this case, brains are plastic and might not locate functions uniformly, HRT has already been shown to change brain functional connectivity. The latter also supported indirectly by another paper I randomly came across – placing CAIS XY women in brain scanners yield the same responses as for cis XX women when shown nudes, compared to cis XY men. So whatever is there in such activation at least is not chromosomal. It may reflect some organizational effects, not just activational, but over time, who knows what we can become?
And as noted, the real crucial insight is – my agency and my feelings, however they arose, however they are implemented, are what matters for me. I believe strongly my brain has differences from that of a cis man, but whether it does or not, I am changing over time into someone I am much happier being, and my life as a result is better. I will that life into reality, no matter what stands against me.
klab
I had not planned to write here, in fact have done so not as much lately, compared to previously and how much shorter stuff goes in my twitter. On a train, desperately needing to work, but such twitter again delivers me TERF content and temporarily I am back done in that paralyzing dark fear where my brain freezes up and nothing has meaning, my old dysphoria. I feel a desperate need to address and counter the positions that scare me because they would make me something I cannot relate to.
Well, I will try to clear out my mind quickly now so I can continue to where I must be.
There was the claim that there are no positions that are not essentialist because every definition must include criteria. But criteria need not be simple and can depend on a definer. There are definitions of sex that are not essentialist, that is, which can involve choice and decision making, those definitions are no less definitions for that.
There was the claim that biology has an easy time defining sex, but here again I disagree, there are many regards in which we talk of someone as sexed, it makes sense to specify which we talk of. The general unspecified term is fully mixed up with the complex social recognition of sex. While one could identify any number of specific and consistent definitions one can make, each will mismatch everyday use for at least some people. They will also cause unhappiness. Thus we do better in shifting that term around, making it reference the construct. And referencing the construct, which is complex, does not mean we cannot make simple definitions for the properties, or that the complex referencing of the construct is not worth it – that a concept requires more complexity, or even that we choose go give it such, does not make it invalid.
There was the claim that it is such a definition of sex, nothing else, that explains oppressions. On one hand clearly false – sexists do not ask for karytoypes. Some probably would if they could, but others would not. Some aspects come from concrete ability to be pregnant, menstruate, not great comparative upper body strength. But much more those things act through their recognition, which can be incorrect and is based on what is seen indirectly, guessed, associated. And ultimately this changes nothing, I need to be a woman, not to embody every oppression women have experienced.
There was the claim that we require a clear sex based definition to fight gendered oppressions. This at least is clearly not the case.
There was additionally claims that modifying language and concepts to allow for transgender recognition would require acknowledging transracial identities, and this could extend further into plural systems, otherkin and so on. And it is true that we can make such definitions. By and large they can become problematic only if demographic is used as a need proxy for distributing limited equalizing resources. But in the transgender situation, such resources generally either are equally needed, or not that scarce. And it can be solved by making more fine-grained need calculations, and we already accept some resources are given to those who individually do not strictly need them. Had there actually been people with similar identity needs as per gender in these other demographics, then the same would apply there, but it is not really the case either. So in theory it could be a reality, but in practice is not, and the posed issue of scarcity can be minimized and does not cost so much that our survival is not worth it.
In the end, we can and need to provide another definition, the way we do. It makes some things more complicated. It harms no liberation efforts. It will reflect how more and more of us see matters.
And ultimately, my own sexing and gendering of myself – my own use of the terms – is what matters, the disagreement of others in terms of language use choice only matters indirectly. It matters because this is how much it matters to me, how messed up I am otherwise. Changing terms and labels and perceptions. Changing bodies too. These are necessary so I can see myself as a person who can be alive. Next to that need, disagreement of others matters less, simplicity of definitions matters not, extent of shared oppressions matters not. It is what I need, so I seek support from it in the actions of the world, which through what they are can make such support real by definition. It harms no struggle. It betrays no principle of needing essences. It does not for its overarching purpose require definitions to be simple.
The fact that I need it this much, and that it does no damage, is good reason to let definition be this complex and to shift definitions of others as we can, but mostly it justifies my own view and definition. I need to make my definition such, and likewise shift my body as much as I can. I would need this even if completely alone in this effort, it would still be necessary for me. And I would still be able to work with that.
raki
A serious problem is getting to be how trans people I follow on twitter shares anti-trans stuff so often, even if only to engage with it. If the moment is wrong, it can mess me up. This moment was wrong, so to clear my head, I will put my thoughts down on post like this.
So, someone made three entangled problematic claims. First, that transition like RPGs is some sort of generalized escape, wanting to be any sufficiently dissiminal not-self rather than to be something specific, not defined by the negative. Second, that transition is a drug-like chase after novelty or identity, to feel some sort of high. And third, that no other group experiences such suffering from being denied identity as trans people do from misgendering, so something must be wrong with us.
For the third, this is not a good comparison – other groups having their identity denied rather usually does not mean such a drastic situation. Usually the whole world and your body does not claim you are not who you think. Exceptions may well exist in case of marginalized/invisibilized identities of different kinds. But more correctly is to compare to stereotype threat – if all the world tells us we are a certain way because we are female, black etc., and those stereotypes are reminded about strongly in an environment where we thought we would not be seen so, that produces a credible threat not to the label but the content of our identities (as belonging to those demographics without embodying the stereotypes). I think this is comparable. I recall also how mindblowingly terrible it was when I considered “genius” part of my identity and I got indications I was not. Plus how the whole crisis of masculinity thing can be seen as a need for white straight cis men to embody what they perceive as positive properties of their demographic. All in all, is sensible in context we are sensitive, others would be from same starting point.
For the second, I worried because of course it has been amazingly invigorating to transition; I can turn to that struggle and those achievements to draw energy, and I crave stories of and kinship with other trans people. There is something performative there. It can feel exhilarating. But it is not wholly performative, and the same goes for so many other human pursuits – careers, parenthood, styles, changes of life path, unity with people one shares experience with. Humans build euphoria around any struggle, and seek challenges so we can overcome them. But that does not mean that those pursuits are not also generally things we want for our own sake, not just as challenges or for novelty; the goals themselves are desired and fought for. I know there is such a dimension of euphoria and sense of meaning and identity there, but there will be one around all sorts of things and pursuits, for everyone. I watched out for this as I started out questioning, spent time trying to rule out I was actually wanting to transition as a means to an end like this, and I really don’t think I was, I feel I would have needed it anyway and the euphoria is rather something I get as a bonus, and as a way to cope with the concomitant challenges. Of course those things – feeling I do something brave which makes me like unto my trans kin – makes me happy and I draw strength from it, and indulges in it, but the fact that I want this particular form of identity, not another, still matters, still is a very honest wish. Even in the absence of all the trans coolness, I would be who I otherwise am.
For the first, I never wanted to be someone other than me in sense of different. I wanted always to be the perfect me – just like me, but without any grounds for resonable doubt on being who I want to be, need to be, as well as to be female. This is escape into something more so than away from something. Statistically compared to my cis RPG people who pleyed characters of their assigned gender more often than not, it was rare I played mine. So saying I just want to be another is not correct.
Thus all in all, while of course identity building and performance are there, I think they always are and that this is not a counterargument. When I watch a while TV show just because a character may be read as trans by fans, that may guide me to it but it is not only a means to an end, rather it is all of these things. I disagree I and my kin are so much more sensitive, in context, and my escapism, to the extent it is there, also holds for things I actively want to be.
And of course, beyond any dysphoria or novelty or wish to feel I am going somewhere (whether or not for something I also intrinsically want), I transitioned to escape dysphoria. So much of what was there is gone now – because I’ve transitioned – that it is only rare threats like this that brings it back. The fact that it can be activated like so reveals it to be something I certainly feel, and transition as something I need in order not to feel it. That this now becomes so important is a clear indicator of how important it is for me not to feel like I somehow am my assigned sex.
*
Eyes falling shut from tiredness. Will dump this here for now.
kronos
Having a rare dysphoric spike which I am sure will fade with him; hoping noting it down here will help. It’s simple, really – I read a paper which highlighted how for some phenotypes – lipid absorbtion, liver lipid processing gene expression, and some other related processes – there is little effect of circulating hormones directly or cumulatively, but significant effect of dosage of genes that escape X-inactivation. This couples to those other findings where amino acid metabolism seems to follow in part from a rare example of an Y-chromosome carried transcription factor.
It amounts to there being some biology I cannot femininize with HRT or surgery alone. It is true that I share this with CAIS XY women, which is my first consolation; it can’t make me any more different from a cis woman than they are.
But it still makes me feel a sense of taint about my body, wrongness, thinking of how there are gene programme systems I miss out on. It sticks on me like a dark cloud. And this indeed is dysphoria.
Well, I will do my best. And look eventually for creative solutions.
(Though what can I do? Is there any way to meaningfully amplify gene expression levels in a way which matches the dosage effect of two copies? Maybe. We’d need it to be a strict doubling, amplification, something that still followed the tame tissue- and condition-wide on/off pattern. A global transcript duplicator for chosen genes. Not there yet. Hmmm.)
posthuman and strange
At a sci-fi convention in Akkad now. I was here last year, my first. Then the main focus was on Battlestar Galactica, almost the whole cast was present. I had never seen the show, but I realized I had to, and that there was a particular character I had to cosplay the year after, that is, right now. This was in many important ways a transition-related need, for a lot of reasons. Back then I was 3-4 months on HRT and not so confident.
This character, Number Six, is important in many trans-related ways which the creators surely did not intend. She is a (humanoid) Cylon, a robot/AI that branches to multiple individuals who in turn reincarnate in new identical bodies if killed. The Cylons were created artificially by humanity but rebelled, and after a war against them, they are truly hated. When it is discovered there are human-looking Cylon infiltrators (some as sleeper agents), those are seen as subhuman, non-persons, artifical, machines, not real persons, who can be tortured and killed without any moral burden.
The specific character is further extremely femme-coded – bombshell blonde in revealing clothing, seductress infiltrator, with most of her significant screentime as a ghost presence in the head of a male character. She is also very competent, very dangerous, instrumental in destroying human main civilization, and she undergoes a lot of trials and sufferings which are also coded feminine – rape, pregnancy, miscarriage, and her objective of being able to birth or nourish a child that will bear the Cylon people forward is core to her plot.
All of this contributed to why I needed to cosplay this character. A very high bar for attempting performative and symbolic femininity, as a challenge and test of my own capacity. But also the duality of actually being a highly competent and dangerous immortal genocidal machine. And the fundamental struggle, so trans-like, of not being seen as a “real woman” but as somehow fake, artificial.
It is also my first serious cosplay, and first real femme cosplay. And I knew for all the above reasons, it was beyond crucial I would be understood as doing cosplay – a woman portraying a woman character – and not crossplay – a man portraying a woman character as a drag thing. The character has already attributes making this especially challenging – signature red cocktail dress, blonde hair, almost no makeup, no signature gimmicks or accessories. Meaning I’d have to use just simple clothing and my own body to portray a different person (who is a tall cis woman) well enough for recognition but without any hint of irony, faking or artificiality.
Going about this then required some challenges. The most important I did anyway already – another year of hair removal and HRT. I planned to have lost more weight to be slimmer, but did not succeed – will try harder now. As for the dress, I had great help from my partner who sewed it for me, got lots of compliments for it.
The hair was a major issue. Going blonde was costly, though at least I am not worried I am hurting the hair so much – I got complex protective formulations which seem to work. Bleaching eyebrows worked well. But the haircut is shorter, always a major dysphoria risk. Moreover, I recognize this year that keeping my hair out instead of in a bun makes the long shape of my face more apparent, accentuates squareness of hairline, squareness and width of jaw; I feel I look significantly more masculine with my hair loose, so that was already a major fear to have to face.
Similarly, for the character’s look I needed to skip during the cosplay (two more days to go now!) wearing glasses, lipstick, heavy eye makup, nail polish or eyebrow pencil; she has a cold “natural look” but all of these things I have come to rely on significantly to feel my face and form look more feminine. Going without them has been really frightening, at least at first. Would I look like some drag-performing man in a dress, performing this ironically as mere play-acting, not as an identity with respect to the gender dimension?
Add to this the most recent advances in my facial hair removal. Since two months I do only electrolysis, no laser, no shaving. I let the few straws there are grow so the electrologist can catch them next time, but that means having some long hairs here and there, most white and soft but some darker. This also scared me – how close must a person get before they can see them and notice? So facial hair, no makeup to speak of, a non-flattering hairstyle and a non-flattering body, when I need to come across as perfectly authentic for a high performative bar. Plus my voice still being quite deep.
That said… it actually went really well, this time. I feel confident. I feel OK. I don’t know how I am read, but I received smiles and compliments, was not challenged, and I sort of see even now under these circumstances a woman in the mirror, if one not so happy for her facial shape. No-one challenged me in changing room to the sauna (did not let them see my bottom parts while in there). I feel uninhibited in moving around, being real, being present. It’s as though I can recognize the flaws and limitations, but feel that I can ignore them and make others ignore them also.
So… it worked. I did it. And I now feel more confident still in “casual” femme presentation. I am who I am regardless, and I am beginning to expect to be read as a woman without having to jump through quite so many hoops. Maybe I expect too much still, but the fact I expect it is valuable and changes my self. And this marks also how my body has changed. It really has.
lost in transition 