lead-to-chrome

The day after my surgery consult I am aware that I still don’t have a definite date set. The procedure will be, they send me a cost model, then I either pay them or present them documentation saying my health insurance will. Thereafter I get a date. And after that I may be offered earlier dates if there are cancellations.

This means the first step is to ensure they actually send me that document (if they have not by early next week, I remind them). And then to ensure the solution is ready. I’ll try both paths; continue budgeting as planned, but also request from my health insurance what they require, and try to get my quirky therapist to write out the documentation those in turn require. She seems not optimistic about it but I have to try. And if she is not helpful enough, then I contact my old therapist once she is back from maternity leave and check if she can do it instead.

Then applying (needing to do so in Sumerian, so will need help, waiting waiting waiting, maybe have it rejected). If rejected it either means I need to continue current therapy long enough for it to count (and I don’t like being dependent on this therapist, really), or go back to the private option. Accounting for hospital stay costs, surgery cost estimates, home repairs, that is a semi-guaranteed possibility by end of next year, though may be possible earlier in different setups.

I’ll do all these things and it will work out. That’s fine. The interesting observation of my mindstate is how the uncertainty of not having a date creeps me the fuck out. It’s a dysphoria manifestation, makes me restless, a sense of a threat somewhere that I must be vigilant towards, an obsessive vigilance and defense need. Just like my life was pre-transition. This is very very useful to see.

The uncertainty itself, the projected expectation that I will have to spend time waiting without knowing when the wait will be over, that is scary. And highlights how my genital dysphoria is channeled. I can even receive some stimulation these days (not too far back, someone was able to make me come by licking me, after giving me enough attention that I didn’t care what anyone touched or saw, just about what I received – first time in a long while I climaxed, and first time in a long time I felt secure enough afterwards to just sink into fuzzy wordless sleepy happiness, fluids probably went in their mouth so did not cause me further dysphoria – they said I tasted like a cis girl squirting, which I was glad to hear – ah, NSFW interjection in parenthesis aside…).

But my sense of peace is predicated on knowing that I’ll soon be changed, knowing that this state is temporary, set to be resolved. Much like my old dysphoria over social gender relieved a little by convincing myself the world would soon change, must change. The mere fact of my anatomy is what bothers me, is intolerable, and until it has been corrected, the best I can do is to ensure I feel as secure as possible on the timeline of that correction.

That is also what had me before; when I freaked out over the Suporn scheduling system. When I delayed all other things for several days of frantic programming just to write a sniper bot to make the scheduling for me (see: https://lost-in-transition.music.blog/2019/03/25/ninshubur-and-the-hidden-moon/ ; https://lost-in-transition.music.blog/2019/03/28/the-battle-belongs-to-the-strong/ ; https://lost-in-transition.music.blog/2019/03/28/the-battle-belongs-to-the-strong/ for that saga). I couldn’t focus on anything else until I knew I did all I could. It’s similar now. A deep restless anxiety. And I even worry it will reduce my efficiency, keep me from working well.

What soothes me, beyond doing all I can when I can? Actually, walking through the streets of morning Zurich (pretty ugly city really), I started up synthwave I’d been sent, and somehow its minimalism (much more minimal, more elevator muzak like, than my usual empowerment music) seems to be particularly effective on background anxiety. Is this its appeal? That is, where more energetic-upbeat or dramatic material helps one push through apathy, this can help one (me) endure some baseline low-level discomfort that I currently cannot otherwise resolve. It’s inobtrusive enough to let my thoughts go anywhere else, for doing anything else, at the same time, but keeps the scared hypervigilant dysphoric beast somewhat focused. I am thankful for it.

dolorosa

Got caught up in more random TERF fragments and can’t let it go now until I’ve placed my response here outside me. Some troll argued that a sex definition based on identification is more complicated/cumbersome/unintuitive, my response remains it is justified because there is a need, when accounting e.g. for flourishing or lack thereof of trans people. But the implicit contrapoint goes back to those claims of transracialism from Rachel Dolezal, with those seen as some sort of absurdum this reduces to.

My contrapoint in turn – there would exist legitimate transracialism, in case of some transracial adoption or even those cases where someone is adopted into a tribe – Jewish converts come to mind also. We should recognize this just as we do adoptive parentage. And in all those cases, there may be degrees of trans identity. And those degrees depend on the depth and sincerity of the identification, the need of the identification. That is to say, our inclusive group definitions are indirectly intended to reflect need and depth and sincerity. And we can never gate criteria on that, can never assess it directly.

Which is why inclusive identity label definitions must be opt-out, opt-in; they build on external criteria but with further choices possible (did Michael Jackson eventually still identify as black?), and this is the only sensible way we can capture meaningfully underlying sincerity, which reflects need, which reflects something in our bodies (brains) which a non-harmful civilization should let be reflected in our definitions. In principle we can make mistakes – someone may claim opt-in insincerely – but this is a price we must pay, should pay.

That is not to say that discourse now benefits in practice from a transracial understanding any more (or less) than from a plural or otherkin understanding. It could be either way depending on whether there actually is such sincerity or not. If there is, who knows where discourse could go? But in the case of trans gender/sex alignment/modality, then yes, there is salient sincerity and need, so it is there clear that the loss of fidelity in an opt-out/opt-in approach is worth it. It is a rational, sensible and harm avoiding approach to keep definitions such. This does not mean the perhaps-absurdity that those other cases would need it, since the question of sincerity there is a separate one.

craze

Had a bit of a breakdown. Of course being overworked and underslept is part, makes me less containment-capable. But I think this is more interesting.

Having started to schedule SRS I run into the problem that the surgeon I decided on has no waiting list. Meaning my only option is to watch the calendar to request dates as they come online. Twice now other people were before me when that happened, in a matter of hours.

This freaks me the everliving fuck out. I panic-worry that I’ll just wait and wait and never get a date and that uncertainty is intolerable. Basically it’s tolerable only if I know I’ve done everything.

This is dysphoria. This is a deep need to finally fix my genitals. It’s desperate now because only now when I decided, do I let myself actually want it, dare believe it can happen. So I’m fully and extremely on edge for it.

What I need is to be able to send the clinic an email from my gmail the minute a suitable date appears. This means I need to poll the site every few minutes. It would have worked from my office workstation but that has no internet connectivity and won’t until at least Monday. Too long. My old lab servers would work but there I can’t install the libraries needed for pip needed for the google mail API, because I can’t sudo. So now I’m reading up on Google’s VM services. If I can access a virtual linux where I am root, then I can set this up.

I then need a cron job calling the Suporn calendar web scraper I wrote earlier this week, some surrounding logic, and the python gmail API to send the email. I’ll probably end up setting this up rather than waiting. I need to know I have done all I can to secure my path to the SRS I need as soon as I can.

I know I’m being overstressed and irrational, but on some level this is still constructive. But I’ll also try to just rest. I’ll be saner tomorrow. And hopefully in possession of a tool that will let me secure a surgery date as soon as possible, having learned several new tech platforms to do it.

Feeling envy, jealousy – cis women get to have anatomy like I need to without going through all this. Cried a lot earlier tonight once I got home. But one way or another I proceed. Nothing will ever stop me for long. I’ll prove that.

stat

This morning is one of… anxiety? Feeling everything is 50% harder and seeing 100% more possible things that can go wrong. Also dysphoric quite a bit, stomach lurching from mirror image. I think the main thing is, I decided to try for Suporn rather than Chettawut and they have not answered me yet, so that feels entirely uncertain, as does the situation with whether I have enough saved at this point enough if surprise home repairs also happen. It all _should_ work out, they should get back to me within a few more days and I can make a plan. Hopefully they will also confirm their USP namely that some revision guarantee still holds so I am not in an actual emergency in case of the rarest possible complications.

But not having a definite surgery date actually grates really heavily on me now, this is interesting. I need to know it’s coming, it’s bounded. I need to know I’ve done all I could. I don’t want to continue with my present anatomy any longer than I have to, by which I mean, really no longer than I have to in the slightest. Inanna, please let me be fixed soon.

noveau vag

“Should I have SRS (now)” is really the new “should I transition?”. I feel similarly over it – obsess over it, asking everyone, essentially looking for evidence and permission that this thing which somewhere deep down in my dissociate self I want, is something that I “get” to do, something that I won’t regret. It’s really exactly as things were two years ago, in the spring of 2017. I knew on some level what I wanted, and I was very worried that I wanted it for some other reason than I believed I did, and I was feeling reluctant to commit before I was certain enough that I would be OK if I did.It’s been two years of transition then. Woah. It really has. It feels like it should be less? Some of these posts are almost that old. I should perhaps go back and re-read myself, this transition account. I intended for it to become one, but it was also a venting space. It has become one. Maybe at some point I’ll bundle and edit all this. Maybe some of it is useful to someone.

So, going back to the analogy. I felt a longing to become sure I really was one of those who would be happier if she transitioned, but I needed external assurances – from reading accounts of others, from trying to evidence within my autobiography, from experiments. Eventually I got past all that by having enough experimental results and enough not-giving-a-fuck that I decided I get to decide. And moreover, that I got to decide because my will mattered. Which it does because I am a person like everyone else. Which I am because I am a woman. So I am transgender.

What I also did then was to process my fears. I was afraid of so much along the path that lay ahead of me. I was afraid of being seen as a freak, of being discriminated against, pitied, shunned, of being looked down on. In hindsight much of that was fear of coming out. It was also the fear of finally losing the choice of being able to pass as cishet or not.

I processed even before that point by stretching boundaries, going more and more androgynous. This was what I escalated back then. I got my first bralette almost a year before HRT and wore it thereafter when I went through airport checks. I started switching restrooms, presenting myself as trans, all these things before I was formally sure. I told my parents about my questioning. I know why I did this, I was trying to experience the awkwardness and fear and pain, socially speaking, before I passed the point of no return. I wanted to know if I could handle it, how bad it would feel, and perhaps also to dull the pain before it became compulsory. I LARPed being further along in my transition so that I would build resilience but perhaps above all to check, would I experience regret?

This afternoon I realized I’m doing the same now with SRS.

My increasing genital dysphoria and issues with sex may well to a large part be unavoidable and there, but I also focus on them and nurture them, let myself feel them, experience them. I open myself to the stone butch life, where I let myself feel the dysphoria of parsing my bare genitals wrong during sex, where I let myself get used to not wanting or be able to climax with a partner (or alone – I can but why the hassle? pfah). I’m actively riding the wave of these emotions, calling increasing attention to them.

In so doing I am testing myself for what my sex would be like if I had an unfavorable SRS outcome. Part of this which I am doing is this kind of emotional preparation, I’ve been asking myself the question: “Could you be OK with life if you never came again, if all your sex was breastplay and painplay and cuddles and topping?” I’m mildly melancholically sad about it, is the answer. I’ve looked to that melancholia as a putative reason why I should have SRS, and felt it’s not a big thing.

Where I should look, rather, is why I’m trying to get used to that sadness, why I’m preparing for the worst. Clearly it’s because some part of me deeply wants to be able to conclude she should have SRS. And it’s similar to the part of me that tested out being queer and at social awkwardness and risk as a non-passing trans person even before she had to, because she wanted to be able to conclude she should socially and hormonally transition.

I think one very likely conclusion to draw from this, though it needs more testing, is that to a large extent I want SRS for the same reason I wanted to transition in general. Underlying it all is a conceptual and existential dysphoria. I must be as much like other women as I can for the world to be OK. I felt that enough to take the steps I took so far, of which I would say that coming out and social transition was far costlier than anything medical – the latter I would say have all been pleasure and some interesting pain (when did I become so OK with pain? Ah, when I’d trained it enough…). So the question now is, is that same feeling strong enough to make we want the cost that is the risk of loss of orgasmic capacity (because ultimately that’s really the only realistic fear I have that I care about)?

I think it is, but I’ll take some more time to process all of it. I don’t have to decide just yet. In the next months. Perhaps by April I will.

(And if I just go by intuition? I want to be on the operating table already, so badly. Or rather, I want to know I am on track there. But I should not only trust intuition. Only more than I did in the past.)

compulse

It really does bother me this thing about heteronormativity as internalized in the structure of this, the only world which is so fully mirrored about me. Almost every narrative of a girl experiencing love and lust is with a man. So when trying to understand myself as a girl, I feel that unless I share those experiences with my sisters – to the extent of passionately wanting and pining for boys – then I am missing out on being like other girls. More to the point (or exactly the same point), I am dysphoric over not being androphilic.

It’s nothing simple. I have sexual attraction to men (smell and looks) in various cases. I’m growing fonder and fonder of girldick so long as it isn’t mine, too. It’s all a matter of social alignment and… energy… somehow. Men that I feel for I come across at most once in a blue moon. That makes me probably mostly lesbian. And dysphoric because I’m not into boys the way other girls are.

I think I have heard just this narrative from cis lesbians too though. And perhaps that is the way? I must find and hear their voices, share their stories, and in that I may find a strategy. Work on compulsory heterosexuality together with my gay cisters.

line becomes a circle

Laser day, woke, went out without makeup, no time for estrogen before. My face and form and voice are flawed and this felt like weighted sadness. Receiving support made me safe to feel this sadness, love and music came my way and I listened and opened, and thereby could feel it more clearly.

The interesting part: I know I could step into “this has to get done, I feel nothing” dissociation and ride outside the body core in the enactment of tasks. I wouldn’t express sadness then or appear to feel it, might not even notice it.

I’m trying to stay now if I can. Because I’m thinking that perhaps I need to stay in sadness, even court sadness, if I am to be able to also stay to feel happy emotions at a greater amplitude than I can now. I think at this point I must learn not to dissociate and I think this is what I also am attempting.

awww yis

So, other progesterone users seem to use the amounts actually indicated by the Powers protocol. I should do this also. Which does mean I should start cycling again, deciding on a starting point. I want to invite women close to me also on gel dosable E2 and P4 to cycle with me. Get in touch if you know how to and we’ll actually seriously do it, period tracker app and all.

Discovering that, as I had somewhat suspected, now that trans alignment and dysphoria is mostly under control given I am quite a way into transition, I’m getting to the point where I can deal with whatever my emotional damages are. I don’t know to what extent they are impacted by the loss of my grandfather. I don’t know to what extent they are impacted by the breakups which made me afraid. I don’t know to what extent the self-alienation of dysphoria intersected with body desirability perception to make it vaster and stronger over the years. I don’t know to what extent there were any hurdles in my attachment (in particular perhaps, my being so early in language and social development might have meant I considered myself personally responsible earlier than is healthy).

Either way, it’s clear over time I have a pathological fear of rejection, that I expect it, that this fear is very easily triggered, and that it drives me to constantly crave relational validation as well as to scrupulously ensure I do all I must to maintain good standing. It emerges, by and large, almost but not exclusively in my romances (whether formal ones or those odd cases where we decide afterwards it really was a romance).

I think this is good. I can do exposure training on the fear, try to remember to be mindful within it – which is almost but not quite so hard as not zoning out when touched – and I can try to use my newfound peace and introspection to define the edges of this phenomenon better.

I’d do well I think to look to my friends with BPD in how they cope with what they experience. I don’t think this is the same – just as I am not autistic – but I can still make use of some of their wisdom.

In other news, I’ll prepare templates for SRS recommendation letters. This feels exactly as when I asked academic collaborators for recommendation letters and they asked me to write a template for them. I made slightly different versions for each so that they would not look identical when I needed to submit both. There is some beautiful cosmic humor in this.

revolutions

I had a lovely date and a night of multichannel communications, bolstered by wisdom and humility. So many new impressions and shifts and thoughts. Her scent follows me subtly. I am late for the Scientific Council and that will be fine. It felt like coming face to face with reality. It felt like gentle fun. I maintain faith of connecting more and in more areas still. If we hurt each other it will be fine. I don’t need to preplan what might happen.

I kept fading out into… somewhere and she sensed it each time and told me to stay in the moment. It’s seriously hard work, I hadn’t realized how I keep escaping mentally during sex. Always to some extent.

I wanted my parts touched but even with the greatest care, and with the sensations feeling good, I feel like I’m keeping watch against something when it happens. So hard to stay even when I want to.

I cherish communication that is mutually desired. I hope for time shared simply being present together. I anticipate the future. This day is beautiful.

auld tan sine

NSFW: Sex party stuff.

I’m a sappy, romantic girl. Also I need to learn kinder time management for self. Also life is hard and life is great and I may need and want more consistent/coherent/intensive emotional connections; perhaps I’ve kept expectations low as part of a strategy for not being sad in a life often complex and disappointing. Also the stereotype is real in that if at all possible, trans girls crush on trans girls at the drop of a hat, more than 50% of the time.

Went to sex party for NYE again, it was once more transformatory, edifying and more fun than the last two times, I’ve gotten closer to a social self that can handle it. In past years I was shyer and less anchored so I spent more time being unsatisfied with not enough happening. Some this time but less.

As previously, started out with name and pronoun rounds, as well as stating intentions for next year and next few hours. Mine were embodiment, and for the evening, getting caressed, worshipped and spanked into submission, as no-one really has tried my pain threshold and I want that. I suppose what I want is something very specific, and I did not get that yesternight – having my butt spanked with flat, blunt implements like floggers by someone I am sure knows enough not to leave permanent marks, but going at it far and hard and long enough that I really cannot keep dignity. Basically relaxing into a state where I keep no control except resisting, and then lets go and surrenders when it’s reached the level that I cannot stand more. Crying and screaming and actually feeling something more than pretending, giving in because I literally have no choice. This really appeals to me. But also needing for whoever does it to not tease me with pain, not let me get all cool or bored or resentful or dissociated or distracted or zoned-out, it has to stay full-on intensity so I can’t escape anywhere. This has been a tall order for a girl who tends to date subs and very kindly, conscientious people…

Anyway. Then there was facilitated play which was much better than I thought. Group takes turn, one third at a time wears a blindfold for ten minutes. The other two thirds move between the blindfolded people, greet and goodbye them by touch, staying for some time and touching them. Anything is on table unless the blindfolded signals not – pain play, breast fondling, caresses over and under clothing, kissing, biting. Ensure at least one person touching each blindfolded person at all time, preferably more. Hardest part was with people who did not respond much to what I did, easiest where I could guess from their wishes what they liked.

I told people they could remove my corset beforehand. So that felt amazing, being held and moved around, having my chest made unclothed, nipples pinched and kissed and sucked, being grabbed and touched hard by several pairs of hands at once. I didn’t go ecstatic or lose control, but I did have a lot of fun.

This leads to one of several insights. I fear not being as reactive as other people in terms of getting lost in passion, I fear being relatively asensual, that I’ll always have to remain in control, remain aloof and separated. What I’m beginning to suspect is that perhaps I’m just difficult, that I need a lot of time during which I both feel safe and secure, including socially and emotionally, and during which I get sufficiently intensely stimulated, am not allowed to fade out or zone out or dissociate, do not feel the duty to give anything back and so to focus on giving rather than receiving (happens all the time, I always fear being selfish), and am not touched in any of the wrong ways. Maybe if that happens then somewhere there is a state change and I too would lose myself in passion. Or maybe there has to be an emotional connection also. I really hope I can experience that. It seems so, so selfish. And then I think of people I’ve been with who feel guilty for functioning exactly like that. Maybe I function exactly as my girlfriends have, and am as hard to please (and as deserving of that effort) as they? Wouldn’t be the first time it was like that…

Anyway. Then faded out a bit but got to experience violet wanding; tried to push my boundaries by nipple play or so, but while it was fun to experience the electric jolts, in the end it wasn’t strong enough. Perhaps having it directly on genitals while tied up would be something I couldn’t just take, but this was nice but mild.

Then an odd episode. Someone spilled vanilla sauce on himself. I commented that at least something at the party should be vanilla and offered to get a napkin. He offered me to lick it up. So I did, at his feet, and he kept spilling vanilla sauce on his leg while I lapped it up, until I said I’d had enough vanilla sauce. Then we kissed and made out and he gave me pain and pleasure on my upper body through mouth and amazingly strong and capable hands. I felt safe and present mostly, as he was clearly more into giving at this point, and it was mostly surrounding social circumstances – and sort of not knowing him enough to read whether I kept him happy or interested enough, causing again social-style worry – that limited how far I could get to some extent.

This suggests to me that I should make sure not to let social anxieties get in the way. Specifically, it’s great the more I know someone so I can read them, know how they communicate, know what sorts of things they feel, know what they want and what the understanding of the situation is. I will continue to do party play like this, but I’ll hope even more for stable friendships and partnerships as a vehicle for really intense sexual experiences. I need to accept that I stay a social creature also in formal play.

It may also be that I have to acknowledge that I DO have preferences for people, some attract me more than others, and I actually need to be somewhat physically attracted to someone for sex to be able to be as intensive as I want it at least sometime to be…

Then there were some formal sessions/rituals which didn’t do much for me, and I fell out of scope and mood and mindset from having come down, until I was again asked to join play with some people very dear to me in different ways. However, given their relatively more intense dynamic internally, I felt through no fault of theirs that I was somehow in a fifth wheel situation, and having already begun thinking on the above, that moved me even further out, and I spiralled on that thought. In a sense, I realized I really want situations where I don’t worry at all socially, where I feel fully engaged, and where I feel certain we want the same thing, and that this is what we want most and undividedly, right there, right then. Not in all cases, perhaps, but that type of emotional framing for sex, with friends and partners alike, seems like something I may need to focus more on, I need more talk on the framing and perhaps I should be more restrictive on whether a certain time is the right time or not?

Found the way back though as we ended up with me essentially cuddling the others while casually using a vibrator on my bottom parts through clothing. It turned a somewhat challenging situation into a great opportunity. I can’t recall when last I masturbated except as isolated experiment to see whether I still could come, certainly years ago, so having a situation where the best thing to do was to lie in a cuddle pile masturbating was a great learning opportunity. I can indeed stay in pantyhose tuck and use even a small vibrator, I won’t get too hard, and can trace tissues like where outer and inner labia would be, where the clitoris would be, where the vaginal opening would be, can try to trace what touching sensations and pressure on these parts would be like, and that felt safe and good. I could get close to coming, enjoy that, and edge myself for what must have been close to two hours. It takes me time to be able to reach close to climax, I can keep myself close to there and enjoy vibrations, and when I finally went over, I enjoyed that too.

Then the fluid aspect made everything horrible. I don’t ejaculate so much, and it is clear fluid at least, but I loathe it so much because in this setting I end up with the tucking panties getting wet and cold, so the only way out is to again acknowledge the shape of my anatomy. Up until that point I don’t have to. It’s possible that being all wet would be fine if I could be naked (and/or casually wipe off), but getting naked reminds of my shape. I can’t use any other words for it, I can’t type out what others might call my genitals. And loathe getting hard, and can only hide it from myself by tucking.

So… I want to be able to stay relaxed throughout pleasure, but right now, coming means a huge let down, dysphoria spike, logistics. All so cumbersome. I just want to be able to stay present in my embodied self and not have to edit my impressions or keep doing workarounds. Well, maybe I look for confirmation that I should have surgery, but yes. There should be a way around this. And I worry about finding the right technique, and recovery times and challenges, and costs, and things that can go wrong one way or another, and how afraid I will be of complications without easy access to the same surgeon, and how afraid I will be that healing won’t go well, or that nerves won’t work.

I’m still really afraid, and I become more afraid when I think of really doing it end of this year. That’s so close! Barely any time to prepare! However will my life be ready! But at the same time, I want it done now, I want it over with. I want more life post-operatively. I’m definitely on a track here. I briefly implied to my parents I will do it, and to the rest of the world. I think perhaps people won’t be surprised. I hope it will be soon. I hope I won’t regret anything going wrong. I feel guilty that I’d pay so much privately rather than save/invest, if waiting longer would mean insurance coverage. But I realize I won’t wait three years for a body I can be naked in.

In the meantime, I’ll try my best to enjoy sex, and nudity as best I can, and so on. It will be a year of workarounds. But what else is new?

It will be OK.