cuts

Got surprisingly hard hit by unexpected TERF rhetorics somewhere. Will probably truncate thoughts and sleep.

At the same time, feeling increased need to be recognized. Need to take voice further. Thinking I will start correcting people until I am spoken of correctly, whether or not they are irritated. And continuing from earlier, feeling unhappy about my anatomy, for my own view of it, and because it seems like it affects how others read me. Feeling perhaps for the first time an actual longing for the end state of successful Thai-style SRS, rather than a curious interest. That is interesting but also notable as then it is not only positive but inverse negative motivation.

I’ll set aside a personal fund for this, to have the option. And perhaps some three years from now, there will be a time when my PhD students are in writeup phase and don’t need me holding their hands, and when my post-docs are experienced enough that they can hold down the fort, so that me disappearing for a month of hospitalization in Asia, then being reduced in energy and time for 3-5 months of dilation and healing, won’t make or break my research programme.

I’d still fear an unsuccessful outcome, fear failure to heal right (am I too old to heal easily?), fear the pain, fear that nerves would not reconnect, fear that I still would have a deep voice and facial features that make people think I am male, so that I somehow would have gone through all that pain and sacrifice and still not have been understood right. Fear of the sadness and pain and worry in the eyes of my parents from them knowing I was doing it, though that fear is dulled now they know I really am transitioning. Fear of being weak and alone and helpless during recovery. (To my friends and lovers and family and all who reads this: If you come to conclude you would be willing come with me and keep me company during that first month, if I made that possible for you, please let me know. Knowing I would not have to be alone would help this fear.)

Lots of fear. That said, right now that feels like the fear of something planned and anticipated. Right this moment, when I still have that TERF-fuelled dysphoria (for it is that, it is that feeling as though the world freezes and dies), then the thought of fears and physical pain and awkwardness is still not as bad. Right now my feelings of dysphoria are worse than my fear of SRS recovery. Tomorrow it might not be. But this is in some sense a first, and I find it meaningful, find it telling.

double slit experiment

Had next laser appointment. Mixed bag. Not with regular dermatologist because I am in my alma mater town for holidays. This one is not medical but cosmetic, but I think the procedure should still be fine.

They asked if I wanted anesthesia. Previously have not had. So showed up an hour early for this, had to wait some 45 min anyway so whole thing took very long. They smeared my face with xylocaine or something, covering in plastic while I spent an hour writing Perl scripts and emails. I asked whether they could do laser – in principle – on other body surfaces. The technician said they did not do bottom parts for men, only for women, because they did not like it. Why mention this to me? I can only understand it as them seeing me as, fundamentally, a man, never mind I came to them stating I was a trans woman and giving my female name. So clearly I do not blend for this person. There was again no ill will. Just another experience that stuck with me and made me feel surprisingly sad. They later misgendered me (talking for some time with a colleague about me as “he”), and that too felt worse than it used to. It’s not a pain, it’s a numbness or sadness. It may be I am becoming increasingly subject to dysphoria.

Never minding that, nor the other minor weirdnesses (requiring cash payment or an obscure national-only transfer app, not providing receipts, not having proper change), the thing was technically interesting and useful. Anesthesia was to allow higher strength laser, and even with it, and with them using cooling pastes, I could not go all the way up. I asked now to have a few seconds, then a few seconds break, and so on, and this helped, the individual stings are not the problem, the buildup over time is – both short series or overall.

Pain was very different also in different regions. Almost nothing where skin is soft. Very harsh on chin and under it. Presumably this is about how thick the hairs are, and on whether there is soft tissue or bone beneath? Some areas don’t really bother me at all, but for some it took effort to cope. Then cold water and aloe vera afterwards, again very different from the minimalism of my dermatologist. I guess I will know in a few weeks if this worked better.

Not looking forward to more of this pain but I will take it in order to be able to relate to my face. Still considering body laser, but only if that hurts more like the cheeks, and not like the chins. Considering trying out epilators, and happy to have a full-on waxing session scheduled before the NYE party.

interactions

Was hanging some with good friends and their friends in turn, and was surprisingly downspirited by some of that interaction. More specifically, one man projected somewhat odd expressions against me. He kept semi-agitatedly asking me to show anger, asked me “what sort of porn I watch when I wank”, kept doing jock-like touching (slapping, playfight punching etc.) despite no reciprocation from me, told me I am “still a man” and that I smell like him, out of nowhere. I wasn’t really sure how to respond; with other dear friends nearby I did not feel unsafe as such though otherwise I would have, but had no useful way to act or speak in response. If I were to try to put the pieces together, I would somehow parse it as though he indeed does not see me as anything but a cross-dressing man, as such he would expect me to somehow deep down be aligned with all that macho bullshit, and he may have been trying to test if I would respond to his taunts thereby somehow proving him right in that regard?

In itself this is not so unsettling, as I don’t have to care or react as long as I am safe. But it does cause me to feel sad and dysphoric – simple and unsophisticated people will not understand me as a woman, it seems, they will see me as male as a matter of course. They will not see this as trying to be hostile, it will just be what the world honestly feel like to them, and their baseline conduct against me will be like they usually act towards odd men, not how they usually act towards even odd women. At least thus far. I must remember that I’ve barely started transition, I’ve not changed physically much, I’ve barely made any progress so far with voice work, I haven’t started hormones. Perhaps and hopefully this will change, perhaps I will reach a point where I will be able to blend. Hopefully without having to do more femininity than I feel like at any given point, though this also made me feel as though any expression of mine which is too forceful, too bombastic, will have me read as male by people responding like this person.

These feelings will pass. Right now I feel very self-conscious and unhappy and pessimistic, but those feelings will pass, and I will regain confidence in how hard or easy this will be. I’m sure I still do smell masculine, but I’m indeed on the way towards changing that, I will do my best in every way I can. To some regard, an experience like this (alongside earlier today the same barista as before once more sir:ing me repeatedly) is also helpful, it tell me that I have a long way to go. I have the capacity to make those changes I need, and I will proceed to make them. I will refuse to be more demure even as a way to avoid misgendering. I might also eventually become self-assured enough that I will call people out, I suppose. Life is learning opportunities.

breathalyzer

Had a second appointment with the speech therapist. I had been too preoccupied to do all my exercises but were hiding this fact. New and relevant things were:

– One exercise to check for how many repetitions of an upper body stretching exercise I can exhale a soft “f” sound for (should be at least 8).
– Foot massage things with a tennis ball, aiming to relax the feet. Doing so does cause some changes in sense of stresses, and made me think of posture. More on that below.
– Extending previous exhale-pause-inhale-pause routine to try it in “w” and “f” and “w->u”, and in both head and chest voice.
– Trying the same but starting to read my poem as I do.

Ideally I’ll actually do all this during the next month of travel, seeing how well it goes. I contacted my insurance provider and am now waiting to hear if they actually will cover it or not. If they don’t, I will challenge it, but in the meantime in that case pay these first rounds myself but probably not do more sessions until it does end up being covered.

The more interesting part: In the pause stages of the exercise I mentioned, the idea is to let arms hang limply at sides. This is actually really difficult for me, and I was surprised to find how. I keep doing posing; assymmetric body postures where I position hands and hips and arms. I did this for a long time but more of it since beginning transition. As it turns out, letting my hands fall (or most postures that are very relaxed and simple) feel weird. They include no body positioning that I can think of as female-coded, so it makes me perceive my body as male/null/fleshsuit/etc. In other words, if my body position is neutral, I feel bad over how it does not come across to me as feminine; and this happens to an extent that it is uncomfortable to me to relax physically.

This was in fact one of the awesome things about the tantra workshop; under those conditions I felt validated enough that I could relax without being dysphoric. I also come to hope this is something that can be changed over time under medical transition; that it could make me recognize my body as female without having to make an effort, and therefore to be able to feel comfortable in it under more situations. Curious.

pow R toc H

Noting that there exists some (relatively smaller) crowd of people who experience what they describe as trans OCD/tOCD. This reminds me of why differential diagnosis for OCD was of interest to my therapist. These would be people who obsessively fear being trans and try to disprove that they are. There is similarly homosexuality OCD where people fear they are gay and try to disprove that, paedophilia OCD where people fear they are child-attracted and try to disprove that, disease OCD where people fear they have AIDS or cancer and try to disprove that.

Now, all those three last I certainly have experienced. And a lot of what I have experienced with regards to dysphoria resembles a “reverse“ trans OCD, a cis OCD, where I would – in some convoluted fashion – obsessively fear being a man and try to disprove that. What do I take away from this?

Essentially what my therapist also suggested: my basic go-to coping strategies carry the seeds of OCD in them, I have an OCD risk profile and in various times of my life, this has reached almost clinical symtom levels. Of note, this would not gainsay my being trans in the slightest; I obsessively check everything that might suggest I am cis, not because I fear being trans but because I fear being a non-woman.

The valuable insight is rather what I have known for a few years; my rumination behaviours are jerk brainy, pathological – they identify something I fear, usually something unfounded, and then try to sabotage attempts at letting the fear go. Thus a recommendation might rather be to become better at letting go of fears of being male, fears of being cisgender, because those fears when they do emerge bear all the hallmarks of how I previously have experienced OCD-like symptoms on other topics.

It also highlights how my gender identity mismatch/dysphoria have operated through the lens of the OCD-at-risk nature of my coping strategies; as a person who uses rumination and intellectual defenses, the dysphoria activated a fear which activated obsession and ritualistic defenses. I was able this year to fight it effectively by reducing the underlying fear by beginning transition. That was the right way to go, but I must remain vigilant – as my therapist also in fact did suggest – for how my go-to response to fears is OCD-like.

That in turn tells me to let go of writing about this now and instead finish up my work, to free up time for the things that really do bring me joy, such as transitioning and self-actualization. As such, that insight might be a useful one.

beamline frustration

My dermatologist will not have the use of her laser again until the 18th, I wonder if she time shares it? So I can’t thereby get another round before leaving for holidays. Seeing the growing stubble makes my skin crawl. I may have to find a temporary provider. I’ve gotten used to think of it as receding and any break in that process causes an adverse response…