aspects & agency

Still in a state of somewhat movedness. Basically, I’m reminded that why there may well be clear and defined biological bases for my gender identity and for how my mind improves on sufficient estrogen, I cannot show this easily. The CAH research has the issues one would fear in that the surgeries they get might confound, for example, the guevesdoces findings etc. similarly may be confounded, and so forth. Data match my model but also match other models.

It’s clear that part of the reason I want to do multi-omics studies on HRT are to somehow demonstrate my validity in these regard; verify there is some trans neurology property which causes dysphoria unless hormonally treated. Perhaps I will. But I really must let go of that need, I cannot let it hold me back.

So instead, what to consider? Certainly my personal trajectory, my identity evolution, my dysphoria and my transition do not happen in any vacuum. It would look different under other circumstances and in another time period or culture. I even knowingly in part let myself construct it drawing on others around me. That does not make it any less important, or genuine, or beneficial to me. It remains that it improves my circumstances. This remains true even if there would turn out to have been other paths that could have made me function. It is also an ongoing process of evolution.

Some part of me still feels shame when confronted with the implicit or explicit question why I take part in any construct involving gender, as though its total ignoring and rejection would be the saner choice. For whatever reason, that doesn’t work for me. My emotions won’t work, I won’t be happy unless I live and embody and fully belong to womanhood. Whether this was there from the beginning or developed during my life, it is true. Regardless of my politics it is true. I don’t feel like being ashamed of it.

Instead then in comparison with gender/sex, I will reference another social construct built around biological “realities“, namely parenthood.

It’s extremely central in our societies, even if it varies between them. People often structure their lives around it. Laws and social frameworks assist and protect it. Fundamental laws around names and property and belonging are informed by it. Some cultures have parents changing their names to reflect their parenthood, including for adopted children.

It has a deeply fundamental place in mythology and memetics, and we tend to believe in and experience instincts and involuntary mental states around it. These are constructed and likely informed by some biological basis. It ties into sex and love and pair bonds, and we let it sometimes change and damage our bodies.

The urge towards it is regarded as biological reality (and likely its basis is similarly muddled and unclear as gender identity, with conflicting evidence, likely something there to be found, profound impact, and cultural variability).

It involves major sacrifices and life changes, affecting not only the person but also other people and society as a whole, sometimes in really costly manner. It ties into many other identity facets and social constructs.

Its meaning and motivation varies between the individuals who choose it, and that is something constructed in our social groups – cultures, clans, peer groups. Some people do subversive variants. Some do it despite it not being so practical then and there. Some people do conventional variants in spite of their politics and feel shame for it.

Some people cannot do it using their own biology without help, or at all. We generally recognize the validity of what they create without question, except that there exists a vocal activist fringe – anti-adoption voices – who does not.

Some people end up having genetic children without deciding to. In some cases they see themselves and are seen as parents regardless. In some cases they do not see themselves so, and others often agree but not always. In other cases it is decided, and acknowledged. And in yet others, again, children are not genetic but parenthood was decided on and respected – was constructed, as the biology has an opt-out/opt-in clause in both modern and ancient societies in this regard.

The analogy with gender, of course, is clear. And my possessing and acting on a female gender identity – to the point of requesting recognition from the world, and to the point of letting it affect my life situation, name and reproductive anatomy – is analogous to the choice that most people in the world make to become parents. I’m no less sane than they are.

attaché

Spending two days in an emotionally charged and impactful part of my professional environment, the very LARP-like scientific coordination meeting for a major project I am part of. I was very nervous or perhaps vigilant beforehand, feeling I absolutely had to have solved all my action points and to have provided solutions of sufficient impact where everyone feels involved. I felt this less than before because I now have my new job position taken up, so I am more secure and less dependent, but I am still dependent, and so felt it more than before at the same time as I now meet these collaborators in most cases for the first time since transitioning, and definitely for the first time since going somewhat full femme in my presentation. So situational and personal minority stress making me concerned and fearful, expecting acceptance if fully useful and efficient, and fearing – hopefully baselessly – that I would be questioned, misgendered or pitied if not. “He” went insane, tried to change sex, and now look how much worse “his” science has gotten.

For whatever reason this did not manifest. People have been great, wonderful, accepting. I think I told them all over email that I transition, but for whatever reason everyone seems to know, as I want them to, and I have not been deadnamed. Nor misgendered, excepting I saw an email sent between other parties using my new name but old pronouns. From someone who uses the right pronouns to my face, so not sure what to make of it. This does not improve my view of him. There were some awkwardnesses, but mostly very much a non-issue – people ask me about other things in my life, congratulates me on things etc. but my gender or my transition simply is entirely a non-issue in the public communication. Which is how it should be. I do feel wherever there is gendering (not so much) e.g. bonding between people in similar strata of age, sex, seniority, that I am included as I seek. Some acquaintances are deepening towards potential homosocial friendships, other established friendships already are close and open in ways where I feel no gender barriers in the way whatsoever as well as fully accepted. All good, and if I will come to meet some of these people less often in the future following end of the project, I will miss them. Subsequently, I must maintain collaborations not only for professional reasons but also for personal ones.

What felt really good was how free I felt to present while remaining me. I did my thing (semi-arrogantly discussing figures, algorithms, results, interpretation; commenting on things, suggesting things) feeling much more relaxed than usually. Ended up with voice perhaps melodious and in middle range but not so high as I wanted, hard to remember while also being heard. That bothered me some (as in, I feel dysphoric when I feel my voice is parsed as masculine). I did all this with open-footed high-heel sandals showing off painted nails and legs, in skimpy summer dresses (not even black ones!) and moderate makeup, as well as my signature occult symbol amulet. That last felt important, I am still myself, still S as the driven scientist and seeker for immortality, still someone who talks too much and comments too much and pushes some boundaries, but also someone who lets herself to be as fully femme in presentation as she feels like. I did this and since it worked well professionally, since I had some results and got good responses, I feel this makes me believe that by and large I am accepted, with some fully, with others at least on the surface.

So that was all good.

Things continuing with many many many things at once, personal things and work things and formal things (like registration and housing and company connections that are not work-related), and I feel I can only resolve a few matters each day. There is a list and I do the most urgent things first. This largely feels good, it feels OK. Most of the time I am less stressed, less sad and fearful than before, or it feels differently. I can’t quite say. This appears to be less the case just before I take each next estrogen dose, so may be linked to the dips as blood levels fluctuate. When I really do get stressed from outside sources it is more obtrusive, less easy to not feel. Still possible to ignore and not act on, but not possible to not be somehow affected by. Sometimes vexing but worth it.

living doll

There are multiple levels of probably unintended trans references in the latest erfworld update:

LINK

From the Buffalo Bill the Doller Bill who references the AGP demonized Silence of the Lambs character, to the makaleka doll. Specifically, a doll whose self-concept is a person. The self-concept, the strings, the Thinkamancy and Date-a-mancy and other -mancies, those can be there to let matter be aligned to identities and characterizations. The idea of that self-concept of a person perhaps artificial in origin, but nonetheless true on a fundamental level (and ultimately no more true for anyone, with the Titans the ultimate Dollamancers), and the base body and substrate as given being a doll, a thing, which comes to self-conceptualize under Thinkamancy and Date-a-mancy and Dollamancy as being a person… this comes close to some trans experiences.

EDIT: Or it actually comes to another conclusion. Oh, well, interesting nonetheless, somewhere.

Oh, and hanging out with mother went OK. She avoids or uses wrong names and pronouns, but I think now she knows this is me and this is what we have to work from.