fvlmina pvella

Things are again so intense stress-wise I have persistent headache but I can’t let any of it down just yet.

Felt deeply lonely during the Friday, and almost didn’t go out Saturday because I expected to be lonely and sad also at the club. Instead I found a queer sex party/disco in a former squat, and going off of the experiment at the concert last week (project “talk to the cute guy/enby named Leo even though you don’t know each other b/c my friends dared me to”), I spoke with some people even though it seemed like that was intruding.

Meaning I ended up talking to strangers, giving several my card, kissing two, and being dressed down by one to my panties in the darkroom and making out. Which was amazing and felt great, and did so despite the person being a man. It helped that both the guys I kissed looked good and projected enough wokeness to fit into that space.

So I felt my touch starvedness decrease, and my self-identification as also interested in men increase, and was sort of euphoric-yet-headached the day after. I may meet these people at the local BDSM munch again and would certainly play with, and go to this party again.

I left quite early still. Did not want to fully lose sleep. Had I stayed, might have gotten spanked, but that’s for next time. It was then at a stage that I could have asked.

I need to keep on practicing these social skills. And I need to keep going out, putting myself out there.

The one I was in the darkroom with, before we kissed I said “you know I’m trans, right?” and he said he was “fine with that” and seemed to find it endearing I asked. The other one said he did not realize I was until I mentioned it. I don’t know if I can believe it but I liked hearing it. With Darkroom Guy, he wanted to go dance off his high quite soon after we started, but I think that was more him than me. More importantly, I couldn’t have been comfortable going further.

I really want a vagina now so cute people can fuck me in it. I want the casualness sex maybe can have then, once I am healed. I want to be able to get fully naked without dysphoria.

And yes, my social life has evolved to a point now where “going out” means “BDSM club” more than anything else. So be it.

Today I should have worked, but I was freaking out over the uncertainty of a surgery date, that I don’t know it yet. I worry everyone wanting Suporn SRS have web scrapers that autosend request emails and that my watchlist marker will be too slow. So I’ve spent way too long today writing HTML parsers and trying out the gmail API. Still not there but once my workstation runs, I can finalize it.

The existence of a trans girl rite of passage where we have to write a web scraper to schedule SRS has delightful stereotype power for me and I cherish it even while it irritates me. Met early morning with an architect. It will cost to fix my bathroom once they pull the pipes out during refurbishment, but I think it will work out. I can save enough this year to be able to cover that even going for Suporn SRS early next year.

I need a surgery date now. I need to know it, build up towards it, prepare for it.

Part of this will be to fix the rest. Voice therapy starts next month.

Laser today. Hurts very little. Before next time, need to not shave for a week so they can see what hair I actually have left. Will start shaving nipples so I can laser them next.

Going without foundation felt fine. I really do look very smooth now. Not all the way there, but almost. Even going away for laser without makeup felt OK. I feel I can defend my legitimacy even then. May try without foundation more often.

Soon time for sunblock again, and today was the first high-heels day of the year.

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.

cracks

Sad and painful reminder. While most people seemed to gender me correctly so far at the airport, the security check people were surprised at my surprise at asking me to be checked by the male attendant (I then said I was trans and the woman checked me instead), and some other person seemed basically not to like me.

Checking by mirror reveals why; having had laser in the morning I have mottled skin, no foundation, only eye and lip and eyebrow makeup. Clearly it is not sufficient, it’s not just stubble, I really do need the smoothness of foundation to look reasonably like the woman I am.

This saddens me. I hope at some point somehow the changes from HRT will let me get past the need of that Gaussian sub-layer.

Feeling sad but not catastrophically so. Just the average dysphoria-trigger living-in-a-graveyard downs.

things

These are somewhat harsh times, I am under stress from many different work deadlines at once. Then as I started following more trans people on Twitter, I get their reposts of TERF stuff and sometimes at least briefly go down rabbit holes I would rather avoid, plus other things. Dieting, have not slept enough recently (because I had early meetings three days in a row, including laser), and ending up worrying about things. Not super happy with estradiol patches, will ask to try gel next time. Feeling the weight of stress and low sleep. I will make things better.

Would even more like injections, I now think, as it might have a spike+fall pattern actually similar to E2 levels in cis women (where some recent paper claimed those were on average the same as for cis men, but the data does not look like that for me). I’m speculating that occasionally _very_ high levels may trigger some differentiation. In theory I can use leftover material do to this myself occasionally though. Injections are not a thing in my country of residence. Looking forward though to next assessment. In best case might switch to patches+gel or something, and try out progesteron as well.

Continuing the discussion on hormones, looking around literature some (when I should have been working on other science), there are various scattered and sometimes incompatible findings pointing in different direction. There are also online communities of cis men doing DIY cis HRT, supplementing testosterone and reducing estradiol, some saying they feel bad from too high estradiol. I did not know this. Not scientifically validated but interesting, and it would make sense from a perspective of individual-specific optima.

Continuing the gender identity speculations, a recent look again at some papers show mixed conclusions on whether CAH people more often end up trans men. They may be, but it’s not clear if so if their medicine compliance during childhood plays roles, and at least some are raised as boys or reassigned girls quite late. These things might also confound some of the conclusions of that CAH vs gendered learning study I keep mentioning. Echoing my comment from two posts ago though; I am me, and retain my identity and needs, whether I can be sure there is some prenatal hormone effect driving my alignment or not.

Oh, and also did the awkward and asked my laser provider if she can help me with genital hair removal in preparation for surgery. Language barriers salient but she seemed possible. So that might happen.

pew research

Laser today. Now up at 25 units of whatever that is. Not really bothered by this pain, plus it feels less. Thinking of asking them to do the regions that are recommended for hair removal in preparation for Chettawut SRS, you know, just in case. Just feels awkward to ask one’s laser technician; “Could you laser my perineum? You know, this part here?“ Not least because I don’t know if that would reveal unexpected and hitherto hidden transphobia, “we only do intimate treatment for women“… which also would hurt. Bothered more by this hurt than by the thought of laser blisters on my intimates, which I suppose is interesting.

Doing an experiment involving HRT and placebo on a short scale. Will see if I finish it, and will write it up here if I do. Yay anecdata!

meds

Started day with a new laser provider who was actually good – a fourth of what I paid in the past, and spent a lot of time actually hitting the spots where needed.

Then endo meeting. Things chaotic – unsure if I actually had an appointment (chaos and languages in Babylon) but the doctor saw me anyway. Will end up trying estradiol in gel form, and probably lowering blocker dosages; he seemed willing to prescribe progesterone in the future.

These things all good but leaving me still somehow shaken afterwards, as though things which relate to medical administration (and which are important) leave me feeling as though I survived something.

Question then is – do I change my HRT delivery regime before or after the big scary important grant interview on Wednesday? The wise answer would be “after“. The me answer probably is not.

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.

beam me

Now feeling a painful and near-obsessive longing to get the facial laser continued like yesterday. Seeing beard shadow and hating it so deeply. Will try to look for something when home for the holidays because otherwise I will feel so disgusting and alien.

Plus… people apparently do laser for full body. It costs a lot. Probably a few thousand EUR in total for all the rounds needed. Still, over many years, doing regular waxing and still having half a month of outgrowth between each… maybe this actually would be something I ought to do? Right now I long so much for it. It’s silly how much these things affect whether my body feels right or not.

Also craving for head hair to grow out enough to look properly long. And seeing to my utmost horror how the edges of the forehead have little hairless horns, like the beginning of male pattern baldness. It’s not likely to go far or fast, judging by my father, but it really does accentuate how unless I go on androgen blockers very soon, changes will start to occur from male aging alone that I will feel absolutely horrible about. Good to know this. Skin crawling, longing for solutions. They will come.

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…

law of fives

For the third laser round Frau Doktor H raised settings further to “23”. No idea of unit or on whether – probably, really – this is still below what more stoic people shake off. It hurt more than last, sometimes I asked for a few seconds of time as the chief issue is how the pain compounds on a short time scale. Burns post-laser are stronger, it looks like localized bad sunburn beyond the bacon-smelling burn marks.

Meh. It’s fine. Making me truly understand the idea of the Gom Jabbar. Now for maybe some short more sleep before going to lab, since right now having a full brain matters more than usual.