Tag: life

fort

These are more intense days yet again. Much is not gender-related except I did it gendered, but I want to express it.

Very time-pressured during this week. One day all spent filming, with two people I have crushed on. I had a lot of fun. I was stressed I would not do it well but it worked. Seeing the movies – in some angles and lighting, it almost appears as though I pass visually. My voice does not, but I actually look pretty good. Sometimes. Photographed by a girl who knows her stuff, in good makeup.

Then the homework. I will provide more material to help make my legal case to the insurance. Then I will perhaps have the choice of Schaaf/Morath or Chettawut. May still be leaning towards the other. It feels like I am longing for surgery now.

I went to a castle (well, resort that was a monastery with horses, swans and weird art) east of Babylon, almost to the Polish border. Place and landscape were beautiful as so many things at once. The meeting took most of two days and I needed to stay focused, could not work much on my manuscripts. I stayed very visible, and kept worrying I was too pushy. I was nervous giving my talk, and as previously, froze some and tried to hide it when I talked about the part where I outline my planned research in trans people. That said, I think they recognize me. I think my strategy from before work. I am sure I do not pass as cis to these people, but they accept me. In particular, the young women smile at me. In line for the toilet stall, someone complimented my boots.

Oh, and I definitely, totally wear a miniskirt and a corset to a meeting for research leaders. No-one has told me not to. Not all is wrong with the world. Over post-dinner drinks, spoke with she who previously misgendered me. I talked about my alignment and surgery and identity, she of her minority religion. We got on well now. I think she knows me now.

Getting tired and drained already, physically, socially, intellectually. Have some hopes of meeting up with someone this weekend, and to do so in a state of such drain (not too severe but somewhat), as I somehow long to go from exhaustion to meaningful communication while extra vulnerable, this being a feature rather than a bug. I am an emotion junkie but what else is new?

Apparently I volunteered to help coordinate efforts to harmonize study protocols and patient data. That will come back to bite me but if I do deliver all of this then maybe I do have a chance at tenure. Mid-day we left to circle Babylon to another castle (this more typical) on the diametrically opposite side. I put white noise in my headphones and semi-slept in the car.

I do need to learn the language. At least clinicians, if not basic scientists, spontaneously shift to Akkadian if all present are natives. I don’t want the vulnerability and feeling of being a liability of being the person who forces that shift.

Still, evening and dinner went fine. I ate much more today than my diet plans for, this is the issue with planned conference schedules. Some good conversations. Maybe one person getting weirdly familiar, or just a mistaken feeling of mine.

After sleeping in the car and feeling relaxed and vulnerable, I find myself thinking even more fondly-but-idly of a certain collaborator. He is old and married and I don’t like men, do I? But he smells always weirdly, oddly sexy, and I know he is smart and kind and pragmatic, and sticks out for me, and cares about me. I feel safe around him. I feel like a high school girl crushing idly on her teacher. I emphatically do not want that to go anywhere whatsoever, but it does fascinate me how I seem to respond.

Tomorrow, end of second meeting. I might get to socialize thereafter. If not, I will probably try to work until I am too tired to get anywhere, then watch sci-fi. Tonight I will have more sleep than yesternight. All in all, I am vulnerable, emotional, real, and entirely satisfied and at peace with where I am and with my own volatility. At least that is part of my truth.

exp rime ent

CW weight.

Here goes trying the app. Most likely will use app interface to share small joys and pains quickly.

I must now calculate for 1h from waking to being out the door.

Waiting for April for an SRS consultation feels like forever. Even waiting for new therapist consult next week does. I am… impatient now?

Worried no technique may preserve all nerve endings (but probably enough). Will return to that fear and sorrow until I have mourned it enough, before even going near a scalpel.

Should start CW for body issue triggers. That too will recur. Realized part of why I need to lose weight is not just surgery but because my small breasts, even shrinking a little, will look more anchored on a smaller frame and I have dysphoria now over not being as busty as I should be.

moon mask merge

So what happens? My partner (once more in some form) said my face has femininized. I had more moments of not being able to let go of an emotional surge once it started, just deciding what to do with it. Touch feels good.

Got gel estrogen and progesterone prescribed, so will start a cycle now. I wonder if I will experience something.

Also second hand shopping, got some skirts and a jacket for experimenting with business chick looks, curious if I will feel OK with that or not.

EDIT: Oh, and asked my endocrinologist on the possibility of collaborating on clinical studies. He was open in principle and seemed surprised. Continuing to represent!

emo

I kept feeling things very strongly, not quite frustration but Catastrophic Relevance, until finally I slept. Today feeling far more balanced. Being home sick may help too of course.

*

On another note, silver lining of something dark, I saw the medical records of a trans person getting into emergency psychiatric care under psychosis and intensive drug use, in the jurisdiction where I live. They ran away to find more drugs, they were restrained due to damage risk and generally must have provided a complicated situation. All the same, the report did not misgender, mentioned they were trans in passing as part of anamnesis (but not under diagnoses or treated pathologies), and generally was respectful. This implies to me that many systems at least here in Babylon actually might function as intended. I am glad of that, in these days of regressive politics.

magos

My decadent lifestyle takes a toll, cold symptoms and lack of sleep in parallel with stress. Will work it out, and worth it. But noticing I get super worried about everything in some moments, especially in chats. Absent explicit responses or emojis, whenever I write something, part of my brain often is convinced the other does not respond because I wrote or did something horrible that finally convinced them of how boring and useless and unkind I am, how it is not worth it to communicate with me, and that they will leave me. Part of me does fear that. But I know on some level this is irrational, it will be false 999999 times in a million. I keep worrying the present is the exception. This is one of my social anxiety tendencies, and I have had it for a long time, and it makes chat communication with me, especially within relationships, and especially in the evenings, difficult. It probably stems from having had such a low self-image for so long, the fears from which have stuck (and does this mean I have abandonment issues?).

It is why I generally prefer voice where I have so much more information to go on, but it can also be avoided if the other basically confirms we are still OK on an emotional level after I write something, easier with microsymbol languages like smileys. My overuse of these probably comes from me assuming other people will react like I do, which of course they actually don’t, they don’t need these confirmations but I always act as if they do.

But it also does not make sense others should have to help me manage my issues like that. I cannot dump it on my loved ones. I need to get a new therapist and ask specifically for help with this. And it is the central thing where I know both from meta-communication and from inner work that the Crone is needed. She can cut the threads of OCD spirals, she can decide that no, this is not something to worry about, what will be will be, they probably won’t stop loving you, you probably didn’t break anything that cannot be mended, it probably will be OK, and even if this is the one case in a million, you must stay sane and do what you are supposed to, not raise drama because you are afraid you hurt someone just because they did not respond.

The Crone for me is often about remembering that. I still can’t do it as well as I want, the fear is still there, and it’s still there because something within me still really really fears and worries I will be proven unworthy of my relationships and left alone, but my remembering her as symbol, perhaps I can learn to better cope and not dump that fear onto my loved ones to contain, which presumably hurts the relationships much more.

That said, when this came up tonight, biology perhaps played a part too. Changed my estrogen patches and feel a little calmer from that, it was past the end of the 3-day period so might have started to slump. Should get back to work.

process process

CW harassment.

Things were good yesterday, having dinner with a few friends then going out clubbing, despite some of us facing various sadnesses from other directions and along the path. Maybe this blog will eventually become some sort of mini reverse pervocracy, starting out talking transition stuff, then when that’s mostly in hand, just describing my day to day kink and decadence? Long story short, got to know a friend better than before during evening, realizing I am attracted and would like to be closer. Going out that evening, I therefore had hopes of something happening between us. Usually when I fancy someone I have difficulties because anything I can read as disinterest will make me pessimistic and withdraw emotionally, so I take no risks and ask for nothing; more importantly, the emotional withdrawal makes me less present in the situation, having less fun, being less available. It is mostly here that alcohol helps.

This night I somehow realized I could try to consciously ignore that mechanism, and I realized on the dancefloor that this is what the Maiden is about. She is naïve and happy enough that she does not interpret everything as rejections, so she remains happy and daring and sometimes she is lucky. I made myself present in my body as Maiden, and whenever I felt the alienation feeling of “I don’t grasp the codes” // “she is not interested” // “I am being embarrassing and stupid by doing/not doing this”, I felt her making a horizontal cut between the thought layers, like a lobotomy, not letting logic flow from the worry into inaction. Removing the cause but not the symptom; Frank too certainly was a Maiden. I just kept dancing, and when I felt there was chemistry, I gently expressed my interest, and learned some of the communication as it happened. I don’t think I’ve been this brave before like this.

I did get to know my friend better, and to sleep (though not very deeply) next to her, and to marvel at how she responds to touch, I’ve seen that sort of reactivity before and am jealous of it, hoping perhaps that I might gain it if I add progesterone to my regime. Will there end up a context where I’ve known most of my friendship circle(s) intimately at one point or another? Who knows. But looking back, that always was how I envisioned my life would be like, it’s part of my view on what is wholesome. Heh.

*

On the way back from the club, my friend and I walked arm in arm and a guy followed us muttering lewd suggestions about “pussy” and “fucking”. He walked very close and it was the first time someone groped my ass, I realized after a while. All in all quite scary, and I was so happy to be there with a girl whispering to me she could take him out with her keys if she had to. He followed all the way to the subway, and I used the minimizing/ignoring/defuse by asking nonsense questions, noncommittal comments, soft distancing, just as I am sure women do every day with this. Still, I was especially afraid since I could not tell how he read us. Did he parse us as cis lesbians or just cis friends? Or did he clock us and saw as us some sort of down-low gay entertainment? The fear of homo-/transphobic violence was there and I could not say whether it was already upon us or not. Basically I feared he might stab us, or that we would have to fight. My companion said it would have been much worse had be not read us as cis, she interpreted us as passing to him throughout. And she fundamentally does pass as cis, so maybe so – this would be a silver lining, beyond just another experience shared with sisters everywhere.

*

Confessed one crush, will see how that goes. Realizing another old friendship (and maybe two more or so) with smart boys may have been sort of crushes too. In one of those cases, not so sure I will never follow up on it. Hmmm.

singulata

So, meeting where a lot of the speakers preceding me show the header from (Deadname et al., Nature 2015) because it was relevant. A little surreal, since I also talk at the meeting and so everyone sees my transitioning, but no-one asks or comments. All in all good, I want this, it helps me know they know me as trans and accept me, and it increases my visibility. But some people misgender me occasionally with pronouns and it hurts every time, leaves me reeling, keeping active. Most do not. For every rare hint of weird looks in the ladies’ room, there is a rare event of someone striking up conversation.

All in all good. This is me. I move forward.

Then the damn hotel sends me a receipt addressed to fucking Monsieur Newname Lastname after I asked them to mail it. Is it really that bad, so that random hotel clerk spontaneously believe I must be a cis man despite dress and purple lipstick? Is my voice so deep, my face so long, something manly in my manners? What flaw drove this, is it something I can fix? Not knowing what it is, I feel so helpless. Certainly a service person would not waste time actively misgendering, so it must be the honest belief, that the thought I might be a trans woman does not even strike them? What sort of monumental masculinity is this, that overpowers everything else?

I exaggerate and sarcast, because I am bitter. I really cannot tell myself how I come across, and all my kindly loved ones just see me as they know I want them to see me. So I have no idea how strangers see me, but this makes me really deeply sad and ruminating on what could be wrong. I focus on what could be wrong because I must focus on something fixable. I’ll do anything, but what even can I do?

intent

Things very intense. Some various things do stand out. My voice really bothers me, I really have to fix this and I don’t yet know how to escalate efforts and to remember to do all that is needed. I must.

Also, perhaps indicative of primitive weirdness. Changing my office most likely to the bigger one across the hall. Because this is an old hospital, it has an ensuite bathroom with a bidet. And the thought struck me since I saw it, “this is an office where I could work long days even on a 3/day dilation schedule“. I don’t think anyone ever had that particular revelation before in the history of our species.

Will do what I must. Which at this point means science.

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.