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!

salience

Making a brief post instead as the caffeine need is very high, along with the tiredness. Found something empowering while at the same time humbling, and my own responses interesting. At a scientific conference, we were sorted into tables randomly for dinner. Another girl sorted to the same table sat down next to me, whom I am 90-95% but not 100% sure is also trans, but possibly stealth. I am confident she passes as cis to any cis person, and it is interesting that I cannot be fully sure. Spending time with her in this manner felt very validating, also because with that, my presence in a scientific space like this is further normalized – there ends up being almost the expected population fraction of trans people present and it does not at any point become an issue.

I also became slightly less secure than otherwise – while I was older and professionally more senior, she would clearly be further along and definitely more confident. I would have felt insecure but used once more the Maiden techniques to shut that worry down. This is the humbling part, all of us maybe become somewhat uncertain when with people we admire, more self-conscious. I am glad of learning to handle it. Did not expect to meet another girl like me in this context, curious if I have, happy if so, would want to be friends with. If things progress, it will eventually cease to be remarkable and just be safe and peaceful integration and acceptance.

Also still very very wondering how often I am clocked versus passes for cis. I really cannot know. And feeling in a tenderized body kind of way that I need to work on my voice.

necronomiconda

The other day, was asked my old name. I saw no polite reason not to reveal it, but felt… shocked by it. I guess it is my deadname now and I might politely choose not to reveal it next time someone asks.

Heavy period of stress, plus sleep deprivation and hunger, then got into a somewhat dysphoric worrying mood. Possibly hormonally low from poorly fitting patches too. I realize these things as I write about them are likely founding factors.

There are two things I would like to be true, that quite possibly are, but that I cannot control whether they are, related to my alignment. I cannot control them as they would be facts about the outside world. One being whether my hypothesis on same-vs-opposite-to-self alienation-causing dysphoria-foundational instinct as an actual biological thing is real and something building on mechanisms in trans and cis people both. The other whether the having-hormones-incorrect-to-brain-settings-causes-dysphoria in both trans and cis people hypothesis reflects reality. Both are models that imply a cause for my trans alignment – that is, for my female gender identity, and my dysphoria when not inhabiting it – that is likely inborn or prenatal, and that would be part of my functional brain architecture. Born this way, as Lady Gaga put it.

That in turn would be appealing because it would imply there never was any other option, no set of life circumstances would have made my brain cis, no alternate coping strategy to transition would have helped as well with the dysphoria. This would be an appealing truth even though I don’t really feel my transition has been particularly costly, I don’t feel that it has cost me much or that I have lost anything I cared about as I proceeded with it. I would more often worry about not being valid without it.

These things may well also hold true in the world (it’s one of few scenarios that make sense, after all, in explaining my various experiences and those reported anecdotally by other trans people), but holding on to them as cherished beliefs is still a crutch either way. I cannot control it so it is better – as I actually found quite some time ago too – that I don’t need that crutch in order to feel valid as a woman who transitions. I can’t know that these are the mechanisms behind my alignment, or that there really was no other way. I also cannot know that I fully correctly conceptualize myself. But from my horizon of action, I know I have become clearly happier, and I am accumulating a lot of data points suggesting that is persistent. Ultimately the fact that I really become fulfilled in this manner is sufficient grounds for my choices. My will itself is legitimate grounds.

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.