lost in transition

unstructured vents/rants/thoughts mostly or solely connected to gender

[lost-in-transition]

move to wordpress

As there seems to be a very real risk this blog, having occasionally NSFW LGBTQ++ text content, may be deleted by tumblr, it has moved to WordPress: https://lost-in-transition.music.blog/ and further posts will occur there.

[lost-in-transition]

still

Still hurting from that misgendering today. “He works very fast.“ in response to me having produced results during our meeting by multitasking. I’m sitting right in front of you, with my lipstick and my earrings and my pink blouse and skirt. You’ve not met me other than under my new name. Yet I am “he“ to you? “It’s she, not he“ I said, and it was not acknowledged. Not sure at all if you even heard it. We’re supposed to collaborate. Every time I meet you or think of you, I will remember how you likely think I am a man in a dress. That will eat some energy in all of our collaborations. They will not go as well. Had you at least acknowledged my correction, it would have been better. I almost wrote to you now to say, because it stayed with me, but thought better of it.

Then there’s the dysphoria itself. What was it? Was my comments and speech somehow too masculine, too assertive for you? Was it my voice? Was it my facial features? Left numb. What can I do to fix this? Only hope and pray and proceed and cry and continue. I never ever give up. This is what we’re made of.

[lost-in-transition]

xaos

So much at once good and bad. Good - adventure, walking in Finnish hospital tunnels, meeting collaborators for posh vegan food, fully OK threesomes, flying back and forth. Workshop on intimacy for AMAB people with dysphorias; heard stories of South American travestitas and hijra from Pakistan; including divisions within their communities. A woman who had bottom surgery last year offered to let me see her vagina and to put a gloved finger in it; not sexual, very enlightening and empowering, all things considered. Potential future hookups with yet other people. Spending an evening writing reports, with a friend coming over for company, then staying for what turned out to be conversation, cuddling and sex. Date with a guy tomorrow, another next week - I promise this was not supposed to be a post about my sex life. Had more bottom electrolysis this morning, then lots of meetings. In which one person misgendered me, and another mentioned immune system sex differences not hormonally driven, both of which make me a dysphoric mess, at the same time as I have to make lots of decisions on project reporting, paper writing, data analysis, statistics and administration. Plus looking so much forward to the party this weekend. Am I being my own stereotype? Maybe. I love this but it is intensive.

[lost-in-transition]

queendom come

Very speculative with no basis anywhere, but feelings need describing whether they have statistical significance or not.

If being completely speculative and anecdatal - which we totally do when we feel like, I'd describe this state of effectively mid-late faux-luteal phase as involving:

- Bloating (probably coincidence), feeling pressing need to urinate more often

- Feeling of tingly sleepy heat of peripheral blood vessels, like after being cold (this is a vasoconstriction thing somehow? makes me somehow think of cortisol)

- Emotional salience. Feeling close to affect, easily moved, easily anxious.

- But not active or vigilant, rather tired and non-urgent, staying at rest.

I feel very small and connnected to the world. My colour is more burgundy than purple, perhaps.

I wonder about this. If it really is there, it should persist until I go into faux-follicular phase on Monday. At which point I should experience clarity, wakefulness, vigilance, reactivity, urgency.

Wondering about the cortisol. Does that cycle in cis women, all else equal?

[lost-in-transition]

colour

It’s so hard to tell when something is a likely placebo, versus when not. I can not tell. But the last days, combining stress with some extra time to just be tired and do very little in the late evenings, seems new somehow, it seems like a somewhat new colour of me, feel of being me. I’ve had unusual (?) extents of afternoon haze, a little more tiredness, maybe unusual amounts of morning and other worry tendencies. I feel a little warm and, well, not swollen but raw? I feel I accumulate and lose water a little more maybe.

Probably just interpretation. But it could be that progesterone metabolites built up over 9-10 days, maybe that is part of a cycle mechanism in cis women. I will soon go down again to follicular phase equivalent, in a few days. Maybe this is more close to actual PMS? Is there a dimension of progesterone vs estrogen relative action?

Not sure, and that is all fine. The relevant part is it seems to my biased mind that this is a particular colour of feeling, of things a litle heavier, cloudier, but also of resignation somehow, of being calm rather than irritated, a little more vulnerable, a little more anxious, maybe a little more craving social interactions to soothe, craving bonds not input.

Who knows? I’m excited being me either way.

Also, trans culture is watching for other trans people all the time in public spaces, being uncertain whether we found one, and being super happy just if we thing we did, but not daring to signal too much attention.

Peace.

[lost-in-transition]

em-pa

This is a day like that one a week ago, I think. Hmmm.

[lost-in-transition]

raw-war

Not quite sure how it happens, but today I have sensed myself being especially vulnerable, it has been easy to worry but more to the point, some sort of sense of dread in the background. This fascinates me, I am happy to observe, and curious that I cannot find the anchor. Though I believe it has to be, except I don't feel it, that I was worried about my talk before the faculty.

Said talk went well. The same thing happened again that when I got to the penultimate slide outlining how I want to look at trans cohorts to understand sex-differential disease better, my body but not my mind reacted, I felt at peace internally but my voice got thick and I would have shook had I not prevented it. It slowly dissipated but slowly, and made me less eloquent. Obviously I fear talking about that in front of an audience because it's a coming out and I feel exposed, it brings all the fears of not seeming serious, of seeming ridiculous, of being too much, probably multiple impostor syndromes simultaneously. It does nexus many of my fears so that does make sense.

But still odd I don't emotionally sense it, whereas my body reacts whether I want to or not. Is this a sign of emotional repression? I've gotten so controlled over the years I can ignore affect and just move past fear without even sensing it, but the body still is deathly afraid and it shows in my body language?

Now a little worried that everyone could sense my voice tone shifting, worrying they look down or me or pity me, that they won't work with me or give me tenure. But that's also probably just the irrational fear, the same fears underlying it. I'll act to ignore them, not feel them, just proceed with my work. But perhaps the ease with which I do that is precisely why it only can come out through my body tensing up?

[lost-in-transition]

prog rox

Nipples are sensitive today like they haven’t been since early on estrogen. This is another kind of sensitivity than the pressure-in-mound type of the months before. Dare I hope this means progesterone now makes me start evolving Tanner IV breasts? I do hope that. Hoping very much the nipples themselves will grow larger and fuller as this is something I feel self-conscious of when being intimate with cis girls, and that sort of gets to me.

[lost-in-transition]

econ

Got the hope today of maybe making some money through pharma consulting after all. That appealed because of one thought: being able to afford the SRS I want (?) faster. The thought of waiting feels unhappy. The thought of having it done feels appealing. I jump on options for having it done like I want (?) to.

[lost-in-transition]

morg

Slept ca 4h only after drinking a lot of absinthe. Still not feeling as bad as I expected, which may be due to the progesterone. Will see how the day continues. Sort of floating on top, being patient but irritable but calm.

[lost-in-transition]

weight

So, I seem to be in one of those modes/moods where things seem difficult and heavy and scary. It also makes me more dysphoric ("what if I was just fooled into wanting to be an anime character like Blanchard says?") and prone to worry for practical matter ("how will I charge my phone if..."). It's not quite the same as the PMS modes because things don't feel tiring in the same way and I don't feel angry, I just seem to have fear amplified. I do believe it was like this first day of Lenzetto spray, and it seemed like this on low dosages (whereas the PMS state emerged on high dosage at some point). And I just changed estrogen dosing scheme and added progesterone. So possibly there are at least two components to modes of this type and they may reflect either doses being too low (worry) or fluctuating/high (irritability/thin-skinned-ness/weariness). Well, we'll see. I continue to observe.

[lost-in-transition]

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.

[lost-in-transition]

spinnerettes

Was a little rabbit-hole triggered again, by the whole cis “I don’t feel gender and would not mind if mine was flipped“ idea. Wherein I’d reiterate, it’s about growing up. Trans alignment means on some level our socialization into our assigned gender cannot be completed. This does not mean crippling dysphoria from day one, only enough that our hearts are not in what we are becoming. This compounds over a childhood and teenagehood into being distanced from ourselves in a way which cis people are not. A flip of sexed body would not come with the results of a long process of socialization failure like this, but one being flipped at birth (as opposed to the putative trans brain flip before birth) probably would. And some fraction of people would be fine either way.

Took the progesterone. Sleep may have been better, felt somehow my body is a whole rather than parts throughout but thinking this is indirect. Observations continue.

[lost-in-transition]

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!

[lost-in-transition]

needles and pins

So today I was having first of probably 12 hour-long sessions today of electrolysis targeting the area outlined (NSFW) here: http://www.chet-plasticsurgery.com/dr-chettawuts-recommendation-of-genital-hair-removal/ .

Each single sting has a needle sting, I hate that most. Then the heat/burn; that is not as bad as laser, but combined with the sting it is. I need to focus away from each one, I was babbling in the local language of Babylon the whole time, mostly saying “what is the word that mean... hmmm...”.

Now I applied only a single coat of anaesthetic, and probably not in the right place fully, so may hurt less next time.

But either way I will get through this.

[lost-in-transition]

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.

[lost-in-transition]

tens

I don’t care if it is the same phenomenon or not, or if I am appropriating anything or not, but today I have no skin and I parse this as being something like a PMS experience. It’s the same as

- Sep 11 ( https://lost-in-transition.tumblr.com/post/177970939869/skinless-moon )

- Aug 30 ( https://lost-in-transition.tumblr.com/post/177558704049/tension )

So not periodic or predictable, and there are surrounding stressors. But everything feels heavy and sad and hard and I just want to crawl under blankets and blargh. Lying in bed trying to program, wanting to scream.

It will be OK. I hope it is something similar because I’d feel better knowing it is something I share with my cisters.