What is something you wish cis people knew?
that is a great idea! Rent out a pool or field, provide a safe space for trans participation in sports - I love it!
yes, it wasn't until I transitioned and read all the studies about shared genetic causes of gender dysphoria and autism, and the high overlap between the two that I finally took seriously the feedback I had been getting my whole life that I might be autistic - so my own proprioception issues might also be linked to neurodivergence. Estrogen seemed to help a little bit with my proprioception, but I am still clumsy and my spouse has noted that it hasn't been fixed by transition.
I do feel like you that my body just feels too large, and I do think that's part of why I run into things - the hormones haven't fixed that, so maybe that's a life sentence, unfortunately. And "damned flesh prison" is pretty much how I would describe my body since I was maybe 15 - 17 years old? But hey, still cis tho.
just one step at a time, and just keep in the right direction - with persistent effort and action you will get there, in the meantime hang in there đŤ
Ohio isn't ideal, but it's totally possible to get on estrogen with DIY vials, and the right hormones can really make everything else easier, but I understand if it's complicated đ
If anything I think my heat tolerance might have worsened, lol
yes, such a good point, even recognizing there is a choice of conforming or not is beyond some people's awareness (especially I think in more collective cultures, whereas individualism lends itself to people prioritizing their desires over social expectations).
I do think a lot of gender norms and roles are arbitrary (like blue for boys and pink for girls, or women only in the home and men only at work), but I suspect humans do have what we might categorize as hard-wired gendered behavior as well (though with considerable overlap, the idea of strict differences without overlap is just not evidenced).
Otherwise I'm not sure gender dysphoria makes much sense, since it seems to be a natural phenomenon rooted in the biology and found throughout human history and across cultures, and is even found to be genetic. That said, gender dysphoria is still worked out in a social and psychological context and is not pure biology either, so a lot of what you are saying here is relevant about how arbitrary social norms can be.
that's a good one, I like to send people the Nature article "Sex redefined", which talks about how binary sex is an outdated model.
I do just feel more comfortable, estrogen seemed to "fix" my temperature - no more sweating through my sheets and leaving a yellow stain on my bed 𤢠As I first started estrogen, I was shocked at how animal-like it seemed like I was on testosterone, the way my body stank, the excessive sweating, and so on. Becoming a woman was like becoming human, is the way it felt to me.
That's the funny thing, I never doubted women's accounts about temperature - and yet, I somehow had discounted or downplayed the severity of it (it makes me cringe to say this, I hate fitting the profile of a sexist stereotypical man that way).
Transitioning has really opened my eyes to how much of my mentality and expectations I have for the world and others is rooted in my own narrow experience in the world. It makes me feel alarmed about my lack of understanding of other minority / oppressed lived experiences. Despite all the effort I have put into reading and understanding disability, race, etc. I still really don't understand it in the most fundamental and important ways I need to.
Re men and women being similar, I have had this thought too - while all the differences are being highlighted and are on display as well for me, I'm shocked at how much of a woman I can be biologically, having been born with a male body.
It really turns out the body is a lot more flexible about sex than I realized, and estrogen dominance can really change the body and brain in ways I never expected. For example, the idea that trans women can experience PMS seemed very unlikely to me before I transitioned, and yet it is a real thing! (For clarity, some trans women experience something like a menstrual cycle, but they obviously don't bleed or menstruate - the PMS symptoms might be caused by estrogen sensitivity and changes in the hormone levels, just like in cis women.)
The idea that the hormones regulate practically everything: temperature, drug tolerance, fat composition, and brain composition is fascinating.
What I am left wondering is what fundamental differences are left between me and a cis woman, biologically?
What relevance is having XY chromosomes to my physiology and biology, when injecting estrogen and having removed testes?
When you focus on functionality and practical differences, the bio-essentialist mindset starts to weaken. The main medical differences between me and the average cis woman are that I don't need a pap smear, I can't get pregnant, and I might eventually need prostate exams. That's about the extent of it - otherwise, I'm medically / biologically like any other woman, and that blows my mind.
OK, but I have to ask - what do you mean about women being boob-obsessed?
And no worries, it doesn't have to be trans-specific, just something you wish cis people knew based on your experiences as a trans person (could be anything, for example when I first transitioned and was a visible trans woman, I was shocked at how women were so tolerant and polite, and how it was primarily men who stared at me aggressively - there were shitty, transphobic women, but mostly they were not confrontational; I didn't expect women to be so tolerant and accepting).
ah, freedom from gender norms! I think everyone, cis and trans, has different tolerances for the extent to which they feel comfortable adhering to or violating gender norms. Ironically, transitioning has been so great for me because it allows me to finally be "normal" by being conformist.
As a man I was always wrong because my natural inclinations made me gender non-conforming (making me seem like a gay man). It was very stigmatizing living that way, but once I transitioned it's like everything lined up and now for the first time every I "fit" society, and I just live as a relatively normal woman without stigma.
However, my sexuality still makes me non-conforming, but in women that seems to be more ignored or overlooked compared to men (esp. when you are feminine / conforming in your gender expression). It's only when it's made explicit that people seem uncomfortable, and even then the average person seem more accepting than of gay men, at least in my experience.
That said, it makes sense that being trans would lend itself to seeing the possibilities in gender and the freedom from gender norms that can be accomplished.
The popularity of beyond-the-binary ideas of Kate Bornstein and Leslie Feinberg and the increased adoption of non-binary as a political identity show a thirst for tearing down gender norms and replacing them with gender freedom (particularly focused on individualist ideas of gender expression and non-conformity).
Though I am ultimately skeptical that this is how gender works, and it reminds me of the failed political lesbianism of second wave feminism, the problem then was that sexuality was not wholly cultural or political as mistakenly assumed, and you cannot will yourself to be a lesbian and build a new utopian society on that basis. Straight women exist, and they will continue to be attracted to men even if it's they're told it's wrong. Still, it's exciting to see movements like this push to create space for gender non-conformity, that's a win regardless in my book.
so true, and such a good example.
Personally as a kid I never exercised unless forced to (e.g. the annual 1 mile run in gym class) and didn't enjoy sports, even before I realized I was trans.
This was for so many reasons, too. For example with swimming, not wearing long-sleeves & pants was unbearable in social situations as a kid, let alone taking my shirt off & wearing swim trunks around peers.
I also had very poor body coordination / awareness ("proprioception"), and frequently was injured when I would play.
(I was hit in the head by balls so many times in sports it became a running joke with friends and family - I have distinct memories of having painful experiences being hit in the head when playing basketball, baseball, and kickball, some of these happening more than once.)
As an adult I learned coping strategies, and I adapted to living as the wrong gender and dissociating from the body. Looking back, it was dysfunctional the way I used my self-loathing and gender dysphoria as tools to push myself to endure physical suffering that wasn't safe or healthy. I also had a hard time gauging my body's needs and injured myself many times, and I now have life-long conditions as a result.
I have heard similar stories from other trans women IRL about not being able to read the body and injuring themselves, and about poor body coordination / proprioception. There is also just the obvious discomfort of the way sports puts you into your body in a social context, and for trans women the way sports is male-coded and all the complicated social dynamics around being "athletic" or into sports as being masculine.
What were your experiences, and do you have any advice for trans people wanting to be healthy with movement?
generally yes, but children, elderly, immune-compromised, etc. are more susceptible and the toxins in that mushroom could theoretically result in a person's death even if in most cases it usually it just results in vomiting, diarrhea, etc.
still, it's a good call out that it's not as dangerous as something like Angel of Death.
had to google it, but it seems to be Bloodhound Gang's The Bad Touch
though these are chanterelles, a deadly poisonous look-a-like to rule out are jack-o-lantern mushrooms (named because they glow in the dark!)
"Quitters, Inc." really stuck with me, from Night Shift
cool, I've never heard of an auto-injector like that, but I'm glad it sounds like they exist.
Either way, I don't think I personally would want to use one - I can imagine getting wigged out about initiating the auto-injector just as much as jabbing without one. (Though maybe initiating an auto-injector would be safer and easier to coordinate when wigging out, lol.)
Something I learned about my own needle phobia is that control is an important element for me (which is unfortunate because it puts me in a paradox: I need to control the needle going in, but I am frozen by the prospect of putting a needle in me).
For example, my partner has offered to do my injections, but the thought of them doing it is worse than doing it myself.
So I think I would be more afraid of the auto-injector than being able to control that part of the process manually.
Everyone's different, though, and I hope people are able to find what works for them, and this seems like a really good idea!
loss has always been boring
fake and gay?
loss is eternal I think
so, I always soak the beans overnight, and they don't soften even after more than a full day of cooking - it's almost like the cooking prevents it from further softening.
I'm not sure I've tried soaking 48 hours, though, and I would be happy to make them into a refried bean or cooked into a starchy soup - anything that doesn't leave hard beans would be great.
Thanks for this advice and for helping me, I'll try it out - this is giving me some confidence to try bulk beans storage again. I usually keep them in mason jars with the oxygen absorbers like you describe, so I'll try that again.
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oh, Japan - interesting. Are the friends all Japanese, or are they ex-pats like you?
I live in a very conservative part of the U.S. where women do not seem to bring up boobs much - I've had some discussions with my sister about our boobs, and even pre-transition I've had discussions with a particularly open friend about boobs and nudism / naturism - but I've never had a woman ask to touch my boobs or offer for me to feel their boobs đ
I'm pretty insecure about my boobs, they are small for my frame (though maybe larger than a lot of trans girls I know, women in my family tend to be large; a trans girl friend of mine has indicated she wishes she had more boobs after seeing me).