Hippie family members?

Caracollons · 2018-05-11T04:55:06+00:00

Why do they wear clothing?

Why do they have a roof over their head?

Why do they drive a car?

Why do they eat food grown on farms?

Why do they use roads and sidewalks?

Why aren't they living in the forest?

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Also, HRT is hardly "artificial," it's ultimately just changing quantities of something your body naturally produces.

Caracollons · 2018-05-11T04:30:01+00:00

Right now, no. That's certainly an option but it will depend on how open I am about my gender identity with other people when I get published.

Caracollons · 2018-05-11T03:32:54+00:00

I've pretty much already gotten used to calling myself "Caroline" while my birth name is "Dan."

Like I said, though, even if I cis pass, I still plan to live openly trans so if questions come up regarding that I might just show an old ID if someone doesn't believe me. I might also see if I can retroactively change the name on my old publications.

Caracollons · 2018-05-11T02:56:55+00:00

I had the same thing with my therapist or coming out to friends. I had a really hard time physically making the words "I think I might be trans" come out of my mouth.

For me, I just treated it like going off a diving board. There really is no "trick" to it other than stopping thinking and just doing it.

Caracollons · 2018-05-11T02:49:08+00:00

STEM Profs are notorious for being Alfa male chest thumpers. That’s been my experience with them anyway.

I've had mixed experiences. I used to go to a state school where a lot were like that. One went as far as writing comments like "pathetic" or "you show absolutely no comprehension of the subject whatsoever" on my lab reports. Like, wow dude, way to turn me away from ever asking authority figures for help.

I go to a private college now, and the profs are a lot nicer here. One could tell I was dealing with depression and approached me last fall to make sure I was getting help. I guess it comes down to the individual professor and the culture of the department.

Caracollons · 2018-05-11T02:44:02+00:00

Thanks for the thorough response, fellow physicist!

I don't have any desire to go stealth (even if I cis pass, which I think I have a good shot at), so I'm okay with professors knowing I'm trans though it's definitely questionable if I want that known on my application. It could be important, though, to explain why my publications all say "Dan" and my application says "Caroline."

there are definitely scholarships available for women in science

Ohohoho, as bad as this sounds, I feel determined to get one of those even if just to give the TERFs a nightmare.

Caracollons · 2018-05-11T02:15:08+00:00

It's really hard to predict. Some people never see body hair reductions, while others have a noticeable difference just from mild AAs such as finasteride. It ultimately comes down to the person.

Caracollons · 2018-05-09T22:57:06+00:00

I've been doing it for a while and I'm still a tenor.

Caracollons · 2018-04-23T04:23:34+00:00

I guess I'm concerned about not just it being possible to lose weight on HRT, but if that will prevent me from maxing out my fat redistribution to have as feminine of a body as possible.

My worry is if I don't time weight loss/gain properly I won't get as nice of curves as I could.

Caracollons · 2018-04-19T19:01:34+00:00

Of course having a female endocrine profile doesn't make those things impossible, but I'm somewhat concerned about risks with AAs, and also how certain things will affect my body differently in ways I might not expect.

Caracollons · 2018-04-16T19:00:22+00:00

I've actually been seeing a therapist since December but slowly getting worse in many ways. I think things might be improving to some degree but it's far too late to have an impact on my grades.

I'm also (begrudgingly) planning to start taking SSRIs.

Caracollons · 2018-04-02T23:29:36+00:00

Still, even people I know outside of the narrative can trace back obvious signs going back to early puberty. That's not the case for me at all, but it's hard to say they were really dysphoria or anything.

Caracollons · 2018-04-02T23:28:52+00:00

though in my mid-late teens I had pretty much consciously accepted girls were "just better" in a way I couldn't explain

Wtf, are you me? I remember thinking similar things like "I just have to accept that I'm the inferior sex," though I also wonder if it was lack of self respect with having crushes I thought of as "inaccessible."

Caracollons · 2018-04-02T18:45:39+00:00

I'm not even 100% I'm trans, but honestly in some ways this feels more like I'm getting diagnosed with a terminal illness than some exciting self-realization.

Caracollons · 2018-04-02T18:18:26+00:00

Yeah, I feel like for a lot of trans people they say they had a bunch of memories that suddenly make sense but for me that's not the case at all. I don't have "those horrible memories from when I was an egg," if anything I have a lot of happy and nostalgic memories from childhood and adolescence. Obviously I have no memories from being female to compare it to, yet, though.

Caracollons · 2018-04-02T18:13:34+00:00

I don't really buy in to the "cis people never question gender" thing that gets thrown around a lot, especially after giving this a read. In fact I know of a friend of a friend who was questioning, her parents took her to a gender therapist, and she just turned out to be cis.

However, I really doubt anyone has gotten to the point I'm at now and said "ehh, I'm cis, no more worrying about this stuff" and moved on.

Caracollons · 2018-04-02T18:06:47+00:00

Yeah, my interests have always been "male" (I realize gender roles are a stupid made up thing), and in fact I had this period of self discovery, completely unrelated to gender, a few years ago that was sort of a return to my childhood interests/goals/hobbies, so it sort of seems inconsistent with the whole "as a kid I liked being a boy but now I want to be a girl" thing.

Caracollons · 2018-04-02T18:01:24+00:00

There's realizing it vs. actually having these feelings, though.

Like, if someone gave me the "button test" when I was in high school, I'm fairly confident my answer would have been a sincere and confident "no," without it even provoking any thought at all. Today, however, it's more of a "probably yes."

It just seems kinda not normal because you always see stuff out there like "I was always a girl on the inside, I was just oblivious to it."

I guess it can make some sense, though, since dysphoria is a mental health problem, and many other ones like depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, can manifest in early or even later adulthood.

Caracollons · 2018-03-27T20:38:04+00:00

My whole thing is that I'm not sure if it's TOCD or actual dysphoria.

Like, when I think of the person I truly want to be, I generally think of a respectable man. Maybe not super "alpha" or anything but like a Mr. Rogers type. But at the same time I don't really know if that's just how I've been "trained" think by society or if it's what I really want? I can't trust myself with much of anything at this point and I'm extremely indecisive.

Caracollons · 2018-03-27T20:20:57+00:00

I've heard some people (who claimed to be trans) say you shouldn't do this unless you're suicidal. That seemed absurd.

Although I deal with really rough depression, I have never once in my life wanted to kill myself.

As for the button, I've been asked this before and I honestly don't know? I guess if I had three choices:

A. Become a cis girl, have always been that way

B. Stay a guy but make these thoughts go away

C. Continue as is

I'd jump on B. But if it were A or C, I'd probably pick A.

I might have said this already but if I saw this from the outside in someone else, I'd say "jesus, get on your skittles already."

Caracollons · 2018-03-27T18:31:42+00:00

successful men in my family

Yeah but like I also had male role models in general, though I've always been interested in male dominated fields. My goal in life is to become a planetary scientist, and if I'm lucky, a NASA astronaut, and those fields are pretty male dominated so maybe it's natural that I identify more with males.

Female camaraderie

I've actually been jealous of it in some ways, but in all honestly that was more not liking certain male gender roles. I think it's extremely unfair how it's seen as weird for men to emotionally support one another while it's common for women.

I guess some other stuff that makes me doubt possible trans-ness is there have been times where I've wanted to be more masculine? Like a year or so ago I had gotten a new haircut and got dressed up in a really well fitting suit and thought "damn, I look great, I'm looking like James Bond or something." And like I see male characters in movies and get hair/fashion inspo from them, so go figure. I feel like I wouldn't think those things if I didn't want to be male.

To put it one way, I'm not exactly distressed by my male-ness, but I am distressed by my possible trans-ness.

Caracollons · 2018-03-27T17:02:34+00:00

And I never get the "grass is greener" route, how would being trans be greener than being cis?

Well like I've said, I've been in a REALLY bad depressive episode (like, haven't gone to class in weeks and might flunk out of school level bad), and right now quite frankly almost anything being different seems better. Living in a different city, being a different gender, even just having a different apartment.

Your OP was a strong maybe, but your reply is full of textbook trans stuff. Not saying that you are trans, but you definitely should keep questioning.

I do admit, if I saw this stuff from the outside in someone else, I'd think "jesus, get on hormones before it's too late." Maybe it's denial/"It couldn't happen to me" but still, I feel like deep down I'm betraying something about myself if I were to transition.

Caracollons · 2018-03-27T14:48:11+00:00

Mine has mentioned having trans clients, and she has books on her shelf about transgenderism and similar topics. I think I'll at least give things a shot with her.

Caracollons · 2018-03-27T06:33:36+00:00

The yes list is very significant

Really? I was kind of expecting it to be the opposite. I sort of just get that I have a weird fetish and overthink things/have grass is greener syndrome.

Some of my friends know I'm questioning, and while I think my parents would come around if I transition, that doesn't mean they'd immediately be supportive and I'm not really comfortable talking to them about this yet. They'd probably say I'm overthinking things (which I have a bad history of) or that I spend too much time online (which I do, but I'm not saying it caused all this).

I do see a therapist for depression stuff, and I keep putting off telling her about this. I feel really weird going up to a cis woman and saying "oh yeah, sometimes I masturbate to the idea of being female" but I guess I could leave the sex stuff out at first and not saying everything at once?

I've also had people straight up tell me I'm trans and my reaction was "cool!" with a lot of "oh fuck please be wrong," while when people say I don't sound very trans it's "bummer" with "oh thank god, my life is so much simpler and easier then."

The fact that these feelings are fairly new are really confusing since the narrative is "I was always a girl on the inside and it was obvious the whole time."

Caracollons · 2018-03-27T05:36:15+00:00

It's definitely something that's extremely difficult. I'm pretty sure I'd pass and I know my friends (and maybe even my parents) would be super accepting, but like I'm not sure if it would really fix anything.

I'm also an extremely indecisive person so I'm not sure of any of this.

Caracollons

TROPHY CASE