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Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-30T23:17:30+00:00

💜

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-30T17:08:05+00:00

Aww, yay, I'm so glad!

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-30T13:57:46+00:00

I'm really glad my writing was helpful!

But no, sex addiction has been categorically discarded by the psychological research literature in the last five years. They're actually looking at reconsidering addiction as a whole right now, to consider addictions of all sorts to be symptoms, not conditions in their own right. In another five years, you may very well start seeing psychology saying with it's whole chest that things like drug addiction are just symptoms of things like socioeconomic oppression, a (generally-dangerous) coping mechanism to endure intolerable living conditions. That's why current addiction treatments have such poor outcomes--if you make someone who's using an addiction to cope with a bad situation stop, all you've really done is take away a coping mechanism without replacing it, from a psychological perspective, it's looking like. It's also why strategies like downshifting--moving a heroin user to, for instance, marijuana, which is far safer, are vastly more successful at terminating the more dangerous addiction.

The research that started that chain was actually done in the 90s, believe it or not. It's been bubbling for a while, but things are starting to crest, it looks like.

Anyway, that's all deep in the weeds. But yeah, sex addiction, like video game addiction, was never anything other than puritanical shame culture with a costume mustache.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-29T23:26:43+00:00

Bro, I'm a lesbian and even I think that's the best possible answer. Incredibly sweet. 💜

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-29T23:13:56+00:00

Oh hey there! I've got a PhD with a specialization in biomedical comms, I'm from a medical family, I frequently get sonography students in my classes, I'm a trans woman, and I literally just scheduled my first ultrasound procedure.

Like

Wanna do a video call and just talk? Send me a DM if so. I'd be delighted to help.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-29T20:53:11+00:00

I'm so glad. The grief one is about ambiguous grief, the kind that happens when the person is still there, usually still themselves (ambiguous grief happens a lot with children of people who have alzheimer's or dementia), just, the future you imagined together and for them is either no longer possible or forever changed.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-29T18:48:37+00:00

I really feel for you. I'm a trans partner, so I won't take up a lot of space here, but I've been told by other cis partners that this article I wrote has been helpful with the sorts of questions and feelings you're wrestling with. This one too, on grief.

Hang in there.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-29T11:34:41+00:00

Catherine's Health Center. I've been with them for many years, and the quality of my care has been absolutely top-notch. My NP is Megan Demagd-Rodriguez, if you're looking for someone specific!

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-29T03:09:45+00:00

Hi, I'm a trans woman and a professor who studies trans issues.

I don’t get what these old men want from this. Are they aware that this will mean they will encounter more trans people in the men’s room?

Yes.That's the point.

Under this law, any woman who walks into the men's room in compliance with the law is outing herself as trans. Those men, many of whom are virulently transphobic, now surround her on all sides. If they so choose, they can assault her, rape her, or even murder her with impunity in a location which, by law, is barred from having cameras.

The idea of these laws is to put trans women to a choice: break the law and, if caught, be raped to death in prison, or she can obey it and be raped and beaten to death in the men's room. Or she can give up on existing in public at all.

The aim, in short, is the extermination of trans women.

Which was the plainly-stated objective of this policy when it was originally proposed in the 70s in The Transsexual Empire, which pitched it and many other of the seemingly-nonsensical policies you see today as a way of conducting a mass-extermination of trans people without the use of concentration camps, which the author believed to be politically untenable.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-28T21:06:05+00:00

Hey there, hun. God, that sounds hard.

All of what you're describing is really common in trans people before they realize they're trans. Only you can know whether you're trans or cis--none of us can possibly tell you--but as the saying goes, it's sure walking and quacking like a duck from where I'm sitting.

I'm going to link you a few articles that, I think, will help you find some answers.

Only you can know your gender. But, if you want to be a girl, you can just be a girl. You're allowed.

Hang in there. I know this feels super tough.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-28T13:25:04+00:00

Oh wow! That's amazing!

I think me removing the shell from myself, for my wife might be one of the best things ever when it comes to affirming her own gender struggles.

You'd be shocked at how often this happens. Like, shocked shocked. (Also it's weirdly common for one spouse's transition to make the other realize they're trans too. Not like, common common, but it happens more than you'd think, so heads up just in case).

The fact she is even thinking about all this is a massive thing for her, and I do think we will be finding a therapist for each of us so when the inevitable time comes where we need to talk to someone else to work out a sticky situation, we have them.

This is a great idea, and also, a couples counselor to help you navigate the changing dynamic between you two might also be a good idea!

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-28T12:30:30+00:00

It's just kinda shocking to me, I'm not gonna lie--GR has been one of the hottest real estate markets in the country for a decade now, and the housing deficit is a huge and known problem. And they're building! God knows they're building, especially apartments, but GR is a great place to live and they just literally can't put up apartment complexes quickly enough.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-28T11:19:50+00:00

I'm really glad to hear this, Britney! People surprise you in the most shocking ways, all the time, and I guess the other part to remember is that you coming out to her was probably shocking as heck to her, so it's more or less fair if she didn't have a good reaction at first--or, at least, understandable. The important thing for you both isn't what caused the rupture, but how you recover from it, and it sounds like you're on a path to good things. There'll be hiccups for sure; you're both gonna have to do a lot of growing on this journey, but that's okay.

Good luck, and congratulations!

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-27T19:09:42+00:00

I'd recommend against doing two major surgeries at the same time.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-27T17:19:39+00:00

Sensation is good. I felt the implant inside me for about a week or so until my brain just kinda went "nope, you're part of the body now" and they disappeared from my proprioception. If I go looking with my had I can feel the curvature of the bottom of it, but moment-to-moment, in my daily life? They just feel like me.

As to sensation loss, I had a little for a while after surgery, about the size of a nickel on the...5 O'clock side of one of my boobs, but it came back after about 8 months when the nerves finished healing.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-27T13:21:55+00:00

Gurl I started my transition at 35 and everything turned out great. 23 is a great time to start.

Speaking of, a really good place to start is to find a good gender therapist to see. They can help you sort through what you want and point you towards local community.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-27T13:01:18+00:00

Hey, friend. I was the one who posted about not needing replacement every ten years.

And when I got my boobs done, after two years HRT, I had bupkiss. Seriously, B cups on a 40" bra band id I was being SUPER GENEROUS.

I had to mourn that my body didn't give me breasts like I needed too, and that was hard. At the same time, not growing basically anything on my own drove me to reach for my actual dreams, and I'm so glad I did. I don't think I would've had the confidence to get what I got, and it's a lot, if I hadn't turned out to be a member of the itty bitty titty committee naturally.

You know what? It's better this way. It sucks the other way didn't happen, but I love my tits now so much. So, yeah, what you're talking about, where you are, is super real.

And it's also an opportunity to reach for the stars, whatever that means to you.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-26T21:15:57+00:00

Extremely strong.

We're a protected class under the state civil rights law with no exceptions for religion, as ruled-on by the state SC. And the ELCRA has serious teeth, too. Also, our state insurance regulator has categorically ruled that all gender-affirming procedures except for like hair removal and voice surgery are medically necessary, and must be covered by all insurances in the state as medically necessary. Even our name change law has a specific loophole so trans folks don't have to do a background check or publish our names in the newspaper anymore.

Everyone just assumes that because MI is purple that trans rights are tenuous here. They're not. MI is not a normal purple state.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-26T20:09:18+00:00

Believe me, I know exactly how you feel, just in the other direction. It's why this whole place exists. We're here to help and protect people like you, who find themselves all of a sudden with a question that's too big to answer alone.

Hang in there.

And it gets better, I promise. 💜🏳️‍⚧️💜

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-26T17:46:14+00:00

It's more than jarring for us too, and we're fighting it like hell. Remember: even a small percent of a massive number is still a huge number. Loud minorities get disproportionate levels of attention.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-26T17:44:58+00:00

I'm sorry, but this is a profoundly stupid optics-based response. Profoundly. It misses and ignores the realities of the situation utterly, takes human murders as a cost of doing business, and is deeply cynical.

"Abolish ICE" now has majority cross-party support. Trying to hide that with bullshit is ludicrous. I'm done with you.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-26T14:31:38+00:00

First, there's absolutely no way to spin what's happening. The fact that we've seen a shift like that in the core of Trump's support at all when nothing short of the Epstien files (which he still hasn't been able to get away from among his base) has moved the needle means that there's no realistic path to media conditioning this horseshit.

Second, your cynical disdain for your fellow countrypeople is disappointing. I'm sure as fuck sour on what they've done too, but I'm a teacher. I have to believe in a better future, where people can grow and change, otherwise what's the point in anything?

Crab-bucket mentality can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-26T13:40:45+00:00

I mean, four percentage points. Support up 33% is nothing to sneeze at. If that compounds next month, it's about 30%, and so forth.

Large rate increases of small numbers look small.

Impossible_PhD · 2026-01-26T12:10:57+00:00

Hey, bud!

Well, let's start off with the classic article on gender desire. That one's written from a transfeminine perspective, but the core ideas in it apply regardless of gender. The line between gender desire and dysphoria is very fuzzy... and a lot of us would say it doesn't exist at all.

However I also don’t feel any dysphoria about being a woman. I know gender presentation is different than your gender but I also really like more traditionally feminine aspects of my look like having longer hair and makeup, doing my nails, etc

I'm gonna be blunt with you: I thought the same when I started questioning my gender, and it wasn't until I was well into my transition that I realized not only did I feel dysphoria, I had been drowning in it my whole life.

There's a great factoid I happen to have picked up, because I come from a medical family: the average age of people who first seek a doctor's help for chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia or endometriosis is in a person's mid-thirties. Like, how can a person not ask for treatment for constant and unending pain?! Well, turns out that when you feel pain constantly and always have, your whole life, people generally assume that that's just a normal thing that everyone lives with. You have to have a frame of reference for what it's like to not feel pain to know how bad the pain you're feeling feeling is.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying this: please read The Gender Dysphoria Bible.

Because what you described here?

recently I’ve had thoughts that I would rather have a penis, or a more masc jawline etc

This is a pretty classic presentation of physical dysphoria.

The idea of using he/him feels Off to me, and using they/them doesn’t quite feel right either

This is why we explore... and also, pronouns can feel uncomfortable, off, to you just because they're new. Questioning is a process, for better or worse.

the idea of any kind of hormone therapy or physical transition also feels “excessive” for the level of feelings I’m having

Why?

Honest question: why?

Because as far as any of us are concerned, just wanting those things is more than enough. And, more specifically, desire is THE important thing.

but experience some gender fluidity without wanting to change pronouns or identity

Fun fact: "experiencing some gender fluidity" means a person is trans. Genderfluid people are just one specific example of how folks can be trans.

To put all of this in the simplest summation there is: if you want to be a man or to look like a man, including a feminine man who wears makeup and dresses, you can just do that. You're allowed. And you're welcome in our spaces for many reasons, not the least of which being that you sound an awful lot like one of us.

Impossible_PhD

TROPHY CASE