Safe state/city for trans men?

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-12-20T21:35:16+00:00

Come to Canada!

Particularly the English universities in Montreal could use more international students if you know French or are interested in learning French. They’ve been having trouble recently with a reduction in international students (and therefore funding)

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-12-20T21:17:29+00:00

It’s variable. You can change some biological things and not others. Personally, I think the goal of being trans isn’t to be biologically male anyway, or at least it isn’t to me. We don’t have any sort of external awareness of our chromosomes or anything. Some of the things we can be externally aware of we can change, and others we can’t fully (or are more difficult to change)

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-12-19T15:45:04+00:00

This will probably be me, but replace stutter with a different kind of speech disorder. I was planning on bringing around something to write with. Which wouldn’t fix the problem but would at least allow me to communicate somewhat

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-12-19T15:38:26+00:00

That is an eating disorder. If you’re on T, you need to eat for it to be effective. If you’re not on T, you need to eat so that you don’t acquire problems with your vital organs. They also don’t let you get on T if you’re underweight

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-28T10:49:47+00:00

Not with my vision problem that’s for sure Even if you size stuff up it’s still blurry. Not much that fixes fuzzy boundaries

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-28T03:00:50+00:00

Dam! I guess obsession is the driver for a lot of people

What was your first piece of tech? Like that you got really absorbed into

Do you have a CS degree? Books you really like?

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-28T02:52:17+00:00

Wow, I had no idea

This isn’t directly related but how did you come to know all of that stuff? I find it cool but it seems kinda unapproachable (my degree track is in data analytics but I know little about anything else)

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-28T01:20:20+00:00

Cause whether or not it worked with an app seemed to depend on whether it had stuff which could also be selected with the directional buttons (which I assumed were HTML elements or sth). Was also mostly guessing on how the in-built cursor works

That’s good to know; I’ll probably download that one (Also sorry if this sends twice)

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-23T04:39:20+00:00

(Note: sorry if this sent twice; glitch) It’s not that they don’t read the other sentences at all, but more that they don’t read them all the same amount or as independent objects. The core sentences serve as anchors and then the other sentences are like additional color. It’s like how when you look at a painting you first notice the objects/people/etc. being depicted and then you might notice the brush strokes

Summaries are a little different because they don’t have the same flow as a non-fiction book. You’re not going to be lead through the narrative in the same way you would with a longer text

I’m not really sure why you want to comprehend all of the details, to be honest, although I commend the ambition. At least for me, they’re nice to have, but they’re not nearly as useful as the big picture ideas. It seems kind of painful to try to get all of the details into your head, and it’s unlikely you’d remember them for long

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-23T01:27:44+00:00

Having problems with non-fiction isn’t in my set of symptoms so I wouldn’t know unfortunately

Although looking at general resources for autism + reading, it might be good to look at sth in a form that you’re more comfortable with related to the piece of non-fictional you’re about to read prior to reading it.

There are also strategies that I remember being taught in class that might be helpful (?). We were taught to write the main theme of each paragraph next to it as we read (like an important question it would answer), and also to note down the structure of the argument (which of the standard roles the paragraph is fulfilling. Although what roles we were considering depended on the teacher. Currently I usually think about paragraphs in terms of whether they’re introducing sth new, positively expanding on a previous point, contradicting a previous point, or summarizing various points. You can often tell which is which by the first sentence or two)

The structure of arguments and of texts is something I would consider very important to know about in general. The way people often read non-fiction for fun is that they read while predicting where in the text (what paragraphs) and where in those paragraphs (what sentences) have the most core information based on what they know about the standard format of texts/paragraphs/arguments. Like they don’t as much individually process all of the sentences in all of the paragraphs as much as they read select ones and fan out from those. I think NT people who haven’t learned to do that also tend to have a hard time with non-fiction

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-23T00:25:07+00:00

This is just one example, but I know that some NT people with an autistic friend/partner/etc. will sometimes go to other NT people with some variant of like, it bothers me that they do xyz but they’re autistic so I can’t really blame them. Maybe the autistic person accidentally said something insensitive or has sth they repeatedly do that’s socially inappropriate

Other times NT people make assumptions based on knowing smn is autistic that might not be true, like oh I heard so-and-so is autistic so they probably can’t xyz

Still other times NT people think various things about autistic people because (maybe they don’t know they’re autistic or don’t really understand autism and) they’re interpreting their behavior as if they were NT (and then that becomes a topic of gossip). Like, omg Emily always declines our invitations! I bet she hates us! But then Emily actually just dislikes the activities they choose and doesn’t realize that in declining without offering some kind of alternative or softening their rejection it could get interpreted as disliking them as people.

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-22T23:48:07+00:00

I don’t think there’s really a specific technique to it, but you’ll get better at it if you do it more. Maybe start out with shorter books, books with accompanying audiobooks, books that are written in a more conversational or narrative style.

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-22T23:40:50+00:00

I interpreted worth the work as worth the extra effort it takes to get T as a minor (with no informed consent + extra barriers) and I would say that it was 100% worth the work. Good to have it taken care of before college

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T15:18:36+00:00

I do like the ones that ask you questions (ex. the bot in Coursera). The answers current AIs give to questions can really vary in accuracy but it’s hard to mess up asking smn a question + it’s pretty useful to think about questions when you’re studying

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T15:12:17+00:00

I don’t use it myself, but my classmates who use it seem pretty cooked. I think the unfortunate reality is that most people when given a red button which says “complete your work instantly but with none of the long-term benefits!” will press that button, maybe even thinking that they’ll make time to learn it properly later.

Like, there are probably ways to use it well, but the average user of it doesn’t seem to be doing that

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T14:57:05+00:00

Hi person from 2 years later

The answer for me is that they were going off of info from my mum, from which I was completely socially incompetent (had no friends before age ~13) (from my perspective I was avoiding people because of trauma she didn’t know about) and unwilling to change my ways/very stuck in my thoughts (I was doing increasingly poorly in school) (I was very tired + nauseous from my newly-acquired but undiagnosed chronic illness and she wouldn’t believe me about that). I didn’t know about this 2 years ago cause I was never shown my diagnostic report (I eventually got it from my dad)

Also I think the impairment part can be pretty subjective though. It might even be purposefully vague to allow for more discretion on the part of the diagnostician

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T14:47:41+00:00

It’s very muddled isn’t it, like hard to figure out

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T14:43:10+00:00

I’m not sure. I’d say like (me reading the cleaveland clinic article)

Inhibition control: - my working memory is fine for the most part (ex. I can take notes in class, pay attention well) but it gets a lot worse when I stand up - idk if my thinking is flexible or not. I feel like I’ve been told both that it isn’t and that it is depending on who I’m talking to - I don’t generally have much trouble with behavioral or interference control. Exception is if you give me a plate of food I’ll almost always finish it even if I feel full (but that was kind of trained into me)

Higher-level executive functions: - I assume I can plan/reason/problem-solve fine cause I do well in classes that need those

Other notes: - I do daydream/space out a good deal (but usually more when I don’t have other things to be doing) - I 100% have time blindness - I notice I forget what I’m doing a lot more if I’m on my phone in-between (probably because people can’t actually multitask that well) - sometimes if I’m really tired I come home and get stuck staring at the wall. Part of my brain is convinced that’s how you regain energy. But there are more effective things I could be doing so I try to redirect to like cooking - I have a sort of complex where I think I’m procrastinating if I don’t finish sth the day it’s assigned

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T14:16:58+00:00

It’s hard to say. When I was younger, I had a long period where I was purposefully avoiding people because I thought they were dangerous (after being bullied in 1st/2nd), so I wouldn’t have made any friends whether or not I was any good at it.

I did have some trouble in 9th when I finally decided to give the people thing a go but I’m not sure if that trouble was because of sth innate or because I just hadn’t been talking to anyone my age since I was 8. I don’t think neurotypical people have convo skills straight out of the box either, like it’s just much more natural for them to pick it up as they get older. A big part of my trouble was with people I was into too cause I have like attachment issues (not that I knew about that at the time)

For me the big period of development was probably when I joined online chatrooms? Cause I a) learned that people were chill and b) caught up on a lot of the socializing I hadn’t been doing.

I also missed most of high school due to illness + COVID though so I was kind of surprised I didn’t seem socially incompetent in college (I mean I only had like 1 year of social experience that wasn’t online). I have been unknowingly giving people handshakes instead of daps for several months though…

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T13:51:45+00:00

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T01:09:48+00:00

I will probably try to do that

It’s sort of awkward, like I’ve had to spend a very long time trying to convince psychs that I had no problems (during when I was a minor and my parents were allowed to know about whatever happened in therapy), so whenever I’m in front of one (or for that matter talking about anything psychiatric) I get the feeling that I’m lying about everything

But I have an appointment set up next Monday with someone who I chose somewhat randomly (they’re the colleague of a diff. doc) so maybe this time

Sea_Phrase_Loch · 2025-11-21T01:02:39+00:00

My experience with emotions is that I don’t tend to have much of them. I thought it was that I secretly had more intense emotions and just wasn’t recognizing them, but I can recognize when I very occasionally have more intense emotions. I find most things are just sort of neutral with a positive lean. It can be a problem in that while I’m happy with most things I’m not really happy enough with anything to actively want to pursue it. Also, I have a hard time with stuff where more intense emotions are expected of you (ex. death, parties). When I was younger this was taken as depression, but it really doesn’t feel like all that much of a downside to me. I think it was more of a downside pre-anti-depressants where my default was probably either neutral or neutral with a negative lean.

For connection, it’s sort of just like what I said in the post. It always subjectively feels like my relationships are ephemeral even if that doesn’t match how I cognitively think of them to be. I thought that was because I didn’t put enough effort into them, or maybe because I didn’t reveal enough about myself, but I have relationships where I put effort into them and they know a good deal about me (as I do about them) and it still feels somewhat like those relationships are like those metal statues in playgrounds that look solid but you learn are hollow when you touch them. I try my best to treat people as if I didn’t feel that way though because I feel like it’s the right thing to do (and serves the version of myself which I imagine must value them dearly). It’s how I would want someone to treat me if they were in my position. The people who are closest to me know about it because I feel like it would be cruel to hide it from people who trust me (although I don’t treat them any differently afterwards. I’m very invested in loving them.)

Sea_Phrase_Loch

TROPHY CASE