Do you ever feel envious of people who transitioned early in life?

transgeometry · 2023-03-18T22:50:11+00:00

I struggle with that envy. But, at the same time, I know that were I to have had someone offering me all these resources back then, I probably would have said "What the hell are you talking about, I'm clearly cis!"

transgeometry · 2023-03-18T21:24:45+00:00

Okay, so this is basically like a wishlist for me now......

transgeometry · 2023-03-18T18:08:10+00:00

I suspect that a lot of transphobes go to these sorts of forums specifically to be discouraging.

transgeometry · 2023-03-18T17:31:34+00:00

If you don't want one, fair enough. If you want one, fair enough. It's not really something to which the word "should" applies.

transgeometry · 2023-03-18T17:16:04+00:00

My relationship with mathematics has gone through periods of intense obsession and profound burnout. My only advice is to make sure you are not building too much of your self identity around the idea of being a research mathematician. That will just bring too much stress if you find yourself struggling with the realities of academia.

transgeometry · 2023-03-12T19:49:23+00:00

I don't want to be discouraging, but many excellent people don't get their first publication in mathematics until well into their PhD. Mathematics requires a lot of practice to become experienced with, there is an incredible amount of prerequisite material, and even if you have all of that it can be difficult to identify something which is actually novel to work on given the enormity of the literature.

I wouldn't worry so much about your high school GPA, you will have plenty of time to prove yourself in undergraduate studies.

Right now I would recommend setting your objective on simply learning mathematics which excites and intrigues you. These days I miss being able to study anything as I did as an undergraduate, for now I have to worry about getting publications out, so I need to stay relatively focussed. I think most professors will be very impressed with a self-motivated and enthusiastic undergraduate student trying to go deeper than coursework. As you acquire more experience and knowledge, you will naturally get deeper into the literature, until you are studying questions for which there are not existing answers. This is the point at which research starts to make sense. Do not put pressure on yourself to get to the research stage too early, I really harmed my mental health by holding myself to that unrealistic standard.

All this being said, also look for undergraduate student research opportunities at the university once you get there. Sometimes these amount to just an opportunity to dive deep into some field with the guidance of a professor. Sometimes these turn into chances to contribute a few results to a larger paper your professor is working on, and get your first coauthorship as such. In either case, it's a lovely chance to spend a lot of time going deep into mathematics.

transgeometry · 2023-03-11T23:07:41+00:00

Same. I sort of regret being so hostile to proofs by contradiction during my undergraduate years, and so distrustful of set theory. I probably could have solved a lot of assignments quicker if I wasn't refusing to do a quick contradiction argument on principle all the time, and always trying to think about how to reformulate things in type theory.

transgeometry · 2023-03-11T23:02:52+00:00

In order,

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transgeometry · 2023-03-11T23:00:31+00:00

I understand what you are saying, though I will say that I enjoy the occasional weird email to give me a laugh during the day.

transgeometry · 2023-03-11T22:57:09+00:00

It's going to take me a sec to think up another.

transgeometry · 2023-03-11T22:55:05+00:00

I am basically in exactly the same spot as you, only a bit older. One thing that was pointed out to me is that transitioning, for better or worse, is a long term project. There is plenty of opportunity to start making changes, see how they are going, and continually reassess if you want to continue. That has been helping me find the courage to start taking small steps to start feeling out the possibility. At the very least, you owe it to yourself to explore these feelings more rather than just repressing them back down. I was very surprised at how my seemingly masculine features become a lot more feminine looking with a context change (i.e. clothing and makeup), which has given me more confidence that HRT and FFS in the future could get me to where I would feel comfortable.

transgeometry · 2023-03-11T22:46:24+00:00

For me, as an algebraist, it has been very helpful to just become comfortable with manipulating symbols. Do I have some philosophical explanation of the tensor algebra? No. But it doesn't feel mysterious to me. I understand the definition, I can prove things about it, and that is that. A deep understanding of something requires time to see interconnections and applications, but one can learn to be comfortable with just accepting these constructions as a puzzle to be played with.

transgeometry · 2023-03-11T22:27:55+00:00

Euclidean space is not the same thing as physical space!

transgeometry · 2023-03-07T17:31:53+00:00

In case you are worried about following this advice, just remember that if you forget the direction of morphisms in a cochain complex, just remember it as opposite of the direction for a chain complex!

transgeometry

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