See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
On Monday I wore my dick to graduation. (P.S. I went to a women's college.) Instead of paying the $80 to sit in a pool of black robes and walk for five seconds, then having the opportune seating arrangement to be pointed at and referenced appropriately, I sat with my family in the back corner of the gym. Okay not blood family but some of my favorite people.
My secret gender was only recognized a few times by some people at school. It is December so the graduates are a third the size as normal. After three hours of speeches and trying to stay awake we headed off to celebrate with sushi. I used the men's bathroom (twice) and felt great in doing so. At the dinner table we had loud, riveting conversations about physics and philosophy and IQ scores and about my preferred pronouns, at which the tables nearby were both offended and intrigued by. I proclaimed I was interested in no pronouns ("Actually I'd prefer to be introduced as Eddie and then use the third person or gender neutral pronouns.") and we continued on as normal, not missing a beat.
I have great understanding roommates, smart and confident and cute. Oh and my brother. They're a bunch who don't blink an eye at my eccentric tendencies, since we are all pretty much outliers; we each belong to some sub-subgroup and glow in the light of our own uniqueness. I appreciate my views on topics being challenged instead of my appearance, my behaviors being monitored and adjusted instead of my thought processes. I appreciate also that my roommates love to talk about dicks without being immature about it. Well, to an extent. My own questions about gender are things that they share and are interested in too. It's a comfortable place to live.
I have always considered transition since I was little. It wasn't just about being a guy, but about having the parts of a guy. I used to fantasize about waving my dick around like they do and speaking with low bass tones, like how the sounds reverberate around the room and how booming a shout or a bought of laughter can be. The muscle boost from the excess testosterone really does an impressive job on the body too. Broadened shoulders, narrow hips, strong thighs and calves and forearms. Your arms are permanently a size bigger than a comparable female of similar stature. The opportunity to build up your chest and abs into a firm pillow board is always a goal I found appealing.
While a lot of my gender dysphoria is focused on how my appearance effects others, I am also really concerned about my vagina. I don't really relate to my reproductive tract the way many woman do. In fact I've never really been too fond about how others see me in my female body.
While the other girls took pride in applying makeup to the faces and stretching tiny cloth over their bodacious bodies I did so merely because I was attracted to the way my body looked. While other women look forward to the day they get pregnant, give birth, breastfeed and nurture another human being, I get sick to my stomach thinking about how painful that would be. Seriously, oxytocin aside, a baby would permanently change my body, stretching it in ways I couldn't bare to stomach.
I never really dressed to attract the eyes of others. I still don't. I dress to impress myself. At times I've felt sickened by the fact that others look upon me as a walking vagina. Men and women, I don't feel safe in a society where sexual emphasis is given to our anatomical features. In fact, I might go so far as to say that I am fearful of the way others see me, scared of the fact that there are people out there who look upon me with lust, just waiting to talk me up and take advantage of my body. I hate feeling like a walking rape victim. Because I'm not. I am a human first, a female body second, and a sexual creature third, if those traits are even that important to rank that high.
I'm much more interested in how the anatomical structure of humans looks and functions. It amazes me the survival tactics our organism has developecd over millions of generations. I care less about how tight someone's vagina is, how big their ass might be, how smooth their cock would look, how bouncy their breasts are. Seriously, I care less about the sexual characteristics about other human beings (well, most of the time; I do not proclaim asexuality).
I really love my body, even though it is very feminine. I was never uncomfortable with my body as a child. I always thought I was strong and firm and beautiful. I loved to be naked all throughout puberty, examining the new and exciting changes taking place right beneath my skin. I spent a large amount of time just expressing myself passionately before a mirror, any mirror, all mirrors, just seeing the person that other people see on a daily basis.
My face is round yet square, at a certain angle almost strong, but at another simply cute. My nose is small and my cheeks are high upon my face, my lips are permanently pressed and fleshy and large. My eyes are wide and round and shiny and glow with a sharp flame that will dry you out if you look too long. When my eyebrows are nit I look concerned and concentrated, but never angry; my brows are not as intimidating as some, thick yet not full.
My hands are always skinny and long but big and strong. My wrists are embarrassingly thin and wimpy but my forearms grow and shrink over time depending on my physical activity. My thighs are thick and my hips continue to widen but at least my shoulders are large and muscular and shadow them. My rib cage is narrow and my stomach dips between my ribs and hips. My knees look uncertain and ripple when I walk, but my calves are sculpt. Sometimes my biceps too are more firm and confident throughout the year.
I am very conscious of my body, and other people's bodies. The way mine rounds off in places is appealing to me, and I've always saved pictures of fellow females whose anatomy I also found appealing. If I see something so beautiful that a spark of euphoria comes over me I keep it for myself. I compare myself to these women, my own sexuality exploring itself against the attractiveness of their qualities, my own gender identity defining itself against the backdrop of their anatomy. I've always enjoyed the intimate pleasures of the physical form of humans, visually, sensually. I can almost imagine how they feel against my skin, how warm and round and smooth these beautiful people could be.
Sitting here with a packer firmly strapped to my hips I whip out the shaft and sit comfortably imagining it as my own. It's much more difficult to sit cross legged but that's not as important as having the pressure of this object between my thighs. It feels powerful, like I've got something that could potentially change the world, something that could inspire me to be that person. It makes me long for the real thing, for something I could call my own, something that is my own flesh and something my nerves can connect to. It feels right, like this organ is something that belongs to me, something that should have been mine all along. Why I have to make due with a fake is unknown to me.
I've never quite related to the sex assigned to me at conception. The body is fine but the genitals are a source of confusion for me. Everyone I've ever talked to has had something negative and positive to say about their genitals. While they are celebrated for their arousing tendencies and climactic abilities, no one has ever really been able to make me understand why it is exactly that these fleshy bits cause so much excitement.
Sure they have a bazillion more nerve endings than the next set of organs and sure they offer the release of endorphins (serotonin: pleasure, oxytocin: connection, dopamine: stimulation, morphine: pain relief), and yeah they are stimulated and manipulated in such ways as to increase the acceptance of sperm to egg and various other fertility boosting and reproductive abilities, but outside of that where is the actual significance of genitals? Outside of sexual reproduction and related sexual pleasure, where does the positive effects of genitals actually come from? Where does our positive mental imagery of our genital configuration come from? And why are we so excited by them, outside of sexual interest? I never got that.
My vagina kind of annoys me. I'm not particularly interested in contributing to the human population, giving eggs or giving birth, having tons of vaginal sex for science or the sex industry, or even creating art to exhibit the wonders of human anatomy for the masses. Genitals are their own moist bacteria ecosystem surrounded by a coarse forest, subject to acne and sores and gross looking drippy stains and strong odors and uncomfortable clothing entanglement. Plus you leave a few hairs on everything your rear touches. The inner workings of the female genitals include a flexible baby making environment which is attached to a nursery with a lifetime's supply of eggs, one released every month. Meanwhile the fluctuations of hormones produced thanks to these cute little unborn babies affects your entire body, including your thought processes and mood, and the body's pain threshold, but especially your breasts. Lots of other negative ailments are blamed on these monthly cycles of hormones, both legitimate and inane, and they all annoy me.
The irony here between my own body dysphoria and most trans* folks' gender dysphoria is that while most transmen may change every aspect of their body except their vagina, the only thing I actually want to change is my vagina. There are lots of traits that come from administering testosterone to a female body that please a great majority of transmen. Transitioning bodies can develop muscle mass, lower voice range, excess body hair, facial hair, thick skin, and a different smell. Particularly the vocals, facial hair, and muscle mass interest me, but as far as genital reconstruction goes, there still isn't any functioning erect, ejaculating, or perfectly urinating dicks out there. Though the idea still remains.
Certainly I've had plenty of pleasurable experiences with my god given nether regions but to be honest it has always been a rather out of body experience. I don't feel like myself under the influence of sexual arousal. Orgasm isn't me but my body reacting to some stimulation. I also have the tendency to feel completely emotionally exhausted for days, like as if I'm having a mental hangover. This is something I'm still trying to figure out. How it is that I could possibly feel so overwhelmed after a nice little hormonal buzz that I wouldn't want to interact with people for days?
Fiddling with my fake junk feels ever more satisfying to me than playing with my real junk ever has. It's a weird phenomena to recognize this. My connected fleshy bits feel foreign, yet this rubbery piece of flesh feels more like something that belongs to me. Perhaps this is the reason I've tended to connect with guys more than girls? Perhaps I just wanted to put my hands all over them and feel how they work because I was examining the male body? Maybe it was because I wanted to be one? Was I always so selfish to merely want what they had instead of feeling like the intimate, loving woman that I pretended to be for them? Even when I connected with women it felt like I was touching an unfamiliar body, someone else's parts which I had to explore all over again. (Believe me I've explored my body and know just how it works but it still doesn't make sense to me.)
Just this overwhelming urge to be this other sex, I want what they have, I like what they have, it feels right between my hands, between my legs, smooth muscles across my chest and elongated shoulders across my back. That strong neck with the bulge, the oversized hands and accommodating forearms; it is not something that I personally find attractive or appealing but it is something that I want. It is something that feels like me.
Yet try and tell that to someone who's lusting over your anatomical configuration and see how far you get until they just want to have sex with you and cuddle, gushing about your parts. Just imagine being embodied with tits and ass and vagina between your knees, go up to a heterosexual man and tell them how much you want their body, how you want to see what they've got, you want to really observe it and look at it and touch it, see how long it takes until what they think you are saying is how randy you are for them and how long it takes for them to want to you.
Observe my entire life.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Gender Therapy: Day 042 Gender Identity Under Stress
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
This final semester has been a good amount of pain in the butt. I calculated the hours that I am out and about and found that 46 hours a week I am working and schooling. Add an extra 14 hours worth of commute time and I am preoccupied 60 hours of the week. That's a full time job and a half.
School is almost over and I'm studying for finals, putting together large project assignments, and working three times the hours I expected to at my new job. I've missed several nights of sleep just trying to stay on top of assignments. The extra company and encouragement from my roommates has been helpful in keeping my morale high.
Unfortunately the house hasn't always been peaceful. Last week was probably one of the most stressful that I've had in a long time. My brother came up here two weeks ago to stay with us until he can get himself together. It's an extra expense and another person to get used to but he's brought excitement into the house with his interdisciplinary topics. Last week my two lovely roommates, my brother, and myself had a house meeting to solidify some rules for subletting. One room is normally set aside for a temporary resident (such as my brother) but after some intense discussion and disagreements, one of the permanent roommates has decided to downgrade to sublet and leave at the end of the year. This leaves two temporary rooms and only one person of familiarity. This also changes the dynamic of the relationships, one close relationship being torn and the other needing to grow stronger. It's stressful to have this sudden change in the middle of everything else going on.
Speaking of transition, I've found it is very easy to idealize turning into someone else when the person you are right now is in turmoil. I've always looked to the males in my life to see how they handle stress, finding they prefer to hide under rocks and avoid eye contact. I find myself preferring this method. By myself I have more room to think and express myself. Unfortunately it also brings intense loneliness and resentment towards happy social people. Though once my issues are resolved I bounce back refreshed and social, energetic and creative, ready to start new things.
This is different from a female's usual group therapy, whereas in stressful situations they clump together to talk about their problems and find solutions. I always found this to be overstimulating and unhelpful since other people's opinions of my problems mostly do nothing but come off as judgmental and make me feel bad for having feelings. Maybe they'll have a useful tidbit here and there but the rest of the time spent dissecting the issue I always find uncomfortable. Often the suggestions don't so much propel me into action as they do place me in indecision and self-consciousness.
Speaking of indecision, during these stressful months the weather has been very cold for the fall season; two snowfalls and I am hiding my female body under a snow jacket and a new pair of men's boots. It has been satisfying to avert the male gaze and to practice a low pitch when I interact with strangers. At times I wish I had worn my packer and other times I wonder if I need more facial hair. If I don't speak sometimes people will give me a male pronoun.
Identity is how others perceive you. As much as you try to create an identity for yourself, your success is determined by others, for example my voice giving away my anatomy. As much as you want to express yourself, it is another person who will receive your messages and interpret how you feel, the reason I prefer to work problems out alone. If you want to be a man but look like a woman, you will be identified as a woman in man's clothes. If you want others to expect you to be rugged and courageous and manly, but you sound sensitive and meek, you will appear feminine. As much as people try to break out of rigid social norms we still use stereotypes to interact with each other. Socials norms present a predictable space where strangers establish trust. When these norms are broken they create an unpleasant and sometimes unsafe environment. Unfortunately this discourages a lot of people from interacting because breaking social norms is very easy to do. And although we may feel pleasant and honest, it is our appearance from which people perceive us first.
For the past few years all I could think about was how turning into a man would solve all of my problems. I feel like a man, I think like a man, I know how to act like a man, why can't I be a man? Well, with such a feminine body, I look like a woman in a man's suit; and being a man in a woman's body is still too foreign of a concept for people to understand, much less trust or accept. Meanwhile my ambiguous androgynous identity makes people uncomfortable. They feel like they don't know how to interact with me, and quite frankly, I don't know what they want from me either. Then on the other side of the spectrum acting feminine is tiresome, it feels uncomfortable, and it feels wrong. At the end of each day when people hold me to a certain standard of femininity that I fail to meet, I feel like I am a failure and an abomination. I feel like less of a person and someone who should just be smudged out of society, because I am not presenting myself as the sexy woman I could be.
Fuck that, by the way.
Transition is a solution many people have taken to better align their identity with their feelings. The chemical changes and body modifications that have created countless passable individuals have inspired many others to try too. Gender reassignment surgery is as accessible as ever; a year of therapy, a lifetime supply of hormones, and the option to chop off or add parts to your body. Some people are unsatisfied but the majority of trans* people seem to do alright. Today there is a nice little social trend in trying to make trans* folk feel more comfortable and accepted. Even if they don't pass many trans* people are still treated as the gender they want to be treated as.
This desire to transition surfaces every so often, this time recently due to stress. My internal justification system insists transitioning would be amazing and give me the social satisfaction I would want. Just imagine not being treated like a walking vagina, it says. The statistical frequency of unattractive people challenging your martial status is less often! It's true too that people wouldn't gawk at a guy's hairy legs or shortness of hair. It would be assumed that I am confident, competent, and strong first instead of second, as is expressed in commentary that suggests my anatomy should cause me to be otherwise. "Damn, girl!" or "You're one smart cupcake!" or "You're pretty strong for a woman."
Ugh. Shut up.
The one zinger that my brain loves to idealize is the potential interactions with women. Usually my tomboyish nature causes most women to dismiss me as some unattractive hipster adolescent or otherwise uninteresting. If I am wearing something unique maybe I turn into an interesting person, someone whose brain they pick until they can properly place my personality and move on. The number of women actually interested in other women is a small pool of people. (Speaking romantically interested. Or sexual.) But the number of women interested in men is, well, much larger. Having said that, I have a statistically better chance of interacting with women who would actually be interested in me by identifying as a man. Instead of coming off as a genuinely awkward nerdy girl, which is unattractive on a number of patriarchal levels, I would come across as a genuinely awkward nerdy boy, which is exceptional fashionable right now.
But, then, sometimes women interact with me because I am female, because they feel I am not a threat and someone whom they can relate to and interact with. (Lies! Damned lies!) And then when women do interact with me, and we do click, it makes me feel like gender doesn't matter all over again. Like it's not what's in my pants that they care about, but between my ears.
That's great and all when I'm looking for friends, but that makes it hard to find a mate! 99% of the time I am friend zoned! There are not enough women who like women and even if they were lesbian or bisexual or pansexual it's hard to identify them anyway since most have been socialized to not directly reveal their interest! (Unlike guys!) Sneaky lipstick lesbians. Supposedly only 10% of the animal kingdom is gay, which means barely 5% of the population is a potential female partner for me, and then break that apart by geography and culture and personality compatibility and you might get <1% of the population interacting with me with romantic or sexual interest.
But as a man you've got a whopping 45% of the population to work with. When geography is an issue there are plenty of dating sites marketed to you. When culture is an issue you've still got plenty of encouragement to have exotic flings. When personality is an issue you can still have the whole world pat you on the back for having committed yourself to a heterosexual martial institution. That's what marriage is today, right? (I'm kidding. I'm not a misogynist.) But still, being a man, maybe when a woman talks about their boyfriend they might do so with a suggestive look in their eye instead of a matter-of-fact blink. Or they would giggle at my jokes as more of an invitation than an exchange of friendliness. Maybe they would treat me as a potential mate instead of a strange girl wearing man shoes.
Maybe in a perfect world there would be enough people of various romantic and sexual interest for gender to not be a requisite. Maybe one day I might feel comfortable in my skin talking to people. Maybe I won't be teased for being female or being expected to act a certain way based on my anatomy.
Maybe.
My perfect world is devoid of gender. Why can't we just drop the formalities and interact with each other's thoughts without fear? This is so stressful.
"It's easy to feel like transitioning will solve all of your problems."
This final semester has been a good amount of pain in the butt. I calculated the hours that I am out and about and found that 46 hours a week I am working and schooling. Add an extra 14 hours worth of commute time and I am preoccupied 60 hours of the week. That's a full time job and a half.
School is almost over and I'm studying for finals, putting together large project assignments, and working three times the hours I expected to at my new job. I've missed several nights of sleep just trying to stay on top of assignments. The extra company and encouragement from my roommates has been helpful in keeping my morale high.
Unfortunately the house hasn't always been peaceful. Last week was probably one of the most stressful that I've had in a long time. My brother came up here two weeks ago to stay with us until he can get himself together. It's an extra expense and another person to get used to but he's brought excitement into the house with his interdisciplinary topics. Last week my two lovely roommates, my brother, and myself had a house meeting to solidify some rules for subletting. One room is normally set aside for a temporary resident (such as my brother) but after some intense discussion and disagreements, one of the permanent roommates has decided to downgrade to sublet and leave at the end of the year. This leaves two temporary rooms and only one person of familiarity. This also changes the dynamic of the relationships, one close relationship being torn and the other needing to grow stronger. It's stressful to have this sudden change in the middle of everything else going on.
Speaking of transition, I've found it is very easy to idealize turning into someone else when the person you are right now is in turmoil. I've always looked to the males in my life to see how they handle stress, finding they prefer to hide under rocks and avoid eye contact. I find myself preferring this method. By myself I have more room to think and express myself. Unfortunately it also brings intense loneliness and resentment towards happy social people. Though once my issues are resolved I bounce back refreshed and social, energetic and creative, ready to start new things.
This is different from a female's usual group therapy, whereas in stressful situations they clump together to talk about their problems and find solutions. I always found this to be overstimulating and unhelpful since other people's opinions of my problems mostly do nothing but come off as judgmental and make me feel bad for having feelings. Maybe they'll have a useful tidbit here and there but the rest of the time spent dissecting the issue I always find uncomfortable. Often the suggestions don't so much propel me into action as they do place me in indecision and self-consciousness.
Speaking of indecision, during these stressful months the weather has been very cold for the fall season; two snowfalls and I am hiding my female body under a snow jacket and a new pair of men's boots. It has been satisfying to avert the male gaze and to practice a low pitch when I interact with strangers. At times I wish I had worn my packer and other times I wonder if I need more facial hair. If I don't speak sometimes people will give me a male pronoun.
Identity is how others perceive you. As much as you try to create an identity for yourself, your success is determined by others, for example my voice giving away my anatomy. As much as you want to express yourself, it is another person who will receive your messages and interpret how you feel, the reason I prefer to work problems out alone. If you want to be a man but look like a woman, you will be identified as a woman in man's clothes. If you want others to expect you to be rugged and courageous and manly, but you sound sensitive and meek, you will appear feminine. As much as people try to break out of rigid social norms we still use stereotypes to interact with each other. Socials norms present a predictable space where strangers establish trust. When these norms are broken they create an unpleasant and sometimes unsafe environment. Unfortunately this discourages a lot of people from interacting because breaking social norms is very easy to do. And although we may feel pleasant and honest, it is our appearance from which people perceive us first.
For the past few years all I could think about was how turning into a man would solve all of my problems. I feel like a man, I think like a man, I know how to act like a man, why can't I be a man? Well, with such a feminine body, I look like a woman in a man's suit; and being a man in a woman's body is still too foreign of a concept for people to understand, much less trust or accept. Meanwhile my ambiguous androgynous identity makes people uncomfortable. They feel like they don't know how to interact with me, and quite frankly, I don't know what they want from me either. Then on the other side of the spectrum acting feminine is tiresome, it feels uncomfortable, and it feels wrong. At the end of each day when people hold me to a certain standard of femininity that I fail to meet, I feel like I am a failure and an abomination. I feel like less of a person and someone who should just be smudged out of society, because I am not presenting myself as the sexy woman I could be.
Fuck that, by the way.
Transition is a solution many people have taken to better align their identity with their feelings. The chemical changes and body modifications that have created countless passable individuals have inspired many others to try too. Gender reassignment surgery is as accessible as ever; a year of therapy, a lifetime supply of hormones, and the option to chop off or add parts to your body. Some people are unsatisfied but the majority of trans* people seem to do alright. Today there is a nice little social trend in trying to make trans* folk feel more comfortable and accepted. Even if they don't pass many trans* people are still treated as the gender they want to be treated as.
This desire to transition surfaces every so often, this time recently due to stress. My internal justification system insists transitioning would be amazing and give me the social satisfaction I would want. Just imagine not being treated like a walking vagina, it says. The statistical frequency of unattractive people challenging your martial status is less often! It's true too that people wouldn't gawk at a guy's hairy legs or shortness of hair. It would be assumed that I am confident, competent, and strong first instead of second, as is expressed in commentary that suggests my anatomy should cause me to be otherwise. "Damn, girl!" or "You're one smart cupcake!" or "You're pretty strong for a woman."
Ugh. Shut up.
The one zinger that my brain loves to idealize is the potential interactions with women. Usually my tomboyish nature causes most women to dismiss me as some unattractive hipster adolescent or otherwise uninteresting. If I am wearing something unique maybe I turn into an interesting person, someone whose brain they pick until they can properly place my personality and move on. The number of women actually interested in other women is a small pool of people. (Speaking romantically interested. Or sexual.) But the number of women interested in men is, well, much larger. Having said that, I have a statistically better chance of interacting with women who would actually be interested in me by identifying as a man. Instead of coming off as a genuinely awkward nerdy girl, which is unattractive on a number of patriarchal levels, I would come across as a genuinely awkward nerdy boy, which is exceptional fashionable right now.
But, then, sometimes women interact with me because I am female, because they feel I am not a threat and someone whom they can relate to and interact with. (Lies! Damned lies!) And then when women do interact with me, and we do click, it makes me feel like gender doesn't matter all over again. Like it's not what's in my pants that they care about, but between my ears.
That's great and all when I'm looking for friends, but that makes it hard to find a mate! 99% of the time I am friend zoned! There are not enough women who like women and even if they were lesbian or bisexual or pansexual it's hard to identify them anyway since most have been socialized to not directly reveal their interest! (Unlike guys!) Sneaky lipstick lesbians. Supposedly only 10% of the animal kingdom is gay, which means barely 5% of the population is a potential female partner for me, and then break that apart by geography and culture and personality compatibility and you might get <1% of the population interacting with me with romantic or sexual interest.
But as a man you've got a whopping 45% of the population to work with. When geography is an issue there are plenty of dating sites marketed to you. When culture is an issue you've still got plenty of encouragement to have exotic flings. When personality is an issue you can still have the whole world pat you on the back for having committed yourself to a heterosexual martial institution. That's what marriage is today, right? (I'm kidding. I'm not a misogynist.) But still, being a man, maybe when a woman talks about their boyfriend they might do so with a suggestive look in their eye instead of a matter-of-fact blink. Or they would giggle at my jokes as more of an invitation than an exchange of friendliness. Maybe they would treat me as a potential mate instead of a strange girl wearing man shoes.
Maybe in a perfect world there would be enough people of various romantic and sexual interest for gender to not be a requisite. Maybe one day I might feel comfortable in my skin talking to people. Maybe I won't be teased for being female or being expected to act a certain way based on my anatomy.
Maybe.
My perfect world is devoid of gender. Why can't we just drop the formalities and interact with each other's thoughts without fear? This is so stressful.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Gender Therapy: Day 029 Dicks and Haircuts
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Sunday, November 17, 2013
Exploring Barriers to Women in STEM
Gender Therapy Day: 025
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
This has been a busy semester for me or else I would have written a whole lot more. This is one of the things that contributes to my busy-ness; I have been working on a senior thesis for the past year. It is an attempt at communications research, prying open women in STEM to ask about their personal reasons for choosing their career. The patterns I found involved their liking problem solving and math and/or science, in addition to being encouraged to pursue what they like, from peers, family, professors, and colleagues.
I attempted to take an unbiased approach, as much as I could, about the fact that the ratio of men to women in STEM fields is 3:1 in most cases. It was a challenge to talk about gender without triggering defense mechanisms however.
Take a look! Chatham University Tutorial
~~~
On an anatomical note, it has been a whole month and I have started menstruating. For the first time since I've hit puberty I have not had cramps! Woohoo!
I have also not had a whole lot of emotional turmoil such as PMS (premenstrual syndrome) nor have I been overly horny or anything of that sort. However, since Wednesday, when I started to take the placebos (or rather, have not taken them because they do nothing anyway) my emotions have come back to their more fluid state of being one emotion in the morning and something different in the night, sometimes more than two different general moods throughout the day. Just as I got used to being stable. Oh well, I will start up again this coming Wednesday with the active pills.
It's interesting to have your body do things that are different than what you can predict. Interesting also how when you get used to predicting it being one way, it is able to change without notice.
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
This has been a busy semester for me or else I would have written a whole lot more. This is one of the things that contributes to my busy-ness; I have been working on a senior thesis for the past year. It is an attempt at communications research, prying open women in STEM to ask about their personal reasons for choosing their career. The patterns I found involved their liking problem solving and math and/or science, in addition to being encouraged to pursue what they like, from peers, family, professors, and colleagues.
I attempted to take an unbiased approach, as much as I could, about the fact that the ratio of men to women in STEM fields is 3:1 in most cases. It was a challenge to talk about gender without triggering defense mechanisms however.
Take a look! Chatham University Tutorial
~~~
On an anatomical note, it has been a whole month and I have started menstruating. For the first time since I've hit puberty I have not had cramps! Woohoo!
I have also not had a whole lot of emotional turmoil such as PMS (premenstrual syndrome) nor have I been overly horny or anything of that sort. However, since Wednesday, when I started to take the placebos (or rather, have not taken them because they do nothing anyway) my emotions have come back to their more fluid state of being one emotion in the morning and something different in the night, sometimes more than two different general moods throughout the day. Just as I got used to being stable. Oh well, I will start up again this coming Wednesday with the active pills.
It's interesting to have your body do things that are different than what you can predict. Interesting also how when you get used to predicting it being one way, it is able to change without notice.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 1: Identity
Gender Therapy Day: 016
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 1: Identity
See Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 2 to hear about Communication.
I have denied femininity in myself for a long time now. I have done so because it feels wrong to be feminine. Wrong as in, not right. Similar to how a highly conservative religious individual might feel it wrong to masturbate, or commit infidelity, or even premarital sex (depending on the culture), to me it feels wrong to dress and act feminine. Are these religious folk wrong to think this way? Certainly not. If they so feel inclined to follow such intrapersonal rules as to regulate their lives around their viewpoints, they should have the freedom to do so, so long as it does not hurt other people.
Religion is a world view, and in this example, so is agender thought, or gender variation, or gender fluidity, genderqueer, queer, trans*, non-heteronormativity, whatever words you want to use to describe queer theory perspectives.
Over time I have recognized that there is an unwritten set of rules called social norms. These rules are specific to certain subcultures but are also prevalent on a wider scale, such as an entire country or language. It is very difficult to abide by the rules in this unwritten doctrine, but it is very much a real thing and you will recognize when you have broken a rule by being dismissed, disrespected, ignored, confronted, or any number of other shunning techniques. I have run into this frequently when people ask me, 'are you a boy or a girl?', or 'why don't you shave your legs?', or 'grow out your hair!', or 'if you wear makeup/women's suits you will be taken more seriously', or 'close your legs', or 'act more professional', or 'stop that'.
My most prolific understandings have come from the several times I have spoken 'out of turn'. Very often I have voiced my opinion in a group setting with a confident and calm manner only to be told to shut up and not voice my opinion, or more specifically in such a way. Other times I have been in women's only groups where the women started their sentences with 'I think...', 'I'm not certain but...', 'I feel...', 'I could be wrong but...', and when I did not do the same it was later revealed to me that I came off as tactless and aggressive. Only when I have run into this in a mixed gendered setting, and the guy next to me committing the same act was never shunned, did it become obvious to me that the contents of this unwritten document are also relevant to gender.
These social norms include a long list of behaviors and speech patterns, in addition to verbal and non-verbal communication, that consistently changes over time and place and people, including within one's own life. Being an active advocate of being yourself, I have chosen to play with many of these unwritten rules to feel for the acceptable boundaries about gender around new people. It is most fun around strangers, and increasingly more difficult about people who have known you for much longer. This is where I am at now in my life, forcing myself to be a little more of one gender (and sexuality) or another, through clothes, behaviors, speech, and even hormones, to see how accepting a person or group of people can be of me.
And now a chart about gender and sex!
Let me tell you of some of the results of my past experiments with identity.
There was a time in my life when I identified as a heterosexual, feminine girl. I had long hair and I wore makeup. I shaved my legs and wore tight clothing. I wore stockings and dresses and skirts as the occasion suggested, and I received the affection of friends and suitors alike. I did chose to dress dark, if not gothic, which placed a distance between myself and a good majority of people. However the individuals who still associated with me treated me in specific was. The women in my life were openly competitive when there were men around. The men were affectionate and tried to be as physically close as they could. I received a lot of sexual attention from both genders but I discouraged women as often as I could, as I found this new and unusual. I encouraged men as it was expected of me. However people treated me as a promiscuous and naive girl, as although I was confident and sexually active, I received more attention from men and women than people wanted me too. These messages I received from friends, family, and school authority alike.
Shortly after that stage I identified as a bisexual and androgynous female. The affection from both men and women discontinued as I stopped associating with the same people and instead kept to myself through several years. I wore oversized shirts and pants, changed my hairstyle frequently, and refused to wear makeup and be 'ladylike'. The men in my life and the men I dated were very upset about my lack of femininity. They thought I was trying to be something I was not, and insisted I wear more makeup and dresses, and shave. They also felt threatened by my bisexual identity. My partners were certain I would one day leave them for a woman and were weary of any female friends I had. My male friends tried their best to have sex with me before I 'became a lesbian'. Meanwhile the women in my life found me to no longer be a threat around other men and instead treated me as 'the ugly friend'. The only downfall was that those same women did not take my affection towards them in a serious manner, even though they themselves identified as gay or bisexual.
Later in my life I identified as a feminine bisexual. I won the hearts of many folks in college and through extracurricular events. I met gay folks, bisexuals, lesbians, trans* people of all kinds, queer folks, heterosexual folks. I met poor people, rich people, young people, middle class people, middle aged people, nerdy people, liberal arts students, artists and programmers, musicians and writers, and they all accompanied me in my life in various ways. They were attracted to my passionate, powerful feminine identity. I had short hair and short shorts and rode my bike. I wore tight shirts and tank tops and ripped jeans. I was in control of my life and ready for the world. The only downfalls were when I revealed my bisexuality to a few straight men who probably felt I had flirted with them. When I revealed I was not interested they withdrew their attention and affection, and unfriended me in social media and social circles. Ironically I received the same treatment from the few straight and bisexual women I tried to pursue. I wasn't sure if it was them or me, but it hit my confidence pretty hard.
Recently in my life I worked in consumer tech and claimed the identity of a masculine lesbian. I passed within this environment. I had a handful of co-workers I interacted with regularly and they accepted my lesbianism as a permanent sexual boundary. I identified myself quickly because they would challenge my sexuality often, just to make sure. However this identity gave me the power to speak about some deep topics about masculine-feminine relationships that I may not have in any other context, with several heterosexual men, without making anyone feel uncomfortable. I was treated as 'one of the guys' and often lesbian jokes were made in good humor. Even clients played along with my identity and teased me about how unfortunate they were to not have the correct genitalia. They respected me. I was presumed to be a dominating lesbian, someone who was capable and knowledgeable about many things.
During the same time I identified as a lesbian androgynous female to most of my small university, which offered a variety of communication challenges between the several different kinds of women I encountered. I wore nondescript clothing, caps, colorful socks and muted shirts. During professional events and at dances I wore suits, and I relented to wear dresses when my dormmates had makeover parties. The undergrad population is all female but the graduate programs have males. There is exactly one student transman that I know personally and a handful of queer lesbians, masculine and feminine lesbians, feminine bisexuals and pansexuals. The majority of the population is straight however.
In class I was known for my obnoxious but insightful commentary. I was usually one of very few who speak up and while my professors love my intellectual banter in private, they insist I stay quiet in class. They also didn't take my school assignments seriously and often made appointments to discuss alternative grading criteria. I was not treated as a professional academic but a playful manchild through most of my relationships with other women. In general students dismissed my commentary but in intellectual debate I came off as a pervert. The few women I dated thought me passionate yet flippant and confused, which I find ironic. I haven't really felt like I got the opportunity to express how I truly felt during this time period to the people who mattered, and many of them also found me introverted and inconsistent, which I also find ironic.
Before I started hormones I had seriously considered beginning trans* therapy which may conclude with the beginning of my transition using testosterone. I can develop the identity of a heterosexual transman without doing such, but it is an incredibly difficult task for trans* folk to 'pass' without the boost of hormones. A transgender person would ideally wish to 'pass' as a woman or a man, and not as someone who is 'trying to pass' as a man or women. A man with breasts who squeaks is not a man but a transman. A woman who can't tuck her testes and laughs too deeply is not a woman but a transwomen.
With my recent estrogen hormone treatment I have been playing with the idea of trying out the identity as a feminine lesbian, and have thought about the potential to attract the eyes of lesbian women, should they correctly identify me. The lesbian world is a tricky one as many feminine bisexuals and lesbians are assumed to be straight while many masculine bisexuals are assumed to be lesbian. Gender variant women have it hard too as many masculine lesbians are assumed to be trans*, or who would want to transition, and many lesbian transmen are given a hard time for 'leaving their fellow women'. Lastly trans* folk are offensively misgendered; many bisexual and heterosexual transmen are labeled as genderqueer (or teenage boys), and many transwomen are considered prostitutes.
Similarly, dressing feminine I will receive the eyes of heterosexual men who will challenge my ability to assertively yet respectfully decline. I would have to sharpen my social skills. I need to really learn tact anyway. I have to work on my wardrobe and reassess my personal boundaries with men and women. It would be a challenge too to overcome my overwhelming guilt about femininity, and it would require that I stick to it long enough to master femininity again. Also I have to talk to girls. That's hard!
It is a also a very confusing world for me when it comes to loving women. Their language is unique, for every individual, and their nonverbal cues are subtle but expected to be heard loudly. I still don't understand how straight men and women make it work. Heterosexual transmen seem to fare the best since they are privileged by society for their identity while secretly harboring the benefit of a lifetime's worth of knowledge and experience about being treated as women. This is my opinion, not a fact.
In order to pass I would have to master gendered behavior and pitch, be very careful with vocabulary and posture, and choose a haircut that doesn't look too queer. This is where I must study further the unwritten rules of social norms, the communication styles and behaviors for men and women, and fine tune myself in front of the whole world. Just today I wore nondescript clothing with a cap that hid my face and coat that successfully hides my chest, and only after I spoke was my true sex revealed. The man I made eye contact with apologized with a giggle, giving hint at his misgendering. I should have dropped an octave to see that he would have assigned me a male role. Or maybe I shouldn't have worn the coat and have had an actual conversation with the guy. I think I should try harder next time.
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 1: Identity
See Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 2 to hear about Communication.
I have denied femininity in myself for a long time now. I have done so because it feels wrong to be feminine. Wrong as in, not right. Similar to how a highly conservative religious individual might feel it wrong to masturbate, or commit infidelity, or even premarital sex (depending on the culture), to me it feels wrong to dress and act feminine. Are these religious folk wrong to think this way? Certainly not. If they so feel inclined to follow such intrapersonal rules as to regulate their lives around their viewpoints, they should have the freedom to do so, so long as it does not hurt other people.
Religion is a world view, and in this example, so is agender thought, or gender variation, or gender fluidity, genderqueer, queer, trans*, non-heteronormativity, whatever words you want to use to describe queer theory perspectives.
Over time I have recognized that there is an unwritten set of rules called social norms. These rules are specific to certain subcultures but are also prevalent on a wider scale, such as an entire country or language. It is very difficult to abide by the rules in this unwritten doctrine, but it is very much a real thing and you will recognize when you have broken a rule by being dismissed, disrespected, ignored, confronted, or any number of other shunning techniques. I have run into this frequently when people ask me, 'are you a boy or a girl?', or 'why don't you shave your legs?', or 'grow out your hair!', or 'if you wear makeup/women's suits you will be taken more seriously', or 'close your legs', or 'act more professional', or 'stop that'.
My most prolific understandings have come from the several times I have spoken 'out of turn'. Very often I have voiced my opinion in a group setting with a confident and calm manner only to be told to shut up and not voice my opinion, or more specifically in such a way. Other times I have been in women's only groups where the women started their sentences with 'I think...', 'I'm not certain but...', 'I feel...', 'I could be wrong but...', and when I did not do the same it was later revealed to me that I came off as tactless and aggressive. Only when I have run into this in a mixed gendered setting, and the guy next to me committing the same act was never shunned, did it become obvious to me that the contents of this unwritten document are also relevant to gender.
These social norms include a long list of behaviors and speech patterns, in addition to verbal and non-verbal communication, that consistently changes over time and place and people, including within one's own life. Being an active advocate of being yourself, I have chosen to play with many of these unwritten rules to feel for the acceptable boundaries about gender around new people. It is most fun around strangers, and increasingly more difficult about people who have known you for much longer. This is where I am at now in my life, forcing myself to be a little more of one gender (and sexuality) or another, through clothes, behaviors, speech, and even hormones, to see how accepting a person or group of people can be of me.
And now a chart about gender and sex!
Let me tell you of some of the results of my past experiments with identity.
There was a time in my life when I identified as a heterosexual, feminine girl. I had long hair and I wore makeup. I shaved my legs and wore tight clothing. I wore stockings and dresses and skirts as the occasion suggested, and I received the affection of friends and suitors alike. I did chose to dress dark, if not gothic, which placed a distance between myself and a good majority of people. However the individuals who still associated with me treated me in specific was. The women in my life were openly competitive when there were men around. The men were affectionate and tried to be as physically close as they could. I received a lot of sexual attention from both genders but I discouraged women as often as I could, as I found this new and unusual. I encouraged men as it was expected of me. However people treated me as a promiscuous and naive girl, as although I was confident and sexually active, I received more attention from men and women than people wanted me too. These messages I received from friends, family, and school authority alike.
Shortly after that stage I identified as a bisexual and androgynous female. The affection from both men and women discontinued as I stopped associating with the same people and instead kept to myself through several years. I wore oversized shirts and pants, changed my hairstyle frequently, and refused to wear makeup and be 'ladylike'. The men in my life and the men I dated were very upset about my lack of femininity. They thought I was trying to be something I was not, and insisted I wear more makeup and dresses, and shave. They also felt threatened by my bisexual identity. My partners were certain I would one day leave them for a woman and were weary of any female friends I had. My male friends tried their best to have sex with me before I 'became a lesbian'. Meanwhile the women in my life found me to no longer be a threat around other men and instead treated me as 'the ugly friend'. The only downfall was that those same women did not take my affection towards them in a serious manner, even though they themselves identified as gay or bisexual.
Later in my life I identified as a feminine bisexual. I won the hearts of many folks in college and through extracurricular events. I met gay folks, bisexuals, lesbians, trans* people of all kinds, queer folks, heterosexual folks. I met poor people, rich people, young people, middle class people, middle aged people, nerdy people, liberal arts students, artists and programmers, musicians and writers, and they all accompanied me in my life in various ways. They were attracted to my passionate, powerful feminine identity. I had short hair and short shorts and rode my bike. I wore tight shirts and tank tops and ripped jeans. I was in control of my life and ready for the world. The only downfalls were when I revealed my bisexuality to a few straight men who probably felt I had flirted with them. When I revealed I was not interested they withdrew their attention and affection, and unfriended me in social media and social circles. Ironically I received the same treatment from the few straight and bisexual women I tried to pursue. I wasn't sure if it was them or me, but it hit my confidence pretty hard.
Recently in my life I worked in consumer tech and claimed the identity of a masculine lesbian. I passed within this environment. I had a handful of co-workers I interacted with regularly and they accepted my lesbianism as a permanent sexual boundary. I identified myself quickly because they would challenge my sexuality often, just to make sure. However this identity gave me the power to speak about some deep topics about masculine-feminine relationships that I may not have in any other context, with several heterosexual men, without making anyone feel uncomfortable. I was treated as 'one of the guys' and often lesbian jokes were made in good humor. Even clients played along with my identity and teased me about how unfortunate they were to not have the correct genitalia. They respected me. I was presumed to be a dominating lesbian, someone who was capable and knowledgeable about many things.
During the same time I identified as a lesbian androgynous female to most of my small university, which offered a variety of communication challenges between the several different kinds of women I encountered. I wore nondescript clothing, caps, colorful socks and muted shirts. During professional events and at dances I wore suits, and I relented to wear dresses when my dormmates had makeover parties. The undergrad population is all female but the graduate programs have males. There is exactly one student transman that I know personally and a handful of queer lesbians, masculine and feminine lesbians, feminine bisexuals and pansexuals. The majority of the population is straight however.
In class I was known for my obnoxious but insightful commentary. I was usually one of very few who speak up and while my professors love my intellectual banter in private, they insist I stay quiet in class. They also didn't take my school assignments seriously and often made appointments to discuss alternative grading criteria. I was not treated as a professional academic but a playful manchild through most of my relationships with other women. In general students dismissed my commentary but in intellectual debate I came off as a pervert. The few women I dated thought me passionate yet flippant and confused, which I find ironic. I haven't really felt like I got the opportunity to express how I truly felt during this time period to the people who mattered, and many of them also found me introverted and inconsistent, which I also find ironic.
Before I started hormones I had seriously considered beginning trans* therapy which may conclude with the beginning of my transition using testosterone. I can develop the identity of a heterosexual transman without doing such, but it is an incredibly difficult task for trans* folk to 'pass' without the boost of hormones. A transgender person would ideally wish to 'pass' as a woman or a man, and not as someone who is 'trying to pass' as a man or women. A man with breasts who squeaks is not a man but a transman. A woman who can't tuck her testes and laughs too deeply is not a woman but a transwomen.
With my recent estrogen hormone treatment I have been playing with the idea of trying out the identity as a feminine lesbian, and have thought about the potential to attract the eyes of lesbian women, should they correctly identify me. The lesbian world is a tricky one as many feminine bisexuals and lesbians are assumed to be straight while many masculine bisexuals are assumed to be lesbian. Gender variant women have it hard too as many masculine lesbians are assumed to be trans*, or who would want to transition, and many lesbian transmen are given a hard time for 'leaving their fellow women'. Lastly trans* folk are offensively misgendered; many bisexual and heterosexual transmen are labeled as genderqueer (or teenage boys), and many transwomen are considered prostitutes.
Similarly, dressing feminine I will receive the eyes of heterosexual men who will challenge my ability to assertively yet respectfully decline. I would have to sharpen my social skills. I need to really learn tact anyway. I have to work on my wardrobe and reassess my personal boundaries with men and women. It would be a challenge too to overcome my overwhelming guilt about femininity, and it would require that I stick to it long enough to master femininity again. Also I have to talk to girls. That's hard!
It is a also a very confusing world for me when it comes to loving women. Their language is unique, for every individual, and their nonverbal cues are subtle but expected to be heard loudly. I still don't understand how straight men and women make it work. Heterosexual transmen seem to fare the best since they are privileged by society for their identity while secretly harboring the benefit of a lifetime's worth of knowledge and experience about being treated as women. This is my opinion, not a fact.
In order to pass I would have to master gendered behavior and pitch, be very careful with vocabulary and posture, and choose a haircut that doesn't look too queer. This is where I must study further the unwritten rules of social norms, the communication styles and behaviors for men and women, and fine tune myself in front of the whole world. Just today I wore nondescript clothing with a cap that hid my face and coat that successfully hides my chest, and only after I spoke was my true sex revealed. The man I made eye contact with apologized with a giggle, giving hint at his misgendering. I should have dropped an octave to see that he would have assigned me a male role. Or maybe I shouldn't have worn the coat and have had an actual conversation with the guy. I think I should try harder next time.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Gender Therapy: Day 007 Dealing with Emotions
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
I HATE talking about my feelings. I've always found it to be a very unsatisfying experience. I reveal something very personal and private about myself only for people to make quick judgements about my situation and slap some advice on my way out the door. I HATE being told how I should be feeling. I HATE being compared to other people. I have these unique feelings because I am a unique human freaking being.
The first reason I'd rather not share my innermost thoughts is because my emotions are rather intense. I am not a shallow person and so the emotional depth of my inner squish is often more than a lot of people are willing to hear. In the process of my mulling through my own problems I consider a great number of things. I freely juggle worst case scenarios and plan out escape routes, prioritize the people in my life and count my resources. I am a survivor, these are things that I do; but it scares people. They are told to avoid thinking and talking about worst-case.
Mind you I always resurface feeling better about the fact that I don't have it as bad as some other people I know, but it's still too much for any peer to analyze in any given short term context. And so I'd much rather not burden them with such a task.
The second reason I don't like telling people how I'm feeling is because emotions are fleeting. That's just how emotions are, but people don't like to hear that. People especially don't like it when you talk about family with anything less than affection. For example if you say to somebody, "I love my children but...", queue nervousness, "sometimes I just want to not have kids." Unless you said it with the certainty of "I need a break", then they will assume you are a bad parent, possibly bipolar. It's as if you're not allowed to hate your kids sometimes. God forbid you talk about your partner that way. As soon as the negative commentary begins people start drawing conclusions about you two splitting up.
People also expect you will always talk about your passion with solid, stable, consistent statements. I find it's acceptable to acknowledge that achieving your dream job will be challenging sometimes, but if you dare utter any more doubt the negativity will be multiplied. An active listener will be thrilled to fuel your uncertainty with their own thoughts about how maybe you shouldn't invest your life into something that gives you such conflicting feelings. Yeah maybe that route isn't for you, but for someone who is much less doubtful. You probably are really passionate about something, and there are probably plenty of people who pursued their passions and doubted the whole way through and still made it, but should you reveal ANY inconsistency about your passions? Well your dreams weren't that great anyway.
Thanks friend. Thanks for understanding.
Now, emotions are fleeting, as emotions are. Having that said, I find we live in a very deterministic society which demands that when we think something we must stick to it or else we are terrible people who can't make up our mind and cannot be trusted with our wishy-washy feelings and indecisive thoughts.
Well, if you really think about the origin of emotions, you'll find that they are different each time because they're supposed to be. If you subscribe to the theory of leftover-instinctual responses from our hunter-gatherer times, you'll find that these emotional responses were important to our survival, and maybe even still are today. Sometimes.
For example if you are in a dangerous situation, getting eaten by a lion or something, it helps to have the feeling of being threatened. Even if you don't know what to do in that situation logically, your body is still alert and ready to move in order to get yourself out from under that hungry lion. That fight-or-flight response is still alive and well in each of us today and is the reason for many different kinds of anxieties. It's definitely a lot harder to analyze those sources of anxiety today but, you get the point.
Similarly if you are alone with no food or water in the middle of winter, it helps that you feel lonely and go out to find other people. Even though with modern day accommodations you can probably fend for yourself and ignore the feeling, but what your body is telling you is to get help. Loneliness is an instinct in a social creature that causes them to seek out others in order to increase their chances of survival. Nifty, huh.
So there you go. I hate talking about emotions because people can't handle me and would rather judge me because of it, but I am willing to defend my own silly little feelings because I feel confident that there is a reason for them, even if it is outdated by a couple ten thousand years.
Speaking of not talking about my emotions, for the past week I have felt very strongly, for long periods of time, and I am not used to it. Instead I am used to my own emotions being much more fleeting. Just as I was getting used to having happy mornings and exhausted nights, with an occasional sad day thrown in between, they go and stick around for a couple days.
The end of last week I've been happy, then angry for three days in the row, and now horny for the start of this week. It's interfering with my relationships because I keep yelling at people and I wonder why they're ticked off. It's bothersome too because I keep having reruns of sex scenes with so-and-so when I'm in class, or at work, or when I'm trying to sleep. It's annoying because once I get on one thought train I can't leave it for the next couple of days. It feels like nothing can shake me from this feeling until something else dramatically pulls me off course and in a different direction. Ugh.
Also I've noticed that I smell and taste much sweeter, and that my voice is ever so slightly higher. Sometimes my face seems very feminine when I catch my reflection. I've also lost weight, but that's probably because I haven't biked in a week and I'm bad about feeding myself sometimes.
I don't like to think about myself and others in such deterministic ways. (See first half of blog post.) I'm used to being an open minded and accepting-everyone-and-everything-around-me kind of person. Is this how all women feel? Intense emotions about something that they can't shake for days?! It's terrible. I don't want to hate the world for long periods of time.
I HATE talking about my feelings. I've always found it to be a very unsatisfying experience. I reveal something very personal and private about myself only for people to make quick judgements about my situation and slap some advice on my way out the door. I HATE being told how I should be feeling. I HATE being compared to other people. I have these unique feelings because I am a unique human freaking being.
The first reason I'd rather not share my innermost thoughts is because my emotions are rather intense. I am not a shallow person and so the emotional depth of my inner squish is often more than a lot of people are willing to hear. In the process of my mulling through my own problems I consider a great number of things. I freely juggle worst case scenarios and plan out escape routes, prioritize the people in my life and count my resources. I am a survivor, these are things that I do; but it scares people. They are told to avoid thinking and talking about worst-case.
Mind you I always resurface feeling better about the fact that I don't have it as bad as some other people I know, but it's still too much for any peer to analyze in any given short term context. And so I'd much rather not burden them with such a task.
The second reason I don't like telling people how I'm feeling is because emotions are fleeting. That's just how emotions are, but people don't like to hear that. People especially don't like it when you talk about family with anything less than affection. For example if you say to somebody, "I love my children but...", queue nervousness, "sometimes I just want to not have kids." Unless you said it with the certainty of "I need a break", then they will assume you are a bad parent, possibly bipolar. It's as if you're not allowed to hate your kids sometimes. God forbid you talk about your partner that way. As soon as the negative commentary begins people start drawing conclusions about you two splitting up.
People also expect you will always talk about your passion with solid, stable, consistent statements. I find it's acceptable to acknowledge that achieving your dream job will be challenging sometimes, but if you dare utter any more doubt the negativity will be multiplied. An active listener will be thrilled to fuel your uncertainty with their own thoughts about how maybe you shouldn't invest your life into something that gives you such conflicting feelings. Yeah maybe that route isn't for you, but for someone who is much less doubtful. You probably are really passionate about something, and there are probably plenty of people who pursued their passions and doubted the whole way through and still made it, but should you reveal ANY inconsistency about your passions? Well your dreams weren't that great anyway.
Thanks friend. Thanks for understanding.
Now, emotions are fleeting, as emotions are. Having that said, I find we live in a very deterministic society which demands that when we think something we must stick to it or else we are terrible people who can't make up our mind and cannot be trusted with our wishy-washy feelings and indecisive thoughts.
Well, if you really think about the origin of emotions, you'll find that they are different each time because they're supposed to be. If you subscribe to the theory of leftover-instinctual responses from our hunter-gatherer times, you'll find that these emotional responses were important to our survival, and maybe even still are today. Sometimes.
For example if you are in a dangerous situation, getting eaten by a lion or something, it helps to have the feeling of being threatened. Even if you don't know what to do in that situation logically, your body is still alert and ready to move in order to get yourself out from under that hungry lion. That fight-or-flight response is still alive and well in each of us today and is the reason for many different kinds of anxieties. It's definitely a lot harder to analyze those sources of anxiety today but, you get the point.
Similarly if you are alone with no food or water in the middle of winter, it helps that you feel lonely and go out to find other people. Even though with modern day accommodations you can probably fend for yourself and ignore the feeling, but what your body is telling you is to get help. Loneliness is an instinct in a social creature that causes them to seek out others in order to increase their chances of survival. Nifty, huh.
So there you go. I hate talking about emotions because people can't handle me and would rather judge me because of it, but I am willing to defend my own silly little feelings because I feel confident that there is a reason for them, even if it is outdated by a couple ten thousand years.
Speaking of not talking about my emotions, for the past week I have felt very strongly, for long periods of time, and I am not used to it. Instead I am used to my own emotions being much more fleeting. Just as I was getting used to having happy mornings and exhausted nights, with an occasional sad day thrown in between, they go and stick around for a couple days.
The end of last week I've been happy, then angry for three days in the row, and now horny for the start of this week. It's interfering with my relationships because I keep yelling at people and I wonder why they're ticked off. It's bothersome too because I keep having reruns of sex scenes with so-and-so when I'm in class, or at work, or when I'm trying to sleep. It's annoying because once I get on one thought train I can't leave it for the next couple of days. It feels like nothing can shake me from this feeling until something else dramatically pulls me off course and in a different direction. Ugh.
Also I've noticed that I smell and taste much sweeter, and that my voice is ever so slightly higher. Sometimes my face seems very feminine when I catch my reflection. I've also lost weight, but that's probably because I haven't biked in a week and I'm bad about feeding myself sometimes.
I don't like to think about myself and others in such deterministic ways. (See first half of blog post.) I'm used to being an open minded and accepting-everyone-and-everything-around-me kind of person. Is this how all women feel? Intense emotions about something that they can't shake for days?! It's terrible. I don't want to hate the world for long periods of time.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Gender Therapy: Day 001 I feel pretty
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
So yesterday I got my biopsy (they scrapped my cervix and poked into my uterus, yowch!), gave four vials of blood (I just had my period! Seriously!), was paid for my time and given four months of the contraceptive Levora.
First, some summarizing of my first day on hormones. I took them at 11am yesterday morning and have felt slightly different since. Today, I feel pretty. And talkative.
I love interacting with my professors during class, sometimes too much, but today fortunately in Media Ethics we had a discussion about different marketing moral issues, such as guerrilla marketing tactics and behavioral research on consumers, voluntary and otherwise. I was rockin' the show with my side commentary about each one. By the time I got home I was more talkative than my roommates and bugged them from outside their rooms while they were busy doing things. All day I had the tendency to be attracted to my reflection, noticing how round my face is and enjoying the shape of my ass. I then promptly went to bed since I have been getting up and going to bed at ridiculous hours for the past five days. Since then the pretty feeling has worn off, just a bit.
As fun as it is to attribute all of these characteristics to this newfound hormone therapy, I still firmly believe the things you think, feel, and do will always be inside of you. Similar to how people will say things they didn't mean when they are angry, they still feel that way inside, they just don't always have the appropriate context with which to express them. And so, yes I sometimes do feel pretty, probably on days associated with high hormonal levels, and other times I do feel talkative, usually when I have a lot of interesting things going on.
But in the spirit of taking a hormone induced journey of self discovery, I was thinking of letting myself go for a while and blaming it on the hormones. After all, it might cause a lot of unnecessary trouble that I may be able to myself out of (sarcasm). I look forward to the next few months.
~~~~
AND NOW, an analysis of the hormones coursing through my female body.
The contraceptives I was given are Levora, a daily oral birth control method; 0.15mg levonorgestrel and 0.03mg ethinyl estrodiol.
Progestogens, estrogens, androgens, mineralocorticoids and glucocorticoids are the five major steroid hormone groups that occur in every human body naturally.
Levonorgestrel: A progestogen substitute for progesterone, used to inhibit androgen receptors (like testosterone) and ovulation.
Progesterone: naturally occurring in healthy female bodied people, declining levels of progesterone triggers menstruation.
Ethinyl estradiol: An estrogen substitute for estradiol, effectiveness peaks at two hours and peaks again several hours later. Increases blood clotting, and strengthens bones, and is easily inactivated by the liver.
Estradiol: naturally occurring in healthy female bodied people, is the most potent estrogen, predominant during the reproductive years of a woman's life. Estradiol is responsible for puberty and body changes in females, such as breast development, skin composition, bone and joint settling, and fat redistribution. Estradiol also maintains the female reproductive system including the lining of the vagina, cervical glands, endometrium, lining of the fallopian tubes, and the oocytes in the ovaries. Also triggers ovulation.
Levora side effects: Use often leads to spotting because of the daily adjustments of progesterone levels. Inhibition of ovulation means disruption of the menstrual cycle, which means extra blood that is not shed is still in the body, which leads to a higher risk of blood clotting and high blood pressure. Other side effects may include sudden numbness or weakness, tiredness, dizziness, headaches and nausea, changes in weight or appetite, problems with vision, speech, or balance, chest pain or pressure, decrease in sex drive and mood changes.
Side commentary about pregnancy: progestogens and estrogens are produced naturally at steadily increasing levels to maintain pregnancy. Normally within the monthly cycle relatively high levels of progesterone are maintained. However once a month when no eggs are fertilized, progesterone levels drop and the uterine lining is shed. If the egg is fertilized the levels of progesterone (and estrogen) are maintained and the uterine lining is kept, and a zygote can develop.
Taking both a progesterone and estrogen replacement inhibits the natural production of these hormones in my body, which may have an interesting effect all by itself when I am done with this study.
In a woman's natural monthly cycle, estradiol levels average 50pg/mL and peak at 200pg/mL.
And now for a chart!
Fun fact 1: Levonorgestrel used at dosages of 1.5mg is an effective post-conception birth control method up to three days after unprotected sex, called Plan B.
Fun fact 2: Ethinyl estradiol was created in 1938, approved by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) in 1943, and marketed as Estinyl until 2004.
Fun fact 3: The naturally occurring estradiol levels of men (14-55 pg/mL) and postmenopausal women (35 pg/mL) are about the same.
Fun fact 4: Both levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol are just some of many hormones choices that can be used for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in both older women going through menopause and for transexual women (in higher doses if not used with antiandrogens).
Fun fact 5: Estriol is the most important estrogen in pregnant women while estrone is the most important in postmenopausal women.
I feel pretty, oh so pretty
I feel pretty, and witty, and GAY
So yesterday I got my biopsy (they scrapped my cervix and poked into my uterus, yowch!), gave four vials of blood (I just had my period! Seriously!), was paid for my time and given four months of the contraceptive Levora.
First, some summarizing of my first day on hormones. I took them at 11am yesterday morning and have felt slightly different since. Today, I feel pretty. And talkative.
I love interacting with my professors during class, sometimes too much, but today fortunately in Media Ethics we had a discussion about different marketing moral issues, such as guerrilla marketing tactics and behavioral research on consumers, voluntary and otherwise. I was rockin' the show with my side commentary about each one. By the time I got home I was more talkative than my roommates and bugged them from outside their rooms while they were busy doing things. All day I had the tendency to be attracted to my reflection, noticing how round my face is and enjoying the shape of my ass. I then promptly went to bed since I have been getting up and going to bed at ridiculous hours for the past five days. Since then the pretty feeling has worn off, just a bit.
As fun as it is to attribute all of these characteristics to this newfound hormone therapy, I still firmly believe the things you think, feel, and do will always be inside of you. Similar to how people will say things they didn't mean when they are angry, they still feel that way inside, they just don't always have the appropriate context with which to express them. And so, yes I sometimes do feel pretty, probably on days associated with high hormonal levels, and other times I do feel talkative, usually when I have a lot of interesting things going on.
But in the spirit of taking a hormone induced journey of self discovery, I was thinking of letting myself go for a while and blaming it on the hormones. After all, it might cause a lot of unnecessary trouble that I may be able to myself out of (sarcasm). I look forward to the next few months.
~~~~
AND NOW, an analysis of the hormones coursing through my female body.
The contraceptives I was given are Levora, a daily oral birth control method; 0.15mg levonorgestrel and 0.03mg ethinyl estrodiol.
Progestogens, estrogens, androgens, mineralocorticoids and glucocorticoids are the five major steroid hormone groups that occur in every human body naturally.
Levonorgestrel: A progestogen substitute for progesterone, used to inhibit androgen receptors (like testosterone) and ovulation.
Progesterone: naturally occurring in healthy female bodied people, declining levels of progesterone triggers menstruation.
Ethinyl estradiol: An estrogen substitute for estradiol, effectiveness peaks at two hours and peaks again several hours later. Increases blood clotting, and strengthens bones, and is easily inactivated by the liver.
Estradiol: naturally occurring in healthy female bodied people, is the most potent estrogen, predominant during the reproductive years of a woman's life. Estradiol is responsible for puberty and body changes in females, such as breast development, skin composition, bone and joint settling, and fat redistribution. Estradiol also maintains the female reproductive system including the lining of the vagina, cervical glands, endometrium, lining of the fallopian tubes, and the oocytes in the ovaries. Also triggers ovulation.
Levora side effects: Use often leads to spotting because of the daily adjustments of progesterone levels. Inhibition of ovulation means disruption of the menstrual cycle, which means extra blood that is not shed is still in the body, which leads to a higher risk of blood clotting and high blood pressure. Other side effects may include sudden numbness or weakness, tiredness, dizziness, headaches and nausea, changes in weight or appetite, problems with vision, speech, or balance, chest pain or pressure, decrease in sex drive and mood changes.
Side commentary about pregnancy: progestogens and estrogens are produced naturally at steadily increasing levels to maintain pregnancy. Normally within the monthly cycle relatively high levels of progesterone are maintained. However once a month when no eggs are fertilized, progesterone levels drop and the uterine lining is shed. If the egg is fertilized the levels of progesterone (and estrogen) are maintained and the uterine lining is kept, and a zygote can develop.
Taking both a progesterone and estrogen replacement inhibits the natural production of these hormones in my body, which may have an interesting effect all by itself when I am done with this study.
In a woman's natural monthly cycle, estradiol levels average 50pg/mL and peak at 200pg/mL.
And now for a chart!
Fun fact 1: Levonorgestrel used at dosages of 1.5mg is an effective post-conception birth control method up to three days after unprotected sex, called Plan B.
Fun fact 2: Ethinyl estradiol was created in 1938, approved by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) in 1943, and marketed as Estinyl until 2004.
Fun fact 3: The naturally occurring estradiol levels of men (14-55 pg/mL) and postmenopausal women (35 pg/mL) are about the same.
Fun fact 4: Both levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol are just some of many hormones choices that can be used for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in both older women going through menopause and for transexual women (in higher doses if not used with antiandrogens).
Fun fact 5: Estriol is the most important estrogen in pregnant women while estrone is the most important in postmenopausal women.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Gender Roles and Relationships
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
Gender Therapy: Day 000
~~~
First a disclaimer: Traditional male and female roles are becoming a thing of the past, however I will be openly acknowledging the existence of such roles on a case-by-case basis. I do not expect every relationship to have a man and a woman, or 'top' and a 'bottom'. Not my cup of tea.
~~~
I have been single for a couple of years now and I sometimes wonder why. I have on and off been actively seeking a non-hetero-male partner, but the ladies whom shared coffee and museums with never seemed to click with me, and I haven't yet run into any trans* folk I found attractive, in more than one way. My criterion is pretty simple, someone I find physically attractive and also mentally stimulating, who can make time at least once a week to visit with. (The rest we can figure out later.) However not all three of these traits have yet been found in the same person.
I often reflect on my past experiences, those with heteronormative males, and I found that the biggest flaw in each one was the(ir) social expectations of me as a female. I never felt feminine therefore I did not act feminine, speak feminine, think feminine, and rarely had I ever dressed feminine. The only feminine trait is that I do have curves and genitals and all that. Oh, and I like shoes.
My ex-boyfriends had all taken on the male role, which I always felt uncomfortable about because I enjoyed being the one to plan dates, pay for outings, initiate intimacy, and all other predominantly male roles. However they had expected me to accept and enjoy their date suggestions, accept their payment for outings, submit to their intimacy initiations in addition to dressing pretty, or sexy, regularly, and all other predominantly female roles. I felt these expectations on me were always very uncomfortable and I always 'made them look bad' in front of their parents and peers. I can say with confidence that this discomfort contributed to all of the breakups. I never felt like myself.
The limited experiences I did have with hetero-women I found much more comfortable in because they had let me be 'the man' in some way or another. I enjoyed initiating, I enjoyed paying for dates, and I enjoyed being the listener instead of the talker, especially when my limited words were seen as validating.
Lately I have been thinking about my fellow female friend's experiences with women whom she did not necessarily get along with. Before long I had begun wondering if they didn't work because of confused gender roles, for example if they were both attempting the female role and if the male role was neglected, if they spoke over one another and didn't listen to each other, or if there was just too much possessive (if not clingy) behavior that made the relationship miserable. I wish not to pass judgement on my dear friend but these are things that I like to ponder.
The idea that all relationships must have a top and a bottom is absurd, but I do know that the best relationships are the ones where the individuals are both similar and compatible, but different enough and accommodating. The fact that I have not yet had a relationship where I felt I could really be myself, that is, the undefined queer that I am, is concerning to me and makes me feel like I have never met someone who was willing to accommodate me. After all, at the end of the day, you want to feel like you are accepted by and belong with the person you sleep next to.
In the end it makes me feel like if only I would subscribe to a gender role it would be easier to date me me (or for me to date), because then I would have a clear set of expectations I could conform to and thus satisfy the social expectations of a relationship. At least, this logic makes sense based on my past experiences with relationships.
Gender Therapy: Day 000
~~~
First a disclaimer: Traditional male and female roles are becoming a thing of the past, however I will be openly acknowledging the existence of such roles on a case-by-case basis. I do not expect every relationship to have a man and a woman, or 'top' and a 'bottom'. Not my cup of tea.
~~~
I have been single for a couple of years now and I sometimes wonder why. I have on and off been actively seeking a non-hetero-male partner, but the ladies whom shared coffee and museums with never seemed to click with me, and I haven't yet run into any trans* folk I found attractive, in more than one way. My criterion is pretty simple, someone I find physically attractive and also mentally stimulating, who can make time at least once a week to visit with. (The rest we can figure out later.) However not all three of these traits have yet been found in the same person.
I often reflect on my past experiences, those with heteronormative males, and I found that the biggest flaw in each one was the(ir) social expectations of me as a female. I never felt feminine therefore I did not act feminine, speak feminine, think feminine, and rarely had I ever dressed feminine. The only feminine trait is that I do have curves and genitals and all that. Oh, and I like shoes.
My ex-boyfriends had all taken on the male role, which I always felt uncomfortable about because I enjoyed being the one to plan dates, pay for outings, initiate intimacy, and all other predominantly male roles. However they had expected me to accept and enjoy their date suggestions, accept their payment for outings, submit to their intimacy initiations in addition to dressing pretty, or sexy, regularly, and all other predominantly female roles. I felt these expectations on me were always very uncomfortable and I always 'made them look bad' in front of their parents and peers. I can say with confidence that this discomfort contributed to all of the breakups. I never felt like myself.
The limited experiences I did have with hetero-women I found much more comfortable in because they had let me be 'the man' in some way or another. I enjoyed initiating, I enjoyed paying for dates, and I enjoyed being the listener instead of the talker, especially when my limited words were seen as validating.
Lately I have been thinking about my fellow female friend's experiences with women whom she did not necessarily get along with. Before long I had begun wondering if they didn't work because of confused gender roles, for example if they were both attempting the female role and if the male role was neglected, if they spoke over one another and didn't listen to each other, or if there was just too much possessive (if not clingy) behavior that made the relationship miserable. I wish not to pass judgement on my dear friend but these are things that I like to ponder.
The idea that all relationships must have a top and a bottom is absurd, but I do know that the best relationships are the ones where the individuals are both similar and compatible, but different enough and accommodating. The fact that I have not yet had a relationship where I felt I could really be myself, that is, the undefined queer that I am, is concerning to me and makes me feel like I have never met someone who was willing to accommodate me. After all, at the end of the day, you want to feel like you are accepted by and belong with the person you sleep next to.
In the end it makes me feel like if only I would subscribe to a gender role it would be easier to date me me (or for me to date), because then I would have a clear set of expectations I could conform to and thus satisfy the social expectations of a relationship. At least, this logic makes sense based on my past experiences with relationships.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Gender Therapy: Day 000 The Beginning
I am about to embark on a hormone-induced journey of self discovery. No, I am not transitioning. I have signed up for a research study that involves taking contraceptives, of which I have chosen the birth control group. I will be on estrogen for the next six months, and I am very interested to see how it affects me, my body, and my life.
I am looking forward to the changes that will happen during this time; this boost in estrogen has the ability to change my mood, my desires, my physique, to change the way I want to be perceived and ultimately, to change my perception of gender.
Since I’ve returned from traveling abroad I’ve settled into the ambivert that I am, calm and patient with others, ambitious and animated with myself, and wistful within my own quiet world. I know who I am, and I know what I like, and I live freely to learn and explore other definitions. The thing that I have not yet resolved exactly is what gender am I supposed to be?
To date I prefer androgynous casual, masculine business. I have been cutting my own hair since middle school. (Some sources say I’ve preferred short hair since I was five.) I am not trans as I do not feel that I am in the wrong body. In fact I love my feminine features, I just hate being a woman. I severely dislike the reproductive expectations, the sexual repression, the assumptions of my thoughts and desires, and all other social limitations placed on me due to my genitalia. I am strong, and smart, and confident, and I don’t appreciate being preferred as a mute sex object.
I have budding theories about testosterone-to-estrogen ratios and their effects on human anatomy and gender identity. I also hypothesize that my strong personality traits are due to some abundance of testosterone, something I will one day formally test. In taking birth control pills the worst that will happen is that I will become a bitchy, boring, heteronormative girlie girl with a slighted liver. The best is that I will be more emotional and intense, and might resolve my gender ambiguity.
I approach this research study with burning questions not only about my own gender but about a personality I’ve long dismissed. Will I grow out my hair and dress more feminine? Will I wear makeup? Will I like boys more than girls? Will my libido go into overdrive and break my sexual abstinence? I’m also undoubtedly curious about the potential to act, feel, maybe even be more stereotypically feminine. Will my debates turn into gossip? Will I lose my interest in math? Will I dislike sweating? Will my voice get higher? Will I smell better? Will I want children? Will I enjoy baking and cleaning? Will I cry?
There are so many answers and more questions that I will have throughout this experiment, and I look forward to each new discovery. Unfortunately I could not receive the pills today as I had hoped, since I was misinformed about the silicone menstrual cup that I indeed cannot use in their study. Instead I am delayed until my next ovulation cycle, sans cup, at the end of October. And then, over the next six months I will have the same hormonal cycles as a pregnant woman. Bon voyage!
I am looking forward to the changes that will happen during this time; this boost in estrogen has the ability to change my mood, my desires, my physique, to change the way I want to be perceived and ultimately, to change my perception of gender.
Since I’ve returned from traveling abroad I’ve settled into the ambivert that I am, calm and patient with others, ambitious and animated with myself, and wistful within my own quiet world. I know who I am, and I know what I like, and I live freely to learn and explore other definitions. The thing that I have not yet resolved exactly is what gender am I supposed to be?
To date I prefer androgynous casual, masculine business. I have been cutting my own hair since middle school. (Some sources say I’ve preferred short hair since I was five.) I am not trans as I do not feel that I am in the wrong body. In fact I love my feminine features, I just hate being a woman. I severely dislike the reproductive expectations, the sexual repression, the assumptions of my thoughts and desires, and all other social limitations placed on me due to my genitalia. I am strong, and smart, and confident, and I don’t appreciate being preferred as a mute sex object.
I have budding theories about testosterone-to-estrogen ratios and their effects on human anatomy and gender identity. I also hypothesize that my strong personality traits are due to some abundance of testosterone, something I will one day formally test. In taking birth control pills the worst that will happen is that I will become a bitchy, boring, heteronormative girlie girl with a slighted liver. The best is that I will be more emotional and intense, and might resolve my gender ambiguity.
I approach this research study with burning questions not only about my own gender but about a personality I’ve long dismissed. Will I grow out my hair and dress more feminine? Will I wear makeup? Will I like boys more than girls? Will my libido go into overdrive and break my sexual abstinence? I’m also undoubtedly curious about the potential to act, feel, maybe even be more stereotypically feminine. Will my debates turn into gossip? Will I lose my interest in math? Will I dislike sweating? Will my voice get higher? Will I smell better? Will I want children? Will I enjoy baking and cleaning? Will I cry?
There are so many answers and more questions that I will have throughout this experiment, and I look forward to each new discovery. Unfortunately I could not receive the pills today as I had hoped, since I was misinformed about the silicone menstrual cup that I indeed cannot use in their study. Instead I am delayed until my next ovulation cycle, sans cup, at the end of October. And then, over the next six months I will have the same hormonal cycles as a pregnant woman. Bon voyage!
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