Ugh, the week of physical dysphoria continues into this one. Definitely beginning to avoid mirrors now. What I don't understand is what triggered it. Normally it's a one-off thing and within a few days it subsides enough that I can go on with my life.

I have to admire how efficient my brain is in compacting issues to work though during R.E.M sleep. It managed to roll into one very exhausting dream: the trauma of academia, the trauma of transition, relationship insecurity, current job distress, the discomfort of being disliked, the fear of loss of control over my life, and general shame for being shit at fencing 👍

Typically I can ignore my body. That's basically how I've survived adolescence and adulthood. I am so completely divorced from it that it just doesn't register as a thing that's a part of me. That's why I never really had problem with mirrors, like many other trans people do - I just never recognized what I saw as me, so I also didn't care what that other person looked like. Just made sure that the image in the mirror is combed and clean and that's where my responsibility ended. My real life and my real body is in my head.

But there are days when the physical dysphoria crashes in. It starts with something stupid, such as seeing my feet while showering and getting a panic attack because they are too small and delicate. And then over the following days it grows and it grows. This week I've been struggling. It started again with stupid shit. This time it was my ears. Suddenly I saw them and panic set in. In the following days it grew. One day it was the ears and my jawline. Then it was the ears, jawline and cheeckbones making me feel sick when I saw them or even just touched them. The next day my chest started bothering me and startling me. Like it's saying, "Hey! Hey! How long do you think you can ignore me? HEY!" Read More »

Oh fuck yeah!

I had been second-guessing myself again for leaving one of the fencing clubs I was in, because what if I'm just an arrogant prick who sucks at sports but thinks too highly of himself? Well, with the prospect of suddenly having one evening free, I shifted my schedule around and took up a boxing class. Not that I was that much into it, but I figured it would help me fix my shoddy footwork and body mechanics.

Well! I just finished my second class and the instructor told me to go directly to the advanced group, because there's nothing for me to learn in the beginner group! Footwork's good, coordination's good, pairwork is good. And I'm not even winded after an hour. Fuck yeah! Read More »

Okay, but the cishet culture in my corner of Eastern Europe is wild (I say, having participated in it while I lived here, closeted) and it's hurting everyone! That ex who screamed at me for being trans... We talked things out, but so much came up. This is going to be a long read...

We were talking about my marriage and I mentioned that if I do end up divorced, I'd either not date at all again, or go full t4t, because I would just want to be with someone who has had a similar relationship to their body and gender as me and is aware of possible trouble. That prompted a new volley of outrage as my ex tried to convince me that if a cis guy came to me and told me I have a juicy ass and he wanted a piece of it (his wording, not mine), I should agree to do him. Right...  Read More »

After coming out to family (fear of rejection) and coming out at work (feat of discrimination), I think my personal worst is coming out to exes, because I never know how threatened they'd feel in their sexuality and how that would manifest. Specifically, if they'd become violent.

Case in point, the guy from yesterday felt so insecure that he found it necessary to show up at my mom's place at 11 pm last night to call me outside, and then to proceed to shout for the whole neighborhood to hear that I'm a woman, I'm nothing but a woman and that my transition might *feel* like it's important to me but actually *he's* the one who's truly affected by it, because it makes him gay and he's totally not gay and how dare I undermine his masculinity like that...  Which are totally valid feelings but there's a good way to process them and a shitty way to process them, and this was the latter. And I love this dude to death, he's still a really good friend, but he also has abusive tendencies, which both me and other of his previous partners have been subjected to... If he reacts in such a volatile way, then I don't know just how violent others might get. Read More »

Coming out to so many people this past week has been so weird. I keep getting surprised at how people see me. For instance, I came out to two friends from 25+years ago. The three of us have been very close. One of them was stunned and said that she didn't see it coming at all. The other basically broke out in smiles the moment I uttered the words "I have something to share" and said that she'd been waiting for me to come out since high school.

Also came out to an ex of mine, who reminded me that he used to call me Mikhail (the long version of Misha) whenever he got frustrated that I was more masculine than him. I had conveniently forgotten that, together with most of our relationship, that was pretty toxic 😅 We broke up probably 13-14 years ago. Read More »

I'm out. Out, out, out, OUT to my mother! It was through no courage of my own. After a week, in which I completely failed femininity, she cornered me and demanded to know what was going on. So I explained the best I could. She's not on board with pronouns or calling me anything else but her daughter, and the idea of being trans is completely alien to her, but other than that she was more relieved to just know. Which is fair. And the forms of address are a battle I'm not interested in fighting now. I'm also just relieved that she knows. She ended the conversation with, "Well, I wanted to go to the mall with you to get you nicer clothes. I guess let's see what's there in menswear." And that's about 500% better outcome than I had ever hoped for! Read More »

Around 2007 I started learning Polish. At the time there weren't many resources (certainly no Duolingo yet), so I had to MacGyver it from random sources. My sources? M jak miłość without subtitles, the newly-started Soup.io and a second-hand copy of Lubiewo, which I painstakingly went through with an archaic Polish slang dictionary over the course of probably half a year. Oh, and chatting with Poles on eMule while trying to locate all the Polish punk xD Those were the days lol

Reposted from marbear via krolik

Day 3 visiting my mom. So far my plan of going femme for two weeks is going great! 👍 By which I mean I have completely failed at it. I tried wearing makeup twice, both attempts lasting 30 seconds before I wiped it off. Yesterday I needed to clean my grandparents' house and since I didn't have any other cleaning-friendly clothes I wore the only fitting dress I could find in my old room. Welp, even my mom who always hypes up every tiny bit of gender-conformity in me couldn't say anything more than a tentative, "Uh, nice...uh... dress?" And no wonder. I'm 80 kilos of back muscle and glutes and rapidly approaching the shape of a door frame. I cannot pull it off. I'm sure athletic women can; my sister definitely can, but I'm just not convincing anyone. Read More »

Anxious, anxious, anxious. Next week I'm traveling home, where I'm only out to two people who I may or may not meet with at all. The thing is, I haven't been back for a year. Last time was pretty early in my transition and I didn't look different at all. Now I do. My mother is already excited how she's going to "fix that awful hair" and I don't think she'd be thrilled at all about the rest of my style either. While she doesn't get to dictate how I look, I also don't want to be confrontational. So I'm preprating to be in girlmode at least part-time. I've already shaved a year's worth of body hair... Read More »

Reposted from marbear

I survived tournament day without passing out from overheating! Also, with no pain or irritation from binding for 16 hours*, and shockingly enough with 0 dysphoria, despite being automatically read as a woman by most people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's a miracle what a well-fitting shirt and suit can do to one's self esteem xD

Also, gender-neutral toilets! They had a gender-neutal toilet! And yes, I realize that's a non-issue for 99% of participants, but it is INSANE how much of my background anxiety that relieved. My cognitive capacity improved tenfold just by not being constantly busy on the background with figuring out whose changing room I'd have to invade, just to pee. Read More »

I actually like binding. For the longest time I was scared to, because you read all sorts of things about how painful it is, but I found that it relieves back pain for me, rather than cause it. That said...

There's warning for extreme heat for Saturday.

Me, remembering that I have to spend 12+ hours in formal clothes at a tournament :
- Fuck it, I'd rather deal with extreme dysphoria than bind in this heat.

Also me, realising that I'll be spending 12+ hours in a public position, dealing with competitors, coaches, crew and audience:
- Fuck it, I'd rather actually die of heat exhaustion than willingly increase my dysphoria by not binding. Read More »

I managed to get a ticket for New Model Army tomorrow. It was sold out but luckily there was someone selling their ticket. I wanted to share one more song of theirs, that meant a lot to me when I was young. it feels very edgelord-y now listening to the lyrics, but it still gives me a feeling of elation to hear it. Also, the album Thunder and Consolation is one of the finest albums tha the 80s gave us, and that's a hill I'm going to die on.

Today I got sucked into the swamp that is the Twitter discourse on ideological purity, and now I'm feeling very old and tired. I was reminded of a song by one of my favourites, the post punk band New Model Army. The chorus goes as:

All we wanted was a cause that we could fight for
One chance for the heroes to win the day
All we wanted was a chance to see the world
In black and white instead of a hundred shades of grey

I feel that's apt. Incidentally, NMA have a concert tomorrow. I should probably drag myself out and see them. My mind could do with a cleanup.

Stopped by the thrift store to get a white button-down shirt for an upcoming tournament, where I'm on crew duty. Didn't find anything that works for me, but I did manage to assemble the late 90s- early 00's Queer Millennial starter pack, so that's 12 euro well-spent.

Reposted from marbear