Trans Megathread for the Week of November 25th, 2024 to December 1st, 2024
Trans Megathread for the Week of November 25th, 2024 to December 1st, 2024
Hello everyone! Hestia here with a new Megathread! Years ago, before I transitioned and when I was still in college I took an anthropology class. My favorite part of the class was when we were covering different gender customs across the globe and got to make a report on one of them. I can't remember exactly which one I chose for that project, but what I do remember is a map with different pins scattered on it with various forms of gender-queerness. I decided to track it down and share it with you folks!
Edit: you have to open this in a browser, if you're on a phone it will automatically try to open it in Google maps and won't bring up the info.
This map provides a brief summary of these genders, but does not go in depth. If you find any you're interested in, feel free to do some further research and share your findings here. I'll pin a comment to this post you can attach them. I'm going to share a couple that I found interesting and decided to look further into myself, both of them are non-binary and native american in origin.
The first one I want to talk about is the Winkte, which is a third gender role that was particulatly notable in the Lakota tribe The Winkte are seen as half-men, half-women, and considered sacred. They are typically AMAB and historically have served unique roles in matters of romance and matchmaking and often served as intermediaries for prospecting couples and their families. They also participated in war parties, functioning primarily as witnesses to battle and as doctors to care for the injured. They were also seen as seers, able to forsee paths to victory.
https://www.sdpb.org/blogs/arts-and-culture/the-winkte-and-the-hundred-in-hand/
This next one I'm going to talk about seems mostly local to the Zuni people called the "Lhamana" and I find the Zuni culture to be particularly fascinating, even just doing a cursory glance at it.
Gender roles were well defined in Zuni culture, but the Zuni also valued the concept of a "middle" as it represented stability. This originates from their creation myth, which I won't go in detail here because I don't feel qualified to summarize it, but it's in the link down below.
The Zuni culture is pretty neat and they don't refer to gender when talking about children. They believed that gender wasn't an inborn trait but something you acquired as you approached puberty. I wish this was the western approach, but alas.
As children approach puberty they begin to differentiate through different hair styles or clothing choices. AFAB Lhamana would grind corn and make a bowl of stew when they get their first period. There's probably some cultural significance to this, but I'm not going to do a deep dive on it right now. AMAB Lhamana would start to wear dresses once they hit puberty and start performing women's work. Both AMAB and AFAB Lhamana were allowed to switch between male and female gender roles as they pleased.
https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/The-Middle-Gender-in-Zuni-Religion
That's all for now! To wrap thing up I would like to invite yall to our public matrix server! https://matrix.to/#/#tracha:chapo.chat
As a reminder, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It's for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.
Here is a screenshot of where to find the spoiler button.
I had a dream that I started using fae/faer pronouns because they made sense and that RGG was remaking Yakuza Dead Souls kiwami style. I still need to do some searching on the neopronouns to understand them fully but I know the latter is gonna happen
looking at family photos from when I was like 3-4 and I'm just angery in all of them
Truth or Myth?: Estrogen HRT results in a lowered sex drive
Answer:
MYTH
MYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHMYTHtechnically a good problem to have but I'm kinda at an annoying stage with laser. i can't quite justify shaving once a day, the growth just isn't there and I know it's bad for my skin. so like a day and a half is optimal but i still want to shave as soon as i can feel those teeny hairs even if they're literally not visible. and the day and a half schedule is inconvenient if I have to do stuff so I just end up over-shaving because i know it's gonna be an issue by the second evening, you know? once I get a few more sessions and I can comfortably wait 2 days between shaves it'll be fine, just an annoying in-between that's no good for my skin.
instead of working i have successfully absorbed 3 days of missed megathread posting into my cranium
sappy
i parasocially love you all
I keep getting almost frustrated at how much transitioning has improved my life because I can't really explain how or why it has in a concrete way. For a while before my egg finally cracked I remember thinking that "okay I might maybe be trans but how on earth would that solve any of my problems?" and honestly I was kind of onto something there. How would becoming a girl solve any of my problems? That doesn't make any fucking sense! And then I transitioned anyway and oh wow I a lot of my problems have gone away! How does that work? I don't know and it feels like it shouldn't but it did!
Meow
sneezes
sasuke uchiha estrogen arc
buster baxter transgender conspiracy
the biggest tragedy of the war in ukraine is that the heart of russia dlc never got released for ets 2
I have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I live in a house with 4 other people with NPD, they're my dysfunctional family, and I'm the scapegoat. I need help really bad. I'm finally making arrangements to move away and go no contact. I've been abused my entire life by unfeeling monsters and there's only one thing I can do about it; put asphalt between me and them. I feel like I cracked some sort of code or puzzle, or like actually physically got to the bottom of somewhere or something. Ya girl, anon, needs some therapy.
life is pretty good today, ya know?
i have the bad hasbara theme stuck in my head ahh
i am going to s*mp for that one tired looking girl from mouthwashing
Edie has had there social position, personal integrity, leftist credentials, and gender credentials savaged.
Jokes on you. You can never savage the gender credentials of the pronoun cat
weird body image stuff Idk
I was staring at myself in the mirror again--I spend so much fucking time looking at my reflection lmao--and there are obvious details that have changed if you look. I put on some weight, my face has thinned out (which was weird to see in my health card photos, but rules) and all that.
But the overall picture is kind of the same as when I was 18, despite that? You can still see my ribs, I still have noodle arms, I haven't needed to buy a cup size up or anything. My proportiins are surprisingly similar.
It's weird, I literally do not know how to feel. All the big exciting changes seem to have happened in like, the first year or two. And yet clearly all the barely-visible little tweaks and whatever made the actual difference, cuz I do not get misgendered anymore, lmao.
Recently I have been feeling like my body's been in stasis for a decade which is a WEIRD WEIRD feeling. Maybe that's why new fluffy hair on my forearms and calves weirded me out so much, because I haven't seen a major change since years ago? Maybe I will get incredibly fucked up when I develop wrinkles, lol
Putting stuff behind spoiler tags now for reasons.
CW: Surgical recovery
This has been way rougher than I could have anticipated. I hurt. I hate laying in bed. Iām lonely. Iām constantly sore. Itās hard to do much more besides watch tv which is literally just every episode of 80s Price is Right. I genuinely donāt want to be on my mobile devices. Iām bored. I wanna paint minis. I wanna get on my PC. My caretaker yells at me (and rightfully so) every time I think of getting out of bed. Ugh. The next two weeks canāt go quickly enough. Oh and I also canāt sleep more than three hours at a time and I canāt remember what day of the week it is.
cw: needles/blood/negative
i keep botching my t shot and it's been hurting more every time i work up the will to do it and i'm so frustrated. i don't know what's changed cause i've been doing my own injections for almost a decade now so i feel like i should kinda know what i'm doing?
like maybe the method i was shown is just out of date or i forgot how to do it correctly or maybe i'm just too fucking tense but it didn't used to hurt and bleed this much and i'm sick of it!!!
do not read this, its way too positive
I had the best evening ever yesterday. I got dragged along (thank you) by the girl I am dating to a discord thing, and it was so nice to hang out and play games with the cool people there. I'm so glad to be welcomed by this new friend group I could cry a little.
It was allegedly a date night but I wouldn't change anything, and we still got some time after to hang out and wow sure does feel good to be close to her damn I literally do not even have words for that feeling of trust and closeness.
frsfds
Remember girls: A voice training a day keeps the "sir"s away
I'm in overanalyzing mode again
Did some cleaning
Lol guess what everybody
Found my old scene kid socks and they still fit
They have a hole in the ankle from trying to learn impossibles when I was a skate kid but they're kinda fun
Sliding around the kitchen playing cat hockey and pretending they're ice skates this morning
Goggles is in the running for the James Norris Memorial Trophy, he's been playing some amazing defense tbh šš
My sisters BF came over, ans we starting talking about history and geopolitics. He reminds me of how I was back in my radlib days. It hurt my head to have that discussion š
Is getting an X gender marker on a passport a bad idea? Trying to get my documents sorted before the hammer comes down after putting them off because I'm lazy, but this one is giving me pause. From a quick search, it seems like I'd be kinda fucked if I were ever on a flight that gets redirected somewhere for whatever reason where they don't recognize an X gender marker. As in, it would be extremely difficult to get out because my passport would never match any ticket I could buy there or anything because they wouldn't have an X or enby option. Also seems like it means that a huge portion of the world would not be safe to travel to because of it.
Had a dream that I decided to get a surgery (I don't think the dream ever said what it was, but I'm sure we could guess), but sometime after starting the process I still haven't really heard anything and then they reached out and questioned if I was really committed because I hadn't done things like schedule a flight for an appointment I was never told of. Tbf, I was very much under-prepared in a lot of other ways, but those were not even the things I was being grilled on.
I can't sleep so I have come to ramble
aromantic ramblings
The gush posts that happen in these threads get me thinking about my aromanticism or potential lack thereof again. I kind of low key hate never understanding this part of myself.
A while ago I thought I'd cracked the code with "you know what I think I just don't like the idea of dating as a guy," but then I slipped back into "no I'm definitely just aro."
I keep reading about the aromantic experience and relating heavily. Like for example, I couldn't even begin to tell you where the line is between platonic and romantic love. This is certainly muddied by the fact that I just simply do not have a sex drive at all, and thus sexual interest has never been a part of the equation for me.
But I often find myself wondering if I've actually never been flirted with, or if I'm just too aromantic to have ever picked up on it. And my thing is why do I care so much? Why do I keep asking myself that question? Honestly I think the answer is I want to be flirted with. I think it comes down to not feeling lovable and craving external validation to the contrary. But what's confusing is I don't want it to stop at flirting. I want to be continuously loved by someone and I want to love them back. I just don't know what that looks like, but it sounds like being into someone.
Reading the gush posts, I relate to them. I know I've felt those ways before about people. I think I'd describe all of my close friends in a similar way. I'd describe my sister that way. I love my sister so god damn much and would do anything for her, but obviously I'm not interested in dating her. I'm capable of love I just don't know what the fuck that looks like in a romantic context.
Maybe it's priority that I crave. Maybe I just want to be someone's priority and for them to be a priority of mine. I don't really care if they also have that kind of thing with someone else, so maybe I'm also poly?
Or maybe it really is just the simplest solution and I'm just aroace and I will never understand romantic attraction and all of my relationships will always and forever be platonic.
Idk. I'm not sure if I'm making much sense but this was mostly a journaling exercise anyway. Hopefully sleeping will come easier now that I've put some of this to words.
i hate my job
thanxgiving food is so much more enjoyable when you're reheating it as leftovers instead of trying to enjoy it after spending hours cooking lol
blog, shrooms, mental health, nicotine, alcohol cessation
Did a little shrooms yesterday and touched a lotta grass walking around listening to music
Been really stressed and relapsed on cigs (that's bad)
Been getting a ton of exercise and am making a lot of fitness progress (that's good)
Not sleeping well and know I'm wearing myself out and burning out and I'm probably heading towards a nagging injury or something at this pace (that's bad)
Started taking a new pre-workout stack and creatine and I think it's helping (the pre-workout contains potassium benzoate)
(... that's bad)
I don't think it actually does I just wanted to do the cursed frogurt bit
Think I'm hypomanic, been super restless and irritable and need to be active or I get all pissy and fidgety
Walked like 15 miles yesterday and went to the gym twice, probably the first time in my life I spent Thanksgiving with a caloric deficit
Idk, I'm working my ass off trying to improve myself and it doesn't feel like enough or mentally I just can't be content with anything
I almost lapsed and bought booze and it was just the embarrassment of asking a store employee to unlock it that kept me from doing it
Felt really humiliated and shitty about it and got home and kinda broke down crying trying to go to bed just feeling extremely lonely and like all the effort I make improving myself is futile and I'm just stuck by life circumstances and I'm gonna be alone forever and best that's achievable for me is gonna be swole crazy cat pseudo-lady
I just want somebody to hold me sometimes so bad but I feel like I'm not in a place yet to even consider a real relationship with anyone realistically and feel so inadequate in my social skills and it just fucking hurts sometimes
Idk sorry for being a fucking downer, I have some kinda positive stuff too but I feel burned out on articulating anything about myself rn
Thank you nice internet ppl for putting up with me
Been trying to lose weight for the past month (lost about 10-15lbs), so didn't expect much boob growth as a result of limited calories, but noticed this morning I have stretch marks above one of them. So I guess they are? Yesterday was a bit of a cheat day, so maybe all the extra calories just went there? Far from the first cheat day during that month though.
Spent all week going pharmacy to pharmacy only to find none of them have oestrogel in stock. "They went thataway"-ass prescription.
I've been off HRT for a week at this point
and there's no telling when I'll actually get any.Watched Moana with family for the first time yesterday. I long associated the 'How Far I'll Go Song' with trans experience (not necessarily that it was specifically intended to be interpreted that way), well before realizing I was an egg. I'm sure others self-insert in other ways, just like with Frozen's Let It Go. And plenty of people just think of them as being cute movies without thinking of anything being a metaphor.
Either way, was kinda funny watching a movie I personally associated with trans with the family on Thanksgiving. I should ask my brother why he picked that one out for us to watch.
Thoughts from posting on tracha as usual are- we should have a watch party sometime on the hextube traa. Anyone got ideas/times/want to figure stuff out? Anyways figured should toss the idea here so it sticks around
I preemptively unsubbed from all the major trans subreddits right before election night, and about 3 weeks later, i do not regret that decision in the slightest and am glad i saved my mental health from all the
postingif you want tracha to organize a game/movie/some kind of other activity night complete this form with your ideas!
ableist :america-cool: brained relative
Had a lovely celebration of family, but good lord my uncleinlaw was a fucker. First time meeting him, and he came with some ableist transphobic BS and didnt hear shit from other perspectives. Fucker goin on about
in america and making r*-slur jokes, goddamn i almost forget what people are like, all my friends are some form of leftist, and like 85% are trans. Anyway just wanted to vent.So, I am thinking of putting together a natural fantasy trans-forward hexbear TRPG game campaign. Wanted to post the idea here first before making a post in c/TRPG.
- A half-century ago, an isolated verdant valley system was settled by refugees, escaped serfs and political dissidents who fled a crumbling brutal empire. For decades, these refugees built thriving and peaceful communities on the principle of mutual aid. However, disaster has struck the valley, with a series of terrible floods and landslides devastating the villages and threatening survival. Once immaterial divisions and harmless rivalries have come to the forefront as the communities are suddenly faced with intense scarcity. The disaster has brought other changes as well. Passes have been created through through the mostly-impenetrable mountains, and old magicks in the valleyās edges and recesses have been stirred. What was once a place of respite is now faced with great pressures and dangers.
- Rather than being warriors, scoundrels or sorcerers, the player characters are ordinary (if talented) young people now thrust into roles of importance following the natural disasters. It will be your job to face these rising challenges, to rebuild your communities in both material and social aspects, to address the rise of magick, and to venture out into the unknown world.
- The campaign would focus on collaborative world-building, problem-solving and character development. Violence would be a (hopefully) rare but, deadly when it occurs.
- For a game system, I was thinking of adapting Luke Gearingās Wolves Upon the Coast (https://lukegearing.blot.im/wolves-upon-the-coast). Itās a classless system without mental stats, leaving ingenuity and problem-solving to the players. Advancement is accomplished through the declaration & fulfillment of promises. Anyone can do magic if you can discover the procedure and collect the ingredients. In addition to the Wolves Upon the Coast magic, I want to lean on books like The Herbalist Primer and The Geologist Primer.
- For format, I am leaning towards a āsynchronous textā format where we schedule game times and play the game over text chat. This is mainly due to security/anonymity concerns that I have with most voice chat platforms. In addition to synchronous sessions, thereād be opportunities to asynchronous updates between sessions.
- If I can get enough interest, then the campaign would probably begin in January.
first thanksgiving as a t girl. time to ruin it by openly reading settlers
Day 1 of recovery. Monsplasties suck as much if not more than paniculectomies. My boobs ache like hell. I canāt find my ibuprofen and have to take oxy and I hate taking oxy. Moving is very painful and I hate it.
On the other hand, I feel more at peace with my body than I ever have. I feel like me for the first time ever. Iād gladly deal with this pain for that feeling.
bright side
My grandfather has started calling me sweetie
, I love him so much.dark side CW: transphobia
My sister has started taking jabs at my transness
. She's usually very nice, and very accepting, but when she gets angry, she gets really angry. None of it's explicit, but it's things like getting mad at me for wanting to shave, or using the wrong pronouns before correcting herself in such a passive-aggressive way, almost like it's not worth her effort in that moment. I haven't even told her that I'm okay with they/them again, but I can feel the emotion in the way she said it.She's also started becoming very verbally abusive, more than she was before. She started by referring to me as "lesbian" in a sort of fake-angry way, which was affirming, and we both understood that she wasn't really angry. That turned into being called "bitch", sometimes in a not so fake angry way. The fake anger has made way for real anger a lot of the time, and I'm worried I've sort of encouraged a bad sort of behavior. Not to mention she gets very physical sometimes, I'll probably need to try setting some concrete boundaries. She can be very intimidating...
slightly better-formed whining
The more I go on the more I am convinced that taking a monthlong sabbatical from life (almost my entire life is queers in the computer) broke something catastrophically in my brain. I am now pretty sure that leaving everyone and everything for longer than like, two days was a huge mistake.
I don't seem to be real normal about it anymore, which might be due to the realisation that talkin' to people is both something I need else my sense of self will melt, (no I don't know why) and a difficult tiring spoon-loss activity. Idk, but it seems like I'm not real capable of thinking about social matters without bursting into tears anymore. What even is wrong with me?
It's possibly true that being on the receiving end of a landleech rentdue notice has ended my ability to relax, which, sucks if true. The chronic pain bs is definitely cutting into my spoon supply. But more broadly it feels like what small scraps of emotional regulation I had just disappeared. My journal entries all look like Nevada paragraphs, and while your Ash will usually sprinkle in Nevada-esque embellishments because the orange book is her entire personality, if she starts writing entire paragraphs of weird dejected overly emotional snarky bullshit, that may be indicative of a problem!
It could be withdrawal from a single 37.5mg tab of tramadol causing this too, which I am having muscle twitches and shit, but Idk if "bawling your eyes out at the slightest provocation" is a tram withdrawal thing, it's been like four days or so. If yes I hate it.
I'm also bad at time management, I am told, which is true because I have some kind of brain issue where I haven't been reading Psycho Nymph Exile enough. Mostly making time for reading takes effort, and also bending my brain around weird things takes effort :3 so it's been a few days and I need to YELL AT MYSELF to read gay slop.
TL;DR my feet hurt I wish I had spoons!
nicotine, drugs, eating
Gym closed for Thanksgiving I think
Don't really know what to do with myself since I don't have work and have nothing really going on
Feeling bad about smoking again and trying not to overeat and squander some of my gym progress
Shroomin' a little bit
Might do a little spa day at home for myself but I don't wanna have a dysphoria spiral idk
Hope everyone has a lovely gay ass Thanksgiving
š¦š„§š½š«š„š
The kitties said you're all lovely and hope you eat a yummy lil feast for yourself
A steam friend I played cs with a couple of times randomly gifted me webfishing a couple days ago and I'm so grateful. Being in queer spaces that are also small enough for me to not be too wrecked with social anxiety to participate in them is great and I already am making good friends and that's somehing I really needed. Just yesterday that same friend told me she's just started HRT and we hadn't talked about our gender and I came out to them as well but I think they already had the vibe considering trans people generally clocked me very easy before I even knew myself lol
.
blog, social anxiety, fitness/weightloss/gymrat shit, crushposting
Had a busy day yesterday, finally took care of a financial thing I've been putting off for ages and it was a stressful commute but I'm glad to have finally gotten it done
Had my consultation with a personal trainer and a body composition scan, in better shape than I was expecting based on how I've only really been taking better care of myself for a couple weeks and had been pretty sedentary for a long time prior to that
Was really nervous about it but the trainer was pretty nice and accommodating to my nervousness and has good interpersonal skills and we had more in common talking about dealing with different injuries and our athletic backgrounds growing up than I was expecting and it went pretty well despite me being a little late to the meeting and being a little exasperated from doing shit and rushing to get ready for it by the time I got there
Saw crush, starting to think the interactions we had that I weren't sure if they were flirty or not weren't and they're just a friendly person, seemed less like that running into them yesterday and I don't think there's anything there which kinda made me sad, but I think it's better than having a false expectation and getting my hopes up to get hurt later
Who knows, maybe they were just having a bad day and weren't in a good mood to chat yesterday and there might still be potential there but I'm not gonna put too much hope in it and set myself up to be disappointed, but I do like seeing them
Idk they're really cute and sweet and I'm gay and lonely and weird
Most things are going well in life minus health and my jobs are working me half to death. I didn't even know it was legal to be working 12hr days in retail, I'm so used to being scheduled like 6hrs daily at best. The pay isn't even there to justify this and there are no benefits. Tomorrow is going to be another fun 12hr day.
I found out my cats are afraid of googly eyes which I've used to protect my knockoff aliexpress 2.99 'roombas' from my cats swatting the bots off course or dragging them into places like the kitchen or litter box, so I made a biblically accurate angel themed Xmas tree, haven't had a tree since I was a small child, this was just a DT 5 dollar special with some glued on googley eyes and pipecleaner
buddies on it. Eyes on everything, lol. They won't tip over this tree.And health is an obvious CW warning for everything;
spoiler
Body's war against other parts of itself continues. Had a uterine biopsy done the other day, one its painful AF, easy contender for top 10 most physically painful experiences so I have no idea why they don't drug you for them, two the fact I had to get a biopsy makes me nervous if I require a procedure the soonest it will be done will correspond to my yearly medical cut. Also, if I need a procedure of any kind I'll be let go from my main retail gig since I can't miss days or weeks like that, I worked yesterday a day after my biopsy and I left wanting to cry. I shouldn't have done that, but the way the doc made it sound like it was a mild procedure and I would have been fine yesterday to work, while in reality I was writhing around in pain unable to do anything notable.
At least I'll still have my online gig and my flipping laptops side gig that I hope will cover basic utilities and rent though I'll be hosed for medicines on the impending cut.
I hope all the USians here are able to get through the holidays with minimal family induced harm.
Scientists studying entropy could learn a lot by analyzing my hair rn
Would it be risky to give away an AirVPN account to an internet stranger? Thereās still 17 days on it, but there are too many little things I donāt like about it, and I donāt need it anymore since I got a different VPN already (it was on sale for Black Friday) and I donāt really feel like trying to get a refund. Thereās no identifying info associated with it, but I did pay with paypal so that info could theoretically be linked to it in a way that isnāt visible to end users.
i have made 300 mince pies a week for the last eight weeks and i'm still not done i hate these things
Heyā¦ has anyone else in here ever watched Emmit Otters Jugband Christmas
Suffering intensifies
Don't even know what the fuck is wrong with me anymore but whyyyyyyyyy. I don't have a brain that works right anymore. Really feels like my entire life collapsed at once. Not a good feeling.Things I miss: interacting with people, not being in excruciating pain all the time, not having realised that I have several needs that run counter to eachother or are guaranteed to be painful for me. I hate.
I think that re-dyeing my leather jacket went well. I will probably give it a few touch-ups this weekend, but the color looks pretty consistent. It was already dark brown, but now it's basically black, so it'll match the rest of my show outfit better.
I also found a choker on Hot Topic that would match, but they don't have expedited shipping so it won't arrive in time, so I'm probably going to drive an hour to the city to check the several locations there tomorrow. Just hope it isn't sold out for black friday.
absolutely unrestrained gushing
OKAY so have you ever just heard someone's voice and it makes you just kinda fucking melt? Yeah, that's me, every time I hear her voice... its somehow comforting and sexy at the same time and I just kinda want to keysmash everytime we voice chat and I kinda get a little nervous and flustered and sometimes have a little difficulty talking but that's nice too because I can generally just be quiet around her too and that's really cool.
ugh she's so great chat ugh
This is silly and I'm really dumb so take all this with a grain of salt but I saw a few posts in here yesterday (https://hexbear.net/comment/5675116) about a concept of gender as a point in some kind of geometric space, then I spent a while trying to write a formal definition of "gender" in Metamath :3 I will ping the posters too perhaps
@RainbowReflection@hexbear.net @lilypad@hexbear.net
long dumb math talking
It seemed simple enough at first, I figured I would start from Tarski's axioms of geometry (I like the first-order theories as a dumb person :3), weaken them or drop them appropriately to get appropriate abstractness of "gender" but I kept thinking about it and more and more it seemed less and less like geometry. Like what does it mean for a gender "point" to be between other gender points? Are genders congruent??
So I started thinking, maybe gender would be best represented as some kind of topological space. I had never even heard of topology before so I spent like 5 hrs reading about it, tearing apart the Metamath definitions, and I still only very vaguely kind of get it
(my vibe is that the definitions of topology I read about as collections of open subsets of sets or the neighborhood stuff don't actually describe very well what people actually use topology for lol). Now I will go up, starting from the bottom, the traditional topological space hierarchy and explain why I can't seem to make it work for gender:Inner product spaces I quickly skipped over cuz they seemed too restricting, not general enough
A normed vector space initially seemed kinda close to the original informal definition of gender given by Lilypad:
"I have thought about gender as an N-dimensional space, where
Nā„0. For every persons experience of gender, i think of it as the area where forānāN,n>0, with completely agender being that forānāN, n=0."Is a very pretty way to think of it imo. I moved on from this for similar reasons to metric spaces, which I will describe
What about metric spaces? Metric spaces are even closer to Lilypad's informal definition and are the traditional formalism for Euclidean spaces (a metric space with 3 dimensions r3). I couldn't make Tarki's geometry work conceptually but maybe a metric space would work? Is just that I ran into the same problem, which is that dimensions of a space imply 2 binary directions. Like what mean is (sorry am not so fluent in math language yet), a single-dimensioned vector is either going in a direction x or going in the complementary opposite direction of x (-x or signed x or idk). In Euclidean space it is like a "positive" x or y or z direction vs its complementary "negative" x or y or z direction. In other words, 2 vectors that are equal except for 1 component are on the same line. The problem is, I can't think of any gender thing like this except for the masculine-feminine binary and I don't want to concede that gender is really just a bunch of different gender binaries deep down. The other problem, which I think is also implicit in the informal definition, is that metric spaces by definition have a concept of "distance", which is a function that takes 2 points and "returns" a real-valued distance > 0 for 2 distinct points, and I can't think of a way to formalize the metaphorical distance between genders without breaking all of the axioms that make a metric space a metric space (Like I didn't mention distances have to obey the triangle inequality lol) and without a non-real-valued distance function
So then... I considered........ topological spaces
which are so general that it's quite hard to get a grasp on and everyone is just making their own special useful topological spaces under a bunch of different names. To be more specific and vague at the same time, one definition is: a topology T of a set X is a collection of "open" subsets of that set that satisfies the following conditions: the empty set and X are in T, any arbitrary union (like adding the elements of 2 sets together into one big set) of elements of T is in T, the intersection (the set of only common elements between 2 sets) of any finite number of of elements of T is in T. This seems like the {good, bad, {}, {good, bad}} thing about topologies..... they're so fucking general that you can use them for so many things, yet so vague you're gonna be making your types of topologies to do anything cool with them. Like there are 2 kinds of topologies in general which are discrete topologies where you meet those requirements uhhh "enthusiastically" and do every possible union and as many intersections before it becomes infinite (idk where there that is ) or indiscrete topologies where "you" did the minimum possible to meet those requirements and your topology T of X is literally just { {}, X } lol. And all the interesting topologies are somewhere in-between those kinds of topologies. Oh, and that's just one definition, also the most general (most useless, I just want my gender topology smh). There is an equivalent definition, which is way more interesting for our purposes, based on a concept of "neighborhoods" which brings a concept of "closeness" into it (as in you can make topologies of sets based on how "close" the elements are to each other or something lol). I am getting tired of writing though, so go look that up for yourself if you want lolA topological space is something like an ordered pair of a "base" set X and its topologies. So I guess what we are interested in for our "gender" topological space is the set of all "genders" and its topologies..... maybe. The basic idea here which I am clutching to and on the verge of dropping it into a vast sea of abstractness is uhhhh oh, yeah, I think I just lost it
Are there any math nerds who can help?
I spill my set
I took my first bicalutamide. You're supposed to just swallow it, right?
I'm disappointed that I started so strong on my vn project but now progress has slowed to a crawl. I feel like self-doubt has set in and I can no longer judge if I'm doing something interesting that people would want to engage with. I'm also fighting myself, or more like trying really hard to reign in the excited inner child that's like "add this! and this! and wouldn't it be cool if this!!" so I can maintain a manageable scope and actually release something one day. Ideas come easy. Execution, not so much.
another Masseduction kick moment @ashinadash@hexbear.net
Sped through a yellow light to the jaunty Mario Kart ass bridge at 2:45 on Sugarboy
I like to think of myself as a Math Person, maybe not at the level where I can do meaningful research or whatever, but at least at the level where I can apply what I know to solve everyday problems. But today I ended up spending probably 20 minutes to figure out how much water I should add to 90% rubbing alcohol to turn it into 70% alcohol (it is just basic algebra)
Welp, I can no longer get blood tests for my diy
my gp doesn't want to do it unless I start the process of trying to get meds the legitimate way, but i'm not willing to suffer through the shitty, extremely transphobic gatekeeper national service to maybe after like 3-4 years get oral or transdermal hrt when it's much more convenient for me to do injection monotherapy and not have to be on an anti-androgen.Idk what to do, even though it hasn't been hard for me to get my test supressed and stuff I would feel a lot safer if I could just get routine check-ups every few months.
Anyone know any good spaces or accounts that talk about classical tailoring type shit for transfem people, like sports coats, dorky scarves/ascots, non-denim trousers type shit?
Most of what I find just casually searching is heavily geared towards transmasc people instead, and a lot of transfem fashion tends to lean either very feminine alt or harder butch.
today in adventures in being out at work
guy comes up to me and while i'm pretty used to being called "sir" because of my barely trained voice, this guy called me "sir" before i fucking said a word to him
, so I just took a mental deep breath and responded to him in my best femme voice I could muster. I think I could feel that it was at least good enough to put him on his toes because the rest of the interaction was kind of awkward and he never called me a man aftersad
suicide, self harm (yes again, I'm sorry)
It's constant. Constant thoughts, constant pain. I hate thinking about suicide all the time. Broke my clean streak the other day and it was the best, most normal I've felt in a while. Now I'm miserable again. Idk, I'll try and hold off on doing it again but I don't have it in me to fight it. I hate this.
I can't stop the thoughts.
I'm sorry for being ridiculous and needy, idk what is wrong with me. I don't like being this any more then you like listening to it.
depression
Was trying on writing a thing linking me not enjoying smut because I'm asexual, along with only really snjoying it because i long for companionship. it just kinda turned into me being really sad. Got depressed, had a few panics attacks. Gonna try just going to sleep. Also need to get a new psychiatrist because they last few I've had all sucked and I haven't had someone to talk about my problems (and fail to provide solitions) to for months.
Since I have to wait on the estrogen to arrive again I was thinking of already taking the bicalutamide I have.
I think we should make a tracha-lite (tracha but less chaotic/probably with a spray bottle to keep users like me contained). There's been at least a few people (4~ come to mind) I've seen and talked to who said normal tracha can be overwhelming or intimidating.
I know we talked about that a bit in the tracha mods chat, but figure that tossing the idea here would probably also help it not be drowned out by other chats (might make a post or idk later as well, idk)
They weren't lying, this progesterone really do be making me eepy.
Also my hair is like, ridiculously soft suddenly. Like almost overnight, even my girlfriend noticed it. I'm definitely not imagining things and I haven't changed anything in my hair care. Idk where this came from but I'm very happy about it.
the surgeon I was going with backed out because he doesn't feel confident enough for my specific case yet. he said he would try to research and contact me again in a few weeks to see if he found any leads for where I go
cw: hopelessness, venting
I tried to tell him I accept that there's uncertainty on outcomes and complications and even having a phallus alone would help me so much, but that wasn't enough.
exhausting every way you can think of trying to convince someone to take a chance and pull you from the misery only for him to kindly and firmly refute each is difficult. feeling completely backed into a corner with nothing but acceptance that this grim era will continue without the hope I was holding onto, it really is difficult
I just want someone to help me
sang St. Vincent to myself in the gym shower after leg day
had a lil' moment getting dressed while achy and exhausted at the lyric "I'm so glad I came but I can't wait to leave" on Dancing With A Ghost
I actually have free time again, what a concept! So, I've returned to creating character portraits. I want to compare two I don't believe I've shown on here. The first uses the older software, and the second one the newer software. The second one also meets the 16-color requirement, while the first does not. There's also a pixel on each that needs fixing. Other than that, which one do you all think looks better?
Also adding a bonus one, made with the newer software
Bonus round 2: Luna "Castro" redone
My doctor: get your cholesterol under control and then we can raise your dose
Okay but I'm too depressed to have be able to stick with a diet can we just try increasing the estrogen and manage everything from there?
I unilaterally decided to up my dose my just taking more. Only up to the minimum recommended dose for two weeks now I think. I haven't felt better in ages and finding the motivation to eat healthy, get exercise, and socialize, has never been greater. We really need to drill into the medical community how important HRT is and to get up to an effective dose asap. Maybe it's a placebo but it feels real and the effects are real so w/e.
I fucking love my trans comrades so much
life is weird
Meds have been helping... But still have all the (lack of) executive capacity, and seriously feeling the avoidant side of myself, getting very anxious about bringing people further into my life. Ive been so social lately, i feel like i may be overdoing it, and im trying to deal with that without overcorrecting and cutting all my friends and new aquaintances out of my life for the next 3 months
I LOVE MY TRANS COMRADES
Wait days to get a call back about sperm banking in case I want to have kids in the future.
Get called back in the middle of the work day
Person on the phone who's supposed to be "courteous and confidential" asks me questions I can't answer without announcing to the office I'm getting my jizz froze and takes ages to switch over to yes/no
Get told they don't take insurance for this (no mention of that on the website)
I hate this shit. I hope my therapist can help me w/ resources. For anything medical I usually rely on my mom for help but that's a no go here as she doesn't even know I'm on HRT
Who wants to see my tatas?
Hmmmmmm I'm soooo eepysleepy today~ (I was kept up till 7am by chronic pain but still woke up before noon)
dysphoria, social anxiety
Have a (free, yay. well, included in membership cost) consultation with a personal trainer/physical therapist guy at my gym coming up to help me design a better routine and diet and stuff
I talked to him yesterday but I'm not out at the gym and idk if I wanna out myself but I don't want to make things awkward there since it's like, the only "third place" I have rn
I dunno if telling him "yeah I really don't want bulky arms and shoulders and I'm trying to grow my hips and ass" would give him the hint or that'd be weird and don't really know how I'm gonna navigate that conversation
I guess I can come up with a plausible alibi about training for hiking and that I have a job offer to work for the forestry department so I'm wanting to work on my legs a lot for steep hill hiking for that?
The staff there all seem cool and it's a pretty inclusive gym (seen multiple other queer ppl there) but for some reason it's way less nerve-wracking thinking about just vaguely coming out to someone as just broadly queer than saying "uh, I have The Genderā¢ actually"
I dunno
I feel like I'm more nervous about it than I should be but that's like always the case for me (GAD)
I'm doing a lot better overall the last month or so than my usual though? Idk, any thoughts? Thank you nice internet ppl
CW: Talking about top/bottom surgery
29 hours until I have to be at the hospital for my surgery. Losing my mind. Just as excited for this as I was for bottom surgery a couple years ago. Finally will get my lopsided tits fixed. Gods know I always wanted large breasts even before my egg cracked. They're big enough as is, but now they're going to be BEEG. Can't wait.
That being said, I'm also getting a minor revision to my bottom surgery. I'm looking forward to that because that, too, somehow got lopsided >w>
a fanfic I just started following dropped 5 chapters coming in to 6500 words, all of them in the last six hours, fuck i wish i had that level of energy in anything anymore tbh
I think I sing as a stim. It really clears the brain out, not much else to focus on when you are. I tend to get riffs or lines stuck in my brain anyway, like the chorus line to Baron Saturday... I'm definitely not any good at it at all, I'm just some nerd plus I never took voice training very seriously, but also my singing is definitely a blessing to these walls and anyone who hears it.
I'm probably "best" at old Who songs and 1970s Golden Earring stuff like that, but I most enjoy trying to do KT Tunstall (even if I could never pull the high notes on Other Side of the World) or 70s era Heart tunes. Maybe this is why I really dig low smoky femme vocals, Idk.
Just belting random things out 24/7, absolutely breaking into song for no reason at the drop of a hat. It's more productive than a picking stim!!! (My throat hurts ow)
We have this family in for one of their kids. The other kids visit daily. They have one little girl who is both cute and creepy in the way only little girls can be. She comes riiiight up to me and just stands and stares at me, like just 10 cm in front of me and stares. Says nothing. Just smiles. Adorable
i whine about work
if i have to do another presentation for a huge group of people next week i am going to scream, it is so exhausting, i'm an hour into work and i feel like i need to sleep, AND i spent all day yesterday preparing for it too... i miss doing my "real job"
edit: also, i guess i'm channeling "Tim Allen's Neighbour" vibes today as I rearranged my desk and my webcam is behind my monitor, so only my eyes and up are visible when I turn it on, lmao.
I don't know if this counts as news, since there's no ruling yet, but this case is probably worth paying attention to, especially for our UK comrades. cw for transphobia.
I got gendered correctly today. Had someone calling out "sir, sir", trying to ask me for directions. I turn to face them, and they look confused. "Sir, Ma'am, I can't tell with the mask on". I took my shot, put on my best fem voice. I had mastered the talk-no-jutsu, my voice training was about to pay off. I looked at the person, and proceeded to ignore most of the training, just changing pitch and speaking more softly. It still worked, I got called ma'am. They later apologized for getting it wrong, and I just said no worries. No eyebows. No stare. No disgust.
I've done it, I've won :keikaku:
So I was a little worried that I wouldn't actually be happy after moving and that it was all just my own brainworms that I'd never be able to get rid of...
I was wrong. I'm actually feeling genuinely happier about life and at least somewhat hopeful about the future. I like the new job, new location is better than I imagined, and I'm making plans to start socializing IRL for the first time in ages. Everything seems to be going well and it kind of scares me a little, but I can't go through life just being worried all the time I suppose.
Also makes me happy that people are posting cute stuff in /c/cute :D I honestly wasn't sure people would be into it but at least some are. I need to keep finding new cute stuff to post to keep the cute train moving forward though.
Uhhhhhhhhh I'm going thrifting with a couple of friends in 20 mins and one of those friends offered to help me with my hair and also I finally heard back from the place I was trying to get HRT at and they're calling me later this week to officially get me on the schedule.
It's a good day in gender town
holidays, family, wistful
I can't stand spending time with my family. They're hateful miserable people, just awful to be around and reactionary as fuck and during the holidays their bullshit is dialed up to max. When I came out, I decided to cut them off. I didn't want to hear their hateful opinions about me or my transition. I didn't want to give them the chance to hurt me again.
And I'm overall happy with that decision. But now the holidays remind me how small my world really is. I don't want to be around mine but I do wish I had a caring family to spend time with. One that loves and appreciates me for who I am.
I pretty dramatically put my fists on my hips earlier today and oh wow they actually kind of hurt? holy shit are they doing what I think they are?
Do they make shark plushies that are like 6 feet long? Can't find any on aliexpress
incoherent rambling inspired by one of DirtOwl's badposts
This bad post by dirt owl got me thinking, oh wait sorry I mean feeling since I am dumb infp tanki with iq of -5, about the way we view gender as a society. Anyways, dirt owl was not the first user to talk about mbti on hexbear. Using the search function of hexbear, this post from four years ago says that it makes no sense that everyone fits into 16 distinct categories. Another comment mentions the anti-worker nature of the personality test.
The comments in the badpost often followed a similar line, with users identifying as personality types that are technically not part of the system. And this is actually valid, since in mbti you are actually the type that you say you are. What these comments show is resistance to a form of categorizing people, but it is even more than resistance, they are not even taking it seriously. The comments are metaphorically sending a giant PPB to the idea of separating people into new categories. And it's pretty obvious how this relates to gender, since both are attempts at limiting us within a binary system. Especially the thinking or feeling part, unfortunately, is connected with people's expectations of gender roles. But just as the badposters are the resistance to this typology, we are the resistance to the idea of gender under the constraints of capitalism. I think that the gender accelerationist manifesto articulates well what I've been thinking of better than I can, even though I didn't read it until today (If you haven't read it yet, perhaps you should...) Some of it talks about how the modern gender binary is a result of colonialism; that sort of relates to this week's megathread topic about gender in different cultures.
So I know that this personality stuff isn't widely used as a class to oppress people, although that is sort of what it is used for when it is used. But the way it creates boxes, it is easy to dismiss. But the typology being wrong doesn't mean that people don't have personalities. It just means that there are more than 16 expressions of personalities, since last I checked, I think that there's at least 16 people alive right now. The more "scientific" way to measure personality is through measuring traits on a multidimensional continuum. There is no need for labels to express your personality. The same goes for gender, the only difference being that gender is oppressive when used as a class. Maybe gender is also something that is multidimensional, and while some people can easily be labeled as a man or woman in the same way that others can be labeled as an extravert or introvert, there is much more variation in reality.
You know how AI language models store words as vectors? In this fashion, an analogy is represented: king is to queen as man is to woman. Here my observation is that there is some way to mathematically represent the idea of royalty, as well as some idea of gender, although most likely in this situation a reactionary version of gender is represented. But here gender is probably stored across multiple dimensions, and the gender binary could be a projection of some underlying phenomenon.
I would like to end this comment discussing the part of the manifesto about gender identity under communism.
Many people fear that, through the abolition of gender, our own gender identities will be taken from us. That, in abolishing gender, we will force you to stop identifying with your gender, however much you might enjoy that identity.
That was me, before yesterday. Now I am fully in support of gender abolitionism.
The end of gender as a system of power is our goal, and the end to gender identities is an eventual result, if it will happen at all, not something of importance or which we should strive toward.
The only way I can describe gender now is like brainwashing. We do what we are told, and we must comply. And almost everyone complies because they're all cis. If institutions didn't enforce this rigid interpretation of gender, life would be so much better for all of us here.
Sorry if this makes no sense or if some of what I am posting is obvious. Feel free to correct anything I said if it is brainwormed.
I love my trans comrades
Feel like I need to stop using this site because I need IRL friends since I'm very lonley, but all the queer groups in my area are full of radlibs and Zionists :( Like its unhealthy to have my main form of social interaction outside of my job be this website, but there is very few people who will click with my interests and queerness
been going to a lot more concerts/shows since transitioning, turns out dressing up and going out can actually be fun lol
partner found a really cool artist. i've been listening to them and it turns out they're anti-cop, anti-monarchy, sang at a pro-palestine protest AND has a show in my city this Friday??
we bought some tickets and i really want to try to make some friends this time but idfk how
LIFTING UPDATE
So I am STILL not lifting yet, it's been like a month. I stopped taking tramadol and like I wanna get back, but Idk if it will make it better. What if without the pain receptors being numbed, it'll just hurt and be excruciating and I die? What if I rot instead???
I like that my chronic pain/fatigue is maybe stopping me from doing the thing that could make my chronic pain/fatigue less bad.
I am never going to be the beautiful muscledyke........ tfw not athletic........In other news I have the most creeping feeling that Fallow isn't a one-run game and that stuff changes, more than just the sealed door, if you play it again. I'll have to go back and puzzle over it. Give it more kisses, my beloved.
I'm no longer a kissless virgin, just a regular virgin š
surgery stuff (positive)
finally argued my case hard enough that the surgeon I'm going with says he feels comfortable moving forward with insurance authorization
lost respect for him over the last month, but I don't really need to respect him for him to do surgery. I'll take the W
now back to electrolysis once again. š
I've also learned all the hiragana and katana characters and can remember them without reference
need to learn more words and kanji now. it was really intimidating to finally start learning japanese, but it's really not so bad once I got used to it. I can slowly start reading words in media I like and that's so exciting, even if it takes me so long for now
i love my wife ngl
i had "lady" like not only are you misgendering me, i feel both old and condescended to too. a triple! why wont people stop. sob.
Anti-recommendation for shoes sold by Aphixta on aliexpress. They're very poorly made all over but most importantly the heels are wobbly and seem likely to break easily.
cw yankee electoralism
i got the most pathetic liberal comment on youtube after i said the blue team are just doing blue fascism and it's beyond pathetic how libs start waking up now again when the red team starts doing red fascism (it's the same fascism)
" you realize the āblue teamā is not for that? You do realize that right??? And this song was during when āthe red teamā was in power still. "
each question mark just fills me with more joy
this was under a RATM song because it's topical to fight against the machine again for the next four yearsthe song was released while Clinton was in office too! like goddamn
gemder
Once again just woke up and drinking coffee
I did a module on social anthro and women's history and it covered similar bits. Best part of uni and it was only a side module.
A while ago, I had been flirting with a girl for a few months. We finally got to meet up about a year ago. I felt all my attraction drain out of me when she said she 20 years old. I'm so sorry but you're so, so fucking young.
i love learning about anthropology, i dont do it enough
hi, does anyone wanna make the mega in the upcoming weeks? if so, reply to this post and i'll add you to the list!
the list as it stands:
SwitchyWitchyandBitchy (12/2 - 12/8) HelltakerHomosexual* (12/9 - 12/15) GayTuckerCarlson* (12/16 - 12/22) AshenWolf* (12/23 - 12/29) Eco* (12/30 - 1/5) oscardejarjayes* (1/6 (The Darkest Day in Our Democracy.) - 1/12) EstraDoll (3/2 - 3/8)ā * after name denotes someone who has posted before and will be skipped by first-time posters
my Stuff I Just Think Is Neat windowsill update
How about those pinecones?
They're pretty big!
It's Monday! What have you been listening to for the past week? I'm shoegazemaxxing
hello
Heeeeeeestiaposting!
Miaut voran mit festem Schritt
Arbeitercatgirls, kommt ihr mit?
Wir sind die queere Garde des Proletariats
Wir sind die queere Garde des Proletariats
Goodbye hypomania, hello depression šš
One of my friends messaged me some Chris Chan news and I have never wanted to engage in a topic less. Kinda knew he'd bring this up too, after seeing the news online.
am on drugs today so tbh why not. Long may it continue...
