#like that's the whole reason hrt even works and i think that's so fucking amazing

[uncanny-tranny]

happy transsexual thursday! I'm very pleased that my voice is getting lower - it's one of the effects I most hoped to experience when I started T last year. I actually like the way it sounds when I hear a recording, which is a big difference from before.

Yes!! It's so amazing just how flexible and malleable the human body is

[sonic-spirit]

Sonic HRT 2 - Pharmacy

First - Next

I couldn't let the chance pass to represent my first time filling my T prescription.

I was still living in the Chicago suburbs at the time, and went to the city for my healthcare since I could get treatment following the informed consent model--because like hell was I jumping through the kinds of hoops I'd seen others have to follow if I could help it. It wasn't without its issues, of course. The drive to the clinic was usually about 2-3 hours with traffic, about 1 without. Sucks, but do-able. I was still working for my parents then, and needed to hide my transition from them as much as I could.

So when my dad required me to do a thing, I did it.

Which is how I ended up scheduled to go to a basketball game the night I got my testosterone prescription. The prescription appointment itself was super easy. Get in, let them know what I wanted, let them know I knew what I was getting into, give some blood to use to keep track of my hormone levels an all, and head across the street to the pharmacy.

That was where things got...obnoxious. I got in line, got through line, gave my name, was asked to sit down, and wait. And wait. And wait.

After an hour, I went up to the counter, sure I must've missed them call my name. They didn't have record I'd checked in. I checked in again.

After about two hours, I needed to leave so I could meet with my dad to go to the game. And no excuse I could give would have been good enough to get out of it. I went up to the counter to check on progress. The pharmacy worker I talked to was stressed, and told me they'd call when my prescription was ready for pickup. And that, fortunately, they were a 24-hour pharmacy, so I could do pickup any time.

I left. And got the automated call my prescription was ready about 30 minutes later.

At that point, I started to get mad. Here I was, in an amazing situation, about to get a medicine that would do nothing but help me...and because of my fucking asshole conservative dad who wanted people like me to die, I was driving away from my meds, away from freedom, to go play happy family with someone who'd made it very, very clear he didn't want anything to do with the real me, and would physically enforce his preference if he felt slighted.

I went to the basketball game. But I don't think I hid how much I was seething the whole time. We passed the pharmacy my testosterone was waiting for me at on the way home.

When we parted ways, I got a call from a good friend over the phone to celebrate my prescription, and vented to him about the absurd situation. I was so, so damn excited, and so, so pissed that my so-called "family" were the entire block between me and treatment. That a night that should've been about celebrating was instead spent seething. I'd known for years how much I needed to get away from my shitty, abusive family, but this clarified the point. (Again, for the billionth time. Cuz though I worked at it like fire, I didn't escape until a few years later, and only with a looooooot of help).

My friend was so kind, he listened, and he helped. He was so happy for me, and so ready to listen to my anger. And he asked me a super reasonable question. I was planning on not going out to the pharmacy that night because it was nearly midnight, and I'd had work the next day. And he, very reasonably, asked me if I'd be able to sleep if I just went home. And I wouldn't. So I turned around, and headed back into the city, down the same roads even, for the third time that night!

So that's how I got on testosterone!

[marcelinesghost13]

Ok blog we got some bullshit to talk about. Currently it is 4:20 in the morning. My brain has to do this block even though I'm fitting in and out. You may not make any sense of what I'm talking about cuz the thoughts are going to be completely random and all over the place. I'll definitely try to keep it together though but no promises.

So today I got to meet my therapist and my new PCP. I liked both of them. There are two factors that happened. One my blood pressure was actually pretty leveled. That's really because my wife didn't go with me and she wasn't screaming at me the whole fucking time. I mentioned this to her and she just laughed and actually said the only reason why your blood pressure is so high is because of me always screaming at you. That's some fucked up shit. Constantly knows the reason why my blood pressure is high is because of her. That's some really fucked up shit. But it was also talking to my friend the whole time who I see as a sister. I think to help keep my heart rate down. She's an amazing woman does a lot of amazing things.

I'm finally starting my journey towards who I'm supposed to be. I will be starting HRT in about 8 weeks. I was on it for a bit but I got off of it. That had to do with my wife and hurt bullshit. As many of you know she is not a fan of me becoming a woman. There are some days where she's okay with it and she talks about makeup and other things with me. But a great majority of the time she doesn't give a fuck she doesn't like the idea "it's weird". My doctor wants me to quit smoking. That's going to be a bad habit to quit. Especially since I've been smoking since I was 14 years old. But I bought this little device thing called FÜM air vaporizer. I don't know if it's supposed to help with smoking. Fucking thing better work that cost me a hundred dollars lol. But in any case I'm very excited about going on this journey I'm finally getting back on my HRT.

When I got home well actually scratch that before I go home I was already getting texts from my wife but where the fuck I was. Because I was gone for 6 hours basically. When I finally got home she asked if I had a good time. I asked her with what. She replied you know what I'm talking about you were gone all day having fun while I sat here having to put up with a crackheads. I told her I wasn't having any fun I was doing doctor's appointments. Her comment was sure you were I know what you were doing.

Then after that she went on a tangent of letting me know how I'm like my perverted father. Because that's all my dad does is go around fucking 20 year olds. That statement alone is fucking stupid as fuck. One my dad is impotent he can't get it up and the second factor is he can't take Viagra because he'll fuck with his heart and he can have a heart attack from it. So the chances of my dad actually having sex is like 0 to fucking none. Yeah my wife is insistent but that's exactly what my dad has been doing for the last couple weeks and why he ended up in a rehab retirement center.

That's another thing that she's been bitching about my dad being in a rehab retirement center. She's been so angry that he ended up there. Letting me know that he completely ruined our lives because he ended up there. That he's playing all these like mind games to fuck with her lives. I don't get how I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm answering doctor's appointments and Dr phone calls and all these other people there supposed to help but that's some of the problem my father has all this help and my wife has absolutely fucking no one according to her. So that's where the jealousy comes in because she's fucking jelly as hell. She does not like the fact that he has so many different people helping him with this process. Yet for years my wife has dealt with all of her doctors. I would help a lot more if I knew the phone numbers and the name of the doctors and stuff like that but she doesn't give me any of that information. She always find something when everybody to be angry about what they're doing in their life because her life is so miserable.

I think it's ridiculous that she acts like that. Stop being so miserable because everyone else is doing something in their life. Regardless of you agree to it or disagree to it. I get that the crackheads next to our house or drug addicts and you're going to act weird. Doesn't mean you have to mentally freak out on that shit. I understand that you grew up with people like that in your life. They need to learn to ignore it. You need to learn to conquer your trauma. She needs to learn to accept that certain people ask certain ways and you can't change that.

Oh dear my head's starting to get all light again. I'm trying to wrap this up pretty quick. So in any case besides my wife and her constant bitching and complaining about everyone that exists on this planet because she doesn't feel well. Things seem to be moving pretty good for me. Things are actually working very well for her too. Her doctor's finally figured out what's going on with her kidneys and bladder. So that's a plus. She is slowly getting better she just doesn't notice it. And I might be able to transfer over at work we'll see if that actually happened fingers crossed. All right about what happened to my dad in a different blog but as of right now that's currently where we're at.

So that's pretty much it that's what's going on so far. I'm going to go pass out now again because I'm exhausted and mentally drained.

081620240455

[queerkuro]

trans arankita? 🥺👉👈

OF COURSE I CAN TALK ABOUT TRANS ARANKITA THAT'S WHAT STARTED THIS!!!!!!!

send me and bex characters to trans

listen. yall. i've said it so many times but arankita makes me so fucking feral i can go on and on about them i feel like this is gonna get so long too yall are giving me the best reasons to ramble

i know you asked for arankita, but i'll do them separate and together like i did for the others!

so aran!

i fucking love aran and he is so transable. you can really just trans him. he's perfect. i love him. transmasc aran? perfect. transfem aran? perfect. enby aran? perfect.

recently i've been really loving nonbinary aran, but i'm gonna talk in general first. i think he thought a lot about his transition. he did research and tried shit out on his own before he told anyone. not to get too serious, but i am in my psychology research brain today. i do think that he does really have to think about the intersections of being black in general, being black in japan, and being a black trans person. he has to be careful about how he goes about his transition, but i think he has a really good support system, and his family is really supportive of him.

i think transmasc aran gets top surgery as soon as he can, but i've been thinking about afab enby (and/or genderfluid!) aran who doesn't get top surgery but will bind. basically my thoughts on that for aran is they use they/he/she pronouns, but only for other trans people. cis people are lucky to even perceive them so cis people can only use they/them. trans people are also more than welcome to use gendered language with him, because he knows that they know she isn't part of the binary. i also love thinking about aran switching between fem/masc/gnc presenting, or mixing it all up!

i also like to think that aran likes to try different styles with their hair, and will try different styles of braids or other protective styles to see how they can express gender that way, you know?

also, sidenote, the twins (also trans) are so fucking in love with aran, and they think she's SO gender

and speaking of being so gender - kita!

kita is up there with akaashi on being very gender for me. idk what it is about him but he's just...gender.

(one of the very first hq fics i read was about enby kita, and i still think about it a lot)

i tend to lean towards enby kita, but transmasc/transfem kita is amazing too. i loooooove the conversations me and bex have about fem kita

i think kita has to be told by other trans people that cis people don't think about gender like that, and he's just kinda like "oh" and then is trans lmao

no matter which way kita is trans, i don't think they have much dysphoria, but i do think afab kita gets super dysphoric about their period (not projecting at all idk what you're talking about) but it's partly because of trans shit but also because of autism (no i will not be taking criticisms, kita is autistic it's canon...i can also tell yall my autism hcs...)

transfem kita is so fun to write! i think about her a lot. i think she so fun. i think because she works on the farm, she doesn't usually wear revealing clothes, and because of that, no one really sees the changes to her body from hrt (and top surgery lmao) so when she finally wears like shorts and a tank top or something she kills literally everyone that sees her

honestly tho, i love love love any trans kita, but they/them nonbinary kita just really hits for me. i don't have anything else to say about it lmao

moving onto arankita

the reason this whole think started is because i was rambling to @thegaycodedvolleyballhimbos about nonbinary lesbians arankita

i think aran was like "i'm nonbinary" and kita was like oh sick gender and now is also nonbinary lmao. also they are lesbians.

so we were talking about afab aran (they/he/she) and amab kita (she/they) and they're both on hrt but opposite ways

...that's pretty much it. they're nonbinary. they're lesbians. they're in love!

but i do have a hilarious fic idea that i really want to write that i desperately want to share! basically it's transmasc kita, but he's stealth. except he doesn't know he's stealth. he doesn't really think about the fact that no one ever sees him change or anything, and he's just a guy so like. there's nothing to talk about? but then he and aran are making out and getting handsy and aran feels his binder/bra and is confused. so kita tells him he can take it off and aran is like what. and after some confusion kita is like aran. you know what a bra is. and aran is like but???? why are you wearing it?????? and kita is like i'm trans. literally everyone knows this. you know that aran. but aran very much did not know that

anyway this is so fucking long i could keep going about arankita but like my previous responses about this, i will stop here lmao

@emosuna

(reminder while we're here that trans is an umbrella term, nonbinary is under the trans umbrella, and nonbinary is also an umbrella term that covers identities like genderfluid, genderqueer, bigender, etc.)

[humanmosquito]

this is definitely gonna be a ramble-y post but i’ll neaten it when i’m done. (edit:  didn’t really but I’m sick of this sitting here already)

I’ve put this under a cut for obvious reasons. There’s more things I didn’t like about this book but I forgot most of the plot immediately after reading it.

Given the usual time skips in Clare’s work you’d think this would be 6 months down the line and Livvy would have been completely forgotten about and is mentioned sporadically to motivate the main characters. 

I’m not really buying the shock of Livvy’s sudden death i would say Clare’s done a job here and she’s certainly tried, but i’m not buying it.

Her treatment of Gay Characters (capitalisation necessary) is bad but so much worse with Alec than any others and i hate reading about her Alec bc of the way she infantilises him. Also has Clare seriously not found any way to solve problems in her own fictional universe without constantly reintroducing the same guy??? (who is also just a bunch of stereotypes of queer men) (Magnus)

you don’t need to use two separate images to describe people moving in the background, it’s fine.

why is Christina using Spanish pet names when we’ve never seen her using Spanish conversationally before? also, ( and this is a very specific thing to to be so worked up about like 4 years after i read it the first time) but why do whatshisname and Christina have to talk in English instead of implying the conversation was in Spanish but had been translated or even mention it at all? (okay, coming back in later to say that she does use Spanish randomly in this book, Clare has a habit of making Latine characters use Spanish randomly to show they’re Latine.

isn’t Mark 20 or something? I’m legitimately confused about these lines.

there’s no need to suddenly start using fancier language for two whole sentences. also you can just say she visited a wax museum or even Just Madame Tussaud’s (which i’m guessing is the place we’re talking about). also: why is all the dialogue in this book so stiff and overly formal? I know they’re in shock and some of them are functionally strangers but it’s still so off from how people normally speak. (I’m willing to excuse the faerie characters because everyone who writes faeries makes them speak super flowery but that’s it)

there’s no break between Mark and Helen’s POV.

 I’m pretty sure than Simon is secular, why is he suddenly sprouting hebrew? (CC makes no effort to show him engaging with judaism in any form and has him Christmas shopping at one point in tmi)

wouldn’t that make it much easier to break in? (this is needlessly pedantic, I know)

A lot of people said that Emma just becomes a way to talk about how amazing Julian is and I’m beginning to see that. She focuses on the sound he makes walking along a hallway way too much. (Also: coming back a week later to add that Julian just gets worse and worse and for a character that we’re supposed to love(?), he has absolutely no redeeming qualities.)

Doesn’t witchlight only light up when a shadowhunter is holding it? I remember that from TID.

The rally with Dearborn feels like an attempt at the bit at the beginning of 1984 where they’re watching the propaganda video and the woman is crying out for big brother. also, there’s no way to write people chanting someone’s name that doesn’t make it feel like mediocre fanfiction, huh? The whole scene is very over the top and not at all like the actual process of radicalisation. 

who thinks like this? Who thinks about themself like this?

The descriptions of the shadowhunters at the funeral are weird. Emma is described as putting on gear then wearing a dress, Christina has a gear jacket over a dress and Ty is in full gear.

she’s not even being subtle about stealing plot points from the tv show, is she?

why does she keep choosing random words to translate into Spanish? It isn’t necessary unless the word also means a specfic type of that word. A vela isn’t a specific type of candle, that’s just the Spanish word for candle. 

Doesn’t Jonathon Shadowhunter creating runes go against tsc canon? No one could make new runes except Clary because of her extra angel blood. (I should know, I read the fucking Shadowhunter codex). (there are more instances of CC creating thing that go against canon but i kinda got bored of making this list after here)

(I know the answer to this one is just CC’s incest fetish but) Why did everybody just let Christina get engaged to her cousin?

I have to say that my suspension of disbelief lasted longer than I thought it would but it ends with Julian killing a Rider with a D&D figurine.

The whole Thule bit feels like it was copy-pasted from ao3 (While we’re on the subject of copied from ao3 “Ragnor Fell lives” is such a “saw it on Tumblr” cop out)

how did the cohort get Jaime? It’s not explained and I wish it was.

Julian sucks. capital-S Sucks. For the guy Emma is facing Losing her Shadowhunter life for and going into exile for, he’s a dick, with emotions he comes off as creepy, over-sexed and obsessed. Without he’s somehow even worse.

Zara calling Cl*ce disgusting and being called wrong for it is such an obvious dig at the people who criticised Clare when she wrote them nearly fucking in a ditch when they thought they were bio siblings. (I’m p sure they’re also adopted siblings and they consider the same man their dad, so it would still be incest.) 

Also, she’s so one-dimensional and every scene with her, especially in the last 1/2 of the book was exactly the same. (emma attacks her but decides to let her go which was a ~mistake~ with consequences (consequences being “we see Zara again”))

It's not even a subtle D*mbl*dore's Army rip-off, huh?

I take back all the things I thought about Clare improving as a writer, chapter 33 makes literally no sense, also cannot do dialogue or consistent characterisation. (how did any of these get published, TMI especially)

Once again, Clare seems to be stealing plot points from the TV show. (Of course there’s going to be some overlap between the show and books even after it diverged from book canon but it’s getting pretty ridiculous at this point, isn’t it?). 

Okay, every woc in this book is here to further the white protagonists’ story (which i guess is the purpose of supporting characters but the white supporting characters do fuck all) And i get they have their own love interests but it was super forced (don’t @ me for this, Kierarktina had potential but it was all rushed in the second half of this book because Clare realised what a cash cow it was)

Diana gets a little tropey (Speaking as a trans person) but her treatment b Vlare and the other characters was okay. I do wish she was allowed more personality than “no one can love me or know me because I’m trans” (it’s stupid and overused) and “helps the Blackthorns and Emma”. (also Clare knows that you don’t stop taking HRT, right? it isn’t a limited course, it’s not Gender-Changing Antibiotics.)

My final thing is that it went on way too long, like, insufferably long. (you’d think long enough to explain some plot holes, but no.)

[judaciously]

this is the second year in a row @princepestilence​ tagged me in his “Your Worth It Things” but last year at this time I just.. didn’t do it! This year, though. This year.

2017 had been a mixed bag-- I spent the first half of it in a miserable, depressed haze, but the latter half I moved 15 hours away to an entirely new life and everything changed. 2018 was the first year in my life I felt like an actual, real person, and not just a facsimile of existence.

It was pretty great!

2018 had its ups and downs for sure, it wasn’t all a great time. I had bad mental health days, rough weeks and even months, but I made so much progress in my life. I’m happy for, like, the first time ever, and that rules.

Here's my worth it things:

-I played so much DND. Just, a whole lot. DND is actually the reason my life changed at all and that is both hilarious and amazing. Sometimes the littlest of things snowball and lead to grandiose changes. (Actually, if you want to go further back than that, it was animorphs. Animorphs was the original snowflake.)

-Not only did I play a bunch of DND, I started DMing and turned out to be good at it! It's hard and I haven't always done a stellar job, but, like, I'm good at it. It's been a big learning process but I made the step and haven't ever regretted it.

-Art progress, holy shit! I've put a LOT of effort into getting better at drawing this year and it's worked. That's Pretty Neat, I Think. We did it, kids. I've got a long way to go still, but I've been able to track my progress and that's real encouraging.

-Gender! It's dumb, mostly, but like. I've been figuring it out. I'm a nonbinary trans man. I went from thinking I was like, demigirl lesbian to abandoning the girl part entirely and going back to a bi label, and now I'm Some Sort of Dude. In this same vein, I changed my name around the early months and I looove it. It feels right. I like my name. Jude! That's me!

-Oh, on my birthday this year my roommates bought me an ice cream cake and had the people write "We're glad you're not dead!" on it. that ruled. Apparently the people at baskin robbins got a huge kick out of it. So did I.

-I also met several internet friends in person! Some for the first time, one for the third-- My best friend Jack spent a few days with me in May and I LOVE THEM. I also met some other dweebs. We cuddled. It was great.

-I told my brother and my father about my gender and new name and b oth of them have been so supportive. My mother wasn't, and so I don't have a mom anymore, but I have my dad and my brother and that's hella great!

-I started dating the most incredible person and, uh, I'm gay, y'all. Listen. I ain't gonna be gross and go off about them too much but. It's amazing. They know how I feel. (We're also in a poly partnership with someone else, and he's great and I love him. Listen. I'm gay.)

The last few months of 2018 were the best in my entire life. Here's to 2019 going well for me as well. For the first time I'm able to think of the future with hope and wanting rather than dread.

Goals for 2019:

Finish Gate's Edge! We're almost done with it already, but finishing it is gonna be an incredible accomplishment! I love this story, and I know my players do, and I'm doing my absolute best to make it as memorable and rewarding as it can be.

More art progress. Just in general. No real goal, just.. get better.

...Maybe I'll start transitioning. Like, HRT. I don't know. More thoughts on that to come. We'll see.

I'm gonna spend, like, the maximum time possible with my datemate. In a couple days I'm gonna be spending over a week with them in their hometown and it's gonna be just the best. Paid work vagaytion with the love of my life. It's my belated Christmas as well.

WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE, I AM BUT A SIMPLE BOY AND THINKING OF THE FUTURE IS HARD!!! I just want to be happy, man! Do some more writing! I want to write so much! GE has taken over my life and is the only thing creativity-wise I really think about or work on anymore, but it's almost over and when it is I'm taking a break from DMing and focusing back on writing novels and such! Fuck yeah! We love a creativity!

Here's to 2019. Thanks for tagging me in this, Grey. And to whoever reads this, may your 2019 be stellar, too, even if your 2018 wasn't.

[rexylafemme]

infinite deaths lead to infinite transformations

i recognize lately that there's this lingering sense of failure & loss & sadness living in my body, existing just out of frame in my thoughts (meaning, i guess, i don't give real space, attentive space to), having specifically to do with [said in bratty, tongue-in-cheek, big big air quotes] "my identity," "my body." 

the other night i was on the phone with a dear kindred friend of many years, was responding to something she said and i said, "if i were you, that would make me feel really bad. i mean, if i were a human being, that would..." i stopped and then we both started cracking up. freudian slip. in the moment, i'm not quite sure what i meant, but it felt like i really meant it, really natural to say. not being a human being is a sense i have about myself, i think because humanness is defined by things that are fundamentally exclusive of my experience, how i see myself, how i think, how i move through the world, what my body is. also, trans people just ARE mythical creatures.

anyway, whatever. i don't "exist" technically, but i do exist actually. and also, we have always existed, we-- trans people [which i use as a really broad, inclusive term to include all of the figures who never are/were able to claim that term, all of the figures for whom it does/did not exist, all of the figures it is/was robbed from, all of the figures who it is/was rewritten out of] have always existed. we are not new.

anyway, whatever. this quieted, stifled, devastated feeling of loss/grief/sadness/failure. though i wrote an article about it, i've never actually grieved testosterone. grieved taking it, grieved what i would not have not taking it, the death of the possibility. that my decision to stop was motivated by a number of things we aren't really able to talk about with pride, gusto, ease. [who is we in this sentence, all my non-human, trans self-states (?)  strung together through this thread of my life, the life i didn't ask for but i have anyway and try to appreciate tho it seems widely the Reality i live in, am called Human or not-Human in, doesn't appreciate me often-- tho i have a lot of really amazing loving people in my life far and wide, and, yes, have fought to carve out space to be seen in, acknowledged in, appreciated in [not just for trans-ness] however fully or un-fully, however full of truths or lies.]   i'm fucking crazy-- i identify that way, probably ahead of any other thing i am other than being poor and white, i am crazy before i am trans, i am crazy before i am anything that defines what my body is bc who cares and who knows but me [tho i recognize the political importance of identifying my body as something, i guess, even when it is nothing, feels like it or i am outside of it mostly or effectively it is treated like nothing, by me, others, lovers, the state, etc], i am crazy before i am queer-- if even i am that, having always had an ambivalent relationship with that term given its evolution as this annoying and unfortunate category that recycles exclusion and problems of white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, gatekeeping, rules for how to be, who to fuck/love/be close to and how, how to look, what to wear, what to like, builds institutions whose foundations are based in all of the above, etc. how quickly we forget how poor crazy black, brown, and white people radicalized the word queer, how it became Queer, trademarked by judith butler et al, liberal arts colleges, universities, research journals and then further used to silence, reject, consume, criticize, murder-by-complicity poor crazy black, brown, and white trans and queer people. rageful yawn! [so boring, so anger-producing, so over it]. and all of this so then jill soloway can make "the best tv series of the century"  [so says a white cis old dude w/ money named sparrow to my trans coworker who gets fed up with him after he says something like 'oh your name is different than it was a few months ago, that's so interesting. no one changes their names anymore unless they're transsexuals" and then they were like "yeah that would be me." "OHHHH TRANSPARENT IS THE BEST TV SHOW OF THE CENTURY," sparrow says in response. sparrow, who said to me, as many before him have and many after will: "YOUR name is rex? YOU? it's so WEIRD, YOUUU have that name???! wow, who would've thought!" cuz being a grown-ass white man self-named after a fucking bird isn't weird at all. transparent, yay, the tv show about US, that's not really about US. and i watch it so i guess i'm probably a hypocritical asshole, but i am starving for some representation. anyway, whatever. i'm probably crazy and poor before other things because crazy and poor provides the wash over which everything else i live is experienced. crazy, poor, grieving this synthetic steroid i experienced as poison in my body and brain. this thing i can't have that i want. this toxic thing. toxic because it erodes away my vag, toxic because it could destroy my liver, toxic because continued use over time could pose all these extreme health problems, but who knows really! cuz, why would we study that?! and when we do study it, why would we focus on the multiplicity of bodies and spectrum of people who approach HRT?! toxic because i am a crazy poor person with a lot of health problems to begin with that i don’t talk about and i probably would develop all the like, weird anomalous issues that "most people just won't ever have to worry about"! [most people is... ? ]

toxic because i lost all track of how i related to myself, how i felt, or what i even wanted while i was on it. i know what i want and what i like [about what it gave me]: more hair everywhere [yay!], androgynizing body shape [awesome!], growth in my underwear [i don't really know what to call what in-betweenness is going on there, cockette i say to myself but that feels maybe too campy for general use and not sexy however fitting and hilarious. anyway, it's cool and fun!], androgynizing voice [sometimes sultry, sometimes pubescent, sometimes girly, fran fine as a man laugh, excellent]. and the goal was always androgynizing, was always becoming something else, not one thing. tiresias, venus as a boy, dionysus, whatever.

but so i am sad because i can't move forward with those things that i like. the embodiment. and embodiment for me, as a crazy poor person, is constantly difficult. am i ever even in my body, do i have one, what is it good for, why. i moved further away from a sense of even desiring "masculinity" when i started t. that was a gift, to realize my desire wasn’t about acquisition of “maleness.” i just wanted all the things i described above: the physical changes that for whatever reason signify "maleness" or "trans-maleness" and therefore told people that's what i wanted because i wanted those physical attributes. i don't wanna be a man or a trans man. man, not something that i ever felt like. boy, dude, male, maybe, some hybrid masc/femme thing, cross-human.  i definitely didn't want the head-hair loss/thinning, which happened and put me into a neurotic, severely gender-NONCONFIRMING frenzy. i can't lose my hair i can't lose my hair. call it femme vanity, i dunno or really care, a bitch isn't gonna be bald, that's it, not ok not possible not happening so that also informed my decision to stop t, tho i didn't really admit it. i won't say i didn't/don't want the "he" pronoun, sometimes. i want them all. i'm greedy and excessive and i don’t like being limited. i want to be what i am: a mix, a shapeshifter. one angle i look like one thing, one angle another. the reason people stare at me all the time: bewildered, upset, confused, looking for clear markers. staring at my crotch or into my eyes, my face, working out their assessments. judging what i'm wearing against my facial hair against my makeup against my voice against an absence of breasts against my name against my...

anyway, whatever. i am sad because i can kinda have all of those things: more hair, more androgynized body. if i try hard enough. if i have enough time and money. because i could see a nutritionist and an herbalist specializing in trans health [they exist if you can pay to see them!]. or alternately, i could DIY it, buy all the herbs in the androgynizing herb regimen i came up with through research, and i could take them every day for... forever if i wanted, or for however long i wanted to, based solely on my desire to do it. not if i wanted, if i could. but i don't have the money. and i can't. and i could do all the exercises that would androgynize my shape. if i had the time and the energy. if i could get my shit together enough. if i weren't cycling in and out of housing insecurity since i returned to nyc and even before and through my whole life. if i weren't, some days, just able to do the bare minimum for myself, if i weren't racked with body pains somedays from a combination of: the things i do to my body that are bad for it [binding], not being able to sleep, work, running around, having a sick, sensitive body, the ways i carry stress in my body and where. if i didn't have problems prioritizing myself. if i weren't afraid of the structure of my exercise and nutrition regimen evolving into eating disorder and unhealthy obsession like they have before. if i weren't crazy.

it becomes about all the things i am always failing at that i can't do much about other than be patient and accept the material/systemic/emotional limitations that frame my life. back to poor, back to crazy: why i can't move forward at the speed that i would like to with my "transition." crazy means i can't be on t without being crazier and more sleepless and more in trauma self-states. crazy means i sometimes can't live up to my own structures and routines for my own health: body, mind, spirit. poor means i can't go to the trans nutritionist, the trans herbalist, buy the herbs and have them all the time. and i'm trying so hard to get that money, to do that. or, i'm trying so hard to be okay with not having what i want, what i need. remembering it's not my fault. there's nothing i can do about it. but that's not really a consolation so much as it is another reminder of my powerlessness to shift certain realities that affect not only me, but so many other people i care about, or people i do not know, everyone who should have everything that they want and need, regardless of who they are and what they can afford materially/socially/politically.

and i am grieving for all the knowledge we have lost and is not widely accessible. because tho i may not have the evidence or may not have done all the research, i fucking know people have been "transitioning" naturally and through magic for as long as people have existed and throughout all cultural contexts, whether trans-ness has been exalted (and it has, throughout time) or demonized/criminalized/driven underground. our mythological selves.