Faith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   5d ago

Things I've learned about myself in the last 4 years of transition:

1. I'm a girl. You'd think this would be something I'd have known before I started transitioning but it wasn't. I thought I wanted to be but that I am took a lot longer.

2. My favorite color is purple. 💜 I used to say by favorite colors were blue and black but that's mostly because I was afraid to embrace a "girly color".

3. I'm a fashion girl. Not only do I love buying and wearing pretty things but what I'm wearing has a big effect on how I feel about myself, how I feel in my body, and my confidence.

4. I love being a software engineer. I still check in on myself with this one pretty regularly because a lot of trans girls find out they actually hate it and bolt as soon as they can. But not me. I still love it.

5. I'm outgping. I'm still somewhat socially awkward thanks to autism and a lack of practice but I'm not actually that introverted. I love being around people and I love meeting and getting to know new people, as long as they're not assholes.

6. I'm actually a pretty cool person and people like me. I used to think my brains were the only thing people liked me for. Get good grades, get a good degree, get a good job, be impressive and then people will like you. But now? People just like me and think I'm cool without knowing anything about my grades or my work.

7. I love food and travel. I did some before but I never really embraced it. Now I love to cook and I actively look forward to every trip and every time I get to see a new city, hear a new language, and experience another culture.

8. I'm sappy as hell. 😂 Sci-fi and fantasy don't do much for me anymore. Give me a sappy romance or a good drama and I'll bawl my eyes out. I love a good coming of age story, too. Trauma and well-presented dysfunction are welcome as well. Anything which hits me in the feels. It doesn't even have to be good as long as it isn't terrible.

I could probably go on. This is just what came to mind today. If you showed me that list 10 years ago, I would have laughed at you.

Especially 3. I wore basically the same thing every day from middle school up until about 3 years ago. Now I'm worried I have a shopping addiction. 😂

Show threadBernie Luckily Does It
@faithisleaping I'm really curious about that "a lot of trans girls find out they hate [software engineering] and bolt." Why do you think that is?
Mar 23 at 1:37amWeb
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   5d ago

@BernieDoesIt There's a lot of reasons but one is that a lot of us end up there because it's a place you can hide. Wear the video game T-shirts, write the code, and you'll be fine. Sure, you still have to perform masculinity to a certain extent but nerdy guy is an easy enough role to play if you've already got the nerdy bit.

There's also a lot of girls who get CS degrees as a dysphoria coping mechanism. When you feel shit about yourself and you're dying inside but you're good with computers, it's something you can do that people will like you for. It gives you a sense of identity when you can't find anything else. You might not know who you are but you're good with computers and you can find identity in that.

Oh, and if you struggle socially, especially in your relationship with other girls, you can explain away a hell of a lot of that with being a nerd. I skipped out on the worst of many a dance by being the photographer.

I'm sure there's other reasons but those are the ones that come to mind tonight.

Show threadJ. R. DePriest    :EA DATA. SF:5d ago

@faithisleaping @BernieDoesIt

"Being the photographer" hits pretty hard. All of this rings true, but that specifically really got me because I didn't realize "performing the male role at a dance gives me the ick" was dysphoria until just now.

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   5d ago
@jrdepriest @BernieDoesIt Uh... Yeah, that one hit me hard, too. 😢
Show threadBernie Luckily Does It5d ago
@jrdepriest @faithisleaping Yeah, I've been reassessing a lot of things in the last few months trying to decide which things were just because adolescence sucks, because of personal issues, and because of dysphoria. It's wild to me how many things I never associated with gender actually seem to be explained better by dysphoria than what I thought caused it before.
Show threadBernie Luckily Does It5d ago
@jrdepriest @faithisleaping Dancing is one I haven't decided on yet. I did like to dance when my family played music when I was a little kid, but I decided I didn't like it when I got to be an adolescent. It could just be that adolescents are expected to dance for longer periods of time and I get bored of dancing after a few minutes, so it might be nothing more than ADHD, but the timing is very suspicious.
Show threadBernie Luckily Does It5d ago
@jrdepriest @faithisleaping The fact that there are male and female roles in dancing would have bothered me, but enough of me likes being masculine that being expected to play the male role wouldn't have bothered me. On the other hand I've realized the dysphoria made me feel very self conscious about people looking at me, and dancing would draw attention to exactly that.
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   5d ago
@BernieDoesIt @jrdepriest Also, clothes and the way you look and the way they feel makes a HUGE difference in how you experience dancing. This is partly a roles thing and partly a thing on its own. I went dancing a few years ago with some friends and it was a life-changing (positive) experience.
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   5d ago

@BernieDoesIt @jrdepriest Some of that came down to gender: I got to dance as a girl in a dress. But some of it also came down to the simple fact that I felt good in my body. Not perfect but good. And so I actually wanted to tear up the dance floor instead of just hide in a corner.

So yeah... 100% a dysphoria thing, at least for me.

Show threadBernie Luckily Does It3d ago
@faithisleaping @jrdepriest I was never a fan of men's formalwear, but dancing in my regular clothes still bothers me, so it can't be just that. Appearance certainly could be an issue. I only realized this fall that I've had dysphoria about the way I look and am shaped since puberty started. Some of it went under the radar and the rest I misattributed.
Show threadBernie Luckily Does It3d ago
@faithisleaping @jrdepriest I'm still trying to figure out that dysphoria about how I look and am shaped because it doesn't really align with the rest. I've been anti-gender for as long as I've been aware of its existence and have known that I like feeling feminine or masculine since the last few years of elementary school. How would you get any kind of preference out of that?
Show threadBernie Luckily Does It3d ago
@faithisleaping @jrdepriest And yet evidently some part of my brain thinks it's wrong that I don't have a feminine waist (but changing my hips and thighs would be equally wrong.) Most of the rest of my body I don't have any dysphoria about, but there is something wrong with my face. The only thing I know for sure is that it's not facial hair because that seems to help.
Show threadBernie Luckily Does It3d ago
@faithisleaping @jrdepriest Ok, that's a long-winded way to say I'm not sure if that's related to the dancing. It's a reasonably assumption to make but I don't understand either well enough to say for sure.
Show threadBernie Luckily Does It5d ago
@faithisleaping This makes a lot of sense.