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{July 30, 2008} hormones!!!!

well, not quite totally immediately today yet. but if nothing unexpected shows up in the blood tests, then on wednesday.

i saw the endocrinologist today. he’s slightly older, say in his fifties, and first i was a little stressed and hesitant to be totally open. but that changed when i realised that he actually knew what he was talking about, that he’d taken it on himself to learn about trans issues, that he’d read books, and not just medical ones. out of all the medical type people i’ve talked to about being trans he’s the first ever who actually had a clue. which was totally reassuring.

and then he just asked a bunch of standard questions, and that he needs my t to call him to confirm things. and his nurse took some blood for tests, just to have a base-line and rule out any surprises. and i’ve got my next appointment next wednesday, and if there’s no nasty little surprises i’ll get a prescription then.

i’m feeling totally giddy!!!!

{July 28, 2008} whee! i’m back.

or, well, i’m announcing an intention to be back, because i think it’s a good idea.

current happenings are manyfold: there’s the new job at the telly which is turning out rather fun, just for seeing all the old (well, five years ago) news and how differently i read them now with a more sociological mind (but also for all the technology stuff and the different enterprise culture (it’s full of freaks! :P ) and for like randomly running into the news anchorman (he’s the sex, really)).

there’s the whole transition which is running like on greased rails. laser is moving along with nice effects, and on wednesday i’m seeing an endocrinologist. i suppose he will want to run tests and such first, go all vampiric on my blood. but within a few weeks i ought to be on hormones.

i’ve got a favourite bar now, the Livresse, where i’m becoming a regular. except they’re closed for summer break now. otherwise i can also be seen at the Phare and the Bretelle. i’m out and about every other night or so, and really feel good about interacting with people again like that, because it’s been years and years.

sex is something which might potentially happen. there’s lots of feelings of attraction and stuff going on, and i feel at least somewhat sexy at least some of the time, and its.. ..well, it’s kind of like something is waiting to happen.

{May 12, 2008} the big t

just a heads-up that i’ve added a new page to the static/permanent content. (look to the right -> “the big t”)

it’s not finished, actually it’s still at the draft stage, but i’m trying to get some thoughts out. trying to create a foundation of basic positions i hold, upon which i found arguments, and legitimise what i’m doing.

{April 23, 2008} things which need doing

a list, in no particular order:

make gender a matter of choice
end arms production
create formal, material, and discursive equality
end privilege
create visibility
organise
disorganise
open borders
settle mars, the moon, space, the stars
make death a choice
name and count the dead
end violence
end sexual violence
end slavery
end animal abuse
end abuse of the planet
give voice
give capability to use voice
give space to use voice

i think that’s the most important things. but there’s many more things which ought to be on that list. please help in completing the list, and in getting things done.

{April 14, 2008} little update

i’m just wanting to say that i’ve changed a few details around here, though they’re really details and i don’t yet know what they’ll do. perhaps the most important bits are that if it ought to truncate long posts automatically from now on, and when i insert images in future they should appear as thumbnails.

i’m also adding to the links (that’s an ongoing effort), and i’ve updated the “about” page. further static pages are likely to be appearing sooner or later.

{April 13, 2008} garden party

my friend Severine invited us to celebrate her birthday with a garden-party in the park today.

we had a great time. for starters we had excellent weather, which was a bit unexpected after all the rain and the cold of earlier in the week. so we got to sit and lie around in the sun and the warm. i got to see friends i hadn’t seen for too long, which made me happy. there were sleeping babies and happy laughing playing children. nummy food (i was quite proud of the shushi i’d made). a relatively fierce philosophical debate around radical critique and the problem of nihilism (at least that’s where we ended, don’t ask me what we all touched on).

to make it all just that little bit nicer, everybody was gendering me as a girl, no questions or looks or anything. which feels pretty awesome.

funny sidenote: i wanted to find thinkout’s blog (thinkout being the genevan students lgbt association). so i google “thinkout”. guess who’s on the first page, and who only on the second? maybe this will help them move up a rank or two. (and me too :P ).

{April 8, 2008} being read - the good side

after class yesterday, waiting to talk to the professor, this punky girl comes up to me and kind of a little embarrassed or shy or something smiles at me, me being also all shy and stuff it’s kind of hesitating half-smiles, then she says that she really likes my new hair. which makes me happy of course.

she goes on to say that when she saw me from the back of the class she wondered who that new girl was, before recognising it was me. so i said that yeah, “new girl” was really close to the mark. at which she gave me a huge smile and wasn’t discovering who you really are just teh awesome?! she totally made my day.

i need to talk to her more, and, like find out her name, and what classes she takes, and invite her to thinkout and stuff. also, i had a very interesting talk with the professor afterwards, about what i want to study, and where and why would be good places for that, and i’m more and more inclined to agree that lausanne sounds good for me.

finally, in a little moment i’m going to come out to the folks in the committee of the sociology students association. i’m a little bit nervous, the only group coming out i’ve had so far was to thinkout, and they were already confirmed friendlies. but it’s going to be fine.

{April 7, 2008} what i learned today

today i learned:

that superfluids are quantumliquids
that quantum liquids have interchangeable particles (they're liquid not solid), that they have high degrees of order, and that they display quantum effects at a macroscopic level
that they get ordered because they are very very cold
that both He3 and He4 become superfluid at low enough temperatures, even though one has spin states of x/2 which should be able to become superfluid and the other has spin states of full numbers (after that it became complicated with hadrons and leptons and barions and whatnot)
that electrons in a metal can also behave like quantum liquids, even though they are locked in a solid. and that that somehow is linked to superconductivity
that the universe isn't just expanding, but at an accellerating pace, which means that galaxies we can currently see will some day no longer be visible (both mum and me underlined that in our notes)
that only about 4% of the universe seems to be made up of normal matter/energy, and that our current physics can only account for those 4%, and we don't have a clue what happens in the other 96%
that dark matter might also have dark anti-matter
that in a particle accelerator we do the inverse of converting matter to energy. we pump energy in and that makes the particles more and more massy
that the followup to the LHC will be a CLIC (compact linear collider ?) which is planned to be 48 km long. but machined to micro-meter precision
that it helps to arrive early when a whole little migration is taking place to see the LHC, and to figure out that you need to get a reserved time-slot early on for seeing the actual accelerator
that it'll have a voltage of 100MV per meter
and needs a secondary accelerator to feed enough power into the elements of the first one to make those voltages/accelerations
that the LHC experiments will produce 1GB of data per second. which needs to be streamed out over the internet at the speed it's created at least
that the lecture theatres at cern are much more luxurious that the ones at uni, at least the ones i saw. but that they still have oldstyle blackboards
that i can be around masses of people all day and nobody ever calls me sir or monsieur

uhh, i was at the cern today for their open day. it was totally awesome!

{April 3, 2008} hair and therapy

today i got my hair done. it’d been kind of bugging me for a while, mainly because it was quite out of control. so i got the hairdresser to chop off 3 or 4 inches and put some order into it. plus it means that most of the hair which got ruined last autumn when i decided to go from black to blonde is now gone, and that’s good too (don’t ask me why i thought my hair in particular would stand up to going from black to blonde, nor why i thought blonde would suit me :P ). anyway, i am well satisfied the result, but see for yourself:
new hair

also today, i had my first meeting with the new t. her office is down by the river, in a rather ugly block of flats from the seventies or so. but with parking spaces for bicycles right in front of the entrance. the waiting area has this really weird modern design with freestanding glass walls and tilted surfaces and stuff. but her actual office is totally awesome, a bit like a comfortable living-room, a little untidy which i find comforting. and a huge big window which looks out directly over the river. very much the most comfortable and agreable place i’ve ever met a therapist. the t herself is about 50 or so, looks comfortable with herself (though i couldn’t for the life of me describe her face or even the colour of her hair, i’m totally useless for that). i felt comfortable talking, quite at ease. of course i’ve come miles since i last talked to a t, and am not the quivering lump of lack of self-esteem i used to be, so that helps a lot too. in any case we’ll be meeting friday in a week, and then we’ll talk about timetables and stuff :)

so overall i’m feeling quite good. :)

i had something else to say, but my brain is doing weirdies on me…

{March 3, 2008}

rundown in bullet-points because my thoughts are a mess and it’s been too long since i updated:

two weeks of term gone by, and i really have to start doing my reading
two much work to do: presentations, fieldwork, reading reading reading (like, the NASA report on the columbia accident for starters)
i’ve joined a forum for young(ish) transsexuals in transition, which is pretty neat and gives a more constant place to exchange ideas and talk about feelings than the bi-monthly 360 groups.
i’ve gone out twice in two weeks, which is like totally unheard of from me since, oh, when things fell apart back in ‘98.
both times as a girl
though i’ve got no idea whether or how i pass.
i correct myself: i went out three times!
all three times as a girl.
whether i pass or not, as far as the youngins are concerned (like, the regular students in their early twenties or what) it seems to be a non-issue, and nobody else has said anything either.
though i did get some whistles riding back on the bicycle the other night. not nice/a bit worrying. i maybe have to think about what’s safe and stuff. but i don’t want to slow my momentum.
doctors: *grrr*
all the doctors around here are overbooked. or, to be more precice, the psychiatrists who i must see in order to get hormones and laser and everything.
doctor nr. 1 i first called in november, and even though i’ve called back since still no contact. his assistant says they’ll get back to me when they’ve got time available to take on a new patient.
doctor nr. 2 says straight out that she’s got no slot available until at least beginning of april, call back then.
doctor nr. 3 has been unreachable so far.
otherwise there’s lausanne, but i would prefer avoiding having to travel so far to see the doctor. in particular as i’ll be seeing them for many years to come.
not that lausanne is very far, but it’s way out of bicycle range.
in the meantime the idea of obtaining ‘mones elsewhere is becoming more and more attractive. it’s not as if they were some hyper-dangerous drug, and there’s an institute which will test pills for purity etc. anonymously (but i’d have to look them up).
on the other hand that’d require a functionning credit-card (assuming i go the internet way).
or else i have to find a friendly doctor. actually, at one of those parties there was a med-student in like their 5th or 6th year and i did ask them if they could help me obtain ‘mones. but no luck.
for some reason i’m convinced that i’m one of those people on whom estrogen will have an immediate and powerful effect. i rationalise that belief on the basis of testosterone having had relatively little effect (thank goodness) so estrogen ought to be able to work all the better.
i do know that that’s probably just a dream.
but who knows, i might be lucky. :)
anyway, yeah, that credit-card. i need a job.
this is a little embarrassing: i think i’ve only ever once actually applied for a job. or twice. but both were jobs with very low requirements. and paid accordingly. all the others i’ve kind of walked into or been presented to.
also, i don’t have a clue what i might like to do.
i guess i’ll go for computers because at least there i’ve got a bit of experience and could get more than entry-level pay.
but computers are teh boooring.
well, not really boring. actually quite fun. but not for helpdesking and antivirusing and stuff.
hey! i should maybe apply to that library computer monitor position! that way i’d be in the library. that’d be teh awesum!
okay, new to-do: apply at library place.
heh, blogging as a decision making tool. :P
currently reading: battle royale.
it’s weird and bloody and upsetting. and morally challenging. what would you do in a situation like that?
hint: don’t read battle royale if you haven’t got a strong stomach.
i plucked my eyebrows the other evening. it’s not really right yet, not exactly where i want them, but i like it. and it’s all in the little steps.
this post has no internal coherence.
i need to write up some notes for identity and socialisation, using intersex as a revelator.
on friday i came out to friend/collegue natacha (slightly older woman doing a weird inexistant degree combining history and sociology, very intelligent). it was a bit random.. ..she was on my list of people to tell soon anyway, and we were talking during break in the awesome social structures class (gender, age, and class - how they are used to create and legitimise distinction, power relationships, domination, and discrimination), and i needed to make a point about something (i think being hyper-aware of gender) and was like “when you’re always confronted with the opposition between your (internal) gender and your (external) sex” or something like that.
in other words, i just acted like it was one of those obvious things, like, of course i’m trans, isn’t everybody? :P
and took it from there, and she reacted totally awesome, totally unperturbed but interested and educated and not at all indifferent.
…which is one of the weirdest coming-out experiences: when you gather all your courage and pour out your heart to somebody and they go like, “oh, okay. i’m happy you’re finding peace with yourself. hey, that (girl/boy) looks hot.”
i mean, it’s awesome that so many people just accept it as something normal, but it’s also a little bit distressing when your big revelation hardly registers on their radar.
i need more clothes. like, a week or two worth of clothes. for going fulltime.
see above about necessity of finding a job.
oh, and a new hairdresser. reminder, ask about friendly hairdressers on tuesday at 360.

…i think that just about covers it. well, some of it. it’s been a while after all. but that’s more or less what my mind is like now. a bit weird. and i thought this would all be boring stuff about schoolwork and stuff…

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