I think the warm water and rhythmic motions of washing dishes works for me when high … I guess I could see folding being rhythmic if you have a bunch of towels to fold, but hanging clothes is a lot of walking around and putting things in hangers, which can be awkward for me to coordinate and more exhausting, and not satisfying the same way as folding.

Laundry I guess is usually more neutral to negative for me, even when high - but I’ll try to see it a different way in case there is a way for me to enjoy it … I could imagine really enjoying folding freshly warmed towels, for example.

😭

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

I love doing dishes when high, omfg - I’m glad I’m not the only one!

+1 for Posteo

this would probably just lead to the corporation taking more and more of a role until they take over development of the FOSS projects they care about, which is a particular nightmare I would prefer to avoid

was upset enough when Microsoft bought Github

Regarding weight changes and redistribution, I wanted to ask if your weight gain and loss happened over long or short periods of time? I’ve read that quick weight loss and the gain will mostly put the fat where it has been previously, so male distribution of fat remains in place. So weight cycling for redistribution purposes requires slower cycles of gain and loss (which seems to track people’s experiences of seeing the changes over years).

edit: I think this is related to “fat memory”:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fat-cells-retain-a-memory-of-obesity-making-it-hard-to-lose-weight-and-keep-it-off-study-suggests-180985501/

China does not allow or recognize same-sex marriages, are jailing gay women for writing erotica online, trans people have to have bottom surgery before they are permitted to update official documents, trans women are forced to notify their family and prove they have no criminal record before being allowed access to HRT, and in 2022 China passed a law preventing buying estrogen or anti-androgens online even with a prescription.

This is all much worse than in the US where most states allow you to update your gender marker on official documents without surgery, HRT can be obtained on the basis of informed consent (and without requirements of disclosing to family or having no criminal record), and LGBT+ people are not being jailed for writing erotica …

The U.S. is indeed dangerous, and you are probably in greater danger of being a victim of stochastic violence in the U.S. than in China, but that is not the only thing that people look at when deciding if a country has better or worse laws, rights, or conditions for LGBT+ people.

edit: btw this isn’t a theoretical problem for me, if China recognized same-sex marriage and had sufficient trans healthcare, I would probably be in China right now - I can’t take refuge there because their laws are anti-LGBT+ and would not permit me a spousal visa to stay in the country because I’m a woman married to a woman.

I’m sorry, I meant my comment mostly in jest (and somewhat bewilderment), I didn’t mean to come across as rude 🤐

If your point is that Americans are in a stronger position to enter a foreign country and stay there by various means like getting sponsored by an employer or on a student visa, that seems clear enough - that’s true even if just on the basis that Americans tend to have more money, assets in US dollars, and potentially better opportunities to get sought-after education in the U.S. that would make them skilled laborers in other parts of the world.

My point was just to clarify that getting that legal basis of staying in the foreign country (which is the point of the asylum claim) is not trivial even if it is easier for Americans relative to other nationalities. There are trans people in detention camps in Europe because they declared asylum and are being prepared for deportation back to the U.S. - not everyone is a skilled laborer or eligible to be a student (let alone successful in pursuing those opportunities).

And most of the trans population does not have passports, let alone the financial means to leave the country. Fleeing the country is a solution for a privileged minority. Most of us can’t even leave the oppressive states we live in and move to more progressive states with laws that protect trans folks.

Also, the U.S. is still one of the best places in the world to be trans - we have better access to trans healthcare and rights than most of the rest of the world, and even the rest of the West. The situation is deteriorating (as it is in most of the rest of the world), but they did not even succeed in passing a trans athlete ban through Congress, let alone criminalization of being trans or revocation of care. Nothing like the laws that were on the books in the 1970s that outright banned “cross-dressing” have been passed or enforced.

love Max Ernst, and this is such a great interpretation of the work!

Here’s a piece of artwork that resonated with my experience of gender:

Here’s a transcript of the blurb:

Reflecting on societal expectations to be a nurturing and protective mother, Louise Bourgeois described Nature Study as a self-portrait that explores themes of alienation, family, gender, identity, and maternity. The multi-breasted, headless creature pays homage to a number of ancient guardian deities including Cybele, the mother-goddess who symbolizes fertility in Phrygian and later Greco-Roman ancient mythology.

Bourgeois produced the figure in a variety of different media, including bronze, marble, porcelain, rubber, and wax. Among Bourgeois’s most iconic works, Nature Study emphasizes evolution, metamorphosis, and hybrid ways of being that blur animal and human, male and female – concerns central to her sculptural production.

For me it conveyed aspects of being dehumanized and animalistic which relates to the way I experience my gender as making me monstrous or sub-human; the sculpture obviously has elements evoking both male and female sexes, but overall feels female. Just struck me as deeply relatable.

> making false claims that Americans can go anywhere and stay

> thinking trans people would be seeking asylum in Russia

> account is new

you sure you’re not some kind of bot?

the American passport allows for easy initial entry, but doesn’t guarantee permanent residence, asylum cases are to permit people to stay legally in the country longer than the (short) initial period allowed for tourism …

this isn’t true, being American does not grant you indefinite legal right to live in other countries - you have to find some way to be sponsored and have a visa that gives you a legal basis

being able to visit a country for a short period of time as a tourist is not the same as being able to legally stay longer, get a job, secure housing, etc.

Canada is not accepting American LGBT+ folks’ asylum claims, there was a single case of a non-binary person who was not deported because they were a caretaker and because the US could be unsafe, and there is an American trans woman’s asylum claim that will be heard, but neither case establishes that American asylum claims will be accepted

as far as I know, no country is granting asylum to trans people fleeing America; and no, the recent Supreme Court decision to allow Trump to enforce his policy while the court case is pending does not change that

whether other countries grant asylum is not necessarily the same as whether the US is actually unsafe enough for trans people to need to flee, though

@[email protected]

this sounds right to me, but I think it’s also important to be sensitive to the local norms of the group you are in … I wouldn’t assume there are global rules, and what is comfortable or expected will vary.

That’s not necessarily helpful, but it might be good to know that it’s better to be relaxed and receptive than rigid and anxiously following a rulebook.

I wouldn’t generally ask if anyone wants to join me going to the restroom, but I might in some contexts announce I need to and will be going, allowing others to join if they want. In some contexts announcing also allows coordinating in case someone needs to stay to keep a table or spot reserved, and it can then sometimes be more like a question of consent that it’s ok if I go (because my going might restrict their going in that situation).

I use a larger and higher quality chuck as a safety, and on top I use a cheaper, thinner, and smaller puppy pad that I don’t mind throwing out. The larger chuck I can use for a week or longer without replacing assuming I don’t have any accidents, but the smaller puppy pads catch all the mess and get disposed of.

Part of why it’s nice to have an absorbent layer under is that I end up lying in it for a while and puddles of lube and blood are uncomfortable.

I’ve also found it can help to take a squeezed out wet wipe or some absorbent material and fold it up and place it as a dam, beneath the vagina (basically held in the butt cheeks, from the anus / perenium area down). This absorbs a lot of the discharge that runs down, which makes me more comfortable as it reduces the puddle.

this is why I have some “rag” towels I don’t mind staining or using for tough jobs

tbh just not thinking about it and avoiding triggers … I never wanted children until I was on estrogen, unfortunately that flipped my biological switch and now I wish I could get pregnant and have kids 😞

my voice and face are much greater daily sources of dysphoria, usually the pregnancy issue comes up when I see other mothers and I yearn to be like them.

That said, it’s tempered some by knowing even if I could get pregnant, I’m not sure I would do it - I don’t feel ready or competent enough. I feel like I haven’t figured out how to care for myself yet, let alone be well enough that I would feel confident I wouldn’t screw up my kids. I see how little is in my control, and I just couldn’t stomach participating in perpetuating cycles of generational trauma.

aw, thank you! 🫶

I think the fundamentals for voice feminization will apply here - at least her voice sounds more attainable, so many girls just want to sound like Ariana Grande who has a voice that is extreme even for cis women to emulate (it is girly, higher in pitch, lighter, and smaller than most women’s voices).

Personally I found it distressing to compare my voice to cis voices, I always found that set me up for worse training - I know voice therapists will want to know voice goals and help you on that path, but I personally thought it was better to set more pragmatic and less emotionally laden goals - basically to pass on the phone and in person as a woman rather than to achieve a particular target voice.

Either way, recommendations are generally to start daily practice of vocal warmups: semi-occluded vocal tract exercises (SOVTEs) like blowing raspberries or into a straw, use a pitch detector and learn to produce a pitch (helps to have a digital piano app so you can listen carefully to the pitch and then learn to reproduce it), then try pitch sustains and slides from the bottom to the top of your pitch range. Over time you can develop capacity to produce higher pitches.

With pitch while talking, you just want to not fall too low, but for singing pitch matters much more, so that’s why I recommendation daily sustains and slides. By sustain I mean producing and singing a particular note for as long as possible, you sustain each note as much as you can. This strengthens the voice. Slides are going from one pitch and moving to another, maybe up and down a few notes, etc. You can even try sliding from your pitch ceiling to your floor. This helps with agility and the ability to change pitch without the voice cracking or breaking.

Regarding vocal feminization, here is a beginner’s guide:

Broadly the two main gendering qualities to a voice are weight and size. With voice training the general idea is to:

1. ear train: learn to recognize when you weight is heavy vs light, when size is large vs small

2. mimic and experiment: learn to produce voices that are different weights and sizes, and esp. how to balance those to produce a typical feminine voice (suitably light and small)

3. practice: just keep listening and recognizing when you’re slipping up and to adjust your voice back into the feminine range, over time and lots of persistent practice, this habituates and becomes your voice!

For exploring weight:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0PpzrWsTUE
• https://clyp.it/nwreza0c

For size:

• https://clyp.it/jdquw5ac
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW8X2nXexQs (this video has some pedagogical flaws, but is still good for listening / experimenting to some extent)

For more about the balance of weight and size (called “fullness”):

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVJuUoypVHE
• https://clyp.it/hu53kin0

Videos to help guide expectations for beginners:

• on goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYSxobwWypI
• on daily practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fylIX28mlyY

For beginners it can also be helpful to explore more achievable lower-pitch feminine voices:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OyfNLWf3UM

To ear train, it’s commonly recommended to listen to and “play along” with Selene’s clips:

• https://selenearchive.github.io/

Note: as you experiment or do any voice training exercise, make sure to pay close attention to:

• how it sounds to you as you do it,
• how it sounds when you record it and play it back for yourself,
• how others report they hear it, and also
• how it feels (in your body) when you produce the different sounds, keeping mental note so you can reproduce the voice if you need.

Experiments to try:

• using a pitch detector, sing a note and chant a word while maintain the same pitch, and change resonance/size from dark/large to bright/small while keeping pitch the same
• using a pitch detector, keep pitch steady and practice going from a heavy to a light weight without changing pitch
• mimic a large voice, like Patrick from Spongebob, or the Giant from Jack in the Beanstalk
• mimic a small voice, like when you talk to a baby or a cute puppy or animal, or accessible overfull childish voices, like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon or Dexter from Dexter’s Lab
• mimic a heavy voice
• mimic a light voice
• try producing an underfull voice intentionally
• try producing an overfull voice intentionally
• try going from full masc to overfull
• from full masc to underfull
• from full masc to full fem
• from full fem back to full masc
• from underfull to full fem
• from overfull to full fem

EDIT: in case you are curious of how effective this vocal training can be, here is a clip of my voice from 6 months ago: https://vocaroo.com/1kSpmaG1Khj2

EDIT2: also, did some pitch detection and her singing in Song to the Siren & Tròdlabùndin seems to be between C4 and C5 - the higher end of those pitches might be hard for me to produce as strongly as needed for singing in a performance, but they are definitely within my pitch range and could be strengthened such that I can use them when singing, so maybe they are for you too?

You might try using a pitch detector and establishing what your current pitch range is. I can’t seem to produce a pitch much lower than G2, and my default pitch / baseline was at C3, so my voice is usually between C3 and C4. I just try to not let my pitch fall below E3, since that dips into to more masculine territory.