My hearing is in about a month, but my state has more specific laws for trans name changes and the county uses a higher court for sealed name changes than ones for more mundane changes, so I'm hoping it's pretty smooth and I don't end up with some shitty judge like that.
irotsoma
joined 2 months ago
My teens and 20s were similar. I did have one friend off and on in middle and high school, but more because I tolerated him more than others did than because he cared about me. Things improved later in life once I found an extrovert who was good at gathering people and put a lot of effort into being one of the people who shows up to a lot of her events even when my energy is low. I'm AuDHD, and have a very taxing job so it takes a lot, but it's been well worth it. It also helped that I switched from looking for a partner(s) to looking for friends which might later become partners. Having a partner who isn't a friend but being obligated to spend a majority of time with them was a big problem.
(I eventually transitioned to ethical non monogamy, but that's another subject, but for me it meant finding friends and partners was the same thing essentially. Especially when I abandoned the conditioning of relationship escalators, stopped being envious of partners, and stopped needing to hate partners after breaking up.)
I still have almost no energy for friends during the week, but make sure to plan well in advance and reserve energy or take time off if needed to attend regular events. This still isn't enough social interaction for me, but the stress of the transition stuff and a major promotion at work with tons more responsibility this year has made it all I could handle. Especially after some major relationship drama tied to starting my transition last year.
Anyway, long story...well...it's hard transitioning from school life where you're forced together with people, to work life where positive, lasting bonds are much less likely to happen, but it still takes most of your social energy. So, getting adopted by people who thrive on social gatherings and are good at bringing people together is the way to go, but you have to be reliable to keep getting invited to things. And you aren't likely to create a tight bond with the organizer, that type often isn't good at deep lasting, bonds but the people they gather around them often are seeking those types of bonds.
It will just be "separate" but still "equal" like domestic partnerships were before. Same with mixed race marriages which will be not far down the line. "Leave it up to the states" or whatever, right? "It was never a problem in the 50s", right?
In my experience it's a safety issue kind of thing. If you're in a place with restrooms that are shady and there are a lot of shady people, like dive bars or less high end clubs, then usually use the buddy system. Even if you don't need to use the restroom if someone says they're going, then go with them. You can always tweak makeup and hair until they're done. That's how I usually do it. Not quite as necessary in higher end clubs with good security or where the restrooms are individual ones so you'd have to wait outside anyway, like in many independent restaurants, it's not as convenient. Anyway, more of a safety issue than social in my experience.
As someone who used to have sex with women with my penis when i had one, lube would get rubbed off at the beginning if the vagina was not naturally lubricated and you didn't use enough. It's always a good idea to either apply an excess of lube to the tip so it pushes in further, or pull out a bit as soon as there is resistance so the tip is relubricated by the stuff that was rubbed off on the walls earlier and reinsert (often a few gentle pushes would do the trick), or totally remove, apply more, and reinsert if there wasn't enough applied in the first place.
This is especially true with lubes that are less liquid and so tend to rub off of the shaft/dilator/toy before it gets to depth. Same concept applies in plumbing and other jobs that use certain types of lubricants. Things like certain silicone and oil lubrication (and Teflon and graphite lubricants for plastics and metals, not body parts) don't have this problem as much as they adhere better to the object being inserted and/or use a slightly different mechanism for reducing friction.
So, if they can't preside over a wedding, they shouldn't be allowed to preside over any cases that involve LGBTQ+ people since there's a possibility that they are religiously obligated to imprison or murder such people based on many "sincerely held beliefs" and since they have the power to do those things legally, it sure seems like a perceived conflict of interest. Or something along those lines should be true. So, if any use this to decline to marry, then I hope lawyers will use that to their advantage against that judge in their own cases.
We've had to put more effort into being accepted by society so often appear more friendly. Also, non-binary people especially have a higher rate of autism and other neurodivergent traits which makes us more focused on quality due to ethical standards and better at multitasking and again to have worked a lot on interacting well with society. As for why coffee shops, there's the need for flexibility in neurodivergence and the fact that stimulants are useful to any types of neurodivergence like ADHD.
All of this is just based on several studies I've read and is based on existing data. Of course incidence of neurodivergence is underreported overall due to lack of mental healthcare and neurodivergence care for adults in particular, so it could just be coincidental. It's especially lower reported in older adults since its mostly only diagnosed in childhood and older adults didn't have that and baristas tend to be younger so that could be a factor as well. But anecdotally as an agender AuDHD person myself, it seems to hold some water at least, though I'm a little older so that Batista wasn't really as common of a job when i was younger, so i was never one, but an AuDHD non-binary partner of mine was until fairly recently 😁.
Depth loss is generally permanent, though width loss is not. You a should ask a gyno or your surgeon about it, but generally I'd say don't push it too hard to try to regain depth, it may just cause more damage and pain. But definitely don't stop.
You'll regret it later if you lose all of your depth and need surgery to restore it which can be expensive, hard to find without long wait lists, and may even be illegal soon.
You can try dilators that aren't as wide to reduce pain and give up some of the width for now. It will be painful and take time and patience to regain, but if you think it's going to help you actually do it, that might be an option. Losing depth is a big issue, though. Try not to let it go if you can help it.
I know depression can make it difficult. Try to reward yourself for doing it. Get some ice cream or your favorite desert for afterwards or something like that. I don't have sex with people with penises usually, but I plan to keep my depth as long as humanly possible just to feel healthy and feel more like a woman. Try thinking of it not in terms of what people want to use of you. It's your body. It's part of you. It's not just a fancy fleshlight. 🫂
Fascism requires enemies and you have to pick small groups of people to declare as enemies or you'll end up with too many people fighting back. We trans people are just the latest.
Problem is that the scope of transgendered people is much larger than most people realize due to us having to hide for most of history. There's a reason that estimates a few decades ago were under a hundredth of a percent, current estimates are around 1%, and if you look just at gen Z who mostly are adults and teens now (not "children who dont know any better") with much better education and ability to be "out" in their age group communities it's closer to 5%. If gen Z is 5%, then so is every other generation, even if they don't know it or don't feel safe admitting it. Which doesn't matter as they will be more likely to strongly support their peers. 5% is a large part of the population to turn against.
So as the policies start to affect adults like me struggling to get care because health plans not under the jurisdiction of state insurance commissioners even in progressive states (basically all "employer-funded plans" which most employers now use) and corporate inclusion policies have decided to comply in advance to cut trans care and inclusive policies not just for children/teens, but for everyone, as they know that's next, we're ending up with finding care not just taking a few years of waiting lists, but nearly a decade, or being just impossible to get unless you are very wealthy and can afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. I'm still using my old name at work because I'm not safe to change it in my mid-level position. And we actually still have an LGBTQ+ ERG unlike most very large companies. But it only takes one prejudiced person up high to get you blackballed and they're all feeling empowered right now.
Yeah the switchy operas are the best, if rare. I fortunately have recently had bottom surgery, so yeah, I'm glad I don't need to deal with that anymore. Still recovering so not entirely sure how things are going to go, there. But I also have a lot of trauma, from the typical what it took to get hard and people not understanding it wasn't directly tied to interest in sex, as well as some things testosterone and male gender role expectations caused me to do (not sure some if it wasn't actually rape, but just not classified as rape in our culture), as well as some things bad dommes did to me (almost feeling like revenge for being essentially raped their whole lives, but not called rape). I'm hoping this change will allow me to start over in addition to helping with disphoria as well as allowing me access to some femmes who don't like penises at all for sex and leading to more of that operatic sex that I feel is at least slightly more common when no penises are involved even if I was already at that point in how I had orgasms, but many people were unwilling to treat me that way just because of that hunk of flesh. Lol
This is for protecting the bed and not going through so many expensive "chucks"/absorbent bed pads for minor leakage.. I use a bidet, and a spritz bottle with diluted peroxide per my doctor's recommendation until things heal better, for cleaning myself.