Capybara Pool Party Open Thread

Oh sorry, I thought the last thread was open.

Capybaras are so damn dignified, even when they’re suffering actual indignities:

https://twitter.com/PhD_femme/status/1193384673361174529

@ Robert

Would ‘misidentification’ been a redundancy?

Ok, so this is a lot that I’m going to try to make as concise as I can.

My whole life I’ve struggled with gender. I was assigned male at birth, but never felt any connection to it, and experienced what I now know to be gender dysphoria relating both to my body and to social roles.

For years, I’ve known that I wasn’t male, but didn’t know that there was any other option. Then I started learning about gender identity and dysphoria. I identified as non-binary while I tried to figure out what I was. For the past year, I have thought intensely about this, and I’ve finally figured out what I am.

So, what I’ve been building to is this: I’m trans. I am a woman. From now on, my pronouns are she/her. Although I am planning to change my legal name in meatspace when I can, I don’t plan to change my ‘nym here, so that will stay the same. I haven’t yet come out to anyone else, so this is the first place that I’ve said this.

I have not yet come out publicly, and I’m not entirely sure how to do this. How do I tell people who have known me for years that I’m a woman? How do I explain that I’m still the same person, but that I’m not the man they thought I was?
I also don’t really know how medical transition factors into this. I would like to, when I have the money, but I can’t afford this right now. Should I stay closeted until I can afford it?

Another thing is my local LGBTQIPA+ community. I haven’t really associated with this community in the past, and have never attended pride parades and the like, mainly because I tend to avoid social things due to anxiety. However, I feel like I should connect with it as a sort of support system. How do I do this? I’m pansexual (but never openly), but primarily attracted to women and non-binary people, so I’d never been a part of the LGBT scene before because I had mostly dated women and was outwardly acting as a heterosexual man.

I know this is a lot. Does anyone have any advice/thoughts? Sorry to derail the capybaras, I just really wanted to get this off my chest.

@Naglfar

I can’t help but feel a bit honored that we’re the first people you’re coming out to. Congratulations on embracing the real you!

Alas, I don’t have anything in the way of useful advice for you.

Dear Naglfar:
what a huge, brave step for you–brava!!! Thank you for honoring us with your trust.

Your path will not be easy, but you already know that. You have friends here as well as in the 3-D world:call on them/us when your journey seems too rocky.

A case of utter weirdness happened to me the other night. I watched Dr. Strangelove for the first time in 35 or so years and actually paid attention to it this time (zero interest as a teen, I was in the room). The thing I found most bizarre about it is that the general who went crazy and started the nuclear Armageddon was a freaking Semen Retainer! All throughout his scenes he babbles about precious bodily fluids and and the power he gets from not nutting other crap that semen retainers are constantly spouting. It was the most flabbergasting part of the film for me.

@Shadowplay

Thanks! Spinning was a big therapeutic activity for me shortly after my stroke, and it works pretty well with job hunting anxiety, too.

I don’t post much these days, but I send my congratulations and well-wishes to Naglfar, as a fellow trans woman.

@VP i sucked at spinning! I just didn’t have the patience for it. Loved the meditative aspect but disappointed with my end product, and improvement was too slow. Offloaded my ‘portable’ (in the sense you only needed a car to tote it around rather than a moving van) spinning wheel and got an eight-shaft table loom. Previously had only done rigid heddle weaving, and not for years. Very steep learning curve but getting it, slowly. Good luck with your beautiful fibre. I feel like i can scrunch it from here!

I’m not sure how much I could or should help since any advice I could give on trans issues would be secondhand, but Naglfar’s post indirectly reminded me that I’ve painted myself into an ethical dilemma corner for a long time now and have never satisfactorily resolved it. Or at least develop a framework where it doesn’t need to be resolved.

(This isn’t meant to take away from her coming-out, and if that happens, I apologize. But I’d probably just kind of forget to mention this later if I wait.)

It started back in the dial-up BBS (pre-world-wide-web) days. I found that, with one exception, all of the BBSes which were local to me at the time had something like 60-70% of the same people in common among the regular users; it was a very niche thing back then. I wanted the opportunity to explore different sides of myself without being prejudged based on anything I said or did elsewhere. So I took up different usernames on different BBSes, adopted moderately different personas, and compartmentalized potentially identifying information. This is a practice which I carried forward to the present day; there are currently over a dozen websites where I am at least an occasional contributor, and I’m not quite the same person on any of them. It also applies to real-world interactions to an extent, but I’m a little more flexible there.

It’s not that I ever lied. Or at least, I don’t consider changing minor and likely unimportant but potentially identifying details to be lying. And I don’t even do that very much, mostly just avoid saying certain things – for example, one might notice that while I freely mention living in the United States, on most sites (including this one) that’s all you’re getting about my location… but there are two where I will freely say which city I live in. Another example is that, including here, I’ve only mentioned being bisexual on four sites, one of which is a long-defunct dating site, and that’s my most widely shared personal detail. Nor am I pretending to be someone else; my personality is rather fluid and who you see is who I am at the time of writing. Unless an ongoing discussion is important and a response can’t wait, I only post on a site if I’m currently the person who normally posts there, or close enough, if that makes any sense.

Note also that I don’t change too drastically in most respects. You won’t, for example, see me on r/gendercritical dumping on trans people. I might do such a thing if I ever believed it was necessary to infiltrate a TERF event or organization for some reason, but there is no “version” of me which would be happy doing that. On the other hand, there is a version of me which would openly advocate [REDACTED] if she was safely able to do so, but at present the closest thing to that was a toned-down, heavily disclaimed version on a site where exploring out-there ideas are acceptable to a point. Redacted because it is absolutely not appropriate here and because who I am as “Snowberry” does not agree with it and also does not want to deal with the likely “What the hell is wrong with you” fallout.

I do not consider any of the above to be an issue because it does not cause me any distress in itself; nor do I consider myself to be a “multiple”, as I only have one personality, it is just fluid and has a wide range. Holding a variety of mutually exclusive feelings, preferences, and opinions and being self-aware of it is just part of my nature. But it does occasionally cause situations which don’t quite sit right no matter who I am.

Most often this comes up when someone needs advice or help and no one else is stepping up, but getting involved openly would likely mean revealing information which I purposefully don’t reveal on that particular site (or in that particular social environment). Private messaging or private personal conversations isn’t always an option, but even when it is, it’s not pleasant “stepping out of place”, for lack of better term.

It’s not that I can’t, and I have done it when it’s vitally important to do so, it’s just very difficult. Since it’s hard to give a good example without actually “stepping out”, let’s give an indirect example by way of how my personality shifts affect my language choices. Take this common vulgar word: “fuck”. It was uncomfortable typing that just now. I’m pretty sure I’ve used it or other swear words here a few times over the years, but not casually. Meanwhile, there are places where I use such language freely with no issues. And there are places where even contemplating using such language is actually painful. The appropriateness of the environment has very little to do with it. There have been environments where I resented not being able to swear freely, and ones where I stood out because I wouldn’t ever do it. Again, the fact that things like this happen doesn’t actually bother me, it’s just who I am.

However, back to the dilemma of not being able to easily step out of my place making it occasionally difficult to help people, I have considered undergoing an “internal policy change”, for lack of better term, making all personal information which is in some sense universally true conversationally available for all websites and all social environments, aside from things which could make it easy to dox me. Most people will still see the same “version” of me they’ve always seen, just with more detail, some of it incongruous with the person they know.

I’m hesitant to do this. Certain parts of me still value the fact that their ideas and opinions can be judged on their own merits without other people knowing any details which don’t apply to myself in the environments which those “versions” of me normally occur. They (and I use “they” loosely here, as again, they aren’t literally separate personalities, but the same “me” at different points on a multidimensional continuum) would prefer to keep any other “version” of myself from using information which could be used to reasonably guess who I am on multiple websites.

It’s mostly about not wanting to be seen as one of those people who invents personas and acts them out for fun and/or attention. No deception or messing around is intended, but some people might not see it that way. It’s also not completely paranoid either; for example, I’ve seen a few users on this site post on other sites which I also post, or at least a reasonably close copycat using the same name.

Also it used to be funny how laughably wrong targeted advertising usually was. It’s been getting more accurate over the past few months, though, which feels a little disturbing. It feels like there’s no anonymity in obfuscation anymore (again, not that this obfuscation is intentional). Parts of me think it’s more reason to loosen the personal information spigot, since there’s no longer much point anyway; and parts think that means that I should take more effort towards insuring anonymity.

Meanwhile, despite this TL;DR it’s not nearly as a big of a thing for me as I’m probably making it sound; as mentioned at the beginning, I’d just forget to write about this if I didn’t do it right away. It’s just something which has occasionally been on my mind recently. Resolving things hasn’t been a priority yet and still isn’t. I’m just checking to see if anyone has any outside perspectives to add into consideration.

Welcome again, welcome anew to Naglfar.

And for Snowberry:

On the other hand, there is a version of me which would openly advocate [REDACTED] if she was safely able to do so, but at present the closest thing to that was a toned-down, heavily disclaimed version on a site where exploring out-there ideas are acceptable to a point.

I wanted to say that I, also, have enjoyed watching NFL football because of the way that unexpected, seemingly impossible athletic accomplishments emerge with an unexpected suddenness that astonishes me in a delightful way. I embarrassed, knowing that I’m consuming an entertainment product that puts its employees at such awful risk of such horrible long-term harm, but there you are.

Or, wait. Maybe you weren’t talking bout occasionally watching football. Maybe you’re just a human being, complex like all of us, who has her own likes and dislikes, vocations and quirks, and not all of these preferences and traits can be predicted as logical consequences of some value or ideology you hold important. Maybe you’re more than the sum of your parts. And maybe, just maybe, you’re welcome here anyway.

I don’t seek to encourage you to unredact your earlier comment, but I do hope that there is someone in some part of your life with whom you can speak about that honestly and openly.

If there isn’t, and you think you need someone, lmk here in the comments and you can e-mail me (letting me know here is important b/c I don’t always promptly check the e-mail attached to this name). I’m sure others here would offer you a similarly supportive ear.

cd

@Naglfar: Congratulations! I recognise a lot of what you say (doubt and struggle about identity) and am happy you found some measure of resolution. I wish you all the best on the road ahead.

@Snowberry

What you’re describing can be a CPTSD/BPD/developmental trauma thing. Also maybe an autism thing; it’s often hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. In any case I’m also fluid that way, and it’s caused me a lot of pain and harm.

More recently I’ve been starting to get it under control (transitioning helped a lot TBH), but I still have to be super careful about environments and people rubbing off on me, and I’m still more vulnerable than most people to manipulation tactics and cults if personality.

Best of luck.?