• I feel like I'm not married to the term "man", certainly not as much as a lot of men seem to be. Yet, when I see things online attacking "men" in general in a way that I see as being a little bit unfair, it's hard not to internalize that. So, for example, a recent meme about men being more dangerous than bears. It's not that I don't understand the reasoning behind it or that I'm "offended" by it exactly. But it's hard not to be a little sad at the fact that, insofar as I am perceived as male, I am by default perceived as an unlovable and dangerous subhuman monster. I could take this as evidence that I don't want to be a man and that I should transition, but is "not wanting to be a man" enough to pull the trigger on a medical transition? It feels like I should be running TOWARDS something I want, not just AWAY from something I hate.

• There are a lot of boxes on the "Incel" checklist that describe me, e.g. loneliness, lack of deep friendships or romantic partnerships, spending far too much time on the internet. When I read advice for guys in this kind of situation, it tends to be very similar, obvious-but-annoying-and-difficult things, e.g. taking care of your health, introspection, journaling, meditation, finding social hobbies, etc. When I read this lists, I get a bit annoyed and exhausted. And yet, it becomes a bit more bearable if I think of myself as something other than a man, e.g. "Get a hobby" feels like scolding cliche self-help advice, yet "Get a hobby, but trans" feels less bad for some weird unexplainable reason (even if I don't actually do anything different).

• A lot of discussions I can find about trans identity talk, explicitly or implicitly, about how a person feels "inside", e.g. what gender do they feel like they are? I don't know if I feel like anything in particular. When I'm filling out forms and it has the option, I usually answer "nonbinary" or something similar. I was playing an online game where you can customize your appearance, and the default avatar was a featureless, not particularly gendered, cute looking cartoon person. I tried making it look like how I actually look, but then I realized, "Wait, I kind of prefer the featureless androgynous humanoid cartoon -- that's closer to what I actually feel like". If you asked me how I imagine myself inside, the honest and silly answer is that I feel like a "Scrimblo Bimblo"-type genderless cartoon/video game character. I'm not 100% sure if "woman" is the right label for me, but I'm not totally against it either -- it just feels odd. I will say, when I see happy women, either alone or in relationships, I feel a tinge of envy, and that strikes me as a sign that I prefer the idea of being a woman more than the idea of being a man. I keep thinking to myself "I can't transition because I'd be an ugly woman", which I am well aware is a classic thing for trans women to tell themselves before transitioning. The prospect of medically transitioning and still identifying as nonbinary is... frightening, but fear seems like a bad reason not to do it.

At this point, I've been ruminating on this so long that it feels like I'm being annoying and indecisive, like I want you to make the decision for me. I realize that's a silly thing to want (but, like, could you? Because that would be GREAT!) so perhaps the best I can hope for is that writing this is a useful exercise for me.

pissing like a fountain

salty food extra tasty

libido lowered slightly

dysphoria lowered slightly, feel less masculine

balls faintly sore

well the E is probably going to take a while longer to kick in but the spiro is clearly working

Maybe once in a blue moon when I'm reading one of those trans litfic novels, I'll stumble across something that blows my monocle off for a second and I need to stop and comprehend - the weird HIV-quasi-pregnancy-kinkplay in Detransition, Baby is a good example - but it's usually stuff I'll get befuddled over for like, an hour or two before internalising it and rolling with it. No, I did not consider that Wendy would turn things around on her weird eggy clients and make the sex a forcefem thing, when reading Little Fish, but sure right, why not? The ex-Mennonite shit was at least as odd as that.

Somehow though, Unjust Depths has thrown me way more curveballs in its runtime than probably all of those goofy books combined, and in the stupidest little places. Behold, this Autistic brain; it cannot fucking parse butch/femme as a concept! Real top quality grey matter, here.

Nevertheless, that moment in the tunnel, staring up at the distant shadow of Kreuzung, an enormous pillar that rose to fill the sky, its millions of lights barely outlining its figure in the vast darkness of the Imbrium– Homa almost felt like it was meant to make her feel small. Like it was deliberate.

As if to say to her personally, that there was no possible way to change any part of this.

Homa Baumann, a poor mixed-race Shimii, brown skinned, dark haired, sitting alone in that tram in her blue jumpsuit and work boots, her fluffy tiny stub of a tail caught against the seat, her yellow eyes staring up at that pillar. Struggling for food, struggling for medicine, struggling to control her life, segregated from the Imbrians who could come and go where they pleased, who owned this ocean. None of this could be challenged by someone like her. All she could do was sit down and stare at it every day.

In the shadow of a thousand year history of her people that had led to this day.

Things she barely knew or understood, loomed over her, whispering shadows.

Sitting there alone on the tram with all of this in sight, she thought-

How did it come to this?

How did it come to be that their people lived with these injustices?