I’ve read Manhunt, Cuckoo and Black Flame. And honestly I think Cuckoo is her best so far, like 11/10. I was so stressed and panicked, but also wanting to know more and invested in all the characters.

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Given I do nothing and it lasts for many months I’m not too upset but I probably will top up with a little dose of my girlfriend’s DIY to have better levels and the combo will be smoother I think.

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I was 35 and it’s been great. And terrible. But mostly great.

Honestly the guillotine is more humane than methods used in the USA

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Implant update. I got my levels back, it’s been about 3.5 months since I had 200mg put in. It was 500pmol and a testosterone of 1.5pmol. I’m kind of surprised and a bit disappointed, it’s not a terrible level, given it’s stable at that without peaks or troughs. But some dolls here get levels closer to 1000pmol on their implants. Some anecdotal evidence suggests the first implant is sometimes the weakest and needs replacing sooner. Mentally I feel way less moody than I did on progynova. And I don’t have any antiandrogen, just progesterone at night.

Will keep everyone updated.

Scrungus, I would like you try and have a good time, maybe meet some new people, if you’re comfortable.

Come to Australia Bounti some day, get 200mg of compounded oestrogen implanted in your subcutaneous tissue of your butt and not have to worry for 6-18mths.

I think in our social context, broadly western - so apologies if that’s not you, most post menopausal women would be a bit offended if one suggested theyre no longer Women (capital W) just because they can’t reproduce anymore. I can see the archeology there that sex is way more than just a binary so there could be categories like post menopausal woman (femalen) that exist. But I certainly wouldn’t call anyone else that unless they self ID’d as it. The anxiety around low T and demasculinzation to me reads more like patriarchy than anxiety around category confusion (i.e. as if theyre not really Men but some different sex or gender category and that comes with too much baggage in transphobic patriarchal society) - if anything, they are just bog standard men who want to be men hence the fear of losing that because, dubiously, of low T.

I’m working in a broadly western context too, and I do agree a menopausal Woman would be rightly offended at the suggestion that they aren’t Women anymore because they can’t reproduce. With an equal amount of right, as you or I would have if someone were to suggest we were not Women because we might not be able to reproduce anymore.

Apologies that last paragraph was more an appendix to my loose ramblings. I don’t personally think we should have those categories, I just think we’ve kind of already worn them into society a bit, like footsteps on a grass path, not yet formalized by paving. It’s just tied into the broader musings that perhaps sex and gender categories might already be kind of loosey-goosey. I’ve mentioned my work in the past to you. The largest population I work with in my job is cis menopausal woman, far more than trans people. And it’s just…interesting, how much a lot of stuff post menopausal cis women go through overlaps a lot with trans women.

The cis men stuff is interesting more just I think historically how common it has been through history to have enunachs and other third sexs that are basically men who are not men, more of those than the ocaisonal cool transfem ones that pop up. I’ve had a few people I’ve worked over the years who have been Cis Men without testicles due to Trauma or cancer, it’s been interesting how much anxiety there is around the idea that people might find out.

But thank you for your reply, this is just stream of consciousness stuff.

Definitely even folks like Judith Butler have fallen into this at times.

As a binary trans women I’d go further and say I’m not only not a cop, but my super clocky but high femme existence, delivered with extreme confidence, poses more of a challenge to masculinity than if I was more androgynous and ambiguous.

Oh definitely it’s the year 2509 no one knows what a man or woman is, but there’s still twinks, bears, butches and femmes etc

Actually maybe I am for abolishing gender, but in the way we abolish the state thought the oppressed genders seizing control of it and wielding it until it withers, while somethimg with perhaps superficial similarity but transformed by the dialectic remains.

In my continued series rambling on Gender, I was thinking about that tumblr post by a galaxy brained person suggesting that the gender “boy” and “girl” are different from “man” and “woman”. And I think it hits on a weirdly true thing. Sex and gender are social constructs, and I would say there’s no reason that “child” couldn’t be a different precursor gender/sex to “man” and “woman”. In that outside of some minor functional stuff (like UTI with vulvas, balanitis with penises) the difference between the incidences of most health conditions is very similar in kids, because before puberty there is essentially no difference in hormone levels. Both boy and girl children have tiny amount of tesosterone and oestrogen, but it’s mostly growth hormone driving stuff until puberty. Stuff like height and weight only really differentiates in puberty as well.

Also just little kids generally look the same regardless of if they are boys or girls, it’s just we make one have short hair and the other have dresses. Heck the thing were parents put a bow on a bald baby girl to make sure everyone knows they’re a girl, because it’s not obvious. Reactionaries love to make fun of “woke” parents raising kids without gender, but I think that would actually be cool as fuck for society. I’m not a big fan of abolishing gender, I love being a woman, but I do think abolishing gender in kids would make sense. Letting kids pick and choose to grow into a man, woman, neither, both etc. Make everyone go through a gender transition if you will, just some might need a bit more help or to do it more than once.

I think there’s also something here in the way we treat post menopausal cis women and women with PCOS/PMOS. I think how Talia Bhatt talks about how in orthodox Hindu communities infertile cis women can be cast out and considered Hijra alongside trans women. And the way generally cis men of all ages aren’t treated differently but there is the pervasive fear of castration or “low T” etc. That these are genders/sexes too. I’ve reflected that in the Stormlight Series by Brandon Sanderson (I know, I know), there’s a species that has four gender, female, femalen, male, malen. With the n, denoting “neutered” or not capable of breeding at that moment. And like we kind of have those 4 genders already, just not as clearly described.

Definitely I didn’t raise it but misogynoir intersects with transmisogyny in how black women are treated as masculine (fuck, the way reactionaries talked about Michelle Obama). Black trans women it’s far worse (transmisogynoir).

Likewise south-east asian men are often denied masculinity or mocked for not being masculine enough. (I remember so many small penis jokes through my teen years).

Also the way disabled women and men are degendered. We always say “disabled people” or a “disabled person”. And of course the only time we readily accept a unisex toilet is for the disabled.

I’m definitely a fan of Talia’s work.

I guess to put on my inner Michael Kirkbride I’d say that Gender and Sexuality are umbilical mirror twins, impossible to exist or be defined without the other, the same yet inverted.