it's ya gal!

Spent a ridiculous amount of time last night obsessively editing my hand written zines in Photoshop to take away any tiny blemishes so they were definitely readable.

to know the state of your loved

one’s dementia?

And that assumption is useful to transphobes because it means they can uncritically extend properties of the AGAB group to the subset who transitions. E.g. they will say AMAB kids are likely to have behaved like X or experienced Y in their youth, therefore trans women are likely to have behaved like X or experienced Y in their youth. And they can say this without ever checking if it's true about trans women, because if everyone knows it's true of cis boys, they will assume that extension to trans women.

But like, if you took down the details of every 30-year-old trans woman right now, then went back in time 20 years, and studied that group of 10-year-olds, you would find they already had properties that differed from the 10-year-old-AMAB average in 2006. Perhaps they would be a little quieter, perhaps they would have a couple more female friends, perhaps they'd have fewer friends in general, perhaps they would have more anxiety, perhaps they would have more depression. Perhaps none of these and something else, idk.

But, the point is, people don't just decide to transition *at random*, there is a whole history of life experience in each trans girl leading up to that realisation "I am trans" and that decision "I should do something about it", and that common history of all these kids would be reflected in some group average differences from the AGAB cohort even long before that realisation took place.

And this is what makes "male socialisation" rhetoric so frustrating. Because the very fact of having all the life history that led up to your realisation that you were trans, the life history that *caused* that realisation, that very history marks you as someone with an atypical social experience compared to your AGAB average.

To recover, you literally need to manually learn skills that most people learn as a toddler

You need to learn what makes your body uncomfortable, and what to do to fix it

If you are high-masking, that usually means that you have learned to ignore every distress signal your body sends unless it is a distress signal that a neurotypical person would recognize. People have likely been unintentionally gaslighting you about your lived experience your entire life

If you feel bad or panicked for no reason, stop and try to pay attention to your body. Are you tense? You are likely feeling physical pain somewhere. If you've been gaslit about your pain your entire life, you might not be able to identify it.

Go through a sensory checklist.

SIGHT: Try closing and covering your eyes. If this gives you relief, the lights are probably too bright. You may also need differently-colored lights

SOUND: Cover your ears. Does this give you relief? If so, you may need earplugs or noise canceling headphones. You may also benefit from a neutral or pleasant background noise, like soft music or brown noise.

TOUCH: Are your clothes uncomfortable? Your chair? Your body? Do you feel greasy, like you need a shower? Do you need softer, sensory-friendly clothing?

TASTE: Do you need to brush your teeth or tongue? Would chewing on something help?

SMELL: Is there a strong or unpleasant smell in the room? Do you need to clean or empty a trash can? Would an air purifier help? Would a pleasant smell like a candle help?

INTEROCEPTION: Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? How is your posture? Are any of your muscles tight or sore? Scan your body slowly from head to feet, tensing and loosening each group of muscles. Going for a walk or doing a series of quick stretches may help a lot.

Learning how to do this stuff is not intuitive, if you've had an entire lifetime of gaslighting telling you that everything hurting you isn't a big deal and you're being dramatic over nothing.

This takes time, it takes work, it's not intuitive, and it's hard. Most people forget how hard it is, because they learned this as toddlers.