unwilling to fall

i'm getting laid off at work by the end of the month because i can't relocate, without any prospect yet. i don't think i'll be able to get the same salary.

quite honestly we have a lot of expenses for the month, but every dollar counts, since the conversion rate is high to philippine peso. any amount helps. my mother has a tumor close to her ear and needs to eat healthily.

priority expenses:

grocery - $275

2 bottles of concerta - $300

less priority expenses:

bills and rent - $200

1 psychiatric session - $50

2 therapy sessions - $60

send aid here

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The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

“What transness and especially a pre-transition dysphoria actually feels like, to me at least, is much more internal and intangible. The language that I use to try to talk about it is language that I'm borrowing from the surrealism of David Lynch — the dreamlike nature of his films — or the body horror of David Cronenberg.” — JANE SCHOENBRUN, I Saw the TV Glow writer/director (x)