• she/her

healthcare bureaucrat in philly, v adhd, orthodox jew, ect ect, im love my wife



Being mistaken for someone who's able to gestate the other day is kind of fucking me up a bit because like. idk that's ultimately been the goal for this entire process? I've ostensibly accomplished this totalizing process of fundamentally changing my societal role, a process that has consumed more of my time money and energy than nearly anything else. So much anguish and strife, so much lost and gained, all for a process that brought me here, I guess

And ultimately I felt nothing more in the moment than, "oh I'm being mistaken for something I'm not, I get to pretend to be something I wish I was, this is fun". I still am not a cis woman and never can be even if I'm seen as one from time to time. Is it enough to simply look like and be treated like something I'm not but that I wish I was? Idk. It rings hollow. Like ultimately I have changed nothing, just changed how I look and how I'm seen but nothing intrinsic has changed. To go through a decade of this process all to find myself at the end of it no different than I was day one is,, difficult. I guess I'm just experiencing the limitations of this process.

And I guess like, as having a family becomes increasingly more important to me and as I run into ways that transitioning has made that both physically and socially more unlikely, as I see the sometimes insurmountable barriers that transitioning has added to my life, those limitations do make it really not seem worth it haha.

But, I already went down this road so ultimately a moot point I guess? Just not sure what to do with this sort of feeling. It feels festering and formless and not able to be held. Just kind of wish I could go back in time and change the question from "would you press a button to make yourself a woman" to "would you derail your life and future, giving up on the chance of a normal life, to more often than not be mistaken for a woman", not sure if I would've pressed that button lol, but I did, so, oh well


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in reply to @numberonebug's post:

The way I view it is—and you work in healthcare so you probably knew this but I think it's worth saying anyways—there are lots of cis women who for whatever reasons cannot bear children either. There are many women who experience complete infertility due to endomitrosis, PCOS, a medical issue requiring a hysterectomy, etc. There are even AFAB women who due to complete androgen insensitivity syndrome have an XY karyotype, have no ovaries, and need HRT! And yes, it fucking sucks for everyone because society has built up the idea that the core of womanhood is ability to bear children. But it's not a uniquely trans struggle. Does that make sense?

That makes sense and resonates. I mean, it feels like every other matriarch in our tradition struggled with infertility, the universal aspect of this struggle is something I'm constantly running into reading Torah.

I think I, like other infertile women regardless of background, just am struggling to define my gender and identity while missing such a core component of that identity. Like, what even is womanhood if I can't do the definiting act of that gender and if like 90% of the sex specific mitzvot don't apply to me? I don't have an answer. Sometimes it feels like all I have is dresses and sitting on one side of a mechitzah instead of the other, and that just isn't enough.

So idk it makes it hard to feel good about having chosen to go down this road, to have given up what I had. If this hadn't been a choice idk maybe I'd be able to get over it easier

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