I do thrift, but my most recent great find was at a queer clothing swap downtown. It is a long, black, integrated flowy pant + skirt. The skirt really billows when I walk or it gets caught in the breeze. My silhouette tends to be top heavy, and the profile of this piece really balances it out.

Yeah, a lot of the attention beautiful people (but especially beautiful femme-presenting folks) receive seems actively dangerous.

Edit: plus, lots of one’s peers will likely attribute all accomplishments to beauty rather than merit, which sucks.

I mean, I am a nonbinary person who does experience dysphoria. I just suspect that a lot of folks, especially those who don’t understand the consequences, would take the deal purely for perceived social benefits. Would they regret it? Possibly, yeah.

Being beautiful is a superpower, disregarding gender. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of “cis” people who are not conventionally attractive would choose to take this deal purely for the social benefits.

My main source of protein is definitely tofu. Most days I eat around 500 grams in various dishes. I also eat other beans and lentils, although amounts vary week by week. When I use protein powder I like to mix pea protein with brown rice protein. Pea protein has a different balance of amino acids compared to soy, but alone tends to be hard on my stomach. Hence, the mixture.

FWIW I have achieved higher levels of gym strength as a vegan than I ever did as a carnivore.

I use a modified version of the feminine form of my given name. I spent a long time thinking about it but in the end it felt right.

I am convinced that law enforcement wants intentionally biased AI decision makers so that they can justify doing what they’ve always done with the cover of “it’s not racist because a computer said so!”

The scary part is most people are ignorant enough to buy it.

Poetry

I’ve recently been working longer hours than usual away from home. My dog has been much more physically affectionate when I’m around because he misses me (cries). For example, at night he sleeps against my leg so that he’ll know if I get up. Things have been tough recently but knowing that this furry monster that lives in my house loves me has been helping.

There are plenty of people who can lift 800lbs in the idealized form of barbells along certain ranges of motion, such as the deadlift or squat. However, I sincerely doubt any human could lift 800lbs of dead weight gorilla, much less one that is struggling. The heaviest stones that have been lifted are in the mid 600# range, and lifting a stone is easier than lifting an equivalent weight of floppy body.

Yeah learning that a lot of dysphoria symptoms are, in fact, not commonly experienced by most people was quite the revelation to me.

I’m sure it’s sufficient for two players, but I don’t know how the game rearranges the interface with four. It might be a little crowded.

I can confirm that Barony is a fun couch coop experience for two on a steam deck, so long as you are prepared to die and have to start over a lot. It might be tricky with four players, as there is a lot of inventory menuing. You might need a really large screen.

OP I hope this is what you needed to hear. I spent a long time convincing myself that I must be cis, despite that pretending at manhood was making me miserable. It’s a long road to accepting that you’re “trans enough”, whatever that means to you.

I reacted to what I now recognize as dysphoria with avoidance for most of my life. A lot of others have recounted similar symptoms - disliking the way I look in pictures, hating shaving, and generalized depression that I unconsciously avoided addressing. I was never invested in conventionally masculine interests as a child. I got way into video games, which I now recognize gave me a way to roleplay female identities through feminine avatars without directly addressing the source of my discomfort in meat space. Unfortunately, my body trended masculine as I aged - thick beard, taller than average, prominent facial features, etc.

I leaned in during my twenties and got into strength sports as a defense mechanism, because I was afraid of being seen as a target to cis men. This actually helped, as I became friends with several very strong cis women who helped me to decouple “physical prowess = masculine, frailty = feminine” in my mind. I recognize now that I had several misogynistic ideas imprinted from my childhood that I had to unlearn.

As a result of all this, I am now visually very masculine presenting. I am tall, have a large beard, and am visibly muscular. I sometimes view my body as something other than myself, like a trusted bodyguard rather than my own form. This is probably not healthy, but it is better than my earlier state of generalized nonspecific depression.

I’ve been making an effort to be visibly queer at work in attempt to make something positive of what I’ve done with my body. I wear skirts and dresses, use they/them pronouns, and introduce myself as nonbinary. My goal is to “tank” negative attention away from other GNC folks and normalize free expression in the workplace, which I am primed to do both as someone who has accumulated some prestige and power and as someone whose physicality tends to illicit deference in others. Paradoxically, I feel that presenting as a “muscular dude in a dress” is received more positively than if I were to attempt to pass as a cis woman, although that is speculation on my part.

I dunno how sustainable this posture is, as I often find myself envious of trans women who are brave enough to abandon masculinity all together. However, I am still afraid of losing the protection and privilege that comes from walking around in a physically intimidating body.

This description matches my experience closely. I haven’t started HRT for several reasons, but I am curious to know whether it would address the depression that has been the background radiation of my adulthood.

I’m no causal, so I decided to play life on hard mode.

Probably around 72 hours. I had a severe bout of depression a decade ago. I’m not certain how long I went without food because my memory of that period is hazy, but I barely ate or left my bed for a week. A few years before that I had salmonella poisoning (do NOT recommend) and didn’t eat or really even sleep for something like 10 days. I drank sugar water and electrolytes to stay alive but I still lost about 10 kilos.

Understandable. I haven’t made chana masala in a while but you’ve inspired a hankering that I must satisfy soon.