Ugh, more harassment of female creators. Chelsea Cain this time. Fuck Gamergate and all of its spawn.
What's an industry's consumer revolt got to do with the topic...?
...isn't misogyny relevant? (Also, I could be wrong about what Gamergate is, but IIRC parts of it included misogyny? It's rather confusing, there's what they
said they were doing and then there's what they
actually did AFAIK.)
Ah, okay, searched a bit more. Yes, Gamergate says that it's trying to bring about "editorial integrity" or some shit, but they're really just bashing women who
dare to enter the gaming/game-making/game-writing-about community. So this is similar to Gamergate. As for "how it's relevant", I dunno? It's about misogyny, right? We've discussed more than just cis/trans and hetero/homo here, we've also discussed gender roles and other things about women and men. That's gender, it fit in this thread, right? I just figured I would mention it.
Also, I'm genuinely surprised this thread hasn't crashed into the sun yet.
Why is that? Because it's too much of a heated topic?
I honestly have very little understanding of people in general, let alone these things, but is your identity necessarily a major deal to you compared to other aspects of yourself and your life?
Well, your identity
is you, but I'll assume that you mean gender identity.
It's really not as much of a big deal
for me as for other people, my freaking-out was the combination of self-loathing expressed as hating my body and the feeling of
not knowing. Gender etc. isn't that important to me, but my Bogus Gibber-Babble (perception-changing shit)
does make me feel a little happier, so I'll go with that.
It's probably due to my background, but I'm very subdued about everything related to that (and deep in the closet, which will never change). I think the only time I've been genuinely nervous about that is when I came out to bay, and I got over that quickly. It's not something I keep in conscious thought and I have to remind myself sometimes, but I'm curious about others.
I honestly think that gender has been made into a bigger deal than it should be, just like race and male/female and sexual orientation and all that stuff people use to hate people. If society was perfect, I don't think that gender dysphoria would be nearly as significant as now. But I really can't speak for people with gender dysphoria, since AFAIK I didn't have it; it was purely coincidental that a period of depression overlapped with questioning my gender.
Dysphoria is a "profound state of unease or distress," and gender dysphoria is simply dysphoria that is a symptom of gender and sex not matching. It is caused by either/or how people see you and how you see yourself. And you wouldn't call sadness "weak depression" (they are distinct, and also different levels of badfeels), so you wouldn't call "very minor distress caused by questioning gender" "weak dysphoria." I had the former, but there is a minimum level of distress required for something to be dysphoria, and "caused by questioning gender" =/= "caused by a mismatch of gender".
I don't mind if people think that gender isn't that important, and I think most everybody would agree, as long as you stay away from diminishing the pain of those with gender dysphoria. Just be decent, and you can think and question anything.
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Armokdamnit, why didn't I do this before? I formulated the rewards and risk for each course of action I could take (HRT, no HRT), and it is painfully obvious that HRT would be a bad idea. Graphs and equations! Bah, who needs counseling when they have
logic?
Reward of HRT = a*o - c.e.
Risk of HRT= b*o + b.r. + s.r. + i.r.
o is "how important gender is to me", it's probably low
c.e. is the current effectiveness of what I'm doing
b.r. is the biological risk associated with messing with my hormones
s.r. is the risk associated with being unable to pass as cis (minor, but still positive)
i.r. is the risk that the end result of HRT produces even more distress than now
a and b are proportionality things, dependent on how far away from the "probably my gender" I am now and I would be after HRT. I'm not sure how much of treating gender dysphoria is HRT and how much is surgery, so depending on how far HRT goes it could either be "androgyny" or "just as gendered as now, except feminine". If the former, than HRT is probably a bad idea. If the latter, HRT is definitely a horrible idea. Statistics would imply that if I'm unsure, I'm more likely to be cis than trans - betting that I'm trans is definitely too much of a risk.
So HRT would be a good idea if:
1. o is very high, or the reward/risk 'addons' negligible
Neither is the case.
2. and I'm trans (a>>b)
Probably not; androgyne is my current best guess, but who knows
Such a great weight off my back, not having to worry about my gender anymore. How did I come to that conclusion?
As long as no permanent alterations are done (surgery/HRT),
it doesn't matter if I'm wrong. What could happen? Mental stability issues? Pfff, haha, like I have any of
that to worry about. Being seen as weird because I occasionally hold my body like a girl or something? I'm already seen as weird.
And if I'm only deluding myself into thinking that perceiving myself as androgynous makes me happier, and I have a way of doing so without any downsides... I'll take that!
If I am really androgyne, okay, I've dealt with it pretty well so far. As I practice my BGB (bogus gibber-babble), I'm becoming even better at changing my self-perception and holding it, so... I'll be fine continuing like this.
The only part that made me distressed was "is it a good idea to do HRT," which required me to know whether I was
actually androgyne" or not. But HRT is a bad idea regardless of my gender (unless I'm trans, but I'm pretty sure I'm not), so that doesn't matter!