#EVEN THEN I had the transition process in Broken Dimensions in mind and it wasn't half as hard or as big a deal as it is irl in 2024

[artistic-m3nace]

ok so to reference this post (because I didn't want to hijack op's post to talk about my own stories), the fun thing about fiction is that when it comes to transitioning, you can make the process whatever you want, and I've tried to have fun with it for Broken Dimensions.

Tartarus especially got all the fancy transitioning worldbuilding stuff when I was working on that aspect of BrDim. I have a slightly NSFW infographic I need to refine that I'd like share eventually (NSFW along the lines of like, artistic nudity and nudity for education purposes) but to summarize: it's magic.

No literally, it's magic! Most things in Broken Dimensions are magic, or if they're not, they're technologically advanced, such is the nature of SFF yk, but this! This was fun to design, ok.

Bascially, the god of True Self and creativity (across fields; not just artistic creativity but invention and science etc, basically innovation), Jacinthe, thought Tartarus was super cool when it entered the multiversial stage and made a home for themselves there. They immediately became a massive hit with all these queer people within Revolution-era Tartarus, especially central, central northern, and western Tartarus. Jacinthe thinks this is great, and starts blessing people and getting really into a lot of their research and the development of their culture and one of the most common complaints they (Jacinthe) receives is that, at this point in Tartarun history, they don't have the medical technology to assist in health transitions. Sex reassignment surgery is really risky, even with the extreme prevalence and skill of Tartarun mage healers. HRT is tricky because Tartaruns don't necessarily have the same kinds of hormones as human and can't use standard human/Shade HRT treatments without modification, which makes it costly...

Basically, it's hard AF to be a trans person in Tartarus IF you want to medically transition (folks who don't want to medically transition don't have as much of an issue here, but they're still being pretty vocal about the issue for their community members who do).

So Jacinthe gets this really smug little idea, because this is during the Great Silence and a lot the other gods aren't doing their jobs maintaining universal balance, and so Jacinthe goes to her cool new followers with this sneaky little grin and, like Prometheus introducing fire to humanity, goes "hey... you guys want to know something cool?"

And they just. Give the Tartaruns some arcane magic knowledge and this epic group of scientist mages create the first transition potion for trans Tartaruns. It's basically a very, very specific shapeshifting potion that also modifies your biology. It takes a while, but after a set period of time using the potion a given user will be their desired sex fully, biologically, wahoo.

Now, the great thing about this is that its customizable to every individual.

Don't want to fully become your target sex? Want to retain some aspects of your assigned sex at birth? Great! Talk to you doctor and your representative at the dedicated healthcare-temple-thing for trans people and they'll help you get where you want to be.

Want to reverse some things later? Cool, they can arrange that too (this is, however, relatively high-stress for the body. So either a somewhat length waiting period is suggested, or any kind of reversal process needs to happen more incrementally than the initiation process. Folks who go YEARS, even centuries (because Tartaruns have a lifespan of ~500 years) between transitioning their first and second (or more) times don't have to worry about this as much)

They also develop an individualized puberty blocker potion, that does the same things as tradition chemical puberty blockers, but without the tricky human-specific hormones available across the multiverse. It's pretty sick.

Then eventually this practice leaves Tartarus and expands to an interdimensional healthcare practice, and it gets improved on and added to over time, and all that. By Era 10, when most of the stories I write in BrDim happen, the process is pretty well streamlined.

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Note: you can also petition a given godly patron to just like. Change your body to match your brain. But this is usually a one-time only thing, and since people change and gender is fluid, this isn't always a great solution. Jacinthe did this for a while too in Tartarus, but later decided that giving the mortals their own way to handle themselves was better than themselves, one single (beyond-the-binary) god, handling it all.

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But yeah I just. I wish I could do that. I basically designed a transition system/process that I wish I could do. Like, I wish it wasn't a big deal to medically transition for those of us who want that. Instead, in many places in the US we're still required to go through years of therapy to be considered for HRT, for reassignment surgery, even for social transition things like name changes.

Like it's one thing to have people's longterm health in mind, and on one hand I understand the requirement to have therapy before having sex reassignment surgery and stuff like that to ensure its not like the consequence of mental health issue (i.e. not being trans). But on the other hand, that's fucking bullshit because most trans people know we're trans and we know what we need to be happy.

And ofc the system is rigged against us, and even if its not classified as such, there are still many medical professionals who treat being trans like a mental illness. That's a huge reason shit is so hard to do.

And god I just wish it wasn't yknow? I wish there was a support system and healthcare options surrounding the transition process, and that society didn't actively work against us.

So I made one.

At least my characters get my dream, yk?