#friends can know that i'm arty/artheme but if they can't call me by my deadname they can't meet my family etc

[something-about-sunflowers]

OH.

You ever have a sudden realization for why you feel a certain way about something that actually completely flips those feelings on their head?

I've generally always been pretty sure about what I want out of any kind of gender affirming care I might hopefully get in some nebulous future where that's something I can afford: I want my voice deeper, I'd be delighted by bottom growth, I would like my tits significantly more masculine presenting if not gone completely. I've been ambivalent about the potential for body hair, though I have been much more eager for the possibility of it with more 'ideal transition goals' influence (Look. I want Con O'Neill's gender okay?) in mind.

That said the one thing I've been hesitant about is facial hair? Which is frustrating because it's the one thing that I kind of do have by default? If I don't do anything to it I have noticeable dark wispies on my upper lip and chin (I've kind of suspected for a while that I may have some sort of hormone disorder - I've got other things that lead me to think this too ofc this is just the most easily noticeable - but like. Who's got the money for diagnosing shit like that? Not me, that's for damn sure.) like. T-Boy's First 'Stache kinda deal. It's been my one (mental) sticking point on potentially starting T, to the point where I've argued with myself that I could just do like the trans girls do and get like, what's it called? Electrolysis? Hair removal? Just for that part. But then that adds cost to what I already can't afford and. Like.

I don't think. It. Actually bothers me? I think. I think I'm maybe projecting how I think my mother would react to it? Not even with full on transition in mind but like. How I am now. Like I don't really care how it looks if I don't shave. Hell, I might even like it sometimes? Like a micro-euphoria or something. But my mother is (partially) responsible for my eating disorder. It's completely within the realm of possibility that she would have Something To Say if I just stopped bothering. I don't even think she'd do it on purpose really? Just. Would need to point out the presence of hair on my face and the judgement would be implied. The 'I am pointing this out because it is unusual and I don't think you should look like this' would be implied. She wouldn't need to say it out loud.

And like. The worst of it is? I don't care. I don't care if I do something to myself that she doesn't like or approve of. And. It's hardly as if she's transphobic (Or. Not more-so than the average 'uninvolved in the queer community parent of queer kids' cishet person. Not maliciously so, yknow?) I've got friends she knows are trans - one who she knew through his actual transition process - she's been through the whole 'it's "he", mom' 'oops, he' situation before with relative grace.

But none of those people are her kid. She doesn't see them every day. She knows she didn't raise them and has, at no point in their lives had a say with what they do to themselves. I already came out to her once (Well. I was forced out by my partner at the time's parents, which was. Not fun.) and the thing about that time is? She really didn't have to. Do anything? About that? Except maybe adjust her mental image of who I might wind up marrying some time in the nebulous future. I'm not out to her about any of my Gender Stuff. Because I don't want to have to deal with the 'I just don't understand all of this' because I'm not binary trans (every other trans person she's met has been binary) or 'It would just be easier on everybody if we still called you [deadname] and used she/her' (which, I don't even really have an issue with she/her? I very much prefer they/them but I'm used to she/her and it doesn't bother me to hear it the way hearing my deadname still does).

She doesn't listen to me when I talk about things that actually matter to me. When I talk about shit that she's done that hurts me. Hell, when I tell her she doesn't listen to me she stops listening. I know it'll be a fight if I correct her on my name/pronouns. I know she'll 'forget'. I know when I get emotional about it, because I know I'll get emotional about it, that I'll start to raise my voice (gotta love the struggle with vocal volume regulation huh? I literally can't help it and I barely notice it until someone tells me) and that she'll say 'You're always yelling, I'm not going to listen to you if you yell' and that it's just code for 'I wasn't going to listen anyway because what you have to say isn't important enough for me to try to listen, and you're giving me a convenient excuse to opt out of the blame for that by speaking "too loudly"'.

Anyway. I'm not coming out again until I'm out of this fucking state and living on my own (or at least away from her and the rest of my family).

But I do think, now, I might actually be comfortable with my facial hair/the potential for more pronounced facial hair then too. It's not my problem, it's hers.