Nina's Blog - Sunday 10th March 2024
Sunday 10th March 2024, 14:55
Sunday is a busy day for me. Today I'm cooking dinner, baking bread, making apple pies, jam tarts, cheese straws.
But I've done all of it except the cauliflower au gratin which only takes forty minutes so I'm taking a break to have a cup of tea and to read an article on The Guardian that I noticed just before going to bed yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/09/lucy-sante-i-heard-her-call-my-name-a-memoir-of-transition-extract
The headline is
[quote]‘I was having a much better time as a girl in that parallel life’: how an app sparked a late-life gender transition[/quote]
It immediately struck me as having some similarities with my own situation. Not the app part but the 'having a much better time as a girl' bit. Where Lucy Sante got her impetus from FaceApp I am getting mine from the feeling of rightness and power I get when dressed fem.
Not much of the rest of the article parallels my own life, except perhaps the shyness. Except that I and the author are almost the same age and though we started from very different origins we seem to be converging on roughly the same end.
Another quote:
[quote]Now that the floodgates have opened I am consumed by the thought in a new way. When I uploaded my first picture to FaceApp I felt liquid and melting in the core of my body. Now I feel a column of fire.
That should not, however, imply a steely resolve. The idea of transitioning is endlessly seductive and endlessly terrifying. I take at least one selfie every day and transform it, and it feels as though the pictures are becoming ever-more plausible. With a bit of makeup, a course of oestrogen, and a really nice wig I could look exactly like that, maybe. But will the fact that I can’t grow my own hair make me feel like a fake for ever? And I am soon to turn 67. What if I look like a grotesque? Or merely pathetic?
It’s a vast decision, with the power to affect every aspect of my life. Would I inadvertently destroy important things in my life as a consequence? I keep wanting to be forced to transition by some circumstance, maybe my therapist telling me that it is crucial for my sanity. Anyway, I’m starting here, by writing it down – something I’ve never done before – and by sending it to a very few people whom I trust and who I think will understand. My name is Lucy Marie Sante, only one letter added to my deadname.[/quote]
Again the details of things like FaceApp are not important but the feelings, worries, and desires match mine quite closely. But I have even less steely resolve. The point about wanting to be forced by circumstance resonates strongly.
Sunday is a busy day for me. Today I'm cooking dinner, baking bread, making apple pies, jam tarts, cheese straws.
But I've done all of it except the cauliflower au gratin which only takes forty minutes so I'm taking a break to have a cup of tea and to read an article on The Guardian that I noticed just before going to bed yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/09/lucy-sante-i-heard-her-call-my-name-a-memoir-of-transition-extract
The headline is
[quote]‘I was having a much better time as a girl in that parallel life’: how an app sparked a late-life gender transition[/quote]
It immediately struck me as having some similarities with my own situation. Not the app part but the 'having a much better time as a girl' bit. Where Lucy Sante got her impetus from FaceApp I am getting mine from the feeling of rightness and power I get when dressed fem.
Not much of the rest of the article parallels my own life, except perhaps the shyness. Except that I and the author are almost the same age and though we started from very different origins we seem to be converging on roughly the same end.
Another quote:
[quote]Now that the floodgates have opened I am consumed by the thought in a new way. When I uploaded my first picture to FaceApp I felt liquid and melting in the core of my body. Now I feel a column of fire.
That should not, however, imply a steely resolve. The idea of transitioning is endlessly seductive and endlessly terrifying. I take at least one selfie every day and transform it, and it feels as though the pictures are becoming ever-more plausible. With a bit of makeup, a course of oestrogen, and a really nice wig I could look exactly like that, maybe. But will the fact that I can’t grow my own hair make me feel like a fake for ever? And I am soon to turn 67. What if I look like a grotesque? Or merely pathetic?
It’s a vast decision, with the power to affect every aspect of my life. Would I inadvertently destroy important things in my life as a consequence? I keep wanting to be forced to transition by some circumstance, maybe my therapist telling me that it is crucial for my sanity. Anyway, I’m starting here, by writing it down – something I’ve never done before – and by sending it to a very few people whom I trust and who I think will understand. My name is Lucy Marie Sante, only one letter added to my deadname.[/quote]
Again the details of things like FaceApp are not important but the feelings, worries, and desires match mine quite closely. But I have even less steely resolve. The point about wanting to be forced by circumstance resonates strongly.
61-69, T
