1. Progesterone. 2 Others' reactions

[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

Progesterone notes based from a combination of cycling hormones over the month and occasionally screwing up the dating of the dosages.

P'>0 (Progesterone is increasing)
Occurs at post-menstruation mildly; at post-ovulation strongly

Effects:
- reduced appetite; heavy foods like meat trigger a mild disgust reaction
- horny (especially when I muck up the timing and it goes up a lot faster than usual)
- cuddly
- emotional swings
- higher confidence


P'<0 (Progesterone is decreasing)
Occurs at pre-ovulation mildly; at pre-menstruation strongly (also know as PMS)

Effects
- increased appetite for heavy foods, including meat;
- feeling fat/heavy/earthy (not necessarily bad; it can mean "my body feels all curvy" - cool)
- lower confidence

While it's hard to suss out the effect of the level of progesterone (since the flux makes enough of a difference), I can say that high progesterone makes for vivid dreams (especially useful for lucid dreaming)

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Other notes: how people are reacting to me

Man at booth as I go to shake his hand: "I'm Muslim: we don't touch the opposite sex. Sorry."

Guy at queer-gender issues discussion group: "Oh, that makes more sense. I thought you were going the other way and was like woah, he's not trying very hard."

- Speaking of which, said group is working out really well. All are welcome.

Getting a vibe for social reactions takes a bit of faith and intuition. The signs are fuzzy. It's hard to guess whether two or three examples of behaviour "x" this month are really a departure from one "x" last month and another the month before that, or just an intersection of random coincidence and greater awareness. But it feels like there are changes, I notice some reactions more often and others less, and so, I guess, there are.

Reactions on the bus:
After getting my short haicut and switching from my raincoat to a warmer leather pilot's jacket, I'm getting called "he" a lot more, which sucks, but when I do give my name, it doesn't cause any raised eyebrows, which is awesome - and an improvment over "no, not 'Emir,' 'Amy:' A... M... Y."

I am noticing a different reaction from women in patterns that suggest that it squares with them being socialized in a Western Anglophone culture with exposure to images of queers. Specifically, I'd guess that around 30% of said women seem alarmed by me in ways that are sharply new from being read as male (on the bus: leaning away, shoulders tilted, tracking my movements, looking away). A few other women (especially around Main Street, The Drive and other queer-ish areas) are projecting a kind of coy attention my way (quick eye-contact, a smile, head-drop, compliments). Many female bus drivers (it seems that most female bus drivers in this city are gender-variant - I can imagine how that would work well on the job) smile, nod and, in some cases, make brief conversation. Men give me a decent amount of space and rarely initiate any conversation.

Off the bus, wher ethere is free movement these are less pronounced. The body-language dynamic between myself and most women in washrooms is I'll just slide in past you and use that stall - I'll ignore you, and you ignore me.

This is nice to be taken as one of the variety of female genders, and one that's at least close to where I am in my head, but it's alarming to me too. I change my hair and outherwear and suddenly bang, new sub-gender! From here, I see implications as far as the assocation between a masculine-ish presentation and being assumed to be more sexual(ly aggressive towards feminine people). - hence the alarm there, flirting here; the chummy-safe nod there; the ignoring as non-relevant here. This disquiet me. I can see how it carries over into other things that we associate with masculinity and femininity, namely height and ethnicity.

I mentioned the tie to socialization. My guess from reactions thus far is that people who were raised in places without these image-signals seem to either just assume I'm a (cisgendered) guy or chalk it up to Northamerican peculiarities.

Example: woman from Paris to an aquaintance of mine, highly paraphrased: "I went downtown and I thought wow, Vancouver is full of lesbians. Then I realized that it was just that most women here dress like what we'd call 'slobs.'"

Comments

[estrellada.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that when I present more queer that men either ignore me (which is fine) or they're more relaxed and chummy - probably because I'm still feminine enough to be comprehensible in their world but not part of the social/sexual courtship/interaction world.

[hundun.livejournal.com]

I should have clarified that these are the reactions /on the bus./ I've edited the post to clarify that.

Yeah, I've noticed what you mention. Non-nelly guys that I don't know are chummy when space isn't restricted. I like it. It syncs nicely with my past interactions:

"I ain't exactly one of your gender, but we hang out together and we're not flirting, nor are we avoiding flirting."

I am told that some of the lads in rez noticed this odd interaction, but only mentioned it to each other.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

That progesterone info is priceless. It roughly accords with my cycle, though I've got a couple of different bits. When I'm all unscrambled from Christmas sick I need to begin tracking again.

Because I've been keeping track of menstruation over the last two years, it's neat to go back and look at when I've done happy posts, loving posts, etc in relation to that.

I can't get over how much hormones control my behaviour. I mean, I have the housecleaning day-or-two as part of the cycle too. And definitely being around peopel I find sexually attractive adds 'oomph' to the whole cycle, it sort of emphasises all parts of it.

That's a great last line.

[hundun.livejournal.com]

Cheers.

There are some noted differences:
1. this is only the second time I've had a cycle
2. I messed up counting days on the second round twice so it's /really/ uneven.
3. it's only Progesterone (no Estrogen, no Lutenizing hormone etc...)
4. I don't have a female reproductive system, and don't mensturate - although the hormones have caused some odd genital changes in like tissues (the urogenital seam along the underside of my genitals is the same tissue as the edge of a labia, and reddens sometimes), which may be affected by the rise and fall.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

Of course there are differences, but there are certainly similarities, and this is _fascinating_!

[hundun.livejournal.com]

Glad to be *useful.*

[eva00.livejournal.com]

I'm going to throw the note in here that I was about to say the same thing as Greenie. I'm also going to add that a natural cycle "screws up" sometimes too, and has a stronger than normal spike or slightly different timing.

I still find it really interesting to see you doing this with the hormones, you're the first I've ever seen try it.

[hundun.livejournal.com]

This was along the lines of "oh, I just took the wrong week's schedule. That explains why I've been feeling funny." I did that twice in one month.

>twitch... twitch<

I really am enjoying the pioneery/explory part of this. Cheers.

most women here dress like what we'd call 'slobs.'

[bloodykitty.livejournal.com]

hahahahahaha!