Hi there all of you. I'm new to Harriet's blog and am surprised that I'm new to it but I spend most of my internet time on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth where I read lots of feeds of lots of blogs on lots of topics but mostly invisible disabilities, neuro-atypicality, feminism and race, plus a few cultural theory type thingees because I never really have gotten over getting my degree and having to leave the gentle shelter of grad school.
My name is Erik, as you may have guessed. I spent the first 35 years of my life as a female-assigned body and I've identified variously as a dyke, a queer, and since about 1995 as a transmasculine person which in my instance is the technical term for female-to-male transsexual who found that "male" had moved by the time he'd gotten to where he thought it would be. I do take masculine pronouns and I would look like any other short, bald, bearded fellow except that I dress in ways that are idiosyncratic so I still get stared at when I venture into Middle America. My parents raised me to be a feminist because they wanted me to know that I could do anything any boy could do and I am fairly sure they regret that now as they have become ever more conservative Christian while I have become ever more radically godless and ten, fifteen, twenty sorts of queer.
I am a survivor of various types of childhood abuse and assault and I'll leave it at that for now and go into triggering stuff elsewhere. One reason I am here, though, is because Harriet's blog is so open and welcoming that I thought this might be a cool place for getting support that is really hard to find if you are an FTM survivor. I don't expect everyone to be completely state-of-the-art on trans issues and I'm open to answering questions as long as they are respectful, but it does seem that the overall ethic on the blog itself is to not shy away from self-education--of which I have plenty to do myself--so I am guardedly optimistic about the potential here.
I am also permanently disabled primarily with PTSD although officially because I carry the Major Depression Severe Recurrent with Psychotic Features diagnosis but I think that is secondary to the PTSD or maybe the two are just caught up in a mostly unpleasantly spiraling feedback loop but in any case it's bad enough that I cannot hold down a job. I've been assigned other diagnoses at various times as well and I may be on the autism spectrum but as a disabled adult there is no way I can afford to get a specialist's word on that so my state-funded professionals and I just work around my social disabilities as best we can.
Huh. I was going to try to make this upbeat and clever and it really doesn't seem to be turning out that way. Ah well.
I do have a
blog of my own that I update only sporadically because I do not deal with controversy well but much of what I have to say is politically charged. I've been posting poetry and art with the occasional screed and I always think I am going to do more with it and then I don't. My Dashboard tells me I have eked out over sixty posts though.
I do know how to use commas but I choose not to mostly because they get in the way. If it makes what you are reading impossible to decipher let me know. I'll use one when absolutely necessary if I have to. I won't mention the Code of Conduct but I did read it.
And that is all about Farmer Small. And Erik, for now. Hi.
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