That which does not kill us makes us stranger.

[JusticeZero]

I've been around for quite awhile, but then everybody noticed that I disappeared from here without any real notice. I never explained the absence. Now I have a whole new set of reasons to be here, and I have to re-introduce myself pretty much from scratch.

I have trained in Capoeira Angola since before the turn of the century, with about three years of other training in Capoeira before then. There have been a couple of gaps in that time, the most recent being how I stopped being able to practice for about two years, leaving me extremely rusty.

I had been dealing with a lot of issues all my life. I had felt a constant feeling of confusion and danger in common social situations that lead me to look at the martial arts as important. Isolation disheartened me, but socializing with people exhausted me and left me feeling fake and defensive. My moods were always off. I always felt like people weren’t actually talking to ME, just my puppet. Like I was actually locked in a closet somewhere and operating my body by remote control. I wasn’t comfortable being ME, because it was just.. not quite right. I was constantly dealing with depression. I considered these to be normal, because I hadn’t ever had anything to compare it against. Martial arts helped with a lot of these things. It brought me more awareness of my body, confidence, and poise.

But the symptoms were slowly spreading. At the time, I was living in Louisiana, a hot place where heavy concealing clothes are not the best choice. I had been urged to work more on my shoulder strength, but I just… couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand to look at the mirror at all. So many excuses. I decided I needed to push for it. And I could not do it. I would fall out of stances instead of use my shoulders. My shoulders would start feeling uncomfortable whenever I tried exercising them.

I was bicycling a lot and training in deep stances. One day I noticed my calves had developed a lot. And suddenly, my bicycle speed dropped, and I couldn’t even do basic stance work. Because Capoeira is entirely out of moving deep stances, that essentially killed my ability to do the martial arts at all. Martial arts had been my release from my discomfort, and now my discomfort had devoured my escape.

That posed a problem! I had to do a lot of soul searching and investigating just to figure out what the problem was. Fortunately, I am good at research, and was relatively well timed with my crisis. Honestly, I could have figured it out decades ago with the right information, or I probably could have dragged on a couple more years, so it’s not ALL fortunate timing.

The end result of all of this digging and was this: I am a girl, of the transgender variety, to the surprise and confusion of most of the people in my life. Also I have a husband, because me and my spouse bonded on having basically the exact same set of symptoms in the first place, so every red flag applied to both of us. “Oh, they do that… wait, I do that too...”

My family and place of work is okay with this, but I am having to explain it to more and more people. It is almost getting routine at this point.

Gender dysphoria, according to all current science, is a permanent structural quirk in the brain that happens during fetal development. For various reasons, the body chemistry in the mother sometimes changes between the first and third trimester in certain ways. This scrambles the chemical signals that control fetal development in such a way that the brain develops differently than expected; certain switches and settings become wired permanently in place to expect a different body configuration, and to intuitively mimic behavior of the people that have that body configuration instead of who their parents and society might have expected.

This seems to happen in about one out of every two hundred births. Given that it is neurological and structural in much the same as as left-handedness or dyslexia, and cannot be changed later in life; the only known treatment is to change the body and social position of the person dealing with it to match the architecture of the brain. The specifics vary a bit from person to person.

As a result, I get to go through puberty again. I’m sure I am going to have to write up a whole article about the implications of THAT at some point. Most instructors do not actually get to see what is and is not an actual biological difference between their male and female students; I on the other hand get a ringside seat to TWO side to side comparisons, and learn more about endocrinology than I ever wanted.

This was neither convenient or desired, but viewing my issues through my life through that lens suddenly explained a LOT of things, to the point that it seems ridiculous to see it any other way. It was like a critical mistake in one’s basic stance that causes all of your techniques to be ineffective, but that you hadn’t noticed for a long time. You bang around and feel like you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, but you just can’t make anything work as well as it is supposed to. Suddenly the small detail is pointed out and everything WORKS.

Of course, I lost a lot of training time, because I just COULDN’T. Now, I don’t actually have any substantial amounts of testosterone in my blood, so I am rapidly losing strength and would be even if I was lifting weights consistently. I cannot maintain the muscle mass that triggered a dysphoria attack, so I can train again. And I should, because the number of hate crimes against transgender women last year was absolutely horrifying; the death toll in 2016 was roughly DOUBLE that of 2015, and murders have spiked even higher in the past month.

I am in a rural area now. There IS a gym available to me, a tiny one attached to the health clinic, but the locker rooms are horrible. There is no dry place to keep clothes in the shower, unlike all other locker rooms I remember – which means that one has to walk naked through the locker room briefly to the lockers to get dressed and towels. This isn’t a big deal for most people, but I am rapidly approaching a point where I do not look like I belong in either of the rooms available. UGH. There is at least one thread in just that issue alone.

Anyways, if anybody has questions, get them out of your system now. Sorry for just disappearing, but I didn’t really have any good idea how to explain anything.

[Safroot]

Hi JusticeZero,

Welcome back to the forum & thanks for re-introducing yourself again. Wish you all the best in restarting your MA journey.

[Patrick]

Hey Justice,

Thank you for sharing this with us. I can't even imagine the incredible struggle that you have gone through.

But I definitely noticed your absence, and I'm so glad to have you back. I'm happy that we can continue to be a part of your martial arts journey.

Patrick

[sensei8]

That, Justice, was a very solid OP; thank you for that. I, too, thank you for introducing yourself, and if I may say this...

We're MAists; all of us, and in that, you've got my full support across the board. And when the time is right, your MA training will resume, if that MA drive is still within you, and I believe that it still is.

I've missed you, and I'm glad that you've returned to KF; place not the same without you!!

I respect you through and through; it took quite a lot of courage to speak about this, and not many, imho, would've done so, especially within the MA communities.

As for me, again, I've got your back, and whenever the time is right, you and I can continue our Skype training/exchange. And if not, I'd be honored to remain your friend, both on and off the floor!!

Hang in there, do whatever it is that you believe that you must do, and at that appropriate time, walk onto the floor and train hard within your rekindled fire; your MA journey is yours alone, and you've my support!!

[mazzybear]

Welcome back Justice. I'm so glad you've had the strength and bravery to do what you needed to do and, I wish you and your husband well and hope you both can be happy and comfortable within yourselves now. Don't ever feel that you can't post asking about ANYTHING you may be struggling adjusting to. We're a community here at KF and you're a big part of that community.

Hopefully you find your way back to the MAs also .

Be safe.

Mo.

[ninjanurse]

Welcome back to us!

[DWx]

Welcome back

[Tempest]

Welcome back.

[Wastelander]

Welcome back to the forums, JZ! I did notice your absence when I hadn't seen any posts from you in a while, but I had figured life had just caught up with you, as it does with many of us, and the forum fell to the wayside for a time. I never would have imagined the struggle you were going through in the meantime! I'm glad you are back, and were strong enough to share your experiences with us!

[bushido_man96]

Welcome back!