joss brown will return
in ‘dr endocrinology’
in ‘from s.r.s. with love’
in ‘narrowwrist’
in ‘thunderball atrophy’
in ‘you only transition twice’
in ‘on her majesty’s secret wenis’
in ‘dysphoria is for never’
in ‘live as not-guy’
in ‘the woman with the golden needle’
in ‘the spy who muffed me’
in ‘boobmaker’
in ‘to take twice daily’
in ‘newpussy’
in ‘a view to an estradiol’
in ‘the laser hair-bye’
in ‘prescription to girl’
in ‘never say deadname again’
in ‘cryingeye’
in ‘the boner doesn’t rise’
in ‘the girl is not a cis’
in ‘be another gay’
in ‘the she/her royale’
in ‘quantum of spironolactone’
in ‘guyfail’
in ‘spectrans’
in ‘no t in i’
Somewhat implies the existence of a bi-weekly podcast where three of the whitest and most cis-het men analyse her adventures.
Also, to anyone else thinking ‘There’s no way that Never Say Deadname Again is that recent’: correct, it should be between Newpussy and A View to an Estradiol.
And that caveate of “aren’t universally reported” isn’t saying it doesn’t happen, just that it doesn’t happen to everyone. I was already very in touch with my emotions before I started estrogen, but afterwards I reacted a bit quicker and tended towards a little more happy crying. All quite positive effects, of course!
Some Ed
No, it’s not even saying that. It’s saying that not everyone reports them.
It does not say anything about whether everyone has them. Some people may have them and not report them. Some people may not have them, but still report them. Some have them and report them (I know at least two in this category, so it’s not a maybe.) And of course, it could be that some people don’t have them and don’t report having them.
That’s one of the problems with studying sentient subjects. They don’t always report everything honestly, but it’s not like you can attach monitors to them and expect that to go well.
Lucky you. Some of us didn’t. For some of us being alive is a constant trial, or many years of suffering and hurt. HRT was the first time in my life I didn’t feel like a zombie.
Lucky? for most of my youth, I didn’t think so. Emotions and social needs I often didn’t understand or acknowledge, which caused me to embarrass myself and flee back to the lonely safety of solitude to lick my wounds. It wasn’t until my twenties that I started – started – to accept that part of myself.
Yumi
Yeah, like… having strong emotionality isn’t in contrast to experiencing trial, suffering, and hurt. I used to get in trouble for crying in 1st grade, so I started finding ways to hurt myself because that would sometimes help me stop myself from crying. And sometimes it wouldn’t, so there were still plenty of times I felt horrible because I was crying in front of people for “no reason.”
Going numb sucks too, and decades of that sounds horrible; it just doesn’t mean a different experience is a fun one.
StClair
I built my identity around being “smart” and “rational”. Feelings were messy and the enemy of “reason”; they popped up when I didn’t want them, and I didn’t know (or want to learn) how to express them in a healthy way, so it was all deny deny deny, repress repress repress, until that built-up pressure exploded in some form of acting out and started the whole miserable cycle over again.
I’m better now, really. It took a long time, though.
For bonus irony, I aspired to “Vulcan logic” for years before I really understood the totality of Vulcans and why they’re like that.
Dana W
You and I could be twins. Oh I SO understand! I didn’t deal with myself till I was 35 and THAT was 25 years ago.
I went intellectual Neo-Conservative! I could pin people in a corner for hours and extol the “virtues” of Ayn Rand, and the glories of Capitalism till you wanted to just hit me with a sock full of horse crap. I was so deep in the closet, if I farted it smelled in Narnia.
I was so much “better” than everybody! First I found out I wasn’t. Then found out I didn’t want to be.The. I found out the people who think they are are pretty much unbearable to anybody with an actual life.
Proxiehunter
Honestly that wouldn’t have taken long. The sock comes out at the first mention of the virtues of Ayn Rand.
Dana W
Hey, I got better
Dante
Oh, this happened to me. Relating to Spock too, even! And since my emotions were too strong and I acted out… I got the idea the only valuable thing in me was my brain. Smarts and creativity, because as a person I clearly sucked? It was the only thing I was praised about anyway :’DD
Went through The Horrors, including the numbness, gave myself permission to cry at like 24 and life started to get better like. Only then tbh. Therapy and the right meds make a world of difference, which is why I always go “fam, if your neurotransmitters are limping along, storebought is fine.”
(It turned out I had combined neurodivergencies in an age people went “oh, gifted child” instead of “oh, this child needs help.” The world has, at least in that sense, gotten better.)
Anyway I love Jocelyne and this strip was stupidly moving ;AAA;
Dana W
Understood, I’m autistic too, (Doctor Diagnosed) with a good dose of Trauma. I was just saying for some of us things like HRT are not optional.
Proxiehunter
I’m not spotting where someone said they were optional.
Aura
FWIW, I can see why Dana took that the way they did, for someone reading the strip with the context of having the pretty common experience of emotional shutdown prior to starting HRT, and the relief that comes from having access to your full emotional range again, the original comment in this thread came across as pretty dismissive of that.
Yumi
I don’t think it was dismissive when you consider it’s not being commented on as a pro in this strip. I get why she might have misread it, but it took me a minute of squinting to see what she might have been referring to.
Aura
I don’t think it was intended to be dismissive at all, I just think StClair and Dana are reading this from very different contexts, and that leads to this sort of thing where it’s really easy for someone with Dana’s context to read things into StClair’s comment they didn’t intend, whereas to someone without that context Dana’s comments could feel like non sequiturs.
Personally, for me I was a little taken aback by St Clair’s comment, but I assume they’re simply unaware of how great a relief this sort of experience can be after a lifetime of not being able to access all your emotions and not meaning to invalidate the experiences of those to whom this is actually a big deal (or to imply we shouldn’t need hrt or other forms of transition to feel things).
It’s my understanding if you’re human and you have exactly 0 hormones, you die. Or more likely, you’re probably already dead. I get that you’re talking about not having supplemental hormones, but I’ve had issues from being low on natural hormones and thought it was important to clarify this. Supplemental hormones are designed to act like natural hormones as much as feasible, so there’s absolutely nothing that says the natural ones can’t do this also.
That said, part of transition also suppresses some of the natural hormones that can do that, so it’s all complicated, much like anything in life. (To be clear, my low hormone issues were not part of any kind of transition, but rather stuff going wonky inside me all on its own. As I understand it, people who go through regulated hormone therapies usually don’t have the kinds of issues I had, and most of the time they do it’s for reasons kind of like what I had that just happen to coincide at the same time as mucking with other things. You don’t need to worry about life-threatening hormone loss as part of transition processes, except under the current administration and those would be more likely due to non-medically induced factors.)
Oh Crying is the gift. That first year it was so good at finally and at long last to just CRY. I cried and cried for months. I got 35 years of not crying out in one summer. I got cold feet and quit mones for a week, and the crying started to dry up. Was so happy to go back on.
163 thoughts on “Fluctuations”
NGPZ
???
*plays “Last Train Home” by Pat Metheny on hacked muzak*
Ray Radlein
One of the first concerts I ever went to, almost 50 years ago
Matrix
TO BE CONTINUED
Charles Phipps
For once, this is so touching I am not going to say anything sarcastic at all.
crys
THE FIRST JORDAN
Nono
Jordan is the short one whose eyes are covered, right?
Dante
The kid with the eyes covered wears glasses, which John does.
I’m guessing the one on the left is Jordan 8D 8D 8D
Doopyboop
I think John, like Joyce, got glasses later in life. John’s the oldest so he’s on the left.
Needfuldoer
I agree. John’s on the left, Jordan’s on the right.
KM
Has to be, john is on the left and is probably the one taking the photo selfie style, and Joyce and Jocelyn are in the center
Thag Simmons
It’s like finding Bigfoot
Thulcandran
Holy shit, the first appearance of Jordan!
oyouej
BEST SISTERS!
Wack'd
joss brown will return
in ‘dr endocrinology’
in ‘from s.r.s. with love’
in ‘narrowwrist’
in ‘thunderball atrophy’
in ‘you only transition twice’
in ‘on her majesty’s secret wenis’
in ‘dysphoria is for never’
in ‘live as not-guy’
in ‘the woman with the golden needle’
in ‘the spy who muffed me’
in ‘boobmaker’
in ‘to take twice daily’
in ‘newpussy’
in ‘a view to an estradiol’
in ‘the laser hair-bye’
in ‘prescription to girl’
in ‘never say deadname again’
in ‘cryingeye’
in ‘the boner doesn’t rise’
in ‘the girl is not a cis’
in ‘be another gay’
in ‘the she/her royale’
in ‘quantum of spironolactone’
in ‘guyfail’
in ‘spectrans’
in ‘no t in i’
RassilonTDavros
claps hands slowly
jflb96
Somewhat implies the existence of a bi-weekly podcast where three of the whitest and most cis-het men analyse her adventures.
Also, to anyone else thinking ‘There’s no way that Never Say Deadname Again is that recent’: correct, it should be between Newpussy and A View to an Estradiol.
Michael Steamweed
That. Is an impressive list.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
The Universe has emotions?
ZerglingOne
We’re part of it, we are it experiencing itself, so yes.
Taigan
Just enjoy the ride, Jocelyn. Believe me, it’s better than the alternative.
morleuca
And she should know better than to listen to the Dr’s when it comes to how e affects us. Particularly if it’s towards the early end of starting
Eff
And that caveate of “aren’t universally reported” isn’t saying it doesn’t happen, just that it doesn’t happen to everyone. I was already very in touch with my emotions before I started estrogen, but afterwards I reacted a bit quicker and tended towards a little more happy crying. All quite positive effects, of course!
Some Ed
No, it’s not even saying that. It’s saying that not everyone reports them.
It does not say anything about whether everyone has them. Some people may have them and not report them. Some people may not have them, but still report them. Some have them and report them (I know at least two in this category, so it’s not a maybe.) And of course, it could be that some people don’t have them and don’t report having them.
That’s one of the problems with studying sentient subjects. They don’t always report everything honestly, but it’s not like you can attach monitors to them and expect that to go well.
Rolf of Many Doors
Dang it, I need more Joyce and Joe! The drama just started!
DailyBrad
Just the cutest.
RassilonTDavros
? Aww, it’s so swee[b]HOLY SHIT IS THAT JORDAN?[/b]
RassilonTDavros
Oh god dammit formatting screw up
Needfuldoer
It’s HTML here, not bbcode!
(Also wow, bbcode! Hello, fellow Internet old person.)
daeranilen
God, I needed this today. Thank you. Good luck, Jocelyne. May there be much more joy ahead for you, and for all of us.
Dawn
Is this Jordan’s first ever (partial) appearance?
Michael Steamweed
A bonus strip had him in full costume doing Hallowe’en trick-‘r’-treating. No face at all.
Nono
That’s a lot of missed calls, Jocelyne…
Alongcameaspider
Joyce isn’t the only one that puts off talking to her family until she has no choice it seems
CrimsonStorm
Yeah I was gonna say looks like Joyce isn’t the only sister with an “ignoring phone calls” problem
Queen Anthai
If those calls are from her mother, the ignoring is the SOLUTION to the problem.
Decidedly Orthogonal
?
Also, blocking numbers.
Deanatay
I mean, you have a number for long enough, your messages start to be largely junk. Not surprised she doesn’t read them all.
StClair
some of us get that without hormones or transitioning, just being alive.
StClair
dang, that was the wrong grav for that one, let’s try another.
StClair
making a note, but rolling again.
StClair
ehhh.
StClair
…
StClair
last one today, really.
Yumi
And this doesn’t seem drastic… seems pretty in-line for what’s happened!
Dana W
Lucky you. Some of us didn’t. For some of us being alive is a constant trial, or many years of suffering and hurt. HRT was the first time in my life I didn’t feel like a zombie.
StClair
Lucky? for most of my youth, I didn’t think so. Emotions and social needs I often didn’t understand or acknowledge, which caused me to embarrass myself and flee back to the lonely safety of solitude to lick my wounds. It wasn’t until my twenties that I started – started – to accept that part of myself.
Yumi
Yeah, like… having strong emotionality isn’t in contrast to experiencing trial, suffering, and hurt. I used to get in trouble for crying in 1st grade, so I started finding ways to hurt myself because that would sometimes help me stop myself from crying. And sometimes it wouldn’t, so there were still plenty of times I felt horrible because I was crying in front of people for “no reason.”
Going numb sucks too, and decades of that sounds horrible; it just doesn’t mean a different experience is a fun one.
StClair
I built my identity around being “smart” and “rational”. Feelings were messy and the enemy of “reason”; they popped up when I didn’t want them, and I didn’t know (or want to learn) how to express them in a healthy way, so it was all deny deny deny, repress repress repress, until that built-up pressure exploded in some form of acting out and started the whole miserable cycle over again.
I’m better now, really. It took a long time, though.
For bonus irony, I aspired to “Vulcan logic” for years before I really understood the totality of Vulcans and why they’re like that.
Dana W
You and I could be twins. Oh I SO understand! I didn’t deal with myself till I was 35 and THAT was 25 years ago.
I went intellectual Neo-Conservative! I could pin people in a corner for hours and extol the “virtues” of Ayn Rand, and the glories of Capitalism till you wanted to just hit me with a sock full of horse crap. I was so deep in the closet, if I farted it smelled in Narnia.
I was so much “better” than everybody! First I found out I wasn’t. Then found out I didn’t want to be.The. I found out the people who think they are are pretty much unbearable to anybody with an actual life.
Proxiehunter
Honestly that wouldn’t have taken long. The sock comes out at the first mention of the virtues of Ayn Rand.
Dana W
Hey, I got better
Dante
Oh, this happened to me. Relating to Spock too, even! And since my emotions were too strong and I acted out… I got the idea the only valuable thing in me was my brain. Smarts and creativity, because as a person I clearly sucked? It was the only thing I was praised about anyway :’DD
Went through The Horrors, including the numbness, gave myself permission to cry at like 24 and life started to get better like. Only then tbh. Therapy and the right meds make a world of difference, which is why I always go “fam, if your neurotransmitters are limping along, storebought is fine.”
(It turned out I had combined neurodivergencies in an age people went “oh, gifted child” instead of “oh, this child needs help.” The world has, at least in that sense, gotten better.)
Anyway I love Jocelyne and this strip was stupidly moving ;AAA;
Dana W
Understood, I’m autistic too, (Doctor Diagnosed) with a good dose of Trauma. I was just saying for some of us things like HRT are not optional.
Proxiehunter
I’m not spotting where someone said they were optional.
Aura
FWIW, I can see why Dana took that the way they did, for someone reading the strip with the context of having the pretty common experience of emotional shutdown prior to starting HRT, and the relief that comes from having access to your full emotional range again, the original comment in this thread came across as pretty dismissive of that.
Yumi
I don’t think it was dismissive when you consider it’s not being commented on as a pro in this strip. I get why she might have misread it, but it took me a minute of squinting to see what she might have been referring to.
Aura
I don’t think it was intended to be dismissive at all, I just think StClair and Dana are reading this from very different contexts, and that leads to this sort of thing where it’s really easy for someone with Dana’s context to read things into StClair’s comment they didn’t intend, whereas to someone without that context Dana’s comments could feel like non sequiturs.
Personally, for me I was a little taken aback by St Clair’s comment, but I assume they’re simply unaware of how great a relief this sort of experience can be after a lifetime of not being able to access all your emotions and not meaning to invalidate the experiences of those to whom this is actually a big deal (or to imply we shouldn’t need hrt or other forms of transition to feel things).
morleuca
The sheer range of emotions on hrt vs either the fugue or blinding rage.
Heavensrun
Drastic emotional fluctuations are almost never a lucky get, kiddo. I think you’ve fundamentally misread what was being said there.
Marisa Mockery
Idk it was kind of hilarious
Thag Simmons
Everyone has hormones, they come free with being a human
Some Ed
It’s my understanding if you’re human and you have exactly 0 hormones, you die. Or more likely, you’re probably already dead. I get that you’re talking about not having supplemental hormones, but I’ve had issues from being low on natural hormones and thought it was important to clarify this. Supplemental hormones are designed to act like natural hormones as much as feasible, so there’s absolutely nothing that says the natural ones can’t do this also.
That said, part of transition also suppresses some of the natural hormones that can do that, so it’s all complicated, much like anything in life. (To be clear, my low hormone issues were not part of any kind of transition, but rather stuff going wonky inside me all on its own. As I understand it, people who go through regulated hormone therapies usually don’t have the kinds of issues I had, and most of the time they do it’s for reasons kind of like what I had that just happen to coincide at the same time as mucking with other things. You don’t need to worry about life-threatening hormone loss as part of transition processes, except under the current administration and those would be more likely due to non-medically induced factors.)
Slartibeast Button, BIA
LoreFail: Who is that to the right in the picture?
What was the birth order of the Brown Children again?
HueSatLight
John, Jocelyn, Jordan, Joyce.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Thnx.
RacingTurtle
?
HueSatLight
Jordan’s first appearance outside of this bonus strip also found in book 9 if I’m counting right.
Michael Steamweed
To go trih-tree-ing but not actually accept any candy. Jordan is indeed Jordan.
Dana W
Oh Crying is the gift. That first year it was so good at finally and at long last to just CRY. I cried and cried for months. I got 35 years of not crying out in one summer. I got cold feet and quit mones for a week, and the crying started to dry up. Was so happy to go back on.
IntangibleMatter
The crying is infectious beyond the confines of the panel here.
Taffy
Jesus Christ, who’s about to die? I don’t trust this entire week of strips, something is about to go down.
Bryy