I counted in the new year surrounded by lesbians. It was fun.

This is very femme and I like it a lot!

Um, yeah? Transitioning massively reduced my dissociation.

That’s pretty much the definition of gender dysphoria.

I finally had my initial consult for bottom surgery! Still a few more hoops to jump through, but it should happen some time next year.

People are gendering me female (and acting interested!) even on zero-effort days.

And I’ve just about worked up the courage to visit a lesbian bar over new year 👩‍❤️‍👩

So, pretty good <3

Woo! Looking good!

Fuck 'em. If they want their daughter in their life, they can learn who you are.

It sucks, but not as much as forcing yourself to be around people who want you to be someone you’re not.

Those are adorable! They look pretty comfy too.

I don’t think it’s any weirder than fantasizing about, say, having sex with your celebrity crush. Which is not weird at all.

So long as you’re not trying to follow through on it, enjoy your imaginary lesbian utopia!

Oh, this is an excellent question.

Yeah, everything that had been general background malaise became a lot more specific once I knew I was trans. It became a lot easier to pinpoint “I don’t like this about myself”. Which sucks, because I felt bad, but was also good because I could do something about it. Mostly that was “wait for HRT to sort it out”. And, mostly, HRT has fixed it. Or just time in general, like growing my hair out or losing weight.

The other thing I noticed is I tend to have a single thing that really bothers me, and everything else is a lot less of a bother. Once that’s dealt with, the next most important thing becomes apparent, and so on. At first I didn’t know whether I wanted bottom surgery, because I was so upset just looking male in general. But once my face softened up and my hair started to grow out, it suddenly became very obvious to me that surgery would be necessary.

The absolute worst thing when I was just starting out was my face looking like a man. I tried makeup, and that just made me look like a man in makeup. But, slowly, it started working: a bit of mascara made me feel better. Then foundation started smoothing out my face, rather than highlighting the masculine features. Eye shadow and lipstick started looking good.

Time-wise, I think the absolute worst period for me was about three months in. Six months, I started to see the effects of HRT. Nine months, I started passing as a woman. Twelve months, I could see it for myself.

Totally. The amount of shit I can just shrug off with a “that sucks, oh well” now that would have had me spiraling before is incredible.

It kind of feels like I had life on hard mode up till now.

Good luck!

Nicely done. You found just the right shade, too!

Yay <3 I like the top!

I wet my hair and use kao water treatment to get rid of the tangles. Then an obscene amount of LA Looks Extreme Sport gel (anything is fine though) and lightly blow dry with a diffuser. Then air dry the rest of the way. Just before I go out I scrunch with my fingers to break up the gel and voila!

Yay, more lesbians!

Haskell

Oh, this one was easy (dynamic programming at last!). Still haven’t figured out the right way to approach yesterday’s part two, though.

import Data.List  
import Data.Map (Map)  
import Data.Map qualified as Map  

readInput =  
  Map.fromList  
    . map ((\(name : outs) -> (init name, outs)) . words)  
    . lines  

part1 input = go "you"  
  where  
    go "out" = 1  
    go name = maybe 0 (sum . map go) $ input Map.!? name  

part2 input = let (both, _, _, _) = pathsFrom "svr" in both  
  where  
    pathsFrom =  
      (Map.!)  
        . Map.insert "out" (0, 0, 0, 1)  
        . Map.fromList  
        . (zip <*> map findPaths)  
        $ Map.keys input ++ concat (Map.elems input)  
    findPaths n =  
      let (both, dac, fft, none) =  
            unzip4 $ maybe [] (map pathsFrom) (input Map.!? n)  
       in case n of  
            "dac" -> (sum both + sum fft, sum dac + sum none, 0, 0)  
            "fft" -> (sum both + sum dac, 0, sum fft + sum none, 0)  
            _ -> (sum both, sum dac, sum fft, sum none)  

main = do  
  input <- readInput <$> readFile "input11"  
  print $ part1 input  
  print $ part2 input  

That’s not quite the key observation…

Haskell

This is pretty ugly. I got rather fed up after trying out various heuristics when the test case passed but actual data didn’t.

import Control.Arrow  
import Data.Function  
import Data.Ix  
import Data.List  
import Data.Ord  

readInput :: String -> [(Int, Int)]  
readInput = map ((read *** (read . tail)) . break (== ',')) . lines  

pairs = concatMap (\(x : xs) -> map (x,) xs) . init . tails  

toRange ((a, b), (c, d)) = ((min a c, min b d), (max a c, max b d))  

onTiles loop rect = cornersInside && not crossingEdges  
  where  
    cornersInside =  
      let ((a, b), (c, d)) = rect  
       in inside (a, d) && inside (c, b)  
    verticalEdges = sortOn (Down . fst . fst) $ filter (uncurry ((==) `on` fst)) loop  
    inside (x, y) =  
      let intersecting ((a, b), (_, d)) = a <= x && inRange (min b d, max b d) y  
       in maybe False (uncurry ((>) `on` snd)) $ find intersecting verticalEdges  
    crossingEdges =  
      let ((a, b), (c, d)) = rect  
       in any (crossingLoop . toRange) $  
            [ ((a, b), (c, b)),  
              ((c, b), (c, d)),  
              ((c, d), (a, d)),  
              ((a, d), (a, b))  
            ]  
    crossingLoop ((a, b), (c, d))  
      | a == c = anyEdge (\((e, f), (g, h)) -> f == h && f > b && f < d && g > a && e < c)  
      | b == d = anyEdge (\((e, f), (g, h)) -> e == g && e > a && e < c && h > b && f < d)  
    anyEdge = flip any $ map toRange loop  

main = do  
  input <- readInput <$> readFile "input09"  
  let rects = pairs input  
      loop = zip (last input : input) input  
      go = print . maximum . map (rangeSize . toRange)  
  go rects  
  go $ filter (onTiles loop) rects  

Oh gosh, I remember this one. Working backwards is a good idea. In addition, you can just look at the start of the string when trying substitutions. I don’t think that’s valid in general, but it worked for me in this case.

There’s another trick you can do if you look carefully at the input data. I didn’t implement it in my solution because I didn’t spot it myself, but it essentially makes the problem trivial.

“Of course I’d love to transition and be a woman, it’s just that I’m not trans.”

That was also my logic for a looong time.