On poetry & science

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no-one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it's the exact opposite.

-- Paul Dirac

So I came across this quotation earlier, and I am actually really viscerally upset by it. Because trying to tell people things such that they can be understood by everyone is really, really not something we do. Science not communicated is science not done, yes, but - universal understanding? No. I don't even think it's a reasonable or realistic aspiration.

-- and poetry -- oh, it is in my breath, it is grace, it is ease, in a way that science is for me, too, but: there is poetry in science, but there is also a lot of book-keeping -- but it's the poetry of the other, of the external; whereas poetry of the word (rather than of the deed; thank you, Frank Turner) holds me close and smooths my hair and says I see you, and you are not alone. Poetry told me about abuse: that it wasn't okay and that I'd survived it. Poetry told me about depression; about my depression. Poetry provides a place for me to stand; provides me structure to investigate myself; tells me that I can survive and I can be strong and I can find beauty and wonder in the world. It tells me things I didn't know before, about myself, and if we are to denigrate that then we despise teaching, and if we despise teaching then, I feel, we have lost our way.

Poetry is a perfect way for me to say particular things to a particular audience, but it is not the only perfect way, even for a given listener. This does not devalue it. There is craft and beauty and skill in poetry, as in music, as in science; and as in science, just because you cannot see the value or interest of a line of inquiry does not mean it does not exist.

And in that craft and beauty there is, yes, communication of things that no-one ever knew before: about the certain slant of light on winter afternoons, or the harsh call of the wild geese (over and over); about how words fit together like rivers or grains of sand with history running through them, and about the strange and terrible wonder of grief.

I am a poet, and I am a scientist, and you cannot know me unless you can hold me complete in your heart: two things on their own, and both at once.

Working out my gender

I didn't really understand or like or have any interest in clothes until I realised that I wasn't female.

I've got very clear memories of my siblings - both male-identified, as far as I know - saying they were going to be women when they grew up; I don't remember saying anything similar myself. (I also remember a family friend saying something similar. She was right.)

But I didn't know that was a thing that could be true until my early teens. I already knew I was queer; I started playing with the idea that maybe I was a dude. I definitely had days where I felt a lot like a dude, but they weren't common, and in general, that felt wrong, too.

In sixth form, a friend said - on my having dressed up a bit - "... no, but you see, there is masculine, and there is feminine, and then there is [you], and it's REALLY DISTURBING when you cross over into either," which... was way more accurate than I realised at the time; I mean, I was just pretty chuffed.

Somewhere in there, I found out that non-binary was a term and genderqueer folk exist, and I started thinking really hard about myself. Almost exactly five years ago, I started binding regularly. Four years ago, I decided was genderqueer but couldn't face social transition; but I started thinking about handles, and changed my name online from something derived from my given name to... well, something still derived from my wallet name, but derived in a way of my choosing, without gender (and in fact in the German it's nodding to is neuter). Three years ago, I took a very deep breath and decided I was going to change my wallet name, and I asked people to change what they called me, and then, oh then, I began to realise that actually, I like clothes and I like dressing up and I like presenting femme and I like cufflinks and I like jewelry and perfume and make-up and drag, and it was glorious.

Which is a very bare-bones accounting: for all that it says that genderqueer felt right, that's oversimplified and doesn't explain what wrong means.

So: progesterone makes me really obviously really ill. Really, really ill. When I was nine I stood and stared at myself in the mirror and thought, I need to remember what this looks like because soon I won't be flat-chested any more. And my chest -- well, okay, look, I am seriously a dead ringer for Botticelli's Birth of Venus, like, partners have been really weirded out by how easily that could be a painting of me. (Occasionally I will turn a particular way when getting dressed around That One Lady, and she will darkly mutter down to the nipple placement..) So: a body type considered objectively attractive and praiseworthy, and one I am eminently capable of finding attractive, it just doesn't belong on me. My proprioception is wrong for it - there are some things I can't do, or can do only with revulsion, because of how they cause parts of my body that Shouldn't Be to move. The physical dysphoria is, for me, a pervasive low-level unease, a something is wrong: my body is in the uncanny valley relative to my bone-deep sense of what it should be, and it is only my chest that causes this, not any of the disability or whatever. (Well, and sometimes my face and my voice, but those I am learning to make peace with in a way that I am not so much with my chest, because anything else would be more wrong.)

There's social stuff too, of course - the delicate duality whereby misogyny is wrong, evidently and clearly, but there is additional grating unease when I experience it arising from you're treating me in a way congruent with your perceiving me as a woman, distinct from the way you are treating me is wrong because politics and humanity.

Somehow, though, I appear to have muddled through. As I say above, "genderqueer" isn't actually quite right, but it's the best term I've got so far: and so perhaps in time it's home to strength I'll come.

By all means ask me questions - I am happy to educate in this specific instance, for people I already know - but be aware that this doesn't necessarily mean I'll answer all questions about my life, because - personal, and so on.