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Until I was 3 I lived in Minneapolis. I had three friends, a girl and a brother and sister. We played board games, jumped on the bed, and played outside. My sister was born there. I liked the airplanes flying overhead. I had a favorite pair of blue jelly shoes and liked primary colors. I loved preschool and had a great teacher. I liked singing songs and ravioli. My teacher gave me a necklace with a coin from Mexico that I loved.

I moved to Eagan, where I attended a second preschool and went to K-3. We made things like sheep and clouds with cotton balls in preschool and there were parties with games like cake walk, musical chairs, duck duck grey duck, and go fish. In kindergarten I loved making patterns most of all with the blocks, and I enjoyed learning to read and write. We also learned the pledge of alliegance. When I was five I got ear tubes after having many ear infections. In first grade I liked math, but wrote my sevens backward, so did not do as well as I could have. There was a goldfish in one of the classrooms, and I made a couple of friends. In second grade, I was grouped to the higher level of math, and in third grade, I was taken out of the classroom for some special advanced studying. Throughout this time, I had neighborhood friends, especially a best friend I shared with my sister who lived next door. We played with dolls, bicycles, a sandbox, the kitchen set, rollerskated, ice skated on the pond behind our house, played on the swingset, fed the horses. We had a girlscout troop and rode horses a couple of times. I did a science fair project on air resistance vs not in falling objects, and I enjoyed reading science books such as Louis Pasteur, or the discovery of insulin. I also read Encyclopedia Brown. I was not good at spelling. At five I begin gymnastics. We went to a Methodist church.

In fourth grade I moved to St Cloud. I was frustrated because they were a year behind in math so I was repeating math. I had a new Girl Scout Troop. I read Nancy Drew, The Baby Sitters Club. I baby sat maybe once or twice, but it wasn't great. My new best friend introduced me to My Teacher is an Alien. I also read The Dark is Rising, the Giver, and a few others I forget. Eventually Piers Anthony and Orson Scott Card but that might have been later. My mom got me involved in math team in fifth grade and I won the conference in sixth (maybe also fifth?). My mom was also giving me pre-algebra workbooks. In sixth grade I took home the classroom rat and she lived for a couple of years. My best friend took home the other one. I was friends with a group of girls and a couple of boys who were also kind of nerds, but more in a fantasy book sort of way than a science sort of way.  In sixth grade, I used up the swimming classes, and began taking diving, at my community pool. I continued gymnastics during this time. There was also a horrible attempt with piano, french horn, and cello. My best friend was an athiest. I was an agnostic. I had left church because of LGBT issues.

In seventh grade I tested into the UMN UMTYMP accelerated math program, so that by high school I was taking calculus. I began to watch Star Trek for two hours every night, Original Series and Next Generation.  In 8th grade I started playing in an online RPG when we got AOL. I also sang in choir both years, and that continued through high school. In eigth grade, I tested into tenth grade biology. I also was taken out of industrial technology because I was having too many verbal-sparring fights with the local preacher's kid about whether or not god existed ("it's in a book" "which book"-- well, we both liked books) on the bus ride home. I nearly failed home economics. Oops. But all my other classes went very well. I was swimming and diving on the school swimming and diving team. I also took an art class. I was a serious math team competitor and took second in the state and went on to nationals.

In high school I was still taking UMTYMP accelerated math through many college courses, playing online RPGs and reading LGBT material online, involved with the gay-straight alliance, a diver, a gymnast, French club, taking an art class, was still a serious math team competitor and was on the Minnesota Maroon Team at ARML nationals all four years, youth service club, National Honor Society I guess, probably some other stuff I'm forgetting, I was really busy. CONFESSIONS: Technically during this time I probably was not as careful as I should have been about where I made out with my boyfriend. Technically during this time I trespassed in a closed park once. Technically during this time once I was driving home from St Cloud Trivia and my glasses had broken. I was out after curfew  (about 10 pm) and made a bad turn in front of a police officer. He let me off without a ticket and told me to go home. I think that's all my high school wrongs. Oh and I think I kissed a guy at summer camp while having a boyfriend, and flirted with another. Sorry! And I didn't make my bed either, my mom would complain about that.

While visiting Caltech and MIT there were various tunnel hacker tours in spring 2000. Obviously I did that. I later led the tunnel hackers (Orange Tours, though I was not the very head Jack) and put a hack on the dome (the weight hack) while at MIT from 2000-2004. I had an offer of a full ride SURF scholarship to CalTech, but had a super bad feeling about it. My mom pulled strings and I was placed with my ex boyfriend's ex girlfriend in this dorm that was definitely skeezy. I asked around about other dorms, but the guy I had been flirting with who went to physics olympiad and math team with me who was a friend had been placed in the one I wanted, and it looked like I wouldn't get that one. I asked if the other ones were accepting of LGBT and was told definitely not. I asked if they were accepting of women, and was told basically no, it was 1 woman for every 7 men. I asked if I would be able to work on LIGO, and was told probably not. I met a transman at MIT and a friend who encouraged me to go to 5E and kept in touch over the summer. MIT was an easy choice (but a really stupid financial choice). 

Yes I have technically smoked pot, but I was never a pot smoker. I was 18 and one month years old, and tried someone else's joint three times, and was allergic. Then I knew I was allergic, and spent the next four years pissed off and avoiding it. THREE TIMES IS TECHNICALLY LESS THAN TEN AND YOU ASSHOLES SAID YOU WANTED TO KNOW HOW MUCH MEDICAL EXPOSURE I HAD HAD. MY DORMMATES SMOKED SO MUCH THEY COVERED THE FIRE ALARMS DAILY.

I have never smoked a cigarette or done hard drugs. I have actually never had "that kind of sex" either. During college I had a birth defect, imperforate vagina, corrected so that I could in theory have "that kind of sex", but I never have. 

I did not drink in high school. I drank socially, primarily at dorm parties, in college, but never more than 2-3 drinks at a time. I have never been sick from alcohol or hung over. I have never forgotten anything due to alcohol. I started a med on my 21st birthday that did not mix well with alchohol, and that was  a terrible and dangerous experience with hallucinations that could have killed me, and the med center wasn't open, so I have never had a drink again. I haven't even had a sip of someone else's drink in the last five years. 

I have been to casinos and have gambled as much as $20-$40 at slot machines, but I planned the amount I was willing to risk losing in advance, and played for the experience. I don't gamble at cards, and only did when I was much younger for penny ante. I wouldn't even do that now. I used to play lottery tickets my parents gave me for Christmas, but I have asked them to stop. I do still play a $5 ante NCAA basketball bracket. But I specifically will not participate in other gambling, not even in video games. Okay, I do open loot boxes.

I am a gay transman, nonbinary. In high school I rarely wore make up or shaved, now I never do, though when I get a hair cut I ask for a beard trim. I do not wear make up though I use vaseline on my lips so they don't get chapped. I did not and do not use hair product (though technically speaking I have at some very few times in my life as a kid used hair spray when my mom made me and in my adult life tried some hair product for male short hair once before rejecting it).  As a teen I wore high heel shoes a few times but very rarely. Obviously I don't now. These days I prefer jeans or slacks and tshirts or long sleeve tshirts, though I also wear button down long sleeve or short sleeve shirts and sweaters or sweat shirts. I don't know how to tie a tie and I don't think I have a suit that fits. I do own mens dress shoes. I usually wear tennis shoes/sneakers. I also own rennaisance fair boots and clothing, though nothing remarkable. 

My partner is also a man, and we've been together ten years.

My ex husband was a man, and we were together ten years before that.

I have dated several men for around a year each.

I have had a couple of relationships lasting about a week with men or women, not tons, I'm not on grindr or anything, and that was 20 years ago.

I have not dated anyone other than my current partner Peter or my ex husband Chuck in the last 20 years. I have expressed love to a few other people in a variety of forms and intensities, but I have not done so with the intent to cheat. 

I began considering if I was trans in 2003ish when prompted by someone I was dating who was considering if she was trans. I entered therapy. I changed my manner of dress in 2004. I cut my hair in 2006. I got married (as Susan she/her, I had not chosen a male name or made a full decision) to a man who knew I was in the process of making this decision, in 2007. In 2009, I started going by Steven he/him, to my friends, family, and coworkers, and started testosterone. In 2010, seizures I had since high school, not diagnosed or treated, became multiple times a day for multiple hours at a time, with convulsions. I was advised to go off testosterone. I lost my job because I could not make progress. In December I was placed on topirimate and the seizures were controlled. In spring 2011 I lost my health insurance and went off testosterone. I have not returned to it out of concerns about the seizures. 

I do not want and have not  had surgery both for personal reasons and because of concerns about seizures and an allergy to penicillin and a difficulty tolerating azythromycin.

I don't have any tattoos or body piercings, nor have I modified my body in any way other than having taken testosterone for 2 years on a low dose, 15ish years ago (reminder I'm not on it now). I have never dyed my hair (nor do I plan to). I don't wear contacts. I need glasses, and my glasses change darkness in the sunlight. With my glasses, my vision is definitely perfectly fine. If I seem oblivious, it's because my attention is not all that great, combined with the fact that I can't hear cars approaching until they're really close-- my hearing is just not very good. Also, when you wear glasses, if you have a significant astigmatism and are nearsighted, peripheral vision most definitely exists, but it's not 20/20 by definition. I DO NOT NEED ADDITIONAL ASSISTIVE HELP WITH MY VISION. MY GLASSES ARE AMAZING AS THEY ARE. If I need it a bit darker, I put non prescription sunglasses over them and I can still see just fine. If I need my monitor or contrast brighter or the font bigger (like 14 or 16 point), I change it. Or I lean in slightly (since I have a keyboard in front of my keyboard due to a broken spacebar). I'm fine. My hearing actually does give me some trouble and if anyone has a solution for that that is not excruciatingly painful or absolutely dumbfuckingly stupid please let me know. If I keep changing the story on whether my hair is brown/red/blonde it is not because I am dying it, it is because it actually looks a bit different in different lighting. Idk do you know what color it is? We could take a poll I suppose. If I can figure out how to set up a poll and if this site gets enough traffic we could pedantically do that. But that wouldn't be for changing my hair color, it would be for what to write on my next drivers license. I don't change my eye color either, I am not wearing colored contacts.

MIT: I'm most proud of my Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program and Undergrad Thesis project working on cosmology research, dark matter, dark energy, using gravitational lensing and one dimensional velocity dispersions, at the Center for Space Research. I already told you about Orange Tours. Other exciting stuff: Six times a year I went out to western Massachusetts for the Legends Live Action Roleplaying Game. I was a Kia (tree sprite) named Aurbren specializing in Icon of Will, and decrypting Dreams and coded messages as part of the Seers Guild. I also played games with the Live Action Roleplaying Group the Assassins Guild (I swear to God and Goodness this has NOTHING to do with assassination, it's a game). I was briefly part of APO. I did some pottery at the Student Union. I volunteered to help some students who especially needed it with SAT prep. I spent a summer at University of Minnesota doing Neutrino research at MINOS. My humanities concentration was art, especially public art. I tried to take French three times and was wrong about my level every single time and had to drop it. I still have nightmares about a French final. For the PE requirement I took archery twice and swimming two or three times, I think. I really enjoyed one of the first split online-in-person classes called Exploring Black Holes. I was part of a singing group in ESG and also took an accelerated intro physics class there. I got to take a class on Inflation with Alan Guth (undergrad). I took General Relativity for the first time. I decided I was definitely not a math major. I was dreadful at junior lab. I did an experiment in a nuclear reactor and got to see the fusion facility. I helped write a ten day IAP LARP called Caer Phadria, but my contribution was small. I saw Star Wars in the theater near Boston Commons when it came out. I rollerbladed by the river and near Harvard Square with friends. I ate out with dorm friends and with friends who were part of the computer security group (I understood little). I visited NYC. I visited a ski lodge. My family visited and we went places. I sometimes went to fisherman's warf just because I liked it and sometimes went to the short north just because I liked it. I ended up living in Sommerville for a summer as well. I had a few friends at Harvard and other colleges while I was there as well.

Ohio State: I worked on an exoplanet statistics paper. I was interested in particle astrophysics as well and nearly transferred to that. My ex husband and I got engaged and we weren't sure where he could find a job in Columbus. We ended up settling on Minneapolis as a better locattion which is why I transferred to UMN. But in the mean time, I really enjoyed the arts district in Columbus, the Columbus Area Board Gaming Society, the food in the arts district, and a Science Fiction Book Club. Sometimes my book club played board games as well. During this time I bicycled to work and sometimes cooked and cleaned for the first time. But I was also REALLY SCARED because I think there was a weirdo living in my basement, and that's when I got diagnosed with mental illness. In retrospect, I think there actually was though....

Um.... Um... Um....

Oh yeah

University of Minnesota: My ex husband was pretty weird also. I'm not going to tell his full story here.

University of Minnesota: We lived in St Louis Park in a house Chuck and I shared, which is an inner suburb of Minneapolis. Chuck made 5 times what I made, but I had a lot more money going in to the relationship. I had credit cards, Chuck did not. Chuck did not have any retirement savings, neither did I. I had a life goal of a physical gender transition and a child. Chuck thought these were unrealistic but didn't say so. Chuck had a life goal of eating at and reviewing every restaurant. He had intended to sell a restaurant review website but somehow that fell through. So instead we just ate at every restaurant and didn't review them. I'm not quite sure how that happened. 

I worked incredibly hard on so many projects I can't actually count them all. I passed so many tests I can't actually count them all in multiple fields at UMN. I made significant personal contributions to five publications. It ended with a masters degree after seven years, though I was only funded for five of them and only lived in Minneapolis for five of them.

During that time, I worked on neutrinos, theoretical particle physics, gravity gradient noise theoretical computations and numerical simulation intended for a future gravitational wave detector, a gravitational wave event detection algorithm for line like signals on a spectrogram using radon transforms for signals of a stochastic nature, some lesser analyses of seismic wave properties from Homestake Mine, and was a science monitor at LIGO Livingston. I also proposed a gravity gradient noise project related to tornadoes and began to work on it, although it did not go anywhere for me. During that time, I also led quite a few intro physics labs, did a lot of grading and tutoring, and helped rewrite a chapter of the lab manual. In the last year, I was at St Cloud State developing and simulating an algorithm for fractional calculus, which led to an additional unpublished paper.

The ending of UMN was not all glory. In about August 2010, my advisor noticed I was having health problems and suggested I go to half time. I had noticed that as well, that's why I was reading endless papers about that IN ADDITION TO DOING MY WORK THOROUGHLY AND WELL. I did go to half time. But almost immediately, my seizures went wildly out of control. Multiple seizures, every day, all day, with convulsions. It took months to get diagnosed and bouncing between quite a few doctors, and I was not able to get necessary documentation for a medical leave. I was asked to document my progress for that semester and that semester only in a short note (had to be short), and because of that, I lost my advisor. I was told I had one more semester of funding at half time and it would be doing lab development. I was supposed to look for a new advisor. I had no more guaranteed funding from the department after that, and only two more years to complete my PhD in an entirely new field. I did notice as soon as I had lost my advisor that there was a way to write up a PhD using four existing papers, which I had, but I no longer had an advisor, so I guess I couldn't do that. Anyhow, the upshot was, nobody wanted a student who was able to provide funding or provide a serious direction for a research project taking my skills seriously at a serious pace. I was asked to pay back an overpayment they University made to me in that time, and my now-ex-husband Chuck had been unemployed. We were both unemployed, out of savings, and I had maxed my credit cards. He had none. Pay back the overpayment how?