I was born Susan Elaine Dorsher in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. I liked reading, airplanes, my tricycle, and jumping on the bed. I had an audiobook with some cardboard statistics on the planets when I was in preschool. That began my interest in astronomy.
I played with blocks, Barbies, American Girl Dolls. My sister and I dressed in make believe clothes and played runaway and princesses. We had a common best friend. I read the Box Car Children, Encyclopedia Brown, Chronicles of Narnia, Nancy Drew, the Baby Sitters Club, My Teacher is an Alien, Sideways Stories at Wayside School, The Giver, The Dark is Rising, Little House on the Prairie, Number the Stars, and many more. I read the American Girl stories. Among them, my favorite was Kirsten. My mom's grandfather came from Sweden, and we had a cedar chest with handmade doilies in it just like Kirsten did.
I listened to Oldies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s on the radio growing up. In high school, my favorite music was Simon and Garfunkle's Greatest Hits, Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, Niel Diamond's Greatest Hits, several CDs by Peter Paul and Mary, Arlo Guthrie's Precious Friend, and a CD named Celtic River. Honestly, that hasn't changed much. I was also obsessed with Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and RENT. In high school, my family helped found a musical theater. My mom has stayed involved my entire adult life.
I was an athlete from early childhood until it became impossible to pursue the sports I loved in young adulthood. I began swimming lessons as a toddler, began gymnastics at five, took dance briefly, and dabbled extremely briefly in cheerleading, soccer, and basketball. I continued to love swimming until I had to decide between lifeguard training and diving. In sixth grade, I began diving. In junior high and high school, I joined both the diving and gymnastics teams, and also trained in the off-season and at clubs. I think I was training 20 hours a week during the season as a varsity diver. I lettered in diving. I was a terrible gymnast and was pressured (correctly, my gymnastics was dangerous) to leave the team in tenth grade. In twelfth grade, I was forced to choose between diving and math team, and I chose math team. We will get to that story next. During high school, I also was a down hill skiier on a recreation-only basis several times a year. I cross-country skied sometimes as well. I travelled with my parents, and we went on hikes sometimes. I loved to swim in the lake at our cabin in northern Minnesota, as well as water skiing. Most of this became impossible when I went to MIT for college.
In fifth grade, my mom became my math team coach. In sixth grade, I started begging her for advanced math packets, and she gave me a pre-algebra workbook that I loved and carried around with me. In sixth grade, I won the conference math meet. In seventh grade, I tested into an accelerated math program through the University of Minnesota, called UMPTYMP, at the St. John's College extension site. I continued with my junior high's math team. In eighth grade, I placed second in the state of Minnesota and qualified for the national math competition. I continued to be on the Minnesota state Maroon team throughout high school. One year, I placed in a many-way tie as an individual high scorer. I was captain of the school math team my senior year of high school, and retroactively appointed captain of the state math team (keeper of the frisbee). Of course, I chose math team over diving. Unsurprisingly, when I went to college, I majored in physics. Maybe more surprisingly, I did not dual major in math.
I also took art classes in the evening throughout junior high and high school, once a week, although I was absolutely terrible. I loved pottery, although I was not particularly good at it, and I was able to continue doing pottery in college through the student union at MIT. I was not able to afford to continue in grad school, though.
In high school, I was also a part of French club. I took every year of French offered at my high school, and every semester of French offered at the local university. I assumed when I went to college that I would be able to skip ahead to at least French three or four. Wow, was I wrong. I took French and immediately dropped it twice. I never did find the right level, so I didn't take a language in college. I would have liked to take one. I enjoy language learning, though it is not my best skill.
I took one year of ASL in high school and was part of the ASL club as well. I don't remember much, but I knew that I have genetic neurological progressive hearing loss (I don't have a hearing aid, and I don't yet need one), so I thought it would be interesting to learn. I didn't really succeed, though! Not with only one year and no practice partner! I can still finger-spell, but that is all.
Before high school, I had been a Girl Scout. In high school, I became a member of the Youth Service Club, a volunteer organization, and the National Merit Society. In college, I did a few projects with APO, a service fraternity, although I never got as far as initiation into the fraternity. I also volunteered to teach SAT prep to disadvantaged youth. Since then, I have done some volunteer teaching on Facebook, but not while I had a noncompete at my last employer as a remote tutor. I have also twice been a researcher on a volunteer basis.
In high school, I played in a Star Trek role-playing game on AOL and Usenet. I also enjoyed RPG video games like Myst and King's Quest. In college, I LARPed in the Legend's Role-Playing Game. My fellow mathletes were into board games and video games like You Don't Know Jack when I was in high school, and in the reunions when I was in college. I later was part of a board gaming club in grad school at Ohio State, and another one in the Twin Cities while I was doing research at St. Cloud State University between the University of Minnesota and Louisiana State University. When I moved to Baton Rouge, LA, I was introduced to the MMORPG Guild Wars 2 by some people important to me. I have played with much more dedication than skill, but it has become an important part of my life. I have tried Final Fantasy XIV as well and loved it, but right now it is not running on my computer. The same is true of World of Warcraft. SWTOR was initially great.
Credit to: my career, my family, my partner specifically, my ex-husband specifically, my wonderful colleagues and teachers, and all my friends over the years
These days I am disabled by frequent seizures. They began when I was a teenager. They are non-epileptic. They have sometimes been as frequent as multiple times a day for three weeks. There was a time when they went away for a few years. More often, they are every couple of weeks. They last 20 minutes to a couple of hours. I can't move, am partially aware, and they end in a convulsion. This is the terse summary. They are not an emergency for me. However, they do make it very difficult to give prior notice and find my own substitute. And combined with frequent migraines, that's a lot of sick days. I also can't drive.
So how did I become Steven Dorsher? Technically, I'm not. My legal name is still Susan Elaine Dorsher. However, I strongly prefer Steven. I look like Steven, don't I? My friends know me that way, as do my coworkers. I am published as Steven. My family calls me Steven. Please be respectful.
I did not know trans people existed until I was a couple of months short of 18 years old. I met my first trans man on a college visit to MIT. I had seen RENT, but RENT does not make it clear that surgery or hormones are options. As it turns out, I was only on testosterone for 1.5 years when I was around 27. I am 44 now. I do not want surgery, nor can I safely have it. But my original intent was to fully transition. I spent seven years in therapy gradually socially transitioning before I decided on a name and made the social transition formal by coming out when I was 27. I began hormones then, but went off them soon because my seizures became really dangerous and scary. I had to leave grad school because of them. My beard still grows, though. And I still prefer Steven. To be honest, my attire is not enormously masculine. I look like a man because I look like a man.