dandelion

Musk announced the $1 million giveaway at an event in Harrisburg, Pa., on Saturday. The event was part of a tour supporting Trump.

“I have a surprise for you," Musk said shortly before bringing out a giant check. "We are going to be awarding $1 million to people who have signed the petition — every day, from now until the election.”

"If you look at the conditions, you must be a registered voter," Hasen said. "And so this is essentially a lottery that's open only to people who register to vote. So it’s either an incentive for someone to vote or it’s a reward. And either way, it violates federal law."

He calls Musk's actions "clearly illegal" because it violates statute 52 U.S.C. 10307(c) and the Department of Justice’s election manual.

Hasen said willful violation of statute 52 U.S.C. 10307(c) comes with a $10,000 fine and up to five years in prison.

"I don't think it would be likely that he would suffer such a serious fine," Hasen said of Musk. "Although, if he was warned that this is illegal activity and continued to do it, I think that would create a different kind of situation."

I can't seem to shake imposter syndrome or doubts about whether I'm "trans" or whether I'm a woman, etc.

Just wondering what you all do when you feel that way, if you have any recommendations?

It makes me feel awful, there is so much commitment to a transition it feels like you have to be certain, but I just don't have constant certainty.

Sometimes I'll sit down and try to analyze it objectively, basically considering the "null hypothecis" - if I am not trans, then I would be cis, if I were cis then a certain set of things would be true (like, estrogen would probably not feel so great, testosterone would not make me depressed, etc.).

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for tools to help with digital detox / digital minimalism.

I struggle with mild impulsivity. Whenever I open my computer I almost automatically open a browser and check social media.

It used to be a problem primarily with Reddit and news sites, but since joining Lemmy my behavior has switched to regularly checking Lemmy.

I'm looking for any tools or advice, whether cognitive-behavioral or technical like browser extensions.

In the past I used the Firefox extension called Redirector to redirect myself from certain subreddits like /r/all to something more benign (I like /r/sewing or /r/books for example), and this intervention helped break up automatic behavior and was a kind of harm reduction: still feeding the impulsivity, but with healthier content.

I was wondering if there is something like Redirector that redirects randomly with some probability (like 20% of the time it redirects to the target you specify).

Hi!

tl;dr after injecting the same amount of estradiol valerate (subq) for a month or so, I started to experience more dysphoria and signs of testosterone (esp. mental) started to come back. Any reason this might be?

Longer version / details:

I injected 5 mg (0.25 mL) of estradiol valerate subq into my thighs every four days for a while, and for a couple weeks I started injecting into my abdomen instead to avoid blood supplies.

This dose seemed like more than enough. In the past 3.4 mg every 3 days gave me blood estradiol levels of ~350 pg/mL at trough. Recent labs showed 5 mg every 4 days had ~300 pg/mL at trough for me, which was lower than I expected.

It's a good level, but I was having weird dysphoric experiences that commonly happen when my hormones are out of wack (usually when I'm taking too little estrogen). Things like really doubting my gender identity, depression (lack of motivation, lethargic), anhedonia (little pleasure, flat affect, often leads to craving short-term reward behaviors). Physiological signs of T were not as evident in this case, and the dysphoria was not as severe as in the past when my estrogen was too low. Still, it seemed a lot like my estrogen was too low.

I increased my dose to 5.4 mg and the dysphoria went away within a day and I felt amazing and continued to feel amazing. I intended to switch to 5.4 mg / 4 days instead, but on day 3 I could feel my hormones coming down and trusting my experience I injected 5 mg a day early with the intention of trying 5 mg / 3 days (which is a lot more than I have taken before in terms of what this should do to my overall levels). Still not sure what I will do next. Part of me wants to stick with a 4 day cycle to keep lower peaks and to minimize overall levels (out of principle, I know injecting is not as risky as oral routes).

I'm trying to figure out why a stable dose that seems so high and was for the most part effective would suddenly not be "enough" (assuming that's indeed what's happening).

For context I'm close to 4 months on HRT, I took bicalutamide for a bit but stopped because I don't think it helped my mental symptoms and that's the most important therapeutic goal for me with taking HRT. I switched to monotherapy after 2 months which is when I started the 5 mg / 4 days.

I've heard sometimes the body can go through phases as it adjusts to estrogen early in HRT, so maybe this is just one of those lurches or adjustments?

Anyway here are some guesses I came up with:

• I gained some weight (like 15 lbs), some maybe I need a little more EV than before?
• injecting into abdomen depots the oil differently than the thigh, so maybe I am seeing a slower or lower circulation of EV (or alternatively a much faster circulation that is causing a crash earlier?)
• maybe the estrogen receptors are downregulating due to taking too high of a dose too regularly? (I see lots of debate about whether this is a thing, mostly people on Reddit rejecting the idea that this has any clinical relevance.)

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this or has suggestions.

Thanks so much!

More photos of the pizza being made: https://imgur.com/a/npeE1e8

based on this recipe (not intended as an endorsement):

https://www.eatfigsnotpigs.com/chicken-caesar-salad-pizza-vegan/

toppings:

• herbed compound butter (fresh parsley, minced garlic, oregano)
• tomato slices
• red onion slices
• mozz.
• breaded and fried tofu (as a kind of chkn)
• caesar salad dressing (mayo, cashew cream, mustard, capers, parm, lemon juice)
• lettuce
• parm
• bacon bits (used this recipe)

I recently had an injection that seemed to go wrong (CW: blood, I inject EV subq and I hit something like a capillary, there was a lot of blood and it bruised badly afterwards). Within a couple days I felt unusually dysphoric as a result of what I assume was a failure for the oil to depot and slowly release over time.

I get these "dysphoric thoughts" that maybe the estrogen is causing the problems, that I don't have objective proof that I'm trans, etc. Lots of doubt, paranoia, and increasing amounts of anxiety and irrational fear (about transition, but also in general, e.g. thinking spiders are in my bed), and I start to experience depression and anhedonia (things aren't as pleasurable, everything feels pretty flat emotionally, I just feel "bad").

Of course when I inject again and it goes well, I feel much better and I forget about these problems.

I was just wondering if anyone has advice on how to deal with dysphoria when there are gaps in the HRT. Obviously in the long term, surgery will fix the hormone issue and I suspect that will fix this problem. Until then, though, I am stuck in a rather fragile place where I feel normal (even good, even amazing) when my estrogen levels are high and suppressing my testosterone. Any small slip in that and I barely function as a person.

Before HRT I would just do whatever I could to increase mental well-being:

• physical exertion (aerobic exercise, weightlifting, etc.)
• going outside and getting sunshine
• keeping up with hydration
• keeping good sleep hygiene (sleeping enough, going to sleep at the same times, etc.)
• meditation every day

But now it feels harder for me to "bootstrap" when there are gaps in HRT and my hormones aren't right, it's like I'm no longer used to how hard it was before.

Anyway - any tips or thoughts, would like to hear other's experiences.

Toppings:

• tofu scramble (pressed tofu blocks broken up and flavored with black salt, turmeric, onion & garlic powder, nooch, smoked paprika, black pepper; allowed to sit in the fridge for a long time to absorb the flavor; then pan-fried with onions)
• spicy beyond breakfast sausage
• some violife "feta" cheez (tasted like the mildest goat cheese, could sub with Miyokos cashew mozzarella, or go with a cheddar cheez)
• bacon bits (I was going to use Horray foods bacon but ran out, so I made some roughly based on Pot Thickens's recipe)
• extra nooch for cheezy flavor
• slices were garnished with green onions

Sauce was a sausage gravy, basically I made a roux with flour and Melt vegan butter, soaked cashews and blended them with a high powered blender into a cream, added maybe 1 tsp of white miso paste and maybe a few TB of mushroom powder and a 1/2 tsp of Better Than Bouillon no-chkn bouillon. Slowly incorporated broth into the roux until it formed a paste, then I added the cream. I cooked up a single patty of Original Beyond Breakfast Sausage and broke it into pieces and then incorporated that into the gravy.

The crust was made out of freshly milled whole wheat (I used spelt, hard red winter wheat, and soft white wheat berries) and used a sourdough starter. I also subbed a Dos Equis beer for the water (just trying to use it up) and that added some flavor.

This pizza was much, much better than I expected. Far exceeded expectations. I had never heard of a breakfast pizza before, apparently it's something people get at gas stations? Either way, this pizza is a winner.

Next time I plan to use omelette toppings, like:

• spinach
• black olives
• tomatoes
• avocado
• bell pepper
• mushrooms