Mostly making this bc I felt my comment below didn't deserve its own post as such.
I saw some old friends yesterday, which was wonderful, it was great to catch up. The thing was I'm not out to them. I meant to come out, but I just like never found the right time. So I boymoder, kind of. It was like a questionable boymode where I had my hair down and women's skinny jeans and my nails are painted purple.
I think they knew something was up, because several of them kept mentioning random trans people that they knew, just like randomly. I started doing it to, and we basically had this weird conversation about transness while I sat there sweating. Also, at one point, my friend looked at me and said "you look a lot brighter recently also, i like your earrings btw". i didn't know how to respond to that and was very awkward.
This is fucking embarrassing. Why didn't I just come out? Wtf
It's hard, don't feel too bad! You didn't know how they was gonna be going in and decided to play it safe. And then once your information changed, it felt like too long of a wait. Now you know at least that it won't be horrible when/if you do tell them next time :)
Coming out is fucking hard, don't beat yourself up.
When I was doing it, it helped in each instance to have someone who already knew also in the room with me. Not possible in every circumstance but like, it can be hard to accept that people will be supportive even when you know for a fact they will be, so having someone around who already knows and is supportive is so helpful
Lmao I can imagine they talking about all those trans people and you're there like
But don't worry, I'm sure you will come out to them soon :)
same thing happened to me with my cousin like 8 months after I started coming out. I tried to boymode but he figured it out and texted me afterwards to apologize for misgendering me and deadnaming me, asking what he should call me going forward. it was really mature and I appreciated him a ton. I didn't come out to him because that side of my family isn't safe (my dad, his parents, etc. are all extremely queerphobic / fash adjacent or outright fash). so I asked him not to out me to anyone other than his wife. I did get outed but idk by who.
I suggest thinking about who in that group is safe and coming out to them - it sounds like they're all trying to be helpful/supportive and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. plus it's a huge weight off your shoulders.
gonna have a meet with the doctor, early next week, in which i get to hear if i'm sufficently trans or if they want to push me to another psychiatrist with the waiting list being a year long
fuck do i hate all these loops, you give me my fucking hormones, you fuckers!
In no world should you have to do this, but it is fairly easy to obtain Estrogen online depending on what country you live in although you won't have the same support for labs and things like that without a doctor. I can point you in the right direction if you DM me!
oh no, i'm definitely getting the good stuff. i would like to get it legally though, would save me more money ty though
Been back on the baking adventure this week and now I'm super bloated today but its helping me reach a higher stage of gender? Idk I just look more pregnant than anything and its making me really euphoric.
You should look up the Tassajara Bread Book! Very beautiful introduction to understanding and vibing with bread.
It's pretty easy, just a bit time consuming and possibly strenuous depending on how much you're kneading the thing
I have absolutely looked down after I gained a shitload of weight and thought "I look kinda pregnant" and got the smallest jolt of euphoria lmao
What is yalls advice on looking a bit more androgynous? I don't really vibe with my appearance and need to improve it anyway. I'm a man, kinda a big one too. I don't like long hair.
Edit: I should have said this before, but I want to be subtle.
I guess possibly tighter/slimmer clothing might work? Depends a lot on exact body shape and such.
Maybe combine slimmer pants with sort of a poofy shirt/sweater? Mostly just spitballing but thats my first idea at least.
Earrings or other facial jewelry can help give that effect too I think, but might also give the impression of like a metalhead I guess.
Skirts can be an effective tool for that, especially in the short term. Looking sorta manly while dressing sorta femininely basically cancels into androgyny.
Also maybe try a pixie cut or some other more feminine short haircut.
God, I do love pixie cuts. I wonder if I could actually pull something like that off.
skirts, dresses - i used to rock a smock dress early in my transition all the time, cos it really helped with the dysphoria but also because its a smock-style cut it helps with changing the shape of the body
glitter beards and short shorts look good on anyone tbh
obviously find what works/feels good for you, but don't be afraid to play with norms, try out different styles etc to get there
High waisted pants can be subtle while also being more femme coded, which can help with androgeny. T shirts with a more femme cut as well. Femme earrings, or neutral but dangly earings. Armwarmers. Overall just finding femme coded things and mixing them with masc coded things until you find the right mixture.
being involved with other trans women recently has been incredibly affirming for my own gender as a trans woman. almost no dysphoria from it and its all affirming and enjoyable. feels great to be really treated like a woman.
I've only been on progesterone for two weeks and i could swear my boobs are already growing.
my partner and i are both on prog but due to other personal stuff haven't been able to deal with the libido, which might be worse than if only one of us was on it
Prog is magic for boob growth, I just wish it didn't fuck up my mood whenever I take it and I'm not on my period
I'm sitting on a stash of prog that I will start using once I'm 3-6 months in. Can't wait!
Yeah, the timing seems to be key with this stuff. Some say you should wait until your breasts have completed Tanner stage 3, i played it extra safe and waited after i was on HRT for a whole year and had my estradiole and CPA dosages dialed in perfectly.
Progesterone was so amazing for me. Also, I regained my ability to cry! I know some girls don't like how emotional they can get on prog, but by SNRIs made me too emotionally dead to really feel anything. Now I cry when reading, listening to music, and (unfortunately) at work when I get pissed off. I'm not unhappy about it and I wear waterproof makeup anyway so it's fiiiiine
I made a new friend IRL and the vibes are super comfy and supportive! I’ve been feeling a bit lonely lately so this is really brightening up my week
Shout out to my trans comrades. Idk why all the cutest people come from Transylvania, but they have a dope flag.
Edit: woah holy crap!
i'm reading independently published transgender fiction and having a fantastic time
read unjust depths, one of the first things that happens in it is the main character (as much as it has has a main character given how much of an ensemble story it is) taking her estrogen and then having sex with her wife. this establishes very quickly that ~60-70% of the main cast are trans and all of them are gay unless proven otherwise. written by a trans woman (or i wouldn't recommend it here)
and then they go out to try and spark communist revolutions within the imperial hegemon and write theory and expose people who have had shitty lives to how it works under communism and how they aren't going to be ground to dust like they were under capitalism and they start to cry. homa queen of my heart along with like 20 other women in this good webnovel. it's free! no ads! read it!
Seriously, the independently published trans fiction is where the good fucking shit is at. In addition to Unjust Depths, I also have Read-Only Mind and AO3 rec lists a mile long.
Got me hyped for Unjust Depths also
i definitely wouldn't recommend anything from read only minds on here lest the volcel cops get after me but i have a bunch of stuff i've liked on ao3 and scribblehub that i would recommend in a heartbeat. have you read dorley? or the stuff from the great scribblehub egg arms race?
I know of Dorley. I was fascinated, but special case.
Please however regale me with the tale of The Great Scribblehub Egg Arms Race??
dorley's interesting and generally very good as an examination of the kind of fiction i read a lot of when i was younger that definitely wasn't good for me to be reading
the great scribblehub arms race is how i refer to a trend over the past couple years of trans authors on scribblehub to write stories about very dense eggs. one of my favorites is to own the libs, in which a conservative egg tries to prove that cis men will infiltrate queer spaces and ends up socially transitioning, starting hrt, legally changing her name, realizes that she was super shitty about queer issues and apologizing before realizing she isn't cis. stuff like that. mainly about eggs finding excuses to do increasingly transgender things before realizing they're actually trans.
here's one about an elf egg disguising herself as a woman to escape an arranged marriage and ending up very happy and trying to hide that she's not a woman when everyone around her realized she was trans well before her. another about a school full to the brim with eggs who are all slowly forced to hatch thanks to some sort of magical contest they've been entered in against their will. here's one about an egg making online friends who all think she's trans. she doesn't really know why they keep saying weird things but they believe she's a girl which makes her very happy.
also not part of the egg arms race, but The Harem Protagonist Was Turned Into A Girl!! And Doesn’t Want To Change Back!!!?? is a really fun sendup of classic harem comedy anime like tenchi muyo and the works of rumiko takahashi that just ends up as a polycule centered around the former everyman protagonist who realized she was a woman. i think it's fun
a lot of these are very white and they're mostly very focused on like. upper middle class people in the imperial core (except for the fantasy ones), but they're fun. in contrast unjust depths spends huge amounts of it's word count talking about colonized people rising up against the colonizer and most of them are explicitly non-white, which is one of many reason's it's good. a muslim catgirl gives a speech where she tears apart colonizers for not realizing the extent of the historical injustices inflicted on her people
I see, I continue to be the only one who was not raised on a horrible cocktail of forcefem/genderbender porn. I wanted to read Dorley but the author is connected to a very scuffed individual, so alas.
However I am picking up several of these links for later eating, tyvm. There is indeed a blooming genre of egg-fiction..
Could you say more about egg-fiction? I'm curious!
I see, I continue to be the only one who was not raised on a horrible cocktail of forcefem/genderbender porn.
Happy for you ;.;
I don't actually have that much, just uh a mess of smut from various fic websites. I spent a lot of my time reading published-ass books, so that's where my knowledge is primarily. It's awful! You'd be better off asking Cromalin about it.
Also don't be, I spent a lot of time with weird horrible futa hentai as a kid instead. There are more worms than brain in this skull!
Ooooh I thought egg-fiction was an emergent trend in 'literary' trans fiction not a smut genre.
No, lmao, you wish. "Literary" trans fiction is just getting up its own ass more, lol
Although there is a bit of transmasc egging in Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt, lol
dysphoria fueled comment
Ive been having a bunch of random dysphoria attacks lately which are super fun to deal with. Especially around my face, both because of the shape and because I have sensitive skin so I can only shave once every 3 days (even then my skin gets super angry). I desperately dont want to be walking around with a beard but its kind of unavoidable, and I cant afford laser at this point in life. I just feel like no matter what I do Ill look like a man and I really dont want that. I just want to wear a mask everywhere but people look at me like I have tentacles for eyes when I do that. At least eyeliner looks good af on me, even if it takes me an hour to do it right.
Wow I was gonna write a comment but yeah this is also how I'm feeling minus the facial hair. It fucking sucks :(
My sibling in sadness, im sorry youre also going through it right now
what kind of razor do you use? bc for me switching from multi-blade to a de safety razor gave me a lot less irritation + it’s cheaper.
I use a 3 blade razor cause its what I can get in the store here. Ill need to check out a safety razor, my big concern is under my jaw, as it is pretty unevenly shaped. I shave first with and then against the grain, otherwise the hair is long enough to stick through my makeup 😭.
Any recommendations for a cute safety razor (or even just neutral and not marketed towards men)?
I rec a three pass shave; with the grain, across the grain, against the grain. Also, shave butter instead of soap. Also also, shaving under the jaw is easiest for me in the shower because otherwise I just make a mess all over the bathroom.
I have a Feather safety razor, but yeah, it's clearly marketed "for Men" on the website. The tool itself is so obviously gender neutral and it just has a very plain and utilitarian stainless steel design, but they still feel the need for gendered marketing garbage. 😒
i use the king c gillette, but aside from the packaging assuring men how manly they are it’s just a regular stainless steel razor, also bought a big box of bic blades which seem decent.
but yeah shaving under my jaw is the worst :(
I feel you, it's a hard cycle because I feel calmer and less anxious when I do have the energy to remove it, but when I'm already doing bad I don't have the energy to fix it and I can get stuck in a loop.
Transition is a marathon and not a sprint. Recently when I've been getting really stuck, I remind myself that I will probably complete laser in the next couple of years & HRT will make my hair less pronounced too. That while I don't have the steam to do anything about it right now, it will get better, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Have you tried an IPL if it's body hair, I found it to be mindblowingly effective (if you have light skin). Like, a week of growth on my legs now is essentially less than a mm of hair. I've only had 4 or 5 sessions and I'm like finding it hard to motivate myself to keep going because it's so effective lol
I ordered a skirt. Also some more androgynous clothes that I'm brave enough to actually wear outside, but I'm still most excited about the skirt.
After watching several hours of mtf make-up tutorials I also got some make-up basics I can try playing around with, but not that much because so much of it is absurdly expensive, and I don't know what suits me yet.
Can I ask what sort of androgynous clothes? I'd like to get some but I have no idea where to begin
I feel pretty much the same way, it's daunting and I feel pretty clueless. Maybe I'll find out I look super silly, but I kind of have to just start trying somewhere, so it is what it is.
I got a couple loose knit sweaters in sort of soft, light colours. So not feminine enough to be scary for me to wear, but more "flowy" and less structured than men's clothing typically is. I usually use gender neutral shoes any way, plus I have a few skinny jeans which can already be kind of androgynous.
Very high waisted jeans are flattering on most people and give a more femme silhouette. Most of men's clothing ends up giving you like 50:50 torso:legs. It can also be fun to have a shirt tucked into high pants with a longer coat.
Congratulations on getting started! Makeup is so much fun. I made the mistake of trying to start with lipstick with literally zero guidance and it made me so upset when I looked like a clown lol. Really happy you started off watching some videos lol. Now, I mostly just do a little bit of foundation and eye makeup bc I'm lazy :p
Also while makeup is very expensive, most things other than foundation palletes are very small... (do with this as you will & feel comfortable)
It dawned on me today that the reason people no longer ask me if I'm a girl or a guy isn't because I no longer pass, but because they just assume I'm a girl, 1 preacher guy called me "sister", another guy thought I was flirting with him and the women at the postal office kept calling me "daughter"... I didn't realize this before because I don't talk a lot with people.
god dammit, I didn't see this and made a separate thread for this. it's a really well-written deep-dive into the weird shit that goes on inside the heads of repressed trans people. take your hormones - they're wonder drugs, the true panacea.
