want to share something that you don't think deserves it's own thread? wanna chill with your trans homies? wanna support your trans comrades? do it here!
want to share something that you don't think deserves it's own thread? wanna chill with your trans homies? wanna support your trans comrades? do it here!
Thank you for responding.
Clarifications and more questions
I guess that what I meant by that is that there are some major draws to HRT, but I'm scared that some of the effects might go further than what I wanted. Like, having less facial/body hair is something I want for sure, but I don't know if I'd be entirely comfortable if I had a lot of breast growth. I'd want to have a bit of an androgynous/twink-ish figure compared to an average woman. But I'm also worried that if I don't start HRT then my body will start changing in ways I don't like. I know it's an old adage, but I'm pretty young now and I feel like there are some physical qualities I like about myself that I would lose if I wait too long.
One of the idle fantasies that I've had is to get to the point where I can pass as either male or female based on how I dress or style my hair. I would present as an effeminate guy for the next few years my work life and only dress up fem for friends. But as of right now, I don't have any to go out with IRL, and am I really going to get dressed up to stay home and play video games? IDK.
IDK, I want to try clothes that look more feminine, but the kinds of clothes I like are more towards the androgynous end. I'm not sure how to describe what I like; I don't want to be too girly girl but "tomboy" and "butch" aren't quite the right way to label it either. Like, generally I just imagine long-sleeved shirts and pants, which is what I wear right now. I know that clothes made for women generally look subtly different, but at the same time I'm worried that those subtle differences will be hard to see with the way my body is now. I always get anxious about spending money and I don't want to buy stuff that I end up not liking.
The part where I struggle with this idea is that I feel that under capitalism, living inauthentically is necessary to some degree anyways. I'm not really openly about my beliefs IRL; while most of the people I interact with in person aren't outright awful to be around, there's still the occasional attack helicopter joke or dumb political comment and I don't have it in me to argue about it (I know my beliefs should require me to confront people more often but I'm too much of a coward). When I speak with people I'm not friendly with, I generally feel like I'm just reading off a script to get through the conversation. Especially in the work life example; if I'm expected to pretend I don't find capitalism abhorrent for 40 hours a week anyways, is it really that much worse to pretend one more thing to avoid discrimination? I don't want to put on a show for other people all of the time, but sometimes I feel like I could put up with doing that part of the time to avoid trouble. I wish that I was more brave, but there's already so many things to worry about, and the idea of adding the pressures from being trans or being a girl on top of that seems daunting.
It's not super noticeable as far as I've seen. Most of us are still shaving, epilating/waxing, and/or using laser hair removal to take care of the majority of this. It will, however, stop male-pattern baldness in most cases.
That's not something anyone can really predict for you. Anecdotally it seems to mostly hinge on family history, the age you start, dose method (people seem to think injections work best for breast growth), and whether you take progesterone. I've heard arguments for and against most of these. Whether or not your body decides to undergo major visible changes will be up to a roll of multiple dice, basically. In my case I look a little bit like my mom when she was my age.
For transfems in the very-binary mindset, I try to urge them to be content with the path their body takes them on (as surgery can be prohibitively expensive for most), but in your case I can't make any guarantees. Breast reductions in transfeminine people are probably a thing that exist, but I personally wouldn't know how to navigate that, as western medicine tends to have a very set path of progression designed for binary transpeople.
As an aside, I would personally not recommend edging your E extremely close to zero (I've heard people mention this to avoid the risk of major body changes) as it will negatively impact bone growth and make them quite brittle over time.
E won't stop you from changing or aging. I have grey hairs; you can still get female-pattern baldness. I didn't have stretch marks before. It's become quite difficult to maintain any muscle when it used to feel effortless, and you'll tend to hold onto more body fat. Some of these things may be desirable, some might not. You might be able to wrangle them to a small degree with diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes, but if you're spending all your time alive fighting your own gene expression I think there's a point where you'll have to sit down and decide what is a priority for you. I take hrt because it makes my life more bearable. If it didn't then I wouldn't have bothered.
This is pretty doable, possibly even right now. In the hegemonic culture, most people tend to base their judgement of someone else's gender presentation based on visual signifiers and vibes. They struggle to really understand identity in a way queer people do, so if you drastically change your presentation they tend to just go with what you show them instead of what you tell them. In queer spaces identity will trump presentation regardless of what your body is up to.
Anything stopping you?
You could get dressed up to videochat with people? Also I wear women's pajamas when I stay at home and play video games.
The best way to handle this is to just continually try stuff on at the store until you find something you're happy with. Most of my early clothes were thrifted and I didn't make any larger purchases until I had a good idea what sizes and styles suited me. It's just something that takes a bit of patience, but once you figure it out it gets more intuitive.
As someone who's spent the past decade pursuing this, I don't think so. I think it can seem necessary to live inauthentically if you value your identity like a fashion accessory. But I know people for whom this is a life or death question. For them, living authentically is something they are absolutely willing to give up a lot of comfort for, and for whom living inauthentically feels like a death sentence.
Taking on the pressure of being trans is daunting, of course. I'm not saying it isn't or that you're morally required to categorize yourself. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be scared to take the plunge, because most of us are. But at the heart of it, which more or less reiterates my last comment, this is about your very core, the definition of yourself, and what you value as a human being. Aesthetics are part of it but they aren't the whole of it. So if the question of what it means to live begins and ends at aesthetics, then I don't think hrt will bring you closer to your goals. Estrogen will fundamentally change the basic functioning of every cell in your body.
If you keep coming back to transitioning no matter how hard you try, I would sit with a little thought experiment for a while. Give yourself permission to transition and see if it changes anything. Once the anticipation is gone, the way you feel about it might surprise you.