Turns out I’ve got major gender problems and wish I had been born a girl. [Removed as it was pointed out how problematic and doomer my sentiment was] I'm well past puberty and am very masculine-looking. The dysphoria’s gotten worse over the years though, or maybe the gender affirming feelings have gotten more tempting as I’ve stopped being in denial so much and have explored a bit of transitional stuff — shaving, doing my hair different, less masculine clothing. But I just don’t know what to do next.
I’m terrified by the idea of trying to hormonally transition, mostly because I have a very high sex drive and am very attached to it. Dysphoria about the shape of my genitals aside, I do want my dick to keep getting hard, I want to still be able to orgasm from using it, and I want to still produce cum for my partner to enjoy. From what I’ve read hormonal transitioning would eventually disable all of those, and I feel for me that would be even worse than not transitioning.
I’m also pretty strong and muscular, and I don’t want to lose that muscle and put on a bunch of fat from going on estrogen, which I’ve seen happen to couple friends who’ve transitioned.
So, hormonal transitioning looks too risky for me. Still, I thought maybe I could still achieve a good degree of comfort with non hormonal transitioning, maybe getting rid of all the body hair for a start. But when it comes to non hormonal transitional steps it all feels so incredibly daunting. I’ve been “blessed” with prodigious masculinity, the ability to grow hair all over my body like a beast. Shaving is a pain and I grow hair so fast that my face turns into stubble in less than a day after shaving.
Nonhormonal transitional steps I’ve considered: Shaving all over. Problem: I’ve only shaved a bit of my body and it gets really old and time-consuming really fast.
Laser hair removal. Problem: Supposed to be very expensive, and it works better on people with white skin and light, fair hair, neither of which have I (EDIT: CORRECTION: works better with dark hair so at least I have that going for me). In particular the at-home DIY machines do not work as well in those use cases, and without training there’s more risk of damaging your own skin trying to do it.
Electrolysis hair removal: I had a bit done in the past on my face. It was not super effective, takes a lot of sessions, and was very painful even with a local anesthetic cream. On top of that, while I might be able to have it done on much of my body it is impossible to have done on my face because of Covid — I’d have to take off my respirator and that’s not happening unless I could find a practitioner wearing an N95 in an isolated room with heavy air filtration.
More drastic nonhormonal steps — facial feminization surgery, breast implants — are even more inaccessible because at this point very few healthcare practitioners give a shit about Covid so it’s nigh impossible to see a surgeon or even get to a gender care clinic. Regardless, the uncontrollable hair is a big barrier — I wouldn’t want to consider other options before getting it dealt with in the first place.
Everything seems so painful, risky, and dauntingly expensive to the point where idk how I could afford it anyway.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you, comrades.
Is this because the facial skin is thinner and can get damaged more easily, so a professional grade device with a trained practicioner is needed? If that's the case are there other parts of the body that should not be treated with an at-home ipl device and should be done with laser by a professional, e.g. armpits, groin, scrotum?
The hair is the worst part, even just shaving parts of my body I feel so much better
Thank you for the response and sorry I took so long to get back to it, this stuff is emotionally daunting to confront and I guess I avoid it and put it off til I have the bandwidth to consider it more.
And I guess lastly do laser and IPL permanently remove the hairs over time, or if people stop doing the treatments for a few years do they grow back? I tried reading some stuff about it and it wasn't clear; some places said "it's not permanent" If I'm going to take a risk of going go for an in-person unmasked appointment I'm going to need . Although one article mentioned that laser should be done by a dermatologist, and unfortunately it seems most doctors in my area that I've encountered don't take covid seriously anymore.
Fuck this is all so overwhelming. I imagine in order to get insurance to cover it I'd have to be out to a healthcare practitioner too like my therapist, or see a trans-specific doctor?
The reason why IPL won't work on the face is that it just doesn't have enough power to kill the follicles. For AMAB people hair follicles in the face are deeply rooted and strong in a way that is not the case in other parts of the body
Laser and IPL both cause permanent hair loss but just note you have a lot of hair in different cycles so this takes a while.ipl is much lower power so you're also not going to kill as many but you will definitely thin the hair out significantly. Like my leg hair takes a while to grow back and I only shave like every once in a while now. For body IPL should suffice though.. imo.
Laser yeah I think it's pretty permanent but it's not going to get everything. You'll have to finish up with electrolysis. Unfortunately this whole thing is a multi year process though you'll start seeing results somewhat quickly.
Re:covid I think you'll easily be able to request they wear a mask. They should also be sanitizing the decises like between customers. What other actions do you want them to do to be covid safe?