#I've only been on HRT for a year

[auroras-void]

Looked in the mirror just now, realized I can't even *make* myself see the boy anymore. I made it, and I'm beautiful, I'm me. It feels... awesome.

[frankencanon]

if masculinizing hrt has taught me one thing it's one why sometimes in movies/books/etc a dude will go a long time being unable to shave and somehow not grow a beard

was anyone gonna tell me that not everyone can even grow a beard?! some dudes can only grow a little facial hair, some dudes only grow it in certain areas, and some dudes can't grow much of anything at all

this whole time I thought it was plot holes!

[m0thb1tch]

Officially in the "I have to wear a sports bra" phase of transition 🥰

[spaghett-onaplate]

mutuals send me the strength to get through tomorrow

[jestergirlbosom]

Fuck it, transition timeline in solidarity (2018 vs 2024), I'm like if sam winchester transitioned (it would fix her) Also as bonus for vehicular accidents ⚒ here's a before and after from when I saw Thursday recently

Call me car crash the way I'm understanding...

[early-sxnsets]

transphobes attacking me on insta for taking HRT after i literally explain that T saved my life by stopping my near-constant menstrual linked-hormonal seizures that i've been having since i was abt 16ish.... they don't actually care if it literally is keeping you alive in a medical sense they want you dead because you don't hate that you're not cis regardless

[phonegilgi]

testosterone gel....... save me t gel..... save me hrt precribed next week......

[dragonatthedinnertable]

Last week I had my annual hrt review.

Another year, another lack of change to my hrt. No additional estrogen, no progesterone.

I never hated going to the doctor's office before transitioning. Not sure if it's that or the issues during chronic illness that have soured it for me, but I just don't have the courage or whatever to stand up. I just feel small.

[catboybiologist]

Today I just found out that the woman who's been the most supportive of me in my transition believes that trans women shouldn't be able to compete against cis women in sports. Do you happen to have any good peer reviewed resources on the effects of estrogenizing HRT on someone's athletic abilities. Said woman in question doesn't seem to believe there's been any research done, which I deeply doubt. Thank you so much for your continued advocacy for us transfems.

I know you're turning to me for scientific guidance, but I'm just so fucking done with this issue overall. To quote contrapoints: I have nothing left but rage.

I've been on this road before. I could give you some. In most ways, trans women match cis women of their height and weight. But there aren't a lot. Yeah, its a problem. But fucking NOBODY will even study it because of how hot this issue is right now.

But more importantly: There will never, EVER be a study that meets their standards. There's always SOME physical metric that has differences between trans women and cis women. It's become essentially an iteration of the multiple testing problem- if you keep on doing statistical tests, eventually something is going to land.

I don't fucking want to provide studies. I don't want to cut myself down. I don't want my defense of myself to be "oohhh look at me I'm just as weak and pathetic and infantile as cis women"

Is this fucking feminism? Really?

I'm fucking done. Call me the evil hysterical woman, but this entire conversation reeks of misogyny to its fucking core. Organized sports as we know them are made by men, for men, to celebrate male accomplishments and excellence. Cis women can and do equal or excel men in many, MANY physical metrics. But the arbitrary set of rules, the arbitrary set of bouncing balls and scoring systems, are all made to reward the physical abilities of men. We create spin offs and systems of score tracking and variations of the same things over, and over, and over again, to give the fragile little male ego more and more reasons to stroke itself.

Let's take a look at some whiny as piss men not being able to handle the thought that women could EVER be physically notable.

Olympic target shooting used to be mixed gender. A woman won one year. The next year, it was segregated. Not only was it segregated, but the scoring system changed so that the scores of men and women could never be directly compared again.

Last year, Donald Trump sat on stage with Riley Gaines, the transphobic swimmer who whipped up the vitriol about Lia Thomas, and bragged about how it wasn't fair she lost her competition because he, Donald Trump, a 78 year old out of shape wax sculpture of a man, was male. And that he could beat Riley. A trained D1 swimmer. And Riley took it, because it advanced her grift.

There's a now infamous poll that 1 in 8 men think they could beat Serena Williams in a tennis match. Its pretty old at this point, but I'm guessing that number is even higher now.

This entire conversation centers around "trans people crushing the dreams of female athletes" but oh my fucking god, are we not doing that as a society already? This entire fucking "debate" is just an excuse for more and more cis men to sit their, stroking their fucking egos on live television about how big and strong and powerful and fucking WHATEVER men are, and even the trace of maleness in trans women is enough to permanently make them some kind of ubermensch that destroys cis women by every metric imagineable.

I don't give two shits about saving sports, one way or another. I detested organized sports long before I transitioned. Ya wanna talk natural advantage, and how sports rewards exactly the kind of physical ability that a certain brand of cis man pushes themselves to? I have a very mild ankle deformity that means jogging for long periods of time is painful. My best mile time is over 11 minutes. And yet I don't see any of the fuckers that are "better" than me out there in the ocean, clinging to the bottom on a single breath for minutes, or up there with me on top of Whitney. Only one of those skills is celebrated.

Fuck me that was a tangent. My point is, I've long since realized that sports are a self propagating system for the egos of people with a very particular kind of physical prowess. The only exception to this is when its exploitative of people with that kind of extremely specific physical prowess, and leaves those it exploits in the fucking gutter. I don't need to start bringing up CTE, I know y'all know exactly what my take would be on that.

but what is sending me over the fucking edge is how I'm supposed to be the crazy one. I'm the delusional tranny for pointing out that we have lost the fucking plot entirely. This is recreation. Its entertainment. And we are using it to punish people. Fuck this.

I'm so sorry OP, but just don't engage in that game. If you need a calm, measured argument, try attacking the misogyny of it all. The only way to "fix" sports is to create more events that reward and celebrate the physical abilities of cis women: flexibility, extreme long term endurance, and fuck I'm not a sports person nor do I want to waste brainspace on more than that. We need a system for cis women, one that doesn't tell them "here, have this shittier, less viewed, less supported, less encouraged, less celebrated version of something a man is good at". Trans people would find some place in that and in theory, there would be nothing to complain about.

Jesus fucking christ, if I see one more male news pundit start talking about trans women in sports I'm going to straight up devolve into a misandrist.

[genderqueerdykes]

to the transfemmes who feel dishearented because they are not seeing the effects they'd like from HRT yet: it's okay. it's okay to feel bummed out at first. HRT takes a long time to change everyone, it's not just you, everyone responds differently, and many transfemmes in particular feel defeated in the early days because it can take a long time before you fully recognize the changes. you are changing every day, you are evolving, it just happens a little slower than is easy to identify in the moment. it's not always easy to see in the mirror when your internal view of yourself is changing, too. sometimes dysphoria makes those early days a challenge.

i've seen girls who have only been on estrogen for 1.5 years who look completely different from when they started. on the outside it can seem like a night-and-day change, but on the inside it can feel like a slog sometimes. it's harder for the person who's changing to see it. it's okay. it's okay to take the time to allow yourself to change, even if it's uncomfortable for a while. it will look and feel awkward for a while, but you are blooming. you will see it, no matter how long it takes. it takes most transmascs a minimum of 5 years to fully see the effects of testosterone HRT.

don't give up. it's worth it. we are all but caterpillars weaving our cocoons. the day where you emerge as a butterfly will come way, way sooner than you think. you got this. keep it up.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

How do I stop being anxious all the time in relation to being trans? I have an appointment to go on T in 2 weeks. I'm anxious about coming out. I'm anxious about someone figuring it out before I come out. Ahhhh. I have a therapist for anxiety but I don't think it's helping.

Hoping I don't make you even more anxious, but the bottom line is some folks *will* find out and you just gotta learn to roll with it.

What has helped me:

Getting good at identifying red and green flags in cis people

It's become a habit of mine to scope out people when I join a new community. I look at profiles, what people post, etc. It's a little tiring, but I try to find the allies and other trans asap in a new fandom or whatever.

Planning for the worst

To be trans is to always have a plan to Get Out of Dodge.

A lot of times, The Worst is really only temporary embarassment. I deal with this by keeping my head held high and leaning into the more "don't fuck with me, I am tired" part of my personality.

Fake it 'til you make it -- I used to have a paralyzing fear of public mortification, and over time have ripped that apart. Sticking to my boundaries helps a lot, and I am not afraid to say, "I will not answer that question."

Here's the thing, though -- people tend to be impressed when you weather the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, and you'll likely find yourself as someone to be looked up to. Cis folks routinely ask for my advice about their own Big Life Changes, because they have been impressed to see me go through mine. I've also helped crack a few eggs.

Sometimes The Worst is truly bad, and you should always be vigilant here. Again, I know it is exhausting, but always plan for your personal, emotional, and financial safety. Build an emergency cash fund. Cultivate friends who have your back. Always be looking for new job opportunities. Lots of stuff you can workshop with people.

Cultivating a very matter-of-fact relationship with Coming Out.

I focus on any relevant logistics and keep out my emotional backstory. Most people do not need to know how much of a mess I used to be. And I firmly state what I am doing with my future, rather than ask for permission.

My last HRT-related Coming Out email (to one of my orchestras, which is a very gendered biz) was essentially: "FYI, I am medically and legally transitioning from female to male. Just a heads up, as I'll look and sound a bit different at rehearsal -- I have a tux already for the concert. See you Friday!"

That's it. At a company, you can work with HR on your announcement, assuming one will even be necessary in your case based on your transition timeline.

When I changed my name years later, I was also direct:

"I am legally changing my name to Nicholas. It may take a while to update all my clients, so you're welcome to tell them, "Oh, [deadname] goes by Nicholas now. Thanks!"

And when I came out to my spouse in tumblr chat before our first date, it was literally: "Hey, jsyk, I am 35 and a trans man, in case that changes anything."

It takes a lot of practice to get to this point, and is something you can roleplay with your therapist.

Don't be afraid of your past

I am at a place where I will sometimes casually out myself to make a point ("No one ever needs to change the gender field for this form? I recently needed to.") or a stupid joke ("Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to be...").

There is a lot of value in the trans experience. You can decide how much of it you want to casually share, but it does get easier each time.

I hope this helps. Being trans means you will be coming out for the rest of your life (obviously, there are times where stealth = safety), so cultivating a no-nonsense, and even humorous, approach will go a long way for your mental health.

[lily-on-the-fence]

Say what you will about Tumblr, but all the perverts simping on fat people have done so so much to kill my own fatphobia. Like I've gained some weight in HRT Year One, as is normal and good, and I really don't think I'd love my body as much if I hadn't seen people go slightly feral over tummy and rolls.

And like, it's not as if I grew up isolated from fat people, both my parents have been various levels of fat all their lives, but their attitude towards that was always so toxic. I only realised recently how often my mum puts herself down by calling herself fat or other words to that effect.

Idk I'm just really grateful for the fact that I can look at my own tummy and mainly see how soft it makes me look, and how the lines on my torso from slouching define my shape so nicely, and how my stretch marks are proof that my body is changing and growing and that's GOOD because I'M alive and changing growing!!

[saint-vagrant]

i was a man long long long long before i got the surgery i did this week and long before i started hrt and long before i came out, so i am writing from the perspective of that particular life: it's cool that i got to decide to be a man and didn't have to be a woman or anything else. i mean, people tried to make me be a woman as much as they tried to make me straight or thin or meek and docile, but it didn't change me. it doesn't matter what i look like, dress like, how i move, how i talk, what i make, what i love. you can try to beat it down, but the reason you have to try so hard is because it will never go away.

being a man is awesome. don't let some uninspired crank ever convince you otherwise. when you're a man the way i am, there is no "escape" from the burdens heaped upon you (an accusation often levied even now) but you do escape wanting to kill yourself as much. and if that's the sort of escape people mean, it's a route worth taking. so with that in mind you'll find neither shame nor cowering nor apologies here.

i say "decide" because although i believe i have been this my whole entire life, and therefor it was not a choice, it still required Decision-making and i'm proud of those i've had the capacity and wherewithal to make. if all i ever did was die under a name i call my own, then it'd be worth it— and i have to be honest, i've already had more than that, and i want more still. some days, some years, surviving is all we can do, and it takes so much from and out of you to accomplish it. but i want more than just survival. i want to want to live and i want that to be enough. the decision to be a man in spite of rejection— being cast by the wayside out of the garden, a garden to which i was only a conditional visitor to begin with— was a decision to try my hand at living. and if i was always this, there's no sense fretting about what i Should or Shouldn't leave behind. if you can leave behind what would hurt you to carry now, then do that. do whatever.

imo there's nothing wrong or flimsy about framing it as Choosing, anyway. maybe it's life or death, maybe it's joy and pleasure. maybe it doesn't have to be dire to be real. maybe it does. plenty of people, cis and trans alike, try their hardest to wield the choice derogatorily. charged with moral rot, rolling their eyes, pointing their fingers— "who would CHOOSE to be a man?"

ME! i would! i did! and in every life, every timeline, i will choose it again!

[demilypyro]

Been thinking about time.

Time passing too fast, passing too slowly. Not having enough time, things taking too much time, having too much time on your hands. Wanting it to be tomorrow and yesterday. Waiting for things to happen, dreading things that are coming. The fact we only ever move forward in time makes the past just as unreachable as the future. At least I can still change my actions to come. The past is lost, but the past is what creates you, even if it doesn't need to define you.

This day ten years ago, I would have been.... in high school. Graduating by the skin of my teeth. No real plans for the future. Thought I'd go into computers. I was decent with computers.

Then my mom was paralyzed. There she was, in a wheelchair. For several months, it was like time stood still. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered. Time... was precious, I realized. Anything could happen at any time. I had to make the most of the time I had.

I started going as hard as I could. At everything. Studying, working, dating, transitioning. It all had to happen at once, as fast as possible. There wasn't enough time. It was all taking too long. Every day was a blur, because I was just doing so many things every hour of every day.

Then suddenly the earth stood still. Time had stopped again. The pandemic.

Everything was closed. I couldn't work, I couldn't date, I couldn't study, and transitioning you could only rush so much... So I just... had to sit there. With all the time in the world. But time was precious. So I had to do something. Or create something to do. I was getting sick of computers anyway. I'd always wanted to try being a let's player.

One year later, I was a Twitch partner. Another year after that, I was registered self employed. Then the next year, I had to take several months off to recover from surgery... But now, four years after covid, four years into HRT, four years into streaming... I'm working out the contract for an apartment. To live on my own for the first time. Something I was starting to fear would never happen. It was just taking so much time.

Even if I could, I'm not sure I would change the past. I have regrets, everyone does, but those regrets made me who I am. And for all my regrets... I like who I've become. I've put a lot of time into it.

[taliabhattwrites]

Less Fearmongering about Testosterone, Please, Or: There is no "Boy HRT"/"Girl HRT" Dichotomy

Hello folks, I'm a trans woman and I'm on testosterone gel.

As an immigrant to a regime that is currently setting trans standards of care on fire, there is no way I can acquire any of the drugs I need to put in my body through the official channels. I've been on E monotherapy (weekly injections, no T-blocker, works out really cheap and I have a few years' worth stockpiled) for a while now, and started T-gel about a year ago.

We initially grabbed it because my wife was interested in microdosing and I decided to do so with her (though she's on injections now). Most feminizing HRT regimes nuke our T levels to lower than the healthy range for cis women, and that frankly isn't good and can lead to various health issues. T is, ultimately, just a hormone, and even if I had too much of it in the past, I still need some of it to be healthy. One noticeable effect for me is that it's helped a lot with my energy levels.

In terms of acquisition, T is actually relatively abundant compared to E because a lot of cis men buy and take steroids, while most cis women who need E are just getting it prescribed by their doctors without much fuss. Our community is the only one that really has a need for E-compounders, while the population of people who consume steroids is way higher.

Funnily, our biggest challenge in acquiring the gel was just finding a forum that would point us to a gel supplier instead of just insisting that "Gel doesn't lead to enough gains, bro! Here just buy these injections." All very well-intentioned advice, of course, but that was very much not my goal and not what I needed.

Where I am, it's legal to purchase and own T, just not to sell it. T possession is not particularly harshly cracked down upon, given that its use amongst a certain crowd is basically an open secret. Gauge your level of risk but ultimately, the official policy on trans existence is discouraging transition and making it harder for us to be able to change our sex. A friend from Germany showed me this extract that explicitly advocates for therapy to dissuade bodily transition:

It's from the guidelines for transition-related care by the association of German health insurances!

If you can get it from a doctor, good. Do that and don't forget you'll constantly have to advocate for yourself. Even if you can, however, you should frankly have your back-up options sorted out, because we live in times increasingly hostile to transitional care, and we all need to have fallbacks.

Maybe the world will eventually become less trans-eliminationist, but in the meantime, transition is always going to carry with it a certain level of risk. All I can really advise is to take charge of your own bodily autonomy, to decide how you want to shape your sex, and if you feel like you can't currently do that, to start making plans for when you eventually can. That kept me going for five years in the closet, and eventually paid off.

Good luck, and death before detransition.

[daz4i]

oh wait are we bringing back the hyperspecific poll trend. hell yeah

as usual, rb to reach more people, if you'd like 😌✨️