#i also keep getting into my own head that i'm detransitioning and then i go ''im a woman'' and theres still the ick

[fooltomery]

any other nb ppl who are transmasc and ID'd as binary trans for a while have a "im not a man" moment and it was a relief? like thank god i dont have to put up this front anymore type of relief

[sharkneto]

Hey, sorry if this is a bit of a personal question - and feel free to ignore it if it is - but how did you know you wanted to start hrt? I am someone who IDs as transmasc and knows in an ideal world, I would've loved to have been born a guy. But the idea of going on hormones is terrifying because I can't figure out if I really want it... I worry about regretting it, or it making me 'unappealing' physically, or my friends judging me for it. Did you ever struggle with similar worries?

I think every person thinking about and starting HRT goes through this. A rite of passage, if you will, and also not a bad thing to do. HRT is a big step, some of the changes (especially on T) are irreversible. It's good to think through if it's a choice that's right for you or not.

That said, it's also Just A Thing You Can Do. I first started really questioning my gender at the end of 2020 (thank you, Elliot Page, for coming out and making me go "oh shit, you can do that?"). I got a therapist to talk about gender... Mid 2022? And started hormones spring 2023, top surgery a year later.

Before getting the therapist, I spent over a year Just Thinking About It. And a lot of the thoughts were around the changes on T and if I'd like them or not or if I'd regret them. If I'd be ugly, after being conventionally attractive as a woman.

It hits a point, though, where eventually you have to pull the plug one way or another. I spent a lot of time thinking about how my body would change on T. A Lot. With longing. I caught myself putting things off Until I Knew For Sure and because I didn't want to do it while being perceived as a woman. I was sitting, treading water for a hypothetical Later that I could start moving towards at any time. I was scared for the Teenage Round 2 phase, and didn't want to spend months being "ugly and awkward", but then the months passed anyway and I was still in the same spot.

HRT isn't an all-or-nothing thing, you can ease into it on a low dose. My doctor started me on a low dose and we ramped up over months. Some T changes can start pretty quickly (voice dropping, bottom growth - this isn't true for everyone, but was true for me). If these changes excite you, make you feel good - great! Keep going! If they scare you, feel wrong - stop. Assess. Figure out what about it isn't right (a gender therapist for all of this process is a Huge Help). In early days if you stop T, the changes can revert, for the most part. But you can always stop at any time.

The bigger thing I actively worked to wrap my head around before starting HRT is - Who Cares If You're Wrong? What's right for you now might not be right for you later. The idea of detransitioning was scary to me, society has such a weird spotlight on it, the Right uses people who have detransitioned as props against transition. But it shouldn't matter. At the end of the day, if I do change my mind, I'll know myself better, and I don't think it's wrong to chase and find comfort in your own body.

A year+ on T, I've mostly made it through the ugly duck phase, I think. I was lucky, I didn't get bad acne or get too oily or anything (after having horrible acne in my first puberty). Most of what I dealt with was the chronic baby face, where I was getting read as male but a teenager - I'm almost 30 and a woman wanted to card me over a free T-shirt at a baseball game because it had beer logos on it. After some middle months of changes and going "oh my god what am I doing" and not feeling confident in how this was all going to turn out, I think of myself as relatively attractive and I think I'm just going to get more vain as my beard comes in. Some of that is physical, sure, but I think a significant amount of that is me feeling more confident in myself and liking the body I'm in more. I was never a selfie or picture person, now I am. I joke I'm like a budgie, always looking at myself if there's a reflective surface nearby. I'm more excited to exercise, I'm interested in lifting weights for the first time, I'm curious what my body on T can do and become. Keep your eyes on the pieces that are going well, the changes exciting you, and let the rest catch up.

My social circle helped a lot. I'm very lucky and blessed to have great friends and family, all of whom are supportive. If you don't have friends who are supportive of you, that are judging you for exploring yourself rather than lifting you up for it, it's a sign to expand the social circle and find ones that are. Family is harder, but that's a thing you have to navigate for yourself and find your own boundaries for.

So, there's no ~one moment~ where you're 100% certain that medical transition is right for you. It's a huge unknown and you're changing the body you've had your entire life. At some point, though, you just have to jump and see how it lands. Part of being alive is making mistakes and doing things you might regret.

That said, the regret rate for trans people is something like 3%. The regret rate for knee surgery is something like 20%. Trust yourself.

[x-honeycomb-x]

I cried in the shower (manic rant)

I have done nothing but masturbating today. I also made some cereal.

I fantasized about a mommy, and looked up some lesbian porn. I really like smart and emotionally responsive but reserved mommies.

As I finished, I needed hugs from her. I grabbed my fluffy comforter and pillow to feel hugged. I thought about her (for the context I watched India Summer), and I let myself feel needy towards a mommy.

I thought about detransitioning into a girl, and thought "I wanna grow up pretty and smart like you." And in my head she replied, "No silly, I will grow up to be me, and you will grow up to be you."

That thought stuck with me for a long time.

I don't know who I am, I am rejecting a lot of parts of who I am (gender aside). I have C-PTSD and have an unstable sense of self even. You reap just what you sow, who am I? Who will I grow up to be if I would just let myself?

I need to be who I am. I am not taught how to be a functionable person? I don't even have a regular eating routine after school. These are all parts of me. I imagine the mommy and I repeat back and forth. "I can't be who you are, I am my own person."

And then I felt like it's her time to get going. I think about having a home, having a personhood to return to. "I'm gonna get going now." I often hear people say. Where to? Home? Back to their life? I don't have a sense of self, I only hang out with people until I am exhausted, so when people wants to leave I think they're tired of me.

I said goodbye. I imagine her having a regular day after us. I imagine her juices still wet on my pussy.

I look at my room. I am not what I want to achieve but haven't. I am not a bassist-to-be cause I'm not there yet. I am a musically inclined person who's is planning to play bass in the coming week. I need to eat. Hunger is part of me.

I need to shower. I need to feel clean, wanting to shower is part of who I am.

I started playing Dazey and the Scouts on Spotify, got my clothes and stepped in the shower.

The clothes I choose this afternoon is who I am.

I keep thinking about being me in the shower. I thought about that reply in my head, "Silly, I will grow up to be me, you will grow up to be you." Who will I be? I am genuinely scared. I remember fragments of being bullied in kindergarten, being abused at home, I imagine myself being under a hydraulic press, becoming what the press is besides at the seams; I am only myself when I can't contain it in me anymore. That would mean outbursts. And abstract daydreams.

I am scared. I am gender-fluid, and yesterday after getting a ounce of masc euphoria (my first in a long time now), I realized I really don't feel trans masculine right now. I feel feminine. What if this goes on for years, and I really feel like going off testosterone for a while because I feel feminine for like 3 years?

I feel a repressed self inside of me. But I don't know them enough. And I am really tired of not knowing myself.

I need to use my sensitive wash. The package has a nice lavendar color. I thought about how dysphoric I felt when I watched straight PIV porn today, and how safe I felt when watching lesbian mommy porn. I thought about how I would like a mommy to touch this, scissor on this.

Dazey and the Scouts started screaming in their song.

This womb is sapphic. I never. Looked at my stomach and thought about this. I know I like girls (and AFAB people). The idea of sapphic exists in my head. (The name is based on the first historically recorded female writer actually.) I know I have a womb, briefly. I've done so much things to this womb that I don't even wanna think about.

All I think about this womb is PIV, otherwise I shut it out. Textbooks, Tumblr, my family, 9gag, I've spent my whole life listening to how people wanna get a penis in this and how I should keep them in or out. I look at my stomach, this womb is sapphic. It wants to be scissored on, it wants to be kissed by girls, I never associated the imagery with this idea. Dazey and the Scouts started screaming in their song and I cried.

I've spent my whole life hating girls. I am autistic and couldn't relate to any of them at school. I thought all girls were bullies, or they're so etheral they're untouchable. It was only recently I actively try to think of myself as a woman, and as I walk past other women on the street, I try to think of myself as one of them. It's a strange thought and it still tingles my mind with some resistance. They're just people, they are all sorts of people, and I am one of them. (For the context I am gender-fluid, so I am also a woman.)

Girls can start rock bands, girls can scream their heart out in songs. Girls write and some of it gets in the canon. Girls wear makeup and girls shower. I just started doing makeup today and I wonder if the crying would melt my makeup. (It didn't.)

So that's it. I found out my womb is sapphic(+) and it doesn't want cis men. It doesn't want to be bred, it's tired of discussions around unwanted PIV sexual attention. But god, I've let so many in so many times. I didn't get a IUD so I can have unprotected sex, but my mental illnesses got the better of me. I don't want PIV attention and this device closes the door. I feel dirty for the men and woman that have cummed semen on this metal. My womb wants peace.

I thought of the bullying and the abuse. I am tired of being scared of myself. I wanna turn that negative thought into a positive mantra - I am not afraid to be myself. I thought about it and breathed it in and out. (I meditate and am in somatic therapy.)

I walk out of the shower, got dressed and started writing this. I will still struggle to find my personhood, but I am trying. I don't want to be afraid of being myself anymore. (I am so mentally ill.) I am amazed by all the things that girls can do. I am sapphic and turns out my womb is too. Some lesbians can be mean and scary, but I have every damn right to identify as part of the community. I am also very scared of my gender swings. When will it swing again, how long will it stay, and what do I do about the hormones situation - I wanna go off T at the moment so bad, but I also already miss T although I haven't gone off it.

So that's [edit: birth name] and her little gender adventures, and she cried in the shower. Now she's gonna go get some food and maybe go to a party after this. Or just stay in and read. I really have had enough masturbation today.

[tangent101]

If Democrats turned against everyone but white supremacists just like Republicans have.

You have to understand something. I'm transgender. My head is on the fucking chopping block and Donald Trump is salivating at the chance to declare people like me illegal and throw us all in jail. He'll call us rapists and murderers and maybe there's one or two good ones but no they're all rapists and murderers and need to be locked up and detransitioned for their own good and forced to be good Christian Americans rather than these abominations to the eyes of God. And yes, Donald Trump personally gives no fucks about transgender people, it's all to rile up his supporters, but once he got into office he went after transgender people without being asked to do so and showed other Republicans that they can declare war on the LGBTQ+ community and get away with it.

So excuse me if I refuse to not vote, and urge people to vote Democrat no matter how much you hate it and despite the fact that they are supporting atrocities in Palestine. Donald Trump wants to continue those atrocities and add another genocide to it on the side while also hanging the Ukrainians out to dry so Russia will go in and start raping and pillaging again and then continue to roll through into Eastern Europe and then ignore our NATO obligations because he's Putin's Puppet. Not that it will matter to me at that point because, again, I'll be in jail for the crime of being transgender in a Republican World, even if he has to declare it by Executive Action.

By not voting for the lesser evil, you are voting for the Greater Evil. We need every single vote to keep Trump and these fascists at bay. For me, it's a matter of actual survival. So I will call you on this and urge you to reconsider. And hey, you know what can still happen? Maybe a Democratic Presidential Candidate will arise to oppose Biden and run on the anti-genocide-of-Palestine platform. And if such a candidate won against Biden I'd vote for them in the General Election. I. Fucking. Don't. Care. About. Biden. I care about keeping Trump and the Republicans out of office.

At some point you’ve got to ask yourself what WOULD someone have to make you not vote for them. Kill someone? Arm national militias? Roll back even more pandemic protections? Like, fuck, Joe Biden is materially supporting a genocide. If you still want to vote for him after that then maybe you should have a sit down and ask what on EARTH would make you not vote blue no matter who.

[cumulohimbus]

So I'm slowly going off Testosterone after around 4 years and it seems like I'm beginning to regain my ability to cry. Today I started tearing up thinking about how much I love libraries and equity work centered around access to information... ... ...for the past couple years I've barely been able to cry even when in severe distress let alone about anything happy.

Also, to clarify, by no means am I detransitioning. The second someone uses she/her pronouns for me they'll get hit with my gender blaster.

I'm alright with sharing this because going off T doesn't seem to be all too frequently talked about in trans circles, and in case sharing my experience helps other folks who are on, or considering going on T. I have a number of reasons I'm stopping T, but one of the main ones being that I was losing a lot of my hair very rapidly. Not just thinning or receding at the corners; like the entire top of my head. I was and am still using medications to help my hair growth but my hair loss on a higher T dose was faster than the meds could keep up with. Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with a bald head or male pattern baldness, I just have my own personal reasons for not wanting myself to be bald (at least not at my current age) that relate to familial trauma and not wanting to resemble a certain member of my family.

Additionally, I feel I have gotten nearly everything I particularly wanted from T and there is really only one thing that it does for me that I am a bit bummed about losing (that being I'll get a menstrual cycle again). Other than that though, not much is likely to change, and if it does, it won't change by much. Additionally additionally, I think I want to experience pregnancy sometime in the somewhat distant future, even if it's just as a surrogate.