#it worries me bc. im gonna start hrt next year

[confused-alpaca]

hmm actaully no 1 thing im worried about wrt the job im starting next year is that afaik theres no gender neutral toilets there

theyve got a whole buncha stuff by the main enterance about how theyre recognised by a buncha places organisations as lgbt+ and some specify trans friendly

but they dont even have gender neutral toilets

[kiw4]

very long ramble maybe??? i have no idea lol at this point i write here to journal stuff, which is good! it’s like I’m yelling into the internet void and makes me feel better lmao

I’m still in the dark about my hospitalized friend. I went to the mental health center where she was at and the recepcionist told me she was there, but they couldn’t give me any information about her (nor her mother’s phone) which is understandable but :( but at least we now know she’s alive. Next week I’m going to go to where an uncle of hers supposedly works to see if he knows something, or at least if he would be so kind as to give me my friend’s mom’s number :(

but on another note, an overwhelming amount of good news!

i got my T shot today, congrats me for being 6 months on HRT! yippee

apparently, next year the uni in my neighbor province will finally have the option to enroll in their sign language interpreter carreer/degree? and i cant fuckin WAIT!!! its been closed since before the pandemic bc of lack of funds ;_; but now that i have a two and a half years grasp on LSA i can start studying without worrying too much about starting with almost no knowledge of the language

ALSO im going to a gay bar for the first time for my birthday!? its just at midnight next saturday so I’m literally gonna welcome my birthday with a literal crowd of queer people, i’m absolutely terrified and excited :D (and i finally bought ear plugs so i can actually have fun instead of covering my ears and suffering lmao)

and also also i’m gonna shave my head later in the afternoon <3 i’ve always wanted to do it but i have/had? such low self-esteem that i couldn’t even fathom thinking about not being able to hide bits of my face with hair. Now i’m in a much, much better place and idk i think i’m gonna appreciate myself more with no hair, and i have no idea why. (PLUS, in the worst case scenario, its winter so i can wear hats lmao)

.......... MAYBE in my 27th year on earth i will finally learn how to stop using “lmao” as punctuation....................................................... lmao.

[auroramosaic]

im gonna start documenting my experience on testosterone so far! nothing hugely in depth just a lil overview for me to check back later. And bc I'd appreciate having seen some of this, esp the complications, before starting t

SO. I was kind of in a rush to start testosterone as soon as I could. Anxiety about laws and trying to be convinced out of it by family really pushed that faster than was probably smart

And I am multiply disabled - several of the conditions have symptoms that have been worsened to an unmanageable degree by testosterone (namely POTS - i overheat so easily and so extremely now)

Most people don't have to worry too much about side effects or worsening comorbid symptoms when starting HRT, and I'm really Really not tryna start any fearmongering. I just wasn't as fully aware of all the different ways it would affect me (despite the handouts and my own research and everything. Unfortunately my drs weren't super helpful - they asked me for tips and info on testosterone lmfao. Like I know a lotta patients do their own research but please doctors do your own too)

so! changes since starting t: i quickly started gaining a lot of weight, more than the extra food I was eating would've put on me before. I expected this to a degree but it was a lot very fast and surprised me. Also being really greasy all the time means taking more showers (which is physically difficult) or being overstimulated. Voice changes have been nice! I haven't been able to keep any of my upper register which I was curious about but it's opened up a lower vocal range which is really nice. Now I just gotta get used to how my voice fits in there :) body and facial hair are really not as fast as I expected. Those have been slow goes. Facial hair is barely there and body hair isn't too different from first puberty (but then again that's a whole discussion on intersex topics of its own tbh). I was really hit with that first wave of pain and exhaustion that some disabled people talk about with taking testosterone - a wave of fatigue that you push through first before you see any returns on testosterone being energizing. I haven't gotten to the energizing part get and it's been like 10, 11 months?

All of this said, I also have a hormonal IUD in at recommendation of the planned parenthood dr. I've had that for longer than I've been on T and they said it wouldn't be a problem bc that IUD is supposed to just be locally effective? But I still think it's worth knowing. I felt different after I first got that put in and I think it might affect more than was suggested.

anyways. So all that's been goin on and has been making me really sit on why I'm on HRT. Because I want to be, I want changes, but I'm not seeing return on many changes I was looking for, and I am getting a hell of a lot of surprise health issues. This is obvs a conversation to have w my dr when i see her next but I just wanted to document it too. Hormones are really complicated drugs and there can be a myriad of surprise effects! It was definitely worth it for me to start, but now I gotta reconsider what dosage is safe and that's ok. Shit happens like this sometimes. Wish I could tell myself a year ago about all this - not so he'd avoid HRT, but just so we didn't have surprise against us on top of the other stuff lol

[ambrosedeans]

long, personal gender related stuff under the cut bc i need to just dump all the stuff in my head somewhere 

so, uh. i got a letter today from the gic. they told me in november there was a 12 month waiting list from referral so i wasn’t expecting anything to come of it for a while, but. turns out i have my first appointment next month. and i just??? don’t know how i feel about the whole thing. honestly, part of me feels like all this is coming five years too late. i’ve been out and dealing with my gender identity on my own for years, and when i first thought i was trans i was extremely dysphoric and i read all this stuff about hormones and surgery and i thought that the only way i’d ever be happy with myself was if i had all of that. but now, i’ve become desensitised to a lot of it. i have friends who accept me and my gender. i know who i am, and i know i don’t need anything to physically change to prove that, to myself or anyone else. i’ve basically become increasingly sceptical of the relationship between trans people and the medical profession, and it honestly makes me kinda uncomfortable that i have to meet with a “specialist” who can confirm that i am who i say i am? bc???? i don’t need doctors to validate me? i dont need to be signed off and “diagnosed” with smth bc my gender is what i say it is. but i’m not gonna cancel the appointment or not go, bc i am still dysphoric. i hate my chest and i hate getting periods and i wish people wouldn’t mistake me for a girl. i like the thought of medically transitioning, and i want the benefits it would bring. but the whole process that trans ppl have to go through to get to that point is such bullshit, and i hate that i have to be part of it.  and i’m also incredibly nervous, because i’ve had all this time by myself to really come to terms with my gender identity and expression. and the medicalisation of trans people comes with this expected narrative and criteria and i’m worried i won’t fit that? when i started socially transitioning i forced myself into these masculine stereotypes and refused to associate with anything “feminine” because it helped to ease my dysphoria, but now i think that’s a load of bullshit. i know that i can enjoy wearing nail polish and eyeliner, and that doesn’t make me a girl? i know that gender is a construct, and bc of that, sometimes i dont fully identify as a guy. i’ve recently started to accept that i’m a nonbinary person who like being masculine, but i can enjoy being feminine sometimes without being a woman. and idk,, i’m worried that i’m either going to have to pretend to be this binary trans guy who likes Man Things or admit that i’m masculine and nb and risk being seen as Not Trans Enough to go on hrt, and GOSH does that thought terrify me bc i cant imagine having to bind and deal with periods and being misgendered for the rest of my life. and i’m just so scared and nervous and uncomfortable about this thing that i thought i’d have like, another six months to prepare for, but now it’s right around the corner. add to all that the fact my whole family knows i’m not a girl and that people call me blake, yet everyone but my sister still refers to me by my birth name. which means none of my family really understand or knows of what i’m going through (they probably dont even know i have been seeing people and trying to get appointment) so now i have to deal with like, telling them that im doing this and that i wanna go on T, to explain why i have to go up to london for a doctors appointment and? i feel scared and worried enough as it is, and its made worse by feeling that i’m alone and nobody around me understands or is there supporting me through this and life just feels really real and terrifying for me right now and idk if i’m prepared to deal with any of it