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dysphoria, self-doubt, transition regret, and just general transition doom - sorry, i know that's a heavy list, but i'm really not feeling great right now comrades
i’m past a year and a half on E - when is it supposed to start working? i hear girls talking about how it’s magic, and then i hear girls talking about how it’s not magic but it’s still a huge deal - is it truly either of those things, or am i just doing something wrong? i’ve never male-failed once in my life and girls talk about that like it’s a rite of passage. reading Whipping Girl and having Julia talk about her magic inflection point three or four months in when she started getting gendered correctly all at once after starting to transition in her thirties and i’m over here clawing the rare she/hers I get exclusively from situations where i’m sitting down, in full make up, not talking, with a face mask on, from a distance. I meet actual queer people who genuinely can’t tell I’m on HRT. I had a moment about a year in where I had my labs done and my E was too high, and I was talking about it with someone, and they said “isn’t it amazing when it all starts to make sense?” and i had to say “no, like, I’m taking too much of it, it’s not naturally high at all”. i have cis man friends with long hair who get she/her’d more than I do. there’s this, and there’s failing every single trans bingo card that exists, there’s the fact that I was conflicted but happy before starting to transition and now i’m just depressed and obsessive about it all the time, and it’s really starting to take a toll. like really, is this the move? i was doing great as a guy. i really, truly, do NOT want to go back to that, i kinda don’t think i could stomach it frankly, but in transitioning i’ve given up so much I was getting out of masculinity and gotten scraps, if anything at all, out of femininity.
what i want to ask is “when does it get better” but i kinda feel like the answer is “maybe never”? my T was 19 last time I got labs, it’s been under 50 for almost a year. it just feels really shitty to be through the period when the majority of the changes are supposed to happen (unless i’m wrong and there’s some big year two/year three bump?
) and having next to nothing to show for it.
edit, literally 52 minutes later, same CWs but new enthusiasm
I am clocky and I’m hot
maybe I’m just not used to the emotions E gives me, because holy shit these things turn on a dime, but like, i hope this can serve as inspiration that outlook changes a lot. I’m not feeling that much more pass-y but I’m a fucking hot piece, and while I may have shoulders for days and a thousand other things I’ve learned to instinctually zero in on in a mirror, I can also identify things in myself that I find hot in others and recognize that others see those things in me too?? it’s so frustrating when some girls just… make it, even though I have so much joy in my heart seeing them do so, but it’s truly not like passing all the time would be the one crowning achievement of transitioning either. there are so many things I’ve gotten out of this that I fail to focus on when I’m at my lowest. my exercise for the day is to list them here.
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in terms of being gendered correctly, it’s so complicated. it could be something as nebulous as how you carry yourself or things that are specific and easier to work on. if you do want to talk about this more, are there transition related things you’re still working on?
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well I dress cute as fuck, for one, that I always have going for me and it’s getting better all the time. I don’t think I look good in skirts or dresses but I’m doing great with slacks and blouses. I have my first laser session coming up too, which is nice because if it works I won’t have to shave any more and it might nudge me slightly more towards pass-y. Kind of a lot of stuff honestly; everything about being trans is going great for me, except for the being perceived as, being treated as, and living as a woman part
That sounds pretty cynical, but I am feeling feelings I never even imagined (even though a lot of them aren’t great), my social life and my relationships are flourishing, it’s involved a lot of personal growth, and I have absolutely no regrets of any sort, sooo, if I have to leave one thought, it’s that ✨clocky girlies live happy and fulfilling lives too✨
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Firstly firstly, that sounds awful. I’m so sorry you’re going through all this. Being trans for me is mostly about joy but it’s not like that’s all it is all the time. Sometimes it sucks, yeah. E was great at first more for the emotional world it opened up for me and not for it’s immediate physical effects - I said it was like the emotional equivalent of having blurry vision and putting on glasses for the first time, now I had emotions besides vibing and intense rage. The physical stuff came later.
Secondly firstly, E takes forever. You hear about the quicker results because they’re exceptional (no one talks about how they took E for 4 years while they were closeted and their wives and children didn’t even notice, but it can be a thing). There’s the possibility you need more specialized endocrine medical care cause maybe you have some stuff going on that’s preventing HRT from doing what it does for most people - maybe your liver is just powerful. And yes, the big long list of initial changes starts to hit by year 2, but everyone’s body is different - you might be more around 3, which might suck but feminization is inevitable. Cis womens breasts, for example, take years and years to develop - some isn’t finished until their like 25 - so it’s not a huge surprise that it takes so long for trans femmes.
I wanna say that a lot of this bad shit you’re feeling sounds like dysphoria - being misgendered, hormones not working properly etc. Before I cracked my egg while I was still questioning, I thought I might not be trans cause where’s the torment and horrible dysphoria? Well, it came after I started dealing with the fact that I’m a woman, a trans woman, and now those floodgates open - and oh, there’s dysphoria. So if you’re feeling weird and dysphoric AFTER transitioning and didnt before, it’s not a big surprise. Sometimes dysphoria is so complete that it’s like a fish swimming in water, and comrade you just got pulled out of the water and now you know it exists and it’s all around you. Which is part of why you probably feel like there’s no going back - cause there’s not if you’re trans femme!
And the truth is, it does get better, but there’s no timeline and I wish I could give you one so so badly. But you will eventually figure out a way to present that makes your heart sing, and you will find friends that recognize your femininity, and you will get a circle of people that use the right pronouns in your daily life including work, and yeah eventually you’ll get curves and skin will be softer etc etc.
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I’m not holding out I don’t think, I’m fairly sure that in my line of work I’m not going to get she/her’d at any point unless I sic HR on every single person who fucks it up, and i’d so, so much rather get he/him’d organically than get she/her’d because people feel like they’ll get in trouble if they don’t. it’s really not worth the bonus transmisogyny that’d flag me for. My friends are much better and I’m so happy I have them, although I’m a busy person fighting tooth and nail for other busy people’s time, so it’s somewhat hard juggling the exhaustion of aggressive socializing versus the exhaustion of solitude.
I do also like the way I present too, I feel like I’ve done everything I can with what I’ve got, and ultimately I’m okay, but it’s definitely a bummer. I absolutely certainly definitively have dysphoria and it’s for things that definitely aren’t going away, so I either have it for life and I get used to it, or I get better at being happy with what I have - both of which sound cynical but are totally legitimate options.
At the end of the day, trans girls are perfect and beautiful, and I know this because I feel that way about all of them, so even if I can’t direct that inward, I know I’m not the only one who feels this and I know there’s just as much love for me out there as I have for others.
I get you. Hearing all about how HRT is magic and etc., but I’ve had the same experience as you. HRT has really done next nothing for me. But yeah, hang in there, I do believe things get better as you get further along in transition
doomer stuff
Same here
I’ve gotten some of the good changes from hrt, but with it came much stronger gender dysphoria. And the things I feel most dysphoric about are the ones that hrt can’t change. Maybe I could pass if I got FFS, but I’ll never be able to afford that. So I just feel hopeless all the time now.
I relate to these feelings a lot