Man, I wish the camera on the OP 6T wasn’t as shit as it is. I still feel like that it was the best phone I ever owned. The Thunder Purple colourway was soooo pretty and it felt so great in the hand! Wonderful phone.

This was something I experienced as well, the dysphoria shifting as soon as the most pressing stuff was out of the way. Before HRT, all I could think about was going on HRT and experiencing the body changes. Then, I started to mourn first puberty just like you’re doing right now. I got over that and then bottom dysphoria got so much worse. Priorities change, I guess. But the good thing is that they keep changing and whatever’s #1 on your mind right now might not be a concern at all in a year (or less).

Yeah, this! I was sure I’d be one of the people where HRT wouldn’t work. And even if it did, I was sure I’d never pass, ever. And now it’s not even two years later and I’m just some woman. It’s crazy. If I’d known that, I’d have started so much sooner.

Also: the social leeway I get now and pretty privilege. I didn’t think that it would be this significant.

Ohh wat leuk haha! I celebrated a lot! Getting surgery was life-saving for me and my bottom dysphoria got so bad over the last year I’m so so glad I had the privilege to have surgery. As for options I didn’t really have any because I went to one of the very few (maybe the only one? I’m not sure) clinics that had less than a 2-3 year wait and they only offered standard penile inversion with some special enhancement only they do. To be completely honest with you I didn’t care much about the method or the details of getting one exact type of surgery. For me, just getting rid of my penis was the most important thing above all, by all means possible. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to wait years for a clinic that offers any other method so it wasn’t really a choice. But I think in Germany most of them do the same stuff anyway so it doesn’t matter that much. I’m very happy with what I got.

Oddly enough I obsessed A LOT over HRT and still do, the different methods and how it works etc. But with bottom surgery I didn’t research it that much, I just NEEDED to get it done so desperately, having a penis was literal torture for me and it got worse every day. Of course I looked at it enough to not get screwed over by doctors but it wasn’t nearly the amount of research & deep-diving I did with most other aspects of transition.

It depends a lot on where you get it done. They have different procedures and care routines in the US/Asia/Europe. I’m in Germany and I was in hospital for two weeks, then at home for another two recovering 90% of the time and from then on I slowly started to go back to normal life. I’m now almost 8 weeks post-op and I’m back to work since week 6 and doing everything like I did before surgery. Working out is still a no-no theoretically but I don’t work out anyway lol.

They gave me pretty heavy painkillers in the hospital but ever since coming back home I’ve not taken any and haven’t felt any pain in the area.

Lots of things have given me this, most recently it’s been just putting leggings on, everything being smooth, not having to worry about my now nonexistent penis showing. It’s pure bliss.

Going thrifting with female friends really helped me develop taste and find good stuff.

This is exactly how I did it with my friends. Only had a “big” coming out with my parents. (And that was very awkward but I think it always is and there’s not really a way around it)

thanks <3

Went on stage this week for the first time since surgery, and even in another city! It was pretty cool though the audience was comparatively cis and as a result my text about surgery wasn’t as well received as it could’ve been. Still had two people come up to me afterwards to say they liked it a lot and had fun, so it’s a win in my book! It was almost a two hour train ride each way and I’m happy I can do stuff like that again. It was pretty straining though and I had to spend my weekend recovering! The rest of the week was rather uneventful and pretty sleepy. I’ve been watching house of the dragon and like it a lot!

I feel like being trans for me just means that my gender is now different to what I was assigned at birth. I still don’t really know what my exact gender is and find the concept confusing. For cis people, I just default to the nearest binary gender, so female. But my real experience of gender changes almost daily, today I’d say I’m like 65% woman and 35% nonbinary feminine something fae etc etc.

I think I changed my presentation enough for people to adapt well enough. Everyone in my life except for my family is very supportive and leftist though, so I think I had it pretty easy. My dad took some time to adapt but now (2 years after coming out to him) he’s doing pretty well. My mom still misgenders me every time we see each other but I don’t think it would be any different with a different name. I would wager she’d not even use it most of the time tbh.

I had some anxiety about strangers not knowing how to gender me when I introduce myself with my nickname. And that actually did happen a bit but I think by now I’m far enough along with the physical changes that I’m read female pretty consistently by new people. In that transition period I just told the friends I was with to aggressively she/her me so others get the message lol. And when I sign up for anything official it’s obvious because my full name is 100% fem. Also, I think it’s pretty cool to have a gender neutral name because I’m not 100% woman either, I think.

“For fuck’s sake” is a bit harsh, don’t you think? Especially considering that dandelion is someone who’s repeatedly posted very thoughtful and interesting posts in this community for months. I agree with what you’re saying and think an edit to the post would be sensible, but let’s be nice?

I just went to the female version of my name. My nickname everyone uses stayed the same as it’s gender neutral. (I’m not really called Theresa, I just use that online because I like it and did consider it once. But I think it doesn’t work well with my last name)

I understand that sense of urgency, I feel it as well. And it did help me speed up my own transition a bit. But I think when I started to feel the urgency, I had already figured myself out a bit more than you have right now. You’ve said in another comment that it’s 14 months now that you’re sure you’re trans. I had a non-binary phase for more than two years before deciding to transition medically and call myself a woman (-ish), so there definitely was a time where I wasn’t ready to take action. What changed everything for me was meeting and befriending a transfem IRL, that made everything seem so much more realistic and achievable all of a sudden. Up until that point, transition was something that “only internet people” could do for me. When I met that friend, I was suddenly able to take the first steps toward HRT and was on it just a few months later. Ever since then, my conviction that transition is the right choice for me has only strenghtened which in turn has helped me toward my decision for a name change and surgery.

Hope my perspective helps and I would add that u/shirow is right. Do what you feel like doing and don’t ever do anything because other people tell you to. You and only you know what’s right for your body and identity. No one else can decide or judge about that. Also: something that has helped me accept being trans was the realisation that being a woman is just easier for me than being a man. So based on that I’m probably a woman (-ish, again).

Quite good! Recovery from bottom surgery is coming along quite nicely and Friday marked exactly five weeks post op. I’m already back to almost-normal days, just missing work. I can sit down at cafés, even without a cushion, I can make short train trips such as one on Tuesday to get my estrogen prescription refilled. I also got a costume for the local carnival which will be in three weeks. I took the opportunity and decided to get a catsuit to immediately use my new privilege of being able to wear one without worry! I won’t go all out during carnival but I have tickets for a queer party and will have breakfast with friends on another day that week. I also heard back from a job I’ve been waiting for for months and they finally invited me for an interview in February! If that works out, I’ll start a traineeship in April which would be very exciting and also a job straight out of college. Let’s hope the best for that, my friends are struggling to find jobs left and right.

I also had a photoshoot on Friday for the cover of a podcast I’m starting with a friend which was fun! We want to talk about how we perceive queer media and how cishet romance is dead lol. Let’s see how that works out. I finally went to the hair salon to have them cut my bangs in preparation for that and it made me feel sooo good because they were way too long! Couldn’t go because of surgery. All in all, I still notice that I have to rest more than normal, but I’d say I’m back to 75% again, not too bad for 5 weeks post-op. :)

I also didn’t feel any bottom dysphoria before I started medical transition, mostly indifference. Once the more pressing issues (like being perceived as a man socially) were resolved, bottom dysphoria started getting worse and worse until it was the only thing I could think about. I feel like my dysphoria in other areas didn’t resolve but rather shifted toward bottom dysphoria. So there’s definitely a component of “understanding” dysphoria before you can feel it, I guess?

welcome <3

Trying to find community is not selfish!! Never is! Do it and don’t look back.

And yeah, in my experience dysphoria does get worse. It took me so long to start medical transition because I had to reach a breaking point where it was transition or die for me. I was super scared my family would cut contact and that I’d never pass etc., the usual stuff. Turns out neither of those happened and the only regret I have is not starting sooner. For me, knowing another transfem IRL was what made transition feel achievable. Before, it was something only Internet people could do.

Yeah, HRT won’t fix you. That’s true. It’s not magic even though people keep saying that. I feel like for me what HRT did was give me something to fight and hope for. It gave me something on the horizon to work toward. Your mindset sounds an awful lot like mine before transition. I also went on HRT as a kind of last resort thing and slowly but surely, optimism came into my life. I realized I could customize my body. I could put in work to make my life better, to like myself for the first time ever.

Changes came, but HRT wasn’t the majority of it. The biggest changes were those I made motivated by the hope of being a girl some day. I didn’t believe it back then, but it came true anyway. I’m not even two years in and yet I’m still further along than I ever thought I could get.

And I feel your physical struggles, I truly do. I felt so ugly before transition, went to the gym, still looked like a stick. Couldn’t gain weight for the life of me (I still can’t, which still frustrates me). I thought I’d never pass, that no one would ever honestly think I’m beautiful. And you know what? I was fucking wrong. It took me a long time to realize and I really fought it because I couldn’t believe it when people told me I looked good a few months in. And even now, when people compliment my looks I often think they do it out of pity. But they don’t. I turned out pretty. I’m actually hot, which is still unbelievable to me. But turns out self love, confidence and good fashion sense go a long way. And a nose job lol. (I always wanted one and HRT gave me the guts to just do it!)

So keep fighting, babe. Keep going. It’s going to get better, I swear. Give hormones a year or two. Try to make the best of this life, you’ve only got the one.