I’ve been having a lot of dysohoria and my labs showed my hormones were critically low, so my doctor just bumped my HRT dose 10x. Turns out my first doc had me on way too low a dose! I was taking 1mg per week, now I’m taking 10mg lol. Should help with my energy levels and stuff going forward. Expecting to have mood swings and stuff this week as my dosage bumps up though!
For the same reason I talk to my friends, get them registered to vote, and go with them to the polls. I can’t make a difference on a large scale, but I can make a small difference. I can get five other people to vote who might not have otherwise, and that’s important.
This is exactly the way I feel about all these people who choose inaction and agitate for others to abstain. You’re so fucking right and I’m sick of all these comments coddling this cowardly attitude of abstinence from real action. My partner is a political organizer, works in civil rights and climate action. He’s Latino and disabled. We’re both trans and queer. I volunteer and organize. The reality is most people won’t volunteer or donate to make change. The easiest thing most people can do to make real change is to vote.
Claiming voting doesn’t work, and asserting you’d rather not vote than vote for a middle of the road candidate versus the fascist… it’s a privileged take. It’s not allyship. It’s not about helping people or making a difference, it’s moral purity. They’d rather throw away lives than taint their soul with an impure decision. I don’t have the privilege to maintain my purity, and those that do should take a hard look at how they’re using that privilege.
It might make you feel icky icky to vote for the guy you dislike versus the man who wants to exterminate me. Get over it or be honest that you’d rather feel pure than take action.
Privileged lefties’ prioritization of moral purity over real action will be the death of us.
One thing that really wowed me was that my sense of smell changed a lot over time! Now, I can barely stand the smell of the garbage sometimes.
I’m generally more in touch with my thoughts, less quick to anger or grow irritated, and it’s easier to moderate frustration when it grows overwhelming.
Also I cry a lot more. A LOT more.
I just read through that and it was really helpful for me too. A lot of sexual hang ups I have originate I think in dysphoria and how I coped with it before even knowing I was trans. My experience coming out and coming to terms with myself and my own pain has been extremely illuminating as to why it is I behave the way I do. Why I find certain things so uncomfortable. Thanks for the resource!
Thanks for the comment. You’re right about the depression and anxiety not being necessarily related to my dysphoria. I’ve had severe depressive episodes my whole life, going all the way back (based on what my parents have told me) to when I was a young child. I know I’m not ever going to escape it entirely and I’ve made some peace with that. It’s just how my brain is. Been in therapy/psychiatry for almost a decade now, sans the last year or so. I do believe that a catalyst for my worst period of depression (when I was around 15) was puberty and I think that’s related to deep seated dysphoria and resentment of the changes that physical maturity brought about in my body. My depression is… I think better now than it has been. It’s certainly different with a different prominent sex hormone. Less prolonged episodes of detachment and emptiness, more severe intrusive thoughts and rumination—bordering on obsession. From what I’ve read it seems like a lot of other trans people also have experience with their symptoms of mental illness shifting or contorting after starting HRT.
I think making a plan and checklist to track my progress is a great idea. I think I’ve been overwhelmed with all the things I want to do and thus haven’t made steps towards any of them. Legal name and gender marker change, voice training, etc. Thanks for the advice!
Thank you very much for the comment. It really helps with the anxiety and doubt hearing other people have had similar experiences to me. Almost started tearing up at work when I read this 😭
It feels sometimes like it’s too hard and it would be so much easier to run away from it, but I know that it wouldn’t really be. Thanks for the reassurance, I believe some day it’ll get easier
Thank you for the comment, it was reassuring. I hope that some day I too can look back on this as being the worst of my dysphoria.
My partner also has been encouraging me to make queer and trans friends IRL. It’s hard to find time when I’m having to work so much, but I’m getting to the point where I’m just going to have to make the time or continue to suffer.
Unsurety, Dysphoria, Insecurity
Hello everyone! My name is Emma. I’ve been thinking I was gender non conforming for about five years now, but didn’t have the courage to act on my desire until I entered into my current relationship two years ago or so. My partner is queer and very supportive of me. I started to realize how unhappy my perception of my body and gender was; how unhappy I was with others perception of my gender. As a result, I started medical transition about nine months ago. I have desire to change my voice, to have breasts, to reduce the amount of body hair I have. And yet, I don’t really carry myself differently or act much differently than before. I’ve always crossed my legs when I sit and tried to make myself seem smaller than I am because I’ve always hated my height (I’m very very tall).
One thing that definitely has changed is that I’ve gotten more and more dysphoric over the short time I’ve been on hormones. I’ve talked about this with my partner and thought through it myself and believe, to a degree, that this is due to me unpacking pain that I had repressed over time. That the discomfort with my body was always there and I had just always crushed it down to allow myself to function despite it. This came at a cost of worsening depression, anxiety, and insecurity. For example, I never enjoyed shopping for clothes, looking masculine, wearing anything that showed off my body. As a result I never felt comfortable in my clothes or body and hated my appearance. Now though, I love shopping for clothes! At least online anyway, in person stores never have clothes for women my height :p (love you long tall sally!)
But… there’s a devil on my shoulder which says that I’m becoming more dysphoric because I’m not really trans. Because I’m really a man and I’m just lying to myself. I’m just doing this because I never felt I had a space to belong. I’m just appropriating the culture of people I respect and admire. I’m just trying to fit into women’s spaces, take advantage of the kindness of queer people to gain a sense of community where I never had one before. Writing that out, the internalized transphobia is pretty clear, huh?
I think part of my ever increasing feeling of dysphoria is not dressing how I want to and presenting how I want to out of fear of harassment or abuse from others in public. I ride public transit everywhere and see people get harassed daily and don’t want that to be me. So, I dress more masculine out of fear. Because of that masculine presentation, I get scared to use the women’s restrooms at work and find myself hiding in the stalls until all the other people leave before I go wash my hands. Which is dumb, because people at my job are super supportive and kind. Thinking of myself as a woman always feels wrong because I’m not feminine enough, my voice is too low, I’m too tall, I wear more masculine clothes, etc.
So lately I’ve been wracked with insecurity wondering if this was all the right decision for me. I have the same interests and the same depression. Obviously estrogen didn’t cure my mental illness. Transitioning has made some aspects of it worse and some aspects of it more bearable. And the worry that’s always there is whether I’m doing all this for the right reasons. Whether my dysphoria will ever start decreasing in severity rather than increasing. At the same time, the thought of detransitioning is agonizing.
It feels silly looking back now on how I thought transition would cure my mental illness. How I thought going on estrogen would cure my dysphoria. How I thought leaving my home state of Texas and moving to a more progressive state would free my mind and body from transphobia external and internal. There is no magic cure for mental illness or dysphoria. There is no promised land free of transphobia.
Ultimately, I’m doing okay. Im still happier and more comfortable than I was when I thought I was a man. I’m making this post wondering if any of you have/had a similar experience, similar anxieties, or similar doubts to me. How do you cope with your anxiety about transition or insecurity in your identity? How do you deal with stagnant or worsening dysphoria?
I’m very tall and a lot of Torrid’s clothes end up being a little (or a lot) too short. Especially sleeve length, which is a common problem area in clothes.
I’ve been getting ads from BP about how they’ll be done electrifying their oil wells in the United States by the end of the year or something. Technically a good thing but the obvious green washing is so gross. Them being electric doesn’t change what the wells make/contribute to.
Is it weird that this photo looks less creepy to me than he normally does? Maybe it’s the display of a recognizable human emotion rather than smug contempt or casual indifference.
I also feel pretty hopeless about trans rights in my country and the world over, but sometimes I get to see how people all over are making an effort to make us feel welcome, included, affirmed, and loved.
great experience at my new job!
So, backstory: I started at a new position yesterday (finally able to leave Texas and move somewhere less hostile to my existence). I don’t disclose my gender during the hiring process because I don’t want to face discriminatory hiring practices, so no one knew I was transfem until my first day. My manager met with me before orientation and had a chat with me. When I mentioned I wasn’t sure what my preferred name should be, she sorta tilted her head, closed the door to her office, and we had a really affirming chat about my gender and name and everything. She helped me settle on a new name (something I’ve been indecisive about for a really long time) and reassured me that if I wanted to change it later I could. She showed me how to change my name, gender, and pronouns in the system myself. Then she went to my new team before I saw them and told them all what my name and preferred pronouns are so that I didn’t need to have that conversation 6+ times on my first day. Most importantly, she asked me what I wanted to do on all of these things and did exactly what I was most comfortable with.
Such an amazing, inclusive, and welcoming experience. Never had any experience like it honestly! She handled it really well. I sent her a thank you email this morning letting her know how much it meant to me and how well she handled the topic of my gender, presentation, and preferred name. After a lifetime of discrimination and oppression and hatred, I feel like I’m starting to really become myself. Seeing my name on all the emails in my inbox and having my coworkers address me by that name gave me the strongest hit of euphoria I’ve had since the first time I went shopping for women’s clothing.
My new name is Emma by the way :>
Wow you look great, girl! I love that top, it works really well with your eyes!
finding a name
So I’ve been struggling for months to find a name that clicks with me. I keep stumbling on names which feel like the one, then a few minutes to a few days later the name loses its sway on me. I feel like I just have to finally pick something so I can move on with my life, but I’m really not having much success. I keep telling myself that I can change it again later if I end up hating the one I pick, but it’s hard enough to get people to change how they address me once. It’s weird because I’m very infrequently this indecisive, but this choice has me really circling the drainpipe. Idk how to find one that speaks to me which I don’t feel like I’ll regret. I’m really feeling for my parents having to name me in the first place now—this shit hard lol
Did anyone else have this experience? How did your name come to you? Does anyone have any advice for me?
You can see the tweeting from the canary in the middle panels showing they can still hear it singing with Snow White from outside the mine, leading them to not realize that there had been a gas leak
finally moving out of state!!!
I’m so excited to be leaving Texas finally!! I’ve lived here my whole life and just got a really exciting job in the Northeastern US. My partner (who is also trans) and I are so pumped to be out of here. Manifesting everyone else who’s living in a dangerous area can get the opportunity to leave like I have. Here’s hoping the background check clears (I don’t see why it wouldn’t, I don’t have anything notable in my history beyond being chronically gay :p)
Also, it can be wonderfully helpful to take your measurements! You can measure hip, bust, inseam, etc, by looping a piece of string around your body and then measuring it. Most clothing brands have size charts that let you match your measurements to their size rules. Remember that just because you’re a size 20 in one brand doesn’t mean you’ll be a size 20 in another, always check the size charts.
Check out sockdreams! They have some great thigh high socks that come up halfway on MY thighs (I’m 6’4”) and they’re very comfy. If the socks are having trouble staying up, you can get some garters like another comment suggested. I got my garters through sockdreams as well.
If you want more fem clothes, I get a lot of my stuff from Torrid. Decent quality for the price, and they have a lot of clearance stuff which helps a lot with the cost. I have some really well fitting jeans from Abercrombie and Fitch, too. Plus size stuff is a safer bet since it often has long/tall options.
Best of luck!
clothing recs
I’m having trouble finding affordable dress pants that aren’t total garbage. I’m 6’4”, and it’s always hard to find good clothes that fit me. Was wondering if any other tall ladies here have any recommendations for good places to look?
Also, anyone have recommendations for women’s footwear retailers for very large feet (size 15 US)?