Long post, strap in for a boat load of background context.

For this story I'll call my sister Gel and her friend Agar. Agar is my age and Gel is two years older than me.

When I was in middle school I was a bit transphobic, though more so in an internalized way. I was in a friend group with a lot of trans and queer kids, and I generally wasn't bad toward people who were lgbtq+. At this point in time both Gel and Agar identified as boys, and they weren't friends yet. I was friends with Agar, and I would talk about how much I enjoyed the people at my church, some about how Christian I was but generally just in the way that I felt more enlightened, and invited her to my church once.

In 9th grade I was still friends with Agar, who I told mean crap about a boy who had a crush on me because he was a bit weird. Agar then told Gel, who used that to try to get me into a lot of trouble at home. At the time I didn't realize it was Agar who had done that.

Close to the end of my 9th grade year I came out as lesbian, and ended up telling both Agar and Gel.

Some time after that both Agar and Gel desisted, they never started anything medical for it to be accurately called detransitioning. I also fell out of touch with Agar for a while. Gel is still queer, I don't know about Agar.

During 11th grade I asked Agar if they could set me up with any girl they might know. Nothing really came of that, and we didn't continue to text very much.

As time went on I came to know myself as a straight man, though I'm not sure if either Agar or Gel know about this.

This year, in 12th grade Gel decided that because I didn't want to have another argument with her about random bs that she was angry about she would out me right then and there to our parents. Apparently Agar had told her about me wanting to get set up with a girl, and she used that information. I was able to pretend and convince everyone that she was just talking about some phase I had. There were still repercussions, but I didn't get to act like those were an issue.

I don't really know what I did to make Agar so malicious against me, maybe it was the things I mentioned from middle school.

This summer Gel and Agar have become best friends. It has been so upsetting to hear Agar's name again and again. Today Gel invited Agar over to our house.

I tried telling a teacher that I'm close with about it, but she cares about Agar, so she just corrected me on Agar's pronouns, and when I told her how Agar had desisted she didn't say anything else. I told another friend, but I guess she didn't know how to respond. There probably isn't really a right way to respond in this situation.

Edit: fixed wording

I've been working out more consistently recently and I am quite proud of myself. It's too early to see any physical changes but I've already found I am quite stronger than I was a month ago or so.
This ties in to my last post (basically, dysphoria hit like a semi-truck yesterday), but all today I have had this strong urge to hurt myself because I perceive myself to be very feminine. I had the idea that instead of cutting, I could just lift weights until failure to also have pain, just a more productive and healthy form of SH basically.
Hurting myself isn't my main motivation for working out, obviously, but I find that it kills two birds on the really bad dysphoric days by helping build a more masc body AND acting as a way to hurt oneself.
I do not encourage self-harm whatsoever, I am just venting.

I transitioned young and pass pretty well (pre T and surgery), so much so that other trans friends I know have told me they didn't know/couldn't tell. I dress masc, I've deepened my voice, etc. However, today, I got hit with a huge wave of dysphoria after seeing a meme on Reddit comparing 26 year old trans men to puppies. I've been more consistently working out recently for the first time in years, though it's too soon to see any changes. After getting this dysphoria I worked out twice today.
I'm someone who is extremely disconnected from my trans identity. Due to trauma I don't remember most of my life before around two years ago when I was already transitioned and so I've been identifying as cis pretty much everywhere, not just as stealth but because that's genuinely how I see myself.
Despite this disconnection from being AFAB (just writing that feels wrong), I've gotten dysphoria here and there, but it is the worst it is today than it's been since before my transition. I feel way too feminine, I'm too short, I sound like a girl. A lot of people IRL use they/them for me, which just kills me and hurts more than she/her does.
I'm trying to work out more and voice train more but it's been hard between wanting to cry. So yeah, was just venting, if anyone has any tips on how to get through this, that would be appreciated. Thanks for reading.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/28196793

Mediocre pasta dishes

Hi, guys. It's Larry/Jay. 15FtM(??). Ever since I was around 8, I wanted to do what the boys did and hang out with them. Sadly, I even went through a "girls stink" phase and my role models were my dad and male heroes. I liked it when I saw clothes that were for boys and I got super happy when my hair was cut short because I'd look like a boy. However, I was sheltered from LGBTQ stuff, so I just thought I was a tomboy.

The gender dysphoria never truly went away. When I was 11, I had another "role model", a male character. I wanted to wear a hoodie to hide my long hair and chest and "embody" his male spirit. I even wanted to be called a "he" sometimes. I stopped telling anyone and felt bad about it though when my at the time friend laughed at me.

13, I started experimenting with FtM identity because I never felt fully female like at all, and I always wanted to be like male characters I saw and identified more with them and saw myself AS them. Detransitioned or "desisted" when my girlfriend started bullying guys and especially trans guys.

On-and-off, I've been trans and from what I remember, usually being called "she" or a "girl", triggered me to start acting fem again.

But even with my family, even identifying as a girl, I feel like a boy and I felt dysphoria by being called "she".

I don't even know if I'm truly genderfluid or just FtM due to this since it seems from what I remember, I go back to being a girl due to force or feeling unaccepted.

just ask fam

I (39F) have a “daughter” (15 masc, 15M?) who I guess is now my son. He identifies as masc, which I guess is masculine? So I guess I will use he/him pronouns. And he prefers to be called James or Jimmy. Jimmy has talked about wanting to be a boy before, but he has been very vocal about it as of recent and at first I was just thinking it was a tomboy situation but now that he identifies as masc, I was thinking of how I can support Jimmy and get used to it.

so i was friends with someone online for a little bit and he asked me out, so i said sure and checked in with my partners because i'm poly.

i ended up dating him but he was being very weird throughout the whole relationship, pressuring me already to send nudes and have kids with him when i said no multiple times. he also was very cool and kind when he thought i was a cis man but as soon as he found out i was ftm, started pushing the whole "let me suck on your/see your boobs" "let me see you in a dress" "let me have kids with you" and such.

does he even see me as a guy? was i a fetish to him? anyway i blocked him, just needed to rant.

She was never happy with the way I was, just with how she wanted me to be. She liked the idea of me, not me. She got weirded out at me for liking girls and being born one, she tried to get me to apologize to God, become His servant, and "convert" and keeps asking me to read the Bible and form a relationship with a being I don't believe exists. She also she found out I was genderfluid. This was the last straw for me. She asked why my pronouns were "she AND he". I said I'm genderfluid. She asked if God made a mistake with my gender, and then said no because God never makes mistakes and I should just be a straight Christian girl forever. Is this toxicity disguised as "love" or am I overreacting?

What should I do? On my male days, I get misgendered intentionally and called "my girl/daughter" by my transphobic dad who says "people think boys can be girls and I hate it!!"

He also keeps calling my male friend a "she" when he doesn't even look like a girl, he looks pretty gender-neutral/masc and just may look feminine to him because he's pre-T (he's only 16).

I thought of one thing, and last time he said I couldn't hang out with him because he was trans but didn't have a face to match up with the name or me just saying "a friend" so he may let me hang out with him, thinking he's "a girl" and just a tomboy so I can finally sleep over.

i really don't get it as an afab nonbinary woman, like i saw a post where a woman was complaining about not having a partner because "only theyfabs" asked her out.

My ex-girlfriend is now a straight, "proper" Christian woman who went through what she calls a "gay phase" and a "trans phase" even though I like to say she was just questioning.

She is very anti-transition and I notice on Snapchat there is some detransition propaganda stuff from even the "pride" accounts.

hi everyone, i’m trying to use lemmy instead of reddit more and from what i’ve read, this community seems great! back on reddit i really had not he best experiences. i was a member of ftm and ftmMen, the latter of which had some pretty bad problems to the point i recently left it. mainly, there were multiple posts saying how much “nonbinary transmasculine people annoy me” and such which drove me up a wall. any time i tried to speak out in defense of nonbinary trans men being in the community i was downvoted to hell. personally i consider myself a binary trans man but i do identify with xenogenders a bit as well. it just doesn't make any sense to me why someone not being 100% binary (or even just existing in the way transmedicalists want you to) makes them not fit for a space. we all have similar experiences with our transitions, nonbinary trans men can be on T and get any surgery a binary trans man would. anyways this was kind of just a rant but i also was asking if anyone else had these experiences particularly on the reddit(s), and maybe even that’s why you joined lemmy instead? :)

So before I used to be active on Lemmy, I was active on Quora. However, now I see that it's a cesspool for toxicity, including this one trans man I saw. He had a friend that "respected" trans people, but thought cis and trans women were weak and couldn't survive without strong, tough trans men. They also said you have to be masculine to be a guy because FTM femboys are cis women and cis man femboys are MTF but don't know.

They also were one of those Asian supremacist people being from Asia and thought it was the "superior race"...

So glad his ass got banned! Not sure about the other guy because I don't remember his username.

This one guy I know who is/used to be a Neo-Nazi, Jordan (or he could just be saying he hates Jews to be edgy), said while he doesn't understand being trans or gay, he should probably still support and accept their identities.

i used to be forced to shave my legs a lot by my family and they still constantly comment on my hairy legs, but having hairy legs makes me feel more masculine. the guy i like, however, doesn't wanna pressure me, but also wants me to shave my legs. should i do it?

People like my ex-girlfriend (who is also my ex-friend) describe them figuring out their identity as "having a gay/trans 'phase' once". I get trying to figure out your identity, but something irks me about calling it a "phase". Even if it's how you describe it, it just feels to me like being trans or gay is just a phase and you'll grow out of it.

My ex-girlfriend turned out to be straight and anti-transition anyway...

I had another ex-girlfriend who she and her friends blocked me. Her friends were talking about orientation, and I was a lesbian at the time (now omni/gay/homoflexible trans man). Then, the friends were just like "Oh, well I thought I was a lesbian too and had a lesbian phase until I met my perfect, loving boyfriend <3 Maybe you haven't found the right guy yet". They turned out to be extreme right-wingers anyway too...

Not that having a "phase" equates to being right-wing, but it still irks me regardless of your political beliefs and isn't there a better way to phrase it? Like I would be fine with something like "You're trans, Larry (me)? That's awesome! I actually questioned being trans awhile back".

I don't even know that much about them but I can guarantee that when I see something posted by truscum communities, I'm like "I'm not touching that with a 50 ft pole".

It seems a lot like they focus on what is a "real" trans person, which is very toxic, unless I'm misunderstanding truscum.

I'm sorry if this is attention seeking, I'm trying not to be...

Ever since I was a kid, I was different from other girls. I wanted to be a boy. Since I knew boys had penises, I wanted a penis too. I wanted to be like my dad. Though he turned out to be not a good person, I didn't know that at my young age.

I wanted to hang out with boys and do "what the boys did", not what the girls did.

I didn't like makeup or dresses, but I just thought I was a tomboy or a boyish girl. But do boyish girls want penises? Do girls who want to be like their fathers feel the way I do? Well, I guess some of them do.

But my grandpa and dad have convinced me that all I will ever be is a girl. Just a confused girl masquerading as a guy. Just a confused girl who society has "pushed an agenda on".

I don't like rough labor either which I see stereotypically with guys and stuff, but I do like weight lifting and that gives me gender euphoria. I would take T to help me get stronger but to my internalized transphobic brain (I'm working on that), it's cheating.

If you want to use my name(s) in your reply, by the way, I'm Larry or Scott. Alex or Mikey is fine too.

To preface.. For a long time I was incredibly unsure about my sexuality. I was an autistic "cis" woman who absolutely adored gay media (yes; I was a fujoshi) and I felt for a long time that I WAS queer but I didn't know exactly how; I felt like I was taking up space being in queer womens spaces so I seldom participated in them and that led to me never truly exploring my sexuality despite me knowing I only liked men. I always labeled myself as bisexual or on the ace spectrum when I was clearly aware those labels didn't fit me, just because I didn't know how to explain how I felt on the inside.

Now, I am 2+ years on testosterone, I have undergone top surgery and I am going to get my rhinoplasty in the next 6 months for a more masc face. I have never felt more happy in my life. I can actually bare to look at myself in the mirror, I can actually love my body and begin to explore parts of myself that were so ardently locked behind my dysphoria. It's like so many doors have opened for me and I realize that this is who I am, and that even though I am still am fairly new into medically transitioning I could TRULY never see myself in another way.

I love men more passionately now and I can appreciate masculinity more richly. I have never felt gayer in my life. I thank Lou Sullivan for all of his activism work to show that gay and lesbian trans people existed, and I am so happy to be a gay transgender man.

"I don't even know if there was anyone that's ever felt as I do.. how they coped, what they did...how do I find out what someone like me does?” ― Louis Graydon Sullivan, We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/35361786

if you have HRT Related queries or advice please check out !diyhrt@lemmy.blahaj.zone, an entire comm for HRT

Testosterone and it's link to aggression (or lack of thereof)

I found an article with many linked studies on how testosterone affects aggression. The article is centered around cis men with baseline low testosterone levels that started TRT, however, I do think this applies to transmasculine people as well. Posting this because even in trans communities this topic is misunderstood.

TL;DR: individuals with low testosterone levels at baseline that started TRT report decreased levels of aggression, fatigue, tension. Current studies don't report any changes of aggression on average, however, this may wary depending on personality profiles (for example: people with high dominance and low self control traits did become aggressive, but the testosterone itself is not the cause of the aggression)

https://www.trted.org/articles/myth-busting-series-testosterone-treatment-makes-you-aggressive

@ftm @trans