Etran de L'Aïr - Imouha
The Dream Academy - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
The humble sagebrush
Methuselah - The worlds oldest tree, 4,850 years old
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/02/the-methuselah-tree-and-the-secrets-of-earths-oldest-organisms
Babs - Raw Dawg Comics
https://www.reddit.com/r/rawdawgcomics/comments/1l04trg/queen/
Ballet Dancers in the Wings - Edgar Degas, c. 1890s
https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/19840/
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I was nervous about HRT too, it did feel like an indelible crossing line.Its not, for E, cause estrogen is nice and gentle and takes its sweet time to kick in. Im sure if you started tomorrow 3 months from now youll be begging for it to work faster lol. Out of the two sex hormones I love that T is the one that hits hards and fast with changes coming quick and muscle coming on fast and E is the one thats slow and gentle and sculpts you gently. Very apropos.
Estrogen for me wasn't just about the physical changes, it was also more or less a constant low grade antidepressant. Plus, it was like putting on emotion glasses. I could suddenly name and feel emotions besides "meh doing okay" or "incoherent rage" or "incredible depressed." There are gradiations to being happy or sad or angry that I didnt know.
HRT was the best decision I ever made. You might as well start it, if you don't like it you can stop any time.
As for laser, if you don't like facial hair then even if you maybe dont end up doing HRT or living femme - hey, at least you dont have to deal with facial hair anymore! Laser also doesnt work as fast as a lot of people wish it does. Its gonna be quite a few sessions before you start feeling smooth day to day, I bet.
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Thank you, I think this is exactly what I needed to hear :)Oddly enough I actually think that my face is last on the laser list lol. I can look cute with facial hair imo, and also face shaving is nowhere near as irritating as leg shaving (upper legs in particular).
I think I’m going to give it like a week and if I still feel so strongly and clearly that this is what I want then I’ll have a conversation with my partner about it and start figuring out logistics.
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I would definitely agree the changes with estrogen are very slow and subtle. But I felt the positive mental effects almost immediately. I had decided to try estrogen because I felt I would regret never trying it. I had already identified as non-binary for a couple of years. Almost immediately I felt like I was seeing in colour for the first time. I was like, "well I can't live without this", it actually took a couple of weeks for me to decide that okay I was a trans woman not a transfemme non binary or a gender non conforming man on estrogen, process that and plan coming out.As for upper legs, I did at home IPL for nearly 2 years with only average improvement. 6 months on estrogen and spironolactone have thinned the hair way more than (my crappy home) laser did. But also I care a lot less about my body hair in certain places, like lots of women have hairy legs, I'm friends with some Italian women who have complained about it. Even my chest hair is kind of cute now it's like a soft fury patch between my growing breasts if I don't shave it, but I kind of start to look like a fantasy faun/satyr type character
I have done (professional) laser on my face for 6 months and I'm up to the stage where it's 6 weekly (from 2 then 4). It's pretty great. I get only a few light bristles on my checks I shave every few days, and only now at like 5 weeks 5 days is dark hair coming back on my lip and chin.
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I keep hearing that E really helps the hair situation for a lot of people; I really hope it works that way for me as well! The faun look sounds pretty cool tbh. I’ve done a bit of dressing femme with a solid mustache, and idk if that’s right for me long-term but wow is it a look. I think stereotypically male body hair patterns on women are rad and underdone. I also feel (at least at the moment) like I’d rather leave that form of GNC for others, but that’s part of my hesitation; if it looks good on me then why wreck that? (because looking good doesn’t mean feeling good, but like, it gives me pause is all)I’ve gone back and forth over IPL. We have one in the house, but everything I’ve heard that doesn’t sound like it comes from marketing is that they are basically for shit.
If you don’t mind my asking, did you try monotherapy or were you also on spiro all along? I’m planning to start on mono and see how it goes, but if adding an AA helped with the hair situation then I may consider adding it at some point to see if it helps with that in my case as well, assuming that estradiol alone doesn’t do the trick well enough of course.
Thank you for the reply. Regardless of whether I end up going for it, hearing everyone’s experiences is making the decision seem a lot more manageable to make and I really appreciate it :)
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Quote from Terminal:Can confirm. Granted, during the first week or so of starting HRT (at too low of a dose to do much - mostly just noticing the effect of spiro), the anxiety from the whole thing caused a fair bit of dissociation and I only continued taking it because I trusted the me from a week before that was super-excited for it. But after that, there was no way I'd be stopping willingly. And after 3 months (and E barely above normal cis-male levels), I switch to injections (at a dose that was eventually cut down by more than half) and I could tell the difference mentally the next day.
When I started HRT, I assumed I'd eventually need laser for pretty much everything is I wanted to be content with my body hair. Honestly, at this point, I'd probably only serious consider it for my face and chest unless it was covered by insurance or really cheap. I'd still prefer less, but its not really a big deal anymore. Took over a year to get to that point though imo.
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For context I took finasteride for nearly 2 years because I wasn't sure about estrogen and wanted less body hair and thicker head hair.When I started estrogen I started Spiro at the same time. It's a bad anti-androgen but we're limited in Australia but it has really good positive side effects for skin and hair. I only take 100mg and skip it if the urinary frequency will be inconvenient.