Transfem
A community for transfeminine people and experiences.
This is a supportive community for all transfeminine or questioning people. Anyone is welcome to participate in this community but disrupting the safety of this space for trans feminine people is unacceptable and will result in moderator action.
Debate surrounding transgender rights or acceptance will result in an immediate ban.
- Please follow the rules of the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance.
- Bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated.
- Gatekeeping will not be tolerated.
- Please be kind and respectful to all.
- Please tag NSFW topics.
- No NSFW image posts.
- Please provide content warnings where appropriate.
- Please do not repost bigoted content here.
This community is supportive of DIY HRT. Unsolicited medical advice or caution being given to people on DIY will result in moderator action.
Posters may express that they are looking for responses and support from groups with certain experiences (eg. trans people, trans people with supportive parents, trans parents.). Please respect those requests and be mindful that your experience may differ from others here.
Some helpful links:
- The Gender Dysphoria Bible // In depth explanation of the different types of gender dysphoria.
- Trans Voice Help // A community here on blahaj.zone for voice training.
- LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory // A directory of LGBTQ+ accepting Healthcare providers.
- Trans Resistance Network // A US-based mutual aid organization to help trans people facing state violence and legal discrimination.
- TLDEF's Trans Health Project // Advice about insurance claims for gender affirming healthcare and procedures.
- TransLifeLine's ID change Library // A comprehensive guide to changing your name on any US legal document.
Support Hotlines:
- The Trevor Project // Web chat, phone call, and text message LGBTQ+ support hotline.
- TransLifeLine // A US/Canada LGBTQ+ phone support hotline service. The US line has Spanish support.
- LGBT Youthline.ca // A Canadian LGBT hotline support service with phone call and web chat support. (4pm - 9:30pm EST)
- 988lifeline // A US only Crisis hotline with phone call, text and web chat support. Dedicated staff for LGBTQIA+ youth 24/7 on phone service, 3pm to 2am EST for text and web chat.
view the rest of the comments
First of all, I love the Mama Bear energy of you writing this incredible two-max-comment size Guide On Dysphoria 101 in response to a panicky post.
Thank you, it really makes me feel cared about.
I have been with a therapist for a long amount of time, and she's great, and I'll probably be telling her about my latest egg-cracking, so that will help, as well as the support from the few really good people around me I can trust with this. Also the SSRIs I've been on for a year are probably playing their part.
So, this is more of a poking-your-brain moment if you'd like to answer, but...
My dysphoria isn't really... Motivating me. It's a cold slush. I see you wrote about how you socially transitioned as soon as you found out, "out of fear of going back in the closet for a decade". For myself, right now, I think I see enormous value in starting HRT, because that might be one of the few ideas/things that make me feel motivated, while everything else is scary and makes me go limp. It's probably the anxiety. But I think I have a particularly hard time surviving euphoria, not dysphoria lol.
So I wanted to ask, how have you experienced the joy? What has felt good enough to you, to brave it all?
aw, thank you - mama-bear energy is a huge compliment π
You definitely deserve to be healthy and happy, and I actively wish that for you π«Ά
it definitely helped with my motivation and overall happiness - not everyone reacts the same way to estrogen, and it's not like it didn't come with its own new challenges (receding dissociation and suddenly feeling things is not always the most adaptive when under immense stress, etc.)
but I do think overall HRT is too important and potentially life-saving to not strongly suggest π
It's great that you feel motivated by it, that's a great sign!
first, I just want to say this is all very normal - I also struggled with wanting to act on my "gender needs" and would shut down or de-prioritize it as unimportant, and I also felt / feel a lot of anxiety and fear about transition.
For me personally, I didn't choose to transition out of joy or the happiness it brought me (though it did result in those things), instead what motivated me was hitting rock bottom and finally connecting the dots between my repression and my behaviors I didn't like which were hurting those I cared most, e.g. not taking care of myself at all, completely dissociated, unconsciously drawn to high-risk / suicidal behaviors that kept resulting in ER visits, etc.
So, what motivated me was finally feeling a sense of responsibility to take care of myself so that I can be a good person for those in my life who are impacted by me. Connecting the dots of my health and happiness to the health and happiness of others was crucial for my motivation, and I underwent transition with no expectations that I would ever pass, actually live as a woman socially, etc. Instead I acted on principle, I knew the evidence was 1. I'm very likely suffering from gender dysphoria, which had more biological and medical components to it than I had previously realized might be relevant (reading about "biochemical dysphoria" in particular was eye-opening), and that 2. social & medical transition is safe and improves clinical outcomes significantly, so I reasoned that I should transition on the chance that it might make me a less miserable person to be around.
And yeah, it worked - before transition I was extremely ill-tempered, obese, and I neglected all aspects of my health (I didn't care for my hair and it turned into neglect dreads before I finally buzz cut it on an annual cycle, I didn't brush my teeth, I didn't exercise or diet or do anything for my health, etc.).
After transition, I'm basically a completely different person; not only did I lose >40 lbs and I'm no longer obese (a doctor even referred to me as "skinny" lol), I'm also just happy and easy-going in ways I never was before (but in a way that deep down I knew I felt I could be).
But transition for me was never motivated by the euphoria, it was always out of a sense of responsibility or as a way to be a good person (a major exception is estrogen, which actually does feel like taking recreational drugs, I am straightforwardly motivated to inject estrogen whether I'm trans or not).
I would say just focus on HRT at first and don't worry about much else - social transition can wait and happen on your own timeline, lots of girls wait until they start to pass (often around 1 year on HRT) to actually fully socially transition. Being visibly trans can be quite stressful, and I'm not 100% sure I would have gone back and recommended that I fully socially transition before starting HRT. I know for me, I had to come out to deny myself the closet, but I wish there had been another way.
When my egg cracked, I had a long history of wearing women's clothes at home, and even just buying and wearing a dress to an appointment with my therapist was a big deal for me. I remember feeling crushing, immobilizing fear and vulnerability. It was awful, but all I can say is that it gets easier - just keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep aiming in the right direction, and you'll get there. You don't have to be brave, I wasn't. You don't have to feel motivated, I wasn't. It's also a skill to learn how to keep yourself within a window of threshold - after egg-cracking is a very distressing time, focus on comfort for now - it's a lot to absorb.