Transfem

Hi! Welcome to womanhood! 😁

How has transitioning as a whole been for you? Getting on hormones, wardrobe changes, socially, etc? I’m only out to my close friend circle, but already know my close family is cool with trans people.

I socially transitioned months before I was able to start hormones. That initial social transition wasn't particularly helpful to my mental well-being and was even destabilizing (creating a lot of stress, resulting in worse mood swings, intense nightmares and parasomnias, worsened suicidal ideation, etc.). Looking back, I could see an argument for taking estrogen for a year or so before socially transitioning. (I socially transitioned as soon as my egg cracked because I was afraid I would crawl back into the closet and never come back out - I had to find a way to force myself out.)

My experience with hormones was very positive - estrogen changed my life and my mental health significantly, and that was very clarifying. I realized I would want to take estrogen no matter whether I was "really" trans or "trans enough" or not - estrogen made me happy, made my brain function better, it lifted me from depression, alleviated anxiety, and gave me a life in which I felt "irrationally" life affirming. Estrogen is responsible for me no longer wanting to be dead, I had wanted to be unalived since I was maybe 11 - 13 years old (looking back, quite a coincidence that it was around when male puberty started, hmmmm), and when I started estrogen it was like going back to childhood. Estrogen mostly made me feel "normal", like I could see how life could feel bearable to other people.

Transition can be massively destabilizing, but I don't really see any alternative - transitioning (particularly medically) was like starting my life. The alternative isn't really living.

If you have any conservative/anti-trans people in your life, how have relationships been with them since you started? Have you cut ties, or hidden your transition, or anything else? I have some bigoted family that are otherwise decent people and that I’d like to stay connected with (for now, at least).

I had some transphobic in-laws I was close to who blocked me and refused to talk to me. They reacted worse than I expected.

I lost blood family too, unexpectedly.

Friendships with anti-trans people really changed, they stopped talking to me as much or treated me differently.

I wouldn't particularly advise you invest much in relationships with anti-trans bigots, it's just not a recipe for good outcomes (for you or them tbh).

That said, I understand the impulse, I was very accommodating of the anti-trans people in my life when I first transitioned.

How was surgery as a whole? What was pre-op like, any things you didn’t like about it, things you had to compromise on, etc? I’ve never had surgery in the first place, so this would be extremely foreign to me.

I thought I would never get a vagina when I first transitioned. I knew I wanted an orchi, but I thought I didn't have any bottom dysphoria. But then my dissociation and coping strategies sorta melted away, and I was left with increasing distress about my genitals, and sex became more and more complicated for me. I clearly had bottom dysphoria, even though I never had specific thoughts like "I hate my penis" or "I wish I had a vagina" - I never felt a direct desire for a vagina, which made it difficulty for me to decide to have a vaginoplasty. It was a lot of having to read between the lines about what would be good for me or not. I remember in a therapy session, my therapist asked me to imagine myself in 10 - 20 years, that I'm living as a woman, using the restroom, going to changing rooms, going swimming, etc. - what would I feel in 10 years? Would I wish I had done something? That was clarifying, I knew instantly that yeah, obviously I wanted to have a vagina, I would regret living with "male" genitals that long, with denying myself that. I thought because I could cope and live with a penis that I should, but that was foolish and didn't prioritize my well-being.

I have a long post about things I wish I knew about surgery before my surgery: https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/27942310

another post on the specific challenges I faced and how I dealt with them: https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/27942310

Overall, surgery was challenging, but I suspended judgement and acted on the assumption it would be worth it for a future-self, and I think I was right - it was completely and obviously worth it, and I wake up happy to have a vagina every morning.

If you don’t mind, what was dysmorphia like for you? I’ve wondered for a while before now what it’d be like to be a girl, and have especially felt it in the genital area. And on the occasion I’ve been “misgendered,” I always felt really good about it.

I don't think I even had that level of awareness that I would want to be like a girl in my genital region. I did have the experience of being accidentally misgendered as a teenager and feeling happy to be confused with a girl (though it was a complicated feeling for me, at least as bitter and upsetting as it was sweet - I didn't think I could be a girl then).

Dysphoria was hard to describe, often it was like shame or embarrassment, a lot of the time it was like my body became someone else's and I felt sexual pleasure through the sense of the body being a separate male body - like, the penis wasn't attractive as my penis, but it could be attractive if it were someone else's penis. Dissociation was hard for me to notice happening. I often lived vicariously through the women I dated

How have you learned to do feminine stuff? Like chest measurements, makeup/nails, other clothes stuff, etc? Just researching online, or do you ask cis friends, or something else?

A combination of everything! I actually went to a Sephora and got a makeup lesson from them. I was lucky enough to have women family members show me how they did their makeup. To be honest, I was always interested in clothes, fashion, and nails, so I already had some experience on that front. But then I researched body shapes and how to dress my body to feminize it, etc. online.

But most of my femininity is "natural" - it looked weird to people on my male body so I was assumed to be a gay man, but once I passed as a woman, I found myself living a gender-conforming life for the first time ... it was rather surreal to suddenly be "normal" that way. Transitioning made me so extremely normal, lol.

Are you doing any voice training? If so, anything you can recommend to help? I have a lower voice and a small range, so anything helps.

Yes, I highly recommend voice training. I saw a speech language pathologist who specialized and almost exclusively worked with trans patients on their voices. Voice training is admittedly challenging psychologically, but it's one of the things you theoretically have a lot of control over (unlike so much in transition), so I encourage everyone to get into voice training. It took me around 6 - 8 months of weekly SLP sessions and full-time voice training outside that to find a passing voice. I know people who have taken shorter or longer to find a passing voice.

Here's a clip of my voice you can listen to, to get a sense of my progress.

Here is a beginner's guide I put together for voice training: https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/32117601/16502930

Any resources you can recommend me on this? Where to learn about treatment, advice on how to do this stuff?

Yes, I have so many recommendations, lol

checkout some comments I made with links and lists of resources I recommend:

• https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/40610299/19859171
• https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/23710814/13642552

also, checkout my tips for transition & improving dysphoria

Here's some recommended reading to get you started:

• Gender Dysphoria Bible
• Whipping Girl by Julia Serano (and Sexed Up as well)
• Yes, You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet
• “What Does the Scholarly Research Say about the Effect of Gender Transition on Transgender Well-Being?”
• An Introduction to Hormone Therapy for Transfeminine People