Thank you to everyone who replied to my post last week! This past week has been a whirlwind. I’m pretty sure my egg is cracked wide open.
I devoured the Gender Dysphoria Bible, and I found myself (maybe not surprisingly) relating to not all, but a lot, of the feelings and experiences described.
As I read more about how trans women describe their experiences, the more I realize that I’ve had similar feelings for a long time. Who knew that not every man secretly wishes he was a lesbian woman? I kind of thought that everyone had these feelings, and just settled for the disappointing reality of being male.
And I’m better able to put words to the positive feelings I get from growing my hair out, painting my nails, shaving my chest and legs - it’s gender euphoria!
I feel so excited, like I finally know who I am! And I’m so eager to learn makeup, get girl clothes, etc. And I really want to go on hormones. I guess any remaining potential doubt would be erased then - if I go on hormones and start to have a really bad time, then I guess I know I’m not trans.
I did talk to my therapist, and she was so encouraging! She was completely affirming, and at the end of our session she said that she could see me as a woman, and that felt so good to hear! I get butterflies in my stomach and keep smiling when I think about it.
She did encourage me to take my time though. I’m really excited, but I am also extremely nervous and scared about how people might react, especially my wife. She’s bisexual, and she’s been really supportive of my gender exploration so far, so those are both good things. But she’s also autistic and sometimes has a hard time adapting to rapid changes.
So I feel like I need to make sure I know what I want, and that I’m able to answer any questions she might have about what my transition process is going to look like - and there are still a lot of questions I don’t have the answer to.
And I worry a lot of how my family, friends, and work might react to my coming out. I’ve spent a lot of time getting educated, getting a good job, and building a nice little life, and I don’t want to mess it all up. And unfortunately, my immediate family are all devout Catholics, so I don’t anticipate a great reaction from them…
I get my hair cut at an LGBTQ salon, and I think at least one of the stylists there is a trans woman. Would it be appropriate/inappropriate for me to ask her if I could talk to her about her experience?
I don’t know any other trans women in real life, and I think it would really help me to have someone to talk to. But I also don’t want to just dump all my burdens on someone either.
Any other advice on what I should do, or things to consider, would be really welcome - I’m just trying to figure out how I want to navigate this.
Thank you for your advice 💛 I am very much still in the boat of trying to figure out exactly what transition means for me.
In the short term, I know that I want to keep doing the “easy things” - growing my hair out (it’s already shoulder length, continuing to shave my body and paint my nails, get my ears pierced. All the stuff that I can do and still reasonably pass as cis.
Shaving my face is going to a little trickier - I haven’t been clean shaven in 10 years and my wife has never known me without a beard. So that will be a big change.
I want to start HRT, but that’s a little tricky too, since my wife and I want to have kids. That’s going to have to be a conversation, about whether we do cryo and IUI, or adopt, or if there’s an off chance that HRT doesn’t make me sterile.
As far as surgeries, I feel like that’s a little hard to say right now, without knowing where I’ll be with my transition after socially transitioning and a few years of HRT. I’m not opposed to FFS, top surgery, and I don’t really have dysphoria about my genitals right now, although I know that can change over time.
I feel like it’s hard to be able to say “I want to do X, Y, and Z, and then I’ll be done transitioning.” Right now, it feels a lot more like “I know the direction I want to keep moving in, but I don’t know what the ‘end point’ is”, if that makes sense.
And yes, please share your spiel on names!
I think all of that is a great idea! Regarding ear piercings, I can’t recommend going to a proper piercing shop enough (vs something like Claire’s). It’ll heal better, you’ll get better starter jewellery, and it really doesn’t cost that much. Lobe piercings are pretty painless and only take a month to heal.
I liken picking a name to stargazing
Picture yourself lying in a grassy meadow, gazing up at the night sky during the darkest night of the year. Looking up, you see an endless ocean of stars, far more than you could ever count. You admire the vastness of the sky, the infinite possibilities, and the beauty of it all.
As your eyes adjust, you find that some stars shine brighter than others. The more distant ones fade into the background, and the brighter ones appear to form patterns- constellations. As you continue to admire the night sky, your eyes pick out the brightest dozen or so stars among these with the most prominent placements.
Your eyes flit back and forth between these, giving each one a moment to admire its beauty. Eventually, you realize your eyes keep being magically drawn towards one star in particular. You look at another, and then another, but no matter how much you try to look away, this one star keeps pulling you back. The other stars are undoubtedly beautiful, but this one star directly above you has something that sets it apart. Its draw is inescapable.
That star is your new name.
This is beautiful, thank you for sharing.
Ooh I like that analogy! I’ll keep it in mind as I try to find a name :)
And complete agreement on the importance of getting pierced by a pro! I got two cartilage piercings in my one ear a few years ago, and I had a great experience with the professional piercer, and they warned me off of any place like Claire’s hahah