I don’t want advice and CW: PTSD and FV, but god I feel so alone right now.

In the last month I’ve finally felt open to admit that I am FTM after living as NB since 2020. I went through multiple relationships with partners who never could accept me or were even indifferent to who I have been since my early 20’s and I was 19 that I met a transman and I was SO JEALOUS of him even though he was my friend.

I just feel like I’ve missed so much time of being able to be the guy I’ve always wanted to be, because I had to “stay” a certain way for a partner and I couldn’t be myself. I fantasize about any friend who loves me and accepts me for who I am loving me in a relationship because I have felt so unlovable in this body. Ironically because of also being a performing artist, so many comments on my body are made and it just adds to this feeling of being unlovable unless I’m a certain way.

I also just want to be ok with being so fluid with my sexuality, like I either need to be obsessed with any woman or be a grindr gay man. I love sex and I already have a sex drive I’m happy with, but I recently have chosen to stay celibate after some really shitty experiences with cisgendered men and women and I just have no interest to date or have sex with anyone who doesn’t make me feel safe and I’m terrified of having “chasers” come after me. And then I want my bottom growth so bad but I’m scared it’s not going to be big enough because I saw my clit go into atrophy in the aftermath of my PTSD from fleeing FV situation my ex gf and I were in 2 years ago.

And body hair, I have so much fucking trauma about it over the years thanks to internalized and externalized misogyny and PMOC and I also don’t want to look like my dad with similar facial hair (I already have features similar to him and he was abusive to my sisters and I so I don’t want to trigger all of us lol) and I don’t want to go bald because I love my hair.

I chose to be quiet this weekend instead of doing something so I could recalibrate and just reflect but now I’m getting too afraid to leave the house again. I promise I’m going on a walk this afternoon to get out of the house.

I’m so new on this journey I know and there’s so many what ifs here. I am finding joy in these moments I promise. I just didn’t realize until I sat with it how much grief I have because there’s been so many opportunities to change my life and I’ve missed so many of them because of fear and not understanding what was going on.

I just want to be happy in myself and with myself.

I'm looking for some help with packing garments.

Historically I haven't packed often because I usually wear sweats or basketball shorts, and don't like how prominent a packer is in those for everyday wear. I bought the smallest silicone packer I could find because I'm a small, fairly slim guy, and any bigger just looks like I have an erection, and that is not the look I'm going for in most circumstances.

However, I've been wearing jeans a bit more often, and actually really don't like wearing jeans without packing. That being said, just dropping the packer in my underwear is not an option with the boxer briefs I usually wear.

I've tried packing boxer briefs with the built in pouch. They're OK, except that tumble drying them shortens their useful life too much, but air drying them, specifically the pouch area, doesn't work in my cold, often damp climate.

I've tried an elastic packing harness. Did not like, was not comfortable. I don't think there is a version of that product that I would like.

I've tried MyPack packing pouch. I like it to an extent, but last time I ordered from them, fraudulent charges showed up on my credit card. The bank handled it no problem, but it makes me not want to order from them again.

What I haven't tried, is a simple, old school jock strap. I've heard that they can work, and I've heard that Jockmail is a good option, but I'm looking for more detail from guys who have used a jock strap to hold a packer in place. I would in most cases probably wear boxer briefs over the jock strap, but would ideally like to be able to just wear the jock strap under jeans or even sweats/shorts if I felt like it.

The main things I'm looking for in a packing garment/device are comfort, breathability, and ease of air drying in a cold climate.

What do you think fellas? Am I crazy? Are there other, better options out there that I haven't heard of? Any advice is welcome.

More of a rant than a vent, but DAMN IM HUNGRY. I’ve been on the sauce almost a year and thought I wouldn’t get slammed by the teenage boy appetite like they said I would but last night I ate a giant bowl of food then was going to bed at 1am and felt hungry so I had another meal and couldn’t sleep well because I was STILL SO HUNGRY. Woke up almost feeling sick because hungry. Just ate a giant bowl of beans and still hungry. This is a very strange and disconcerting feeling for someone who has never really had strong hunger signals to begin with. MY STOMACH IS THE VOID AND I SCREAM INTO IT WITH CARBS

Stoked about my results. Free nipple grafts, double incision, no drains. Been using silicone scar tape and scar gel for a month, after I was cleared by my surgeon. I'm finally starting to lose the weight I couldn't kick for years pre-op ✌

After five years of waiting in line for Swedish trans care (I couldn’t afford to go private with top surgery), I finally had a successful double incision almost two weeks ago.

I am 32 and it genuinely feels like I have come back from the dead after spending 27 years as the completely wrong gender and now I want to live a lush life and be the best possible person I can. I am currently in therapy and I have started making a list of things I want to do now that I finally had surgery like go swimming, travel abroad with my new passport and move from my current town.

Can anyone else who reached the later stage of their transition in their 30s relate to feeling like you finally got your life back and now you want to really get it right? What helped you along the way?

I'm gradually getting round to emailing each company I'm boycotting for partnering with HP stuff, to say why I am boycotting them.

(Honestly, I don't think there's much likelihood companies will stop the branding, but I don't want my money, even a tiny fraction, flowing into JKR's pocket, so I'm still doing it. And a silent boycott would be unnoticed given how small a minority we are, so I'm emailing.)

Is there a long list of all of the companies? I'm not likely to buy stuff from some, but I've emailed DMC, Lego, and Lamy so far.

EDIT: the other photos didn’t upload I guess 🫤 can’t post them in the comments or add more now so DM me if you want the pics I guess? They just look like regular binders.

Now that I’m post op I want to give my binders away. I didn’t like wearing them much so they are in pretty good condition. I’d really like for them to go to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford a safe binder, but I’m not going to ask any questions. I’ll cover the shipping within the continental US.

3XL light binder in fair skin tone (I found this one didn’t compress enough so I wore it twice as a swim top and that’s it)

3XL short binder in fair skin tone
4XL long binder in black
All are from spectrum outfitters

Please check your measurements using the chart on the spectrum outfitters website!! I might consider sizing down for the light binder and ONLY the light binder because it didn’t do much for me at the size the chart recommended.

32, coming up to 6 years on T, severe atrophy. I'm on the insertable pills. The atrophy is so bad i can barely get the inserter or my own finger in...and I used to be heavily into fisting! I was literally known for having a tardis p*ssy.

I'm livid about it. Is there ANYTHING I can do? Will I ever be able to get f*cked again?!

I’ve achieved pretty much everything I ever wanted to achieve through transitioning. I’m more masculine-looking than probably 99% of my cis male coworkers and friends. And not just masculine, but objectively handsome. I look like the kind of man I spent most of my life wishing I could become.

And yet, instead of feeling some overwhelming sense of accomplishment or fulfillment, I just feel incredibly aimless.

Transitioning has been the central organizing goal of my life since I was 11 years old. For 21 years, there was always something I was working toward. Something I wanted to change, something I was waiting for, or some version of myself I was hoping to eventually become. Even when other parts of my life were uncertain, I always had this one enormous, deeply personal objective that gave me a sense of direction.

And now I’ve reached it.

There’s no next milestone. No imagined future version of myself that I’m desperately trying to become. I spent so much of my life thinking that once I finally looked the way I wanted to, everything else would somehow fall into place. Not necessarily that my life would be perfect, but that I’d feel a sense of peace or completeness that had always seemed just out of reach.

Instead, I feel this strange emptiness that I don’t really know what to do with.

I think part of what’s unsettling is realizing just how much of my identity, motivation, and understanding of my own future were built around the process of transitioning. It wasn’t simply something I was doing. For much of my life, it was the thing I was living toward. And without that pursuit, I’m realizing I don’t really know what comes next.

It’s almost like I’ve spent two decades climbing a mountain, finally reached the summit, and discovered that I never thought about what I was supposed to do once I got there.

I’m genuinely grateful that I was able to transition and achieve the physical changes I wanted. But I also feel like I’ve lost the one thing that consistently gave my life a sense of purpose, which is a pretty bizarre feeling to have about something I spent so long wanting.

Is this a specifically trans kind of existential crisis? Do other people experience this after reaching a point in their transition where there’s nothing left they particularly want to change? Or is this just a very ordinary midlife crisis with an unusually complicated backstory? lol

I started T 9 weeks ago and my hair has been doing funny stuff since then. I know that the hairline changes - I’ve shed a lot of hair from my head overall and still do, it’s wayyy thinner than before (it was really thick, so it’s not a problem yet and I don’t think it’s male pattern boldness so much as hormonal shedding, which I had after pregnancy too). But the baby hairs that have been growing in my upper corner are stubbornly growing FORWARD, meaning they also kinda stick out if I push my hair back, which is how I usually wear it.
Did anyone experience something similar and when did the hormonal shift hair loss calm down?

Edit: I think I need to clarify because so many people are talking about the corner thinning. The opposite is the case. Those baby hairs have started growing there when previously there was just empty space basically or very thin blonde baby hairs. The shedding happens more over all, there‘s no particular spots that are going bald or becoming thinner, just generally a little less hair.
Topical minoxidil is in fact not an option btw because cats :)
I‘m getting my levels checked in November, I’ll ask about the hairloss then.

Title. Nothing is off limits

Tldr: 10 years on T, pass seamlessly in real life, but recently misgendered on the phone for the first time ever but I wasn't really offended by it and I don't think you should be either because so many factors go in to have someone perceives your voice over the phone and it may not necessarily be a YOU thing.

Occasionally I see posts where people vent about being misgendered on the phone despite being on T for years and years and passing seamlessly in real life.

Well, today it happened to me for the first time ever. I'm 13 years on T and pass 10000% in real life (and to toot my own horn, am usually considered very attractive 😉).

Anyway, so I was calling a hospital today and after speaking to someone briefly, was placed on hold for a minute. Then when the person came back to the line, she goes "hello" and I respond "hello" and then she goes "were you waiting for [insert department name]" and I say yes. Then she says "oh I could have sworn you had a female voice initially".... implying that, apparently, before she put me on hold she thought I was a woman, then once she came back I now sounded like a man.

So, I know for a fact that my intonation is higher when asking questions and my voice sounds lower when I am responding without a question mark at the end. However, I didn't think that my question asking sounded so high that it would come off as a woman's voice.

But tbh, I wasn't personally offended by her thinking I was a woman because I think people's perceptions of gender only through voice can be extremely subjective. There are so many factors in how someone interprets your gender through your voice. Some factors include the language you speak (certain languages naturally form lower voices), the intonation as I mentioned earlier, or even simply the people who you surround yourself with, and many more factors that I'm too lazy to research right now. For example I've met plenty of cis men with higher voices than mine (or at least I assume they were cis anyway).

So the point of this post is that, for anyone who suddenly got misgendered on the phone after years and years on T and have been passing for a long time as well, my advice is not to waste too much time or energy being worried about getting misgendered especially if it only happens occasionally, because there are so many factors that go into how someone perceives your voice and it's not necessarily a YOU thing.

Holy shit. All I want is some estrogen cream. I have signs of atrophy, and things are starting to feel uncomfortable.

I'm officially in the market for a new PCP. My current is marked as a "trans friendly" doctor, but she refuses to prescribe me estradiol because she "doesn't do hormone medication" and "doesn't want to do anything that could interfere with hormone treatment." I've also asked her twice about changing my bloodwork monitors to male ranges for better accuracy, and she just answers "I don't do any hormonal medicine." Then her nurse called me, interviewed me about the same questions, then messaged me back with the same answers. So I'm out.

Planned Parenthood- idk if it's the doctor that I'm seeing or the institution itself, but I asked her for estrogen gel first, and she said thst she wasn't allowed to prescribe it. Then I asked again and she said I'd have to go to the Center to apply it. What?

I found an endocrinologist who specializes in gender affirming care, they said I had ti fax my bloodwormrk. I call after I get it done to ask about the steps again. The receptionist all but freaks out, puts me on hold and says yeah, you can send a fax, but you won't be seen until April, and the doctor can decide to pass you off to someone else if she wants.

I know of one person who has been vouched for by the community as a trans-friendly gyno. I saw him once, and he is the only doctor in my adult life who has ever attributed a concern of mine to my weight. I'll probably make an appointment with him anyway. I've neen asking for help with atrophy for half a year now, and it's getting worse. I'd call it medical neglect, but bigots would argue I'm doing this to myself. I don't want to stop T, but I need to find someone soon.

Hey bros,

Currently in the very early stages of affirming my gender.

So far, I've applied to legally change my name and gender. I'm just waiting on receiving the documents in the mail.

I need to update my police check at work, and am conscious the check will probably need to be under my updated name.

I am not sure whether to come out at work yet, because I haven't started T. I'm finding it hard to be referred to and recognised as a woman, but I feel a bit silly coming out as a man when I look and sound the way I do.

Any guidance around this would be appreciated.

In case it's relevant, I'm 36 and live in Australia.

Can you develop dysphoria or are we born with it and just never realized it?

I think I never felt dysphoria until I started lurking in trans Reddit. That’s one of the things that make me wonder if this is real or am I just obsessing over this.

Quick review of my life for context:

I think I was always at least GNC, not in my expression but in my own interests and ways of thinking, in my play I was always attracted male character etc.

I was always attracted to men/people with penises (or so I thought).

By 26ish yo I started to fantasize about having a penis and being a man, but it was confined to my daydreaming and self pleasure.

At 31 I dated a bi man and it unlocked something in me, the deeper need to not be the female in the relationship.

Two years later I stumbled into trans Reddit and discovering I could transition unlocked a lot of anxiety and doubts. I’m at the point where I don’t think I could even have sex or get romantically involved with someone before transition, while that was never a problem before 33yo.

CW: periods

Just did my first shot on Monday after years of delays and backing out! But I’ve had a headache on and off for the couple days after.

It probably didn’t help that I did the shot like the day before my period started, and I’m prone to headaches with hormonal fluctuations. But I’m wondering if anyone has experienced this during the early stages? If you were prone to hormonal headache before you started T, what were the early doses like?

I’m on 50mg (.25mL of 200mg/mL) of cypionate every 2 weeks for the first four doses, and then have a follow up with my endocrinologist with blood work in between shots. I know this is a more spread out regimen than I’ve seen other people on, as the weekly shots seem more common. I have some other health considerations, so I’m not mad about taking it slow. I have IIH with stenosis (well managed with Diamox and lifestyle), PMOS, hEDS.

Other than the headache I have felt really good. My sleep is already better, so is my energy. I’m hoping it’s just an initial reaction to the T in combination with my own messed up E dominant system, and that it evens out as I go.

Kind of an anxious-post - looking for realistic advice, shared experiences, and reassurance. I traveled to the UK once on my old passport, over 10 years ago; I've always wanted to do more international travel, but pretty much held off until I had all my documents because I hated the idea of having to worry about plane tickets and hotel bookings with the wrong name.

I was lucky to get everything in order before the new administration, so I have a passport and Real ID with my name and M gender markers, but the political situation in the US has made me pretty nervous/paranoid about having to show my passport at a federal checkpoint. I pass very reliably, I'm not especially worried about getting clocked as trans visually, but I'm concerned that there will be some record of my name change somewhere in the process, like immigration will see that I've previously traveled under a different name and I wouldn't be allowed to leave (or come back in). Is this realistic at all or am I worrying over something that's not even possible? Any shared experiences, especially if you've traveled abroad in the past year or two, are very welcome.

33yrs old trans masc - I am 6 months on T. I have a decent amount of bottom growth for the time I've been on, but it's still "buried" unlike other t guys I've seen whose bottom growth stands out front and center, which I'm assuming happens with time.

Has anyone found a toy or garment that helps compress/keep the outer part pulled back to expose the bottom growth for easier stimulation during sex?

TIA!

TransPride YOUniting Health & Wellness Virtual Conference: Oct 15-17

There are some sessions specifically for older and aging populations, as well a wide variety of health-related topics, including sessions on lower surgery, and more.

The first opening keynote is about

US health insurance and advocacy for trans health coverage!

I am not affiliated with this conference, simply sharing the resource.

--

• Opens Thu, Oct 15 at 7:30/8 am EST
• Ends Sat, Oct 17 at 5:30 pm EST

• Fully virtual; open to all but USA-based

• Free registration for trans individuals and the parents and caregivers of trans individuals

• Can use pseudonym to register and attend anonymously if you so choose

• All keynote and speaker sessions streamed live

• Only select sessions will be recorded to be available for a limited time for later viewing

➡️ ➡️ Register HERE ⬅️ ⬅️

👀 See schedule 👀

hi y'all! The trans event series TRANS•FORM is putting on a free, all-ages orchestral concert at ONE Archives (the largest queer archive in the world, near Expo Park)!

free rsvps are here :)

plus, there’s going to be 14+ queer & trans instrumentalists, singers, drag performances & films, special access to the new exhibition at ONE, a reception in the garden and free queer books! come hang and listen with us <3

Today I had my first time binding with TT and it was... A mess, lol, it's definitely going to take me some time to figure out how to work this with my body. I'm dealing with more width than depth so the guides I watched before just left me with a little chest-paunch sticking out the side. Got three pieces of tape on each one, just a mess of a bumpy road underneath. Left came out better than the right, but neither is great.

But I'll tell you what, even with this disasterpiece I'm really happy. It beats a sports bra, it beats au natural, it beats the binder I currently have (which doesn't fit well, I'm trying to lose weight to fit into it better). I am comfortable, I can breathe, nothing's pinching. I've got a bottle of canola in the bathroom if it gets to be a problem, but it's been about 15 minutes and I'm still pretty damn comfortable.

This is what I believe is called, 'moving in the right direction'.

Also if anyone has any tips on how to tape a chest that's DD/DDD with some width, holler at me.

EDIT: Man, alright. I took the tape off because I wanted to practice the oil soak. That stuff is serious.

Lots of redness. It's not a rash, it doesn't itch or burn, but those strips did NOT want to come off even after being doused. I put on some aloe to soothe the red, and once that dries I'm going to put on a layer of Advanced Clinicals collagen.

I noticed that there was some skin puckering, which I think means sagging. I'm sure this was from a flawed application, but it's really, really hard to get everything where you need it to be when it's so much. I think what I'm going to have to do is lift first. And then compress as much as possible. My chest does not want to be pulled around with traditional binding technique. I'm also going to look to get some GB tape whenever I have money. I think if something gentler went on the skin first with the heftier TT over that, there could be some success. Trial and error.

Very happy with their nipple covers, though.

Btw, if you guys haven't been invited to the Advanced Clinicals party, this is your ticket in the door. Their collagen body lotion is one of the gold standards for geriatric bypass surgery skin quality. They have other options, too, but I haven't tried them so I can't speak to them.

I make body lotions and soaps, so I always try to push my products and I do actively use them. Very proud of what I come up with... But on the hush-hush, I use the AC collagen lotion for my whole body once every other day for skin integrity. I've found very few things that can even come close to what that lotion's done for my elasticity.

I’m looking for a laryngologist or voice specialist in NJ who offers testosterone injections directly into the vocal folds to lower speaking pitch. Does anyone know of a clinic that performs this procedure?

Both cis-men and cis-women are "visual creatures", however, on average, cis-women will often need a kind of emotional connection in addition to physical attraction whereas cis-men very often don't and would gladly sleep with a girl whose character they don't particularly like.
I was wondering if, in addition to culture, this may not stem from testosteron as friends of mine who transitioned from FTM told me that they're now much more likely to want to have sex without emotional bonds.