I also didn’t feel any bottom dysphoria before I started medical transition, mostly indifference. Once the more pressing issues (like being perceived as a man socially) were resolved, bottom dysphoria started getting worse and worse until it was the only thing I could think about. I feel like my dysphoria in other areas didn’t resolve but rather shifted toward bottom dysphoria. So there’s definitely a component of “understanding” dysphoria before you can feel it, I guess?

welcome <3

Trying to find community is not selfish!! Never is! Do it and don’t look back.

And yeah, in my experience dysphoria does get worse. It took me so long to start medical transition because I had to reach a breaking point where it was transition or die for me. I was super scared my family would cut contact and that I’d never pass etc., the usual stuff. Turns out neither of those happened and the only regret I have is not starting sooner. For me, knowing another transfem IRL was what made transition feel achievable. Before, it was something only Internet people could do.

Yeah, HRT won’t fix you. That’s true. It’s not magic even though people keep saying that. I feel like for me what HRT did was give me something to fight and hope for. It gave me something on the horizon to work toward. Your mindset sounds an awful lot like mine before transition. I also went on HRT as a kind of last resort thing and slowly but surely, optimism came into my life. I realized I could customize my body. I could put in work to make my life better, to like myself for the first time ever.

Changes came, but HRT wasn’t the majority of it. The biggest changes were those I made motivated by the hope of being a girl some day. I didn’t believe it back then, but it came true anyway. I’m not even two years in and yet I’m still further along than I ever thought I could get.

And I feel your physical struggles, I truly do. I felt so ugly before transition, went to the gym, still looked like a stick. Couldn’t gain weight for the life of me (I still can’t, which still frustrates me). I thought I’d never pass, that no one would ever honestly think I’m beautiful. And you know what? I was fucking wrong. It took me a long time to realize and I really fought it because I couldn’t believe it when people told me I looked good a few months in. And even now, when people compliment my looks I often think they do it out of pity. But they don’t. I turned out pretty. I’m actually hot, which is still unbelievable to me. But turns out self love, confidence and good fashion sense go a long way. And a nose job lol. (I always wanted one and HRT gave me the guts to just do it!)

So keep fighting, babe. Keep going. It’s going to get better, I swear. Give hormones a year or two. Try to make the best of this life, you’ve only got the one.

Just do what feels good for you. It took me about two years from realizing I wasn’t a man to daring to start HRT and medically transition. IRL trans friends help a lot, they let you see that it’s actually possible. Make sure you don’t hesitate or suppress that part of yourself just based on what you think others will say or think. That doesn’t work long-term.

Sounds wonderful! I found that after I started HRT (which you may or may not want to, no pressure), I “felt” movies a lot more. I started crying at the sad parts, laughing at the good parts and understood, for the first time, why people like a movie based on feeling and not just the filmmaking. Generally, highs have become way higher, lows have become lower. A much preferred state to the indifference that dominated my emotional world for the first 20 or so years of my life.

I got home this week to recover from surgery. So far I’ve been feeling better than I thought and could even grocery shop on my own. It was exhausting but very doable which is nice. I can also sit at my desk for 2-3 hours now so I can play some video games :) Time’s going by very quickly because I have visitors every day and tomorrow my crush is coming over!! Exciting. I’m getting used to dilating and starting to incorporate it into my morning and evening routines. Peeing still feels weird because my brain hasn’t caught up with the lack of urethra. My back and legs ache because I spent two weeks in the hospital bed but I expect that’ll get better every day. The only annoying thing is that today heating and hot water went out in the whole building, luckily I showered with the last bit of warm water! Hopefully they can fix it tomorrow.

This week was crazy. I had GRS last week. Wtf? It actually happened. Up until the last hours I was convinced something would still go wrong, but then it just happened. And now I’m a week into recovery and doing really well! The first few days were very hazy and I barely did anything other than doze and scroll Instagram a bit. I’m lucky to have a lot of people visit me which has made the harder days more bearable and since Thursday, I’ve been feeling better almost every day! Today I finished the first of the four books I took for recovery (I Who Have Never Known Men) and loved it. I’ll probably leave the hospital on Thursday which gives me three more days of chilling out and just regaining my strength. But honestly, I already feel better than expected. I can walk fine, reading and concentration are up again and spirits are up as well. Very tough, but good week!

A bit late to the party but I wanted to add my experience to the pool: I also felt pretty tired at the start of HRT. For me, it started after 2-3 months and stopped at the 6 month mark, I think. During that period, I regularly had problems staying awake during afternoon lectures in uni, something I never had problems with before. I considered that my T was too low during that time but as the fatigue went away after a bit, I never changed anything about my medication. I think overall my energy levels now still might be a bit lower than before medical transition but I blame that on puberty and minority stress. And it’s not too much, maybe 10%.

More coffee helped. :)

A complete and utter whirlwind. I had work and some cool cultural events such as seeing the original Jurassic Park in a theater which was great but it’s all kind of a blur because bottom surgery is now less than a week away. I did my best to prepare my apartment for the recovery and stocking up on stuff a bit. But honestly, I was mostly focused on not getting sick. I noticed some tiredness and body aches on Friday and cancelled almost all plans I had for the weekend. I have my last 3 days of work Mon-Wed and will try my best to not get sick next week before leaving for surgery. What a ride.

I realised today that I haven’t really felt normal since August. First I had two months of existential anguish because of insurance denying surgery, now three weeks of euphoria and finally a week of anxiety over getting sick. I’m so so looking forward to when I’m there and “just” have to recover. I’m sure it will be hard but at least I’ll just have to chill out.

Also: Very funny to announce each morning that it’s the last [weekday] with a penis.

Very, very good! I received news that bottom surgery will be in three weeks, what the hell? Someone canceled and they basically told me “we have this one spot in three weeks or else you’d be in July” so I obviously went with “in three weeks”. This means I’ll spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve in a hospital at the other end of the country, but I’m not that bothered about it. Christmas with family is a hassle anyways since transition and I hate New Year’s Eve. I already have some friends who want to come visit me during the hospital stay and I’m currently very busy with life admin to try and not have any missed appointments in the recovery period! Life has turned around completely in these last few weeks and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m in absolute bliss and so, so relaxed. Though there is that nagging feeling that something will go wrong last minute and I can’t have surgery. But realistically, there’s nothing that could go wrong. I’ll take extreme care of not catching a cold before, my train is booked for a day early, the date is set.

I always do it underwater in the bathtub. Way better. And as the others have said: The first time is the worst, I did it biting a towel because it hurt so much. I don’t do it as much now as I used to because HRT has significantly slowed hair growth on my legs.

I’m also German and my mother is similar, albeit less extreme. She is still nice to me and somehow genders me correctly when texting me but doesn’t care for my preferred pronouns when we talk in person. I don’t want to go no contact because I’m on good terms with the rest of my family (they mostly don’t care and accept my identity without much fuss) so I cope by not interacting with her a lot when we see each other. I see my family every two months or so and when I do, I don’t sit next to her, only talk the necessities etc. She still manages to misgender me every time to speak. It hurts, but no contact is not an option for me so I just endure it. I prepare visits to family by pampering myself and always plan quality time after a visit. I refuse to meet her 1-on-1. It’s not ideal, but okay for me.

I don’t know what it’s like with your dad, but my mom is just a very stubborn person that doesn’t adapt well to change. My sister’s husband is vegan and has been for years and she still cooks meals with meat and dairy in them when he comes over. She just says he should bring his own food to family dinners. To me, this confirms that my mom isn’t like this to me (just) because of my identity, but also/mostly because she can’t handle change.

Edit: Oh and also it’s gotten slightly better the more I visibly feminize. I think she’s a bit of a transmedicalist without knowing the term, GRS will probably help as well.

Pretty good, I’d say! My insurance has agreed to cover my GRS after all and now I’m waiting for the doctor to respond to my email with a surgery date, she was on vacation until Wednesday. On Tuesday, I got a large new tattoo that took the entire day. That was very exhausting but I’m very happy with it, it’s an abstract flower on the side of my thigh and some lines that connect to an older tattoo around my ankle. I also went to the Christmas Market for the first time this year and bought some cool leopard fur gloves, they’re so warm and look great! Also had a laser session and I think I’m almost done now, maybe 1-2 more sessions. Feels a bit weird to not go to my laser lady anymore, I’ve grown quite fond of her.

Thank you!! Very helpful!

Oh great, this worked like a charm! I just put the one I had in and rotated it. Thank you!

Solved, more or less. But I’m still open to other suggestions if people want to share quality wallpaper sources :)

You’re welcome! Also, something I forgot: Take care of your hair. Long, well cared-for hair helps you appear more feminine. Get a professional cut and ask the person cutting your hair for advice on hair care and which cut they think is best for you. A wolf cut is often a good start. Bangs are almost always a good idea! If you have rather dry hair / scalp you can probably ditch shampoo entirely and just co-wash. Embrace curls / waves if you have them. Get your eyebrows done professionally and then pluck them yourself, maintaining the shape.

Here’s my two cents, approaching 20 months on HRT. All based on personal experience, I’m not a professional. If you disagree with some of this stuff, that’s fine, we’re not all the same.

• I’d say you can just go look for a basic women’s workout routine. Most women who work out focus on their glutes, legs and abs/core. If you don’t want to go to a gym, find Pamela Reif’s weekly workout plan on Instagram/her app and just stick to that (what I did).
• Nutrition is just as, if not more important than the workout. Eat healthy, protein-heavy and most of all: enough or more! If you starve yourself, you won’t gain. I personally eat a good 30% more than before HRT and still don’t gain weight. A burger / something unhealthy more is better than eating too little for the sake of eating “clean”. Just follow fitness nutrition advice here, there’s no special “transition diet”.
• Breast development is 100% genetics, so whatever growth you experience is just normal/correct. There’s no good or bad. Remember that cis puberty takes 5+ years and many trans women experience breast growth past year 1 or 2. When you’re a year or so in, you can look into progesterone.
• I personally ditched jeans completely a few years ago and haven’t looked back. But that isn’t a must. Make sure high-wasted things really are high-waisted, not mid-waist and just higher up than you’re used to. Real high-waist is belly button level or above. Look for ribcage jeans. Mid-waist tends to look weird on bodies that aren’t very very hourglass-curvy. The waist of a dress is often at the bottom end of your ribs. This is normal and what looks good on most people. The best fashion tip is to wear what women around you wear. Look at women your age in your area/workplace/school and just copy them. Or, even better: go shopping with female friends whose fashion style you like. Don’t order online. I know stores that just cater to women are a bit awkward if you don’t pass, but trying stuff on and feeling it etc. is so much better than shopping online. And if you’re scared: take a friend! This varies, of course, depending on where you live. I live in a left-leaning city and have never had any problems shopping in person when I didn’t pass.
• Experiment with different fabrics. I’ve grown to love velvet-y and silky things!
• Women also tend to wear more accessories than men. Rings, necklaces, chains, charms etc. Collect things you like and get used to wearing them. Rings feel weird at first if you’re not used to them, that’s normal.
• Experiment with your silhouette. Find out if you’re a big top-small bottom or a small top-big bottom kinda girl. Go big-big or small-small. Find out what you like. Use your waist and accentuate with belts. Go second-hand shopping and buy the weird clothes that spark joy. I started dressing fem 2-3 years before I started transition (so now about 4-5 years ago) and have only just found my style. Remember: cis women do this in their teenage years and are a bit ahead of you here! Don’t worry! If you’re unsure, ask a friend whose fashion you like if an outfit looks good. If you don’t have a friend like that, ask young women in second-hand shops. They’re nice, I promise.
• On behaviour: Women tend to take up less space in public (the way they sit and move). Female friendships are very different from male friendships, much more intimate and unhinged. You can tell a good female friend everything. You’re allowed and encouraged to be open with your emotions, this is nice. Confidence is key. If your behaviour is confident, people will accept you more than if you’re hesitant. Confidence is often the difference between “weird” and “mysterious/interesting”
• Bonus thought: What helped me a lot was making my apartment more “fem” and cosier. Candles, plants, plushies, softer colours. This makes me feel better and more in line with myself when I’m home.

Very interesting, thank you for sharing! It’s interesting to me that this artwork does not provoke any thought about gender in me, it’s too alien for my perception I think. I think it’s too animalistic and I need the humanoid form to relate, I’m guessing. Love how different perceptions of art are.

I’ve noticed something similar happening to me. I used to be really aware of my leg hair and shaved obsessively when I started my transition. It made me feel feminine and nice. Now, I don’t care that much anymore. I haven’t shaved them in two or three weeks I think. I’ve become more secure and confident in my identity and don’t need perfectly smooth legs to feel woman enough anymore.