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.
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I'm glad that you feel safe talking about your experiences here. This space is for questioning people as well, and you are absolutely welcome here.
It can definitely be hard to feel feminine when we can't see past all the things other people say exclude us from femininity. I can definitely relate to that a lot. It's like we're locked out of half of human expression just because other people decided we couldn't present that way. Thoughts like that were very prevalent for me during a lot of my life. Being gender non-conforming is hard.
I did want to respond to a few things. Firstly, you don't have to have extreme discomfort/dysphoria in order to transition or to want to transition. A lot of transfeminine people relate to a feeling of passive apathy about their bodies and presentation as opposed to strong persistent dysphoria. There's no real qualifiers for wanting to transition. If transitioning/presenting more feminine makes you feel happy/euphoric, then that's what matters more than anything. Being trans is about joy. It's about feeling a sense of connection with who we are and the image we present to the world.
Second, there's no rules for being trans or transitioning. There are some transfem people who will always go back to presenting as a man (boymoding) when they're around family or friends or at work. It's about what feels comfortable or realistic to you.
Thirdly, there's no age limit to transition. And related to that, I have met passing women who pre transition very stereotypically fit the conventions of masculinity. Feminizing hormone replacement meds are amazing. And I've met passing women who didn't start to transition until their 60s. That's not to say that HRT (hormone replacement therapy) is magic that will make anyone instantly pass, but that it's far more complex than it seems at first. It changes a lot about your body. Your starting point does not entirely relate to what HRT can do for you.
Lastly, I want to recommend reading the gender dysphoria Bible. It's linked in the community sidebar. It talks a lot about some of the things I mentioned above and really has a lot of answers to questions about what it is to be trans or to want to transition. I really do encourage you to read it. It helps a lot of people understand what they're feeling a bit better.
I did my best to read the gender dysphoria bible during some of my work meetings and - for better or worse - I do fulfill a lot of the cliches illustrated in it. Even as a teen, I occasionally wore makeup, painted my nails, etc. I didn't really feel comfortable around my peers. I'm guilty of sleeping as much as possible to kind of live in the fantasy.
All that being said, I have so much internalized transphobia (as someone else pointed out) and I'm deeply entrenched in this life as AMAB. If I could guarantee I would love myself as a trans woman, I might consider it. But I feel somewhat confident that my inability to pass and my shame make the idea transitioning overwhelmingly difficult. I can't shake the feeling that I'm maybe fetishising the experiencing (despite reading the subsection "Consider That It’s Rarely 'Just A Fetish.'"). It's nice to talk about it nonetheless.
Thank you for the detailed response. I will try to find time to read the gender dysphoria Bible. I appreciate you allowing me to vent/voice myself here. Whilst I like to believe HRT could "fix me", I am dubious. Plus, for some reasons I neglected to mention in my original post, I feel tied to my life as it is. I have a wonderful, straight, wife who wouldn't be happy being married to a woman. She's the love of my life and I just wouldn't ever consider risking our relationship in order to fulfill my desire to explore transitioning. I think there might be ways for me to fulfill my dysphoria without necessarily fully transitioning and maybe I'll start exploring those.