Transfem

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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.

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:

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founded 2 years ago
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1
 
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/28396843

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/28390305

Hi friends, My name is Cyara, and I’m a transgender refugee living in Gorom camp, South Sudan, along with other queer community members. We came here after fleeing severe persecution and violence in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya where many of us were harassed, attacked, and denied safety.

We thought we would be safer in South Sudan, but here too we face discrimination, abuse, and daily threats. Then, on June 20th, the government gave us an eviction deadline: leave the camp or face prison. They gave us no plan, no support, just a deadline. That day came and passed. We are still stuck, scared, and exposed.

I know posts like this can feel overwhelming but please believe me when I say: this isn’t easy to write. I’m not trying to guilt anyone. I’m just desperate to get help for me and my sisters.

We are trying to raise $1500 USD to rent a shelter in Juba for 3 months, to house 8 of us while we try to find longer-term safety. We’ve raised $121 so far I’m grateful beyond words for that, but we’re still far from safety.

Please — if you can’t donate, just boost this post. Share it. Let people know we exist. That alone could save a life. Also please mods, my cause was really verified by Qaz. Please don’t take it down. I can still verify my situation

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So to all of you that wonder what clothes to wear to appear more feminine, I have found a quite good method:

Just look what cis girls wear. Literally, just look at them and try to learn what style they use and try to adopt it. This way I learned more about women's fashion than watching any of the guides I found online. Sadly I have not been able to adopt a lot of this knowledge into my wardrobe due to clothes being expensive, me being insecure about what I can wear outside (I used to (and still do) always wear simple clothing, so its hard as hell to find something that I could see myself wearing outside, even tho I think all of those flower skirts and similar stuff looks cool as hell) and me being to lazy to go to a second hand store to get some stuff (I will report back when I managed to do that).

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Hi everyone, I’m Cyara, a transgender refugee in South Sudan. The government ordered us to leave our refugee camp by June 20th World Refugee Day or face arrest. That deadline has passed, and many of us, especially visible queer refugees, are still stuck and terrified.

We’re trying to reach Juba city to find safe shelter, but we can’t do it alone. Please, share our story if you can. Help us be seen. Every signal boost helps.

Support link: https://gofund.me/bd40a4f9

With love and urgency, Cyara

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Good girl <3 (self.mtf)
submitted 4 days ago by Una to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
 
 

You are a good girl, and smart and beautiful and will be even more beautiful once you transition <3

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submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
 
 

I'm about three weeks past my penile-inversion, full-depth vaginoplasty, and I wanted to document some of the problems I have run into and how I have managed to cope or solve them.

Dilating with Wound Separation

Problem:At the base of my vagina the skin graft didn't take, likely due to being put in a sitting position many times to use a bedpan while on strict bed rest. The skin graft essentially peeled off and continues to slough more and more. At this point, there is basically a large mass of white skin that has separated from my flesh, but which has not fallen off or gone away - it is attached to the rest of the skin graft that goes into my vaginal canal, and more and more of the skin seems to be sloughing off.

The problem I have run into is that the skin is covering up the vaginal canal, making it hard to see the entrance of the canal so I can safely guide the dilator into the canal. Dilation poses a significant risk to furthering that wound separation, and applying pressure to the wrong place could create a medical emergency, at least according to my surgeon. (The hospital is in another city, I am several hours away by car.)

I usually use a lube syringe first, which is a much smaller diameter than the smallest dilator (I was given the Soul Source rigid plastic dilators, so the smallest I was given is the Size #1 Purple dilator, which is 1 1/8" or 29mm wide).

At one point I had resistance and difficulty even directing the lube syringe into the canal, and I had some blood and pain (a major warning sign).

Solution:The solution I found for navigating the entrance to the canal safely (beyond my previous strategies like to completely relax the mind and body, to lie as flat as possible and relax the abdomen so I am not in a crunched position, and to use a mirror to help me see and navigate) was to put a latex glove on my dominant hand and to feel the canal and then finger myself to open the canal some.

Using a finger seemed to help the lube syringe enter safely - both because I had a better sense of direction, but also because I think it loosened the canal a little. Another strategy I found helpful was to carefully probe at different angles, sometimes when I ran into resistance, simply moving the direction would cause the syringe to find a way in.

This was also a solution for when I moved to the Green Size #3 dilator (1 3/8" or 35mm wide), I found it difficult to get the dilator into the canal until I turned the curved tip to the left and directed the pressure to the left as well - this somehow caused it to slide in almost effortlessly. Experimenting carefully and slowly with different directions and amounts of pressure has been generally helpful, as well as being very patient and relaxed and calm as it takes time for the body to relax and to find a position that allows the larger sizes to ease in.

Another strategy suggested by a nurse from my surgery team was to start the dilation with a smaller size, e.g. go 5 minutes of the dilation session with the Purple dilator, then swap out for the larger size for the remaining time. This I feel has also allowed me to retain greater depth, as I have noticed it's much harder to get the larger sizes as deep inside of the canal as the Purple dilator.

Douching

Problem:

Due to wound separation, skin has sloughed off and covered up the entrance to the vaginal canal, making it hard to see and access. I have been instructed to douche every other day with a 1:1 solution of Hibiclens (an anti-microbial chemical) and warm water.

Originally I just bought whatever douche I could find at the local drug store, which incidentally was meant to be disposable and came with a douching solution, so you have to break the seal and empty the douche bottle before refilling it with your own solution. I found those disposable douches had tips that were as comfortable to insert, but after a week or so the wound separation had gotten so bad that it was becoming much harder to get the tip in.

I bought a different douching kit that is not disposable, it's a plastic bottle with a pump, and it comes with a more comfortable tip. Even so, with the occluded canal, it's difficult to get anything in there now.

At first I tried putting a latex glove on and using my finger to locate the canal by touch, and then trying to guide the douche from there. At first I did this without lube, but I had some pain and bleeding as a result. So then I tried lube, and using a mirror to visually guide me (more than just going based on touch alone). That helped for a while, but over time and as the wound separation got worse, it became harder to do - even with a mirror and lube it was running into resistance and some pain and bleeding.

Solution:What I found is that instead of trying to insert the douche in the shower or bathroom (even with a mirror and lube), I should try to treat it like my normal dilation - so I lie down in bed (on a "chuck" - an absorbent and water-proof pad), and use a mirror and lube like I would when dilating - that position seems to help reduce resistance compared to standing, and I haven't had problems with bleeding, pain, or resistance the same way since.

Bleeding from Toilet Use

Problem:You are told you shouldn't sit for long, since that position puts a lot of stress on your sutures. I suspect it was sitting which caused the wound separation complication I am having, and the only time I sit now is when I use a toilet.

The only times I use a toilet are to make a bowel movement, or to urinate.

I found the contractions to pass a bowel movements often caused bleeding, I noticed a lot more blood in the toilet when I had a bowel movement than when I urinated, and in the first week it wasn't unusual for me to watch blood dripping from my sutures into the toilet just from the stress of crouching and sitting on the toilet.

Using accessibility rails helped by using my upper body to keep some of the pressure and weight off the sutures, but that does get exhausting (and you already use your upper body all the time to get out of bed or adjust position, etc. - you need a lot of core and upper body strength to recover from this surgery!).

Then I had a problem with unexpected and suddenly large amounts of bleeding from using the toilet to urinate. It seemed random to me, and I couldn't predict why there was bleeding, but one particular instance shook me because of how much blood there was, and I had no bleeding before sitting to use the toilet (nor did I do anything crazy, I carefully lifted myself down and did not contract excessively, etc. just as usual).

Solution:

To solve the bowel movement bleeding, I started to take 17 g of miralax (a stool softener and laxative) every morning, increased the amount of water I was drinking, and tried to keep a diet with more vegetables (esp. with mucilage and fiber, like tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.). I also have been taking a specific Align probiotic my doctors advised me to take (I started those once my anti-biotics were finished).

On days when I eat more processed food and fewer vegetables and fiber I notice more pain and difficulty with the bowel movements, though I have luckily avoided bleeding from bowel movements since I made my changes.

To solve for the bleeding I had from urinating, I just stopped using the toilet altogether. This may seem extreme, but I now only stand in my shower to pee, and I use a Peri bottle to irrigate the whole area with a diluted Hibiclens solution, and then to rinse my lower body with warm water from the shower head.

This makes urinating more of a task (it's not fun to wake up at 2 in the morning and in my groggy and sleepy state to know I have to get up and prepare a Peri bottle and take a shower to relieve my bladder), but with my complications I would rather take the hard road if it might mean a better outcome, and so far I have managed to avoid any significant bleeding since.

Diet: Protein & Calories

Problem:I am overweight, and have been working very hard to lose weight, especially leading up to my surgery.

At the beginning of the year I weighed over 220 lbs (~100 kg). I struggled to lose weight, but by the time surgery rolled around in June (six months later), I had managed to get my weight down to 200 lbs (~91 kg).

After surgery I gave myself permission to be less mindful about my eating, I only ate the hospital provided meals for the week I was kept on strict bed rest in the hospital.

Then the week after that, I stayed in a hotel and again did not think much about my diet and just ate what was given to me. I noticed the first two weeks I had almost no appetite, even though when I would eat it would taste good and it was clear I must have been hungry, I never got "hungry" in a normal sense, I never craved food or could feel food desires.

By the end of the second week that was starting to lift, and my appetite and eating was becoming more normal. I weighed myself and I had gained 8 lbs (3.6 kg).

So I panicked and started to log my calories again, and brought my diet back to a more normal amount - which felt fine to me, I didn't ever feel I was depriving myself, and I was on average eating a little more or less than 2,000 kcal each day (before surgery I was eating 1,500 - 1,800 kcal per day on average).

However, my doctors kept mentioning the importance of keeping up with hydration and eating enough protein, and I suspected I might not be eating enough protein. I tend to eat vegan, which especially makes it hard to consume excessive amounts of protein (a vegan diet is fine for daily life, but during recovery you need a lot more protein).

So I decided to get empirical about this and look up what exactly I needed.

I found this resource:

https://www.hss.edu/health-library/conditions-and-treatments/nutrition-for-healing

Now is NOT the time for weight loss! When people are immobilized, they worry about gaining weight. However, you should NOT decrease your calorie intake because you will be inactive. In fact, your calorie needs are now greater than usual because your body requires energy from nutritious foods to fuel the healing process. You will need to consume about 15-20 calories per pound (using your current body weight). If your overall energy and protein needs are not met, body tissues such as muscles and ligaments will begin to break down. This will compromise healing and may prolong your recovery period.

Emphasis is mine.

So at 20 kcal / lb, I need to eat 4000 kcal per day (assuming my baseline 200 lb weight).

Regarding protein I found this source:

https://www.med.unc.edu/uncsportsmedicineinstitute/wp-content/uploads/sites/1189/2022/10/Nutr-Strategies-Recovery.pdf

During injury recovery and immobilization, muscle protein breakdown accelerates, thereby increasing protein requirements to maintain protein balance. Nutritional goals should align with more traditional anabolic goals because when catabolic hormones rise, increasing protein intake results in a net protein balance. Thus, during rehabilitation, protein intakes of at least 1.6 g/kg/d and closer to 2.0 to 3.0 g/kg/d are recommended, with an emphasis on consuming about 3 grams of leucine per serving. ...

...

Protein consumption should occur within 1hour of waking, every 3 to 4 hours subsequently, around a rehabilitation session, and before sleep.

Emphasis is mine (again).

I have read elsewhere the recommendation of 1.5 - 2.0 g of protein / kg of weight. At 90.7 kg baseline weight (200 lbs), I estimate I need up to 181 grams of protein per day.

That's quite a challenge!

Solution:So far my solution has been to eat high calorie and high protein foods.

I have been buying protein shakes, particularly high-protein, low carb protein shakes so I can use those primarily as a protein supplement and enjoy more tasty foods for the rest of my calories.

Specifically I've been buying Premier Protein pre-made protein shakes, which have 160 kcal per bottle and 30 grams of protein. They seem to be enriched, so they provide micronutrients like vitamins as well. So far I like the banana, chocolate, and cinnamon bun flavors the best. I drink three a day, once before or with each meal, and this guarantees a minimum of 90 grams of protein, allowing the rest of my diet to push me the rest of the way to my goal of 136 - 180 g / day.

I haven't done the research here on the best way to get protein, this is just what seemed like a good idea, but I'm not presenting it as The Best or Most Optimized option, so please let me know if you have thoughts or better ideas. I don't love the idea of supplementing with such processed foods (I usually skew towards a "whole foods" diet, using more processed foods like Beyond Beef usually to replace animal products), but my first priority is meeting my goals of eating enough calories and protein.

Despite recently increasing my calories to 4,000 kcal / day, I did lose 2 lbs in the past week, likely due to spending most of the week on a diet of 2,000 kcal / day. So I fully expect weight gain as I continue with my increased-calorie diet.

My diet could be healthier, but I'm allowing myself comfort foods as I crave them - ice cream, pizza, etc. as they are generally high-calorie and a source of protein. I love vegetables, but eating too many actually make it harder to eat enough - I am finding it challenging to eat 4,000 kcal / day, so sometimes eating refined carbs actually helps me feel less full for the calories I consume. It's probably bad advice, but it's currently how I'm coping. I also am eating vegetables and nutritious foods - I have oat bars I make with chia, flax, and hemp seeds and lots of nutritious foods like pumpkin seeds and walnuts, so my default is to eat healthy - I'm just incorporating more "unhealthy" foods, too.

Boredom

Problem:I wasn't sure what I could do in the hospital after the surgery, so I over-prepared for a variety of situations. I brought my laptop, but I knew I might not be able to use it on my lap (I had read of people on Reddit describing the pain as bad enough they couldn't set anything near their lap, so they just used their phone).

To enable me to use my laptop from afar, I brought an external display and a way to anchor it, as well as a small bluetooth keyboard I could use (for either my phone or laptop). I was pretty worried about access to my laptop because it's how I log everything and do research to help solve problems - to me it's an important part of my autonomy and crucial to my ability to adapt to situations. When I had my orchiectomy, I did not feel I could trust others to handle the many drugs I had to take, and having my laptop and spreadsheet software allowed me to structure and organize my drug schedule, and actually helped me catch oversights and mistakes, and was important for me advocating for myself and knowing when I needed help.

Luckily, after the surgery I was able to use my laptop on my lap without issue, but I mostly used it to problem-solve and for entertainment. I used my phone to take quick notes and jot down times and dates of certain events (this is when I had my blood drawn, this was when I had a bowel movement, this was when lunch came, etc.). The phone was easier to quickly open up and write something down, compared to the laptop which was harder to get open and unlocked in time. The notes were useful later when nurses sometimes would ask me questions that I couldn't answer from memory, but which I was able to lookup (like when I had a bowel movement).

The hospital was so busy that I never struggled too much with boredom, but I did watch two films, though it felt like I squeezed them in. When I tried to play video games once (Animal Crossing on a Switch), I felt it was too exhausting.

So the problem I ran into increasingly, especially once discharged from the chaotic hospital, was that I was finding myself bored, particularly while setting a timer for dilation and just sitting there in mild to moderate discomfort.

Solution:

So my solution was two-fold: get movies and video essays on my laptop so I can watch them during dilation.

Since dilation is around 20 minutes and I go through three a day, it's not hard to knock out an hour long video essay.

My suggestion is just to find something passive, not too cognitively taxing (I can't handle lectures on mathematics as much as I would like to be able to), and something long or there is a lot of. This is a time to binge watch a show with many seasons, for example.

I can share a list of video essays and movies I have watched, but I think my tastes are particular and I'm not sure anyone cares or would find that helpful. My point is that it's important to think through dealing with boredom and to plan a little by having a significant amount of content lined up. I found listening to audiobooks wasn't easy enough to focus on - watching video essays was easier to pay attention to, for me anyway.

As usual, let me know if you have any questions or concerns - I want to learn from you, but also to be a resource for the community.

Thank you for reading. 💕

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Hello everyone

My name is Cyara Kaira, and I’m a transgender refugee living in South Sudan. I want to thank everyone who has supported me and my sisters in these painful times. Your help has meant the world to us.

But the truth is we are still not safe.

The government of South Sudan told us to leave Gorom Refugee Camp without any support. No plan, no help, nothing. Just a command to leave by June 20th or face forced eviction and possibly prison.

June 20th, the day the world marked World Refugee Day was the exact moment we were told to disappear. There was no celebration, no protection, no recognition of our struggle. Just silence and fear. And now, during Pride Month, when the world talks about love and visibility, we are hiding, scattered, and terrified.

Some of the community have found temporary shelter in Juba, thanks to kind strangers and a small GoFundMe. But most of my sisters are still trapped in the camp. They are still in danger.

We are a small group of trans ,people who fled violence only to be met with more rejection and cruelty. But we believe in hope, and we’re still holding on. We really need your support please.

https://gofund.me/bd40a4f9

We couldn’t celebrate Pride. We couldn’t celebrate being refugees. But with your help, maybe one day we can celebrate survival.

Thank you for reading. With all my love and strength,

CyaraKaira

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(This is my first post in this community, plz tell me if something is off.)

CW: struggles in health care, mention of dysphoria, anger and despair.

Right now I am at a frustrating point. I am not sure what my question is. Maybe just: How could anyone deal with this all?

What's up: I am in my mid 30s and used to be not too serious about being male for...ever? however, i was good at not feeling anything for about the same time. So every thought about the possibility of being trans was put down by something like 'yeah maybe, but i don't feel a need to do something here.' That changed last autumn. After years of therapy and a serious of stress inducing events I reached a point at which I suddenly had access to what i felt, and it was great, and sad, and joyous, and overall much. (cracking an egg is a tame metaphor!)

My Problem from the start was, that at that point i wasn't in regular therapy anymore. I quickly reached out to some councelling services i could find, and that helped. But I wanted (and still want) to go on HRT. For that I needed some rubber stamps from a therapist. After like 5 month i found someone who would give me a paper, which was a great day. since then i was 'just' struggeling to get an appointment with an endocrinologist somewhere reachable for me. (I have an appointment now for ... November).

So all is fine? Well i recently tried to talk to another doctor about HRT. On the phone they said I should come over -- i learned to be very concise and asked again if they would help me frfr with these specific problems.. When I got there they said:

  • "nah, we can't help you with that."
  • "what is 'transfeminine'?"
  • a lot of 'he'/'sir'

this doctor then called a friend who works in the biggest hospital of the region, if she had ideas (actually a nice gesture!). this friend then put me on a waiting list for therapy in their ... whatever? Also we briefly talked about my hsitory. During this she mentioned that this person i got the this-person-should-be-on-HRT-paper from is basically not accepted anywhere. I knew that there were conflicts, because he is quite queer-freindly and of course people can't have that, but hearing that this paper would not help me with any endocrinologist in the region just shattered me.

It feels like all I do and try is just washing away. Basically all that shit I did over the last 9 month has been a waste of time? I need to convince a new therapist to believe me, wasting their time, mine and the time of every other patient?! There is so much more i should worry about, but instead I will be devastated later this year, bc nothing will have happened to me other than getting older in the wrong way.

I am out as trans to a couple of people and i did go out in dresses and stuff for years (now more frequently). I am living my truth. But I still see that guy, and I realise now, why i was never happy seeing that guy in the mirror. No kind of transition will solve all my problems, sure. But this one problem has such an obvious fix!

This is all so wrong. A lifetime of depression has (in great part thanks to my therapy!) come to a point at which I know what at least one of the causes is, and this whole health care system acts like: "nah, you haven't had therapy. we need at least 3 or 6 months therapy until we believe you. what's that? you can't find a therapist, bc they all don't take new clients? try harder, you lazy fuck!"

So ... how does one endure this?

toodles! phr

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Despite how a lady at the bookstore “struggled with” my pronouns and bounced off “he” several times before settling on “they” cause apparently she couldn’t bring herself to say “she.”

Shit’s hard out there.

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I probably won't answer many comments. I'm also not gonna make what I say sound more pretty... Sorry.

I've seen the memes like "trans people have a hell beam that came with HRT" come up more and more often. We do. It's called pepper spray. Please learn from my mistakes and get one before you regret not having one. Carry it with you daily, in a pocket where it is easy to reach, ideally with your dominant hand. It's not a problem for us tomboy- ish cargo pants lovers, but if you are cursed with female pockets, get one you can clip into a pocket or your waistband. If you tuck your shirt in too then consider buying a pepper gun like a guardian angel that you can carry inside the waistband. And I can't stress this enough, you won't be able to find your pepper spray fast enough if you just throw it into a purse.

Regardless if it's someone getting really aggravated at you being trans or if someone starts to masturbate while looking at you on public transport and following you through the train when you get up and leave, regardless if you use it or not. Even just having it as a backup is extremely important.

I didn't bring those examples up for nothing, both things, and even worse, happen (happened to me, friends and family too, trans and cis) and we are just as vulnerable - if not more - than most other people. The only way we can protect ourselves against a guy twice our strength and weight is by playing unfair. If you need to, use pepper spray. If they have you restrained, bite, poke in their eyes, and the first chance you have, run. Speaking of which, learn how to run fast for a short period of time. If you already do running from time and time again, do a sprint at the end of your session.

If you want to learn actually stuff about self defense, I personally can recommend getting some Krav Maga courses. It's a fighting technique that focuses on getting the fuck out of a situation. I sadly don't have the money for it anymore but I will pick it back up.

This world can be cruel and that comes from someone who lives in one of the safest areas in the world. The point of all of this isn't to make you scared of everyone and everything. I'm saying this because I want you to be able to stand tall and proud despite everything because if worst comes to worst, you know how to fend for yourself.

If you have any more useful information on self defense, please comment them.

Stay safe out there <3

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I am a cis guy, but have been questioning who I am and have a desire to be more feminine.

I have done a work week with eyeliner for the first time and it has made me feel much more confident! I only had one girl at work notice and she has been very supportive of it and other things (I had begun growing out my hair and dying it differently).

This felt like a supportive community to share this happiness with and I feel in a good place here because my wife is trans and I have begun questioning who I am as well.

Thanks for reading :)

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I've found dating apps to be an absolute minefield, regularly getting my profile pictures (very tame and appropriate pictures) reported on HER for example, presumably by transphobes, before I left it.

Beyond that, I feel invisible on the more mainstream apps because I'm ethically nonmonogamous and I suppose that understandably shrinks my dating pool even further.

Does anyone have any app/site suggestions for an ENM lady who is tired of having to fight for my right to exist as a gay woman on a dating app?

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
 
 

So I wanted to just disclose some of the struggles I have had with my vaginoplasty, framing it subjectively as the information I wish I had been armed with before surgery, because I haven't done the work to account for how my experiences compare to others to know whether my experiences are worth generalizing or not.

Things I wish I knew

If I could write a letter to my pre-op self before surgery, here are some tips and information I would pass along:

More Pads & Wet Wipes

I will need more pads than I realized, I packed maybe 30 - 40 overnight maxi pads because I figured for a single week that was a lot and other posts on Reddit and elsewhere mentioned that they didn't use many supplies - I needed more like 40 - 60 pads so I ended up buying a couple extra packs of 10 while at the hotel.

I also had to buy some extra wipes, I think I went through 2 - 3 containers in a week, so I had to buy 1 - 2 extra. (It has been less messy over time, but in the beginning it's a lot.)

Redundant equipment

Having a second hand mirror would have been really useful - having a mirror dedicated to the toilet station would have been nice so I could leave the other mirror as dedicated to my dilation station; I needed a mirror at the toilet to help me evaluate bleeding, help me navigate cleaning better, to observe my urine stream and so on.

Inserting the douche nozzle

Treat the douche like the dilator: use lube and a mirror to guide the douche nozzle into the vaginal canal. I did some damage and had some bleeding and made wound separation worse by trying to just guide it into me by touch alone in the shower.

Hospital staff's ignorance can be harmful

The hospital staff did not seem aware of the restrictions that come with a vaginoplasty surgery, e.g. they were unaware that after a vaginoplasty you should not sit or apply pressure to the sutures, as a result nurses put me at 90 degrees to use the bedpan, which likely contributed to wound separation later.

You have to advocate for yourself more strongly than is comfortable, and you are on your own to come up with solutions to avoid these complications caused by the hospital's negligence or ignorance.

A floating nurse from another floor won't know anything about your surgery or its details, I was variously asked to sit on the bed, to sit on a bedpan, to sit on a toilet all when my wounds were vulnerable and susceptible to wound separation - and I did have wound dehiscence as a result of complying with the hospital staff, so I wish I had known I needed to be more prepared to push back: don't sit on the bedpan, lie flat or at a 30 degree angle and try to use it that way.

Once you are not on bed rest and able to get out of bed, don't sit on the bed to get up, find your own way even if it makes the nurses uncomfortable. I had a nurse demand I sit on the bed before standing, but instead I found rolling onto my right hip bone and dangling my legs partially of the bed and then propping my upper body up slowly while sliding out of the bed avoided putting pressure on my sutures was better. This made nurses very uncomfortable because they see someone sliding out of bed like that as a liability - but don't prioritize the comfort of the nurses, do what you need to do.

Don't pee on the toilet if it's painful and difficult, I forced myself to at great cost. The nurses need to know how much you have urinated after the catheter is removed, and you are under a deadline to pee sufficiently after the catheter has been removed. They demand you measure the urine by capturing it in a little plastic insert into the toilet they want you to sit on to pee.

After my experiences of complying with this which caused bruising, inflammation, and wound separation - I recommend instead advocating for yourself and taking seriously the requirement to not sit, and opt to pee while standing, e.g. in the shower. I wished I had refused to comply, I prioritized the nurses preferences for following procedure over my own well-being and now I am in a precarious situation with regards to my wound separation, which is worsening every day and seems to be working its way deeper from the frenulum into the canal's skin graft.

Gas

I wish I had known about the post-op gas.

Before surgery, I had a balanced healthy diet with lots of vegetables and fiber and no meat. after surgery, they fed me a diet primarily of red meat, refined carbs, and sugar (think: a piece of roast, mashed potatoes, and ice cream or a juice concentrate).

Antibiotics, a mandatory fiber-restricted diet, and a diet with lots of sugars resulted in huge imbalances in my gut bacteria and I had extremely painful gas esp. starting day 2.

I don't know how to emphasize how much suffering this caused me - not only was it extremely awkward, but the had no way to escape and was more painful than any of my surgery pain was at any point to date.

I was unable to pass gas because strict bed rest meant I was lying on my back all day (usually walking around helps patients recover from post-op gas), and because of the lack of fiber and the daily dose of laxatives, every time I tried to pass gas there was diarrhea that came with it, so I had to be put on a bedpan every time I needed to pass gas. This was an exhausting affair - lifting my body onto the bedpan and then holding myself on it for 30 - 60 minutes while I tried to convince my body to actually release the gas and diarrhea was a serious physical trial.

In one day, I had to use the bedpan over 5 times, and each time was painful and put immense pressure on my surgical site, risked contaminating my wound vac, and was extremely painful.

They expect anaesthesia and the opiates to make you constipated, so they compensate by feeding you laxatives and refusing to give you fiber to try to get you to have bowel movements ASAP.

Unfortunately I am an unusual pationt: I had no problem with bowel movements, the resumed immediately and had a bowel movement within 24 hours after my surgery, so constipation was not a side effect of anaesthesia I experienced.

Furthermore, I did not have much pain so I did not take any opiates after the surgery, so I was basically given lots of laxatives for little reason and had a predictably awful time.

So I wish I had known to:

  • stop the laxatives earlier,
  • demand gas-x (simethicone) from the beginning, and
  • maybe don't go along with their food and change my diet (e.g. eating yogurt instead of ice cream and juice concentrates, and maybe incorporating some fiber against their orders, to balance the bowel movements and avoid constant diarrhea).

Sleep

When people tell you that you won't sleep in the hospital, it's not for the reasons I thought, like the hospital has lights or is noisy or is a foreign environment.

No, you're exhausted and every moment you close your eyes you will find yourself slipping into dreams - it's not hard at all to sleep in the hospital!

But you won't sleep anyway, because nurses will wake you up every few hours.

A week of being kept from sleeeping was basically like being tortured, and enduring this aspect of the hospital was maybe a little traumatizing - you are unable to heal or rest because you aren't permitted to sleep longer than 1 - 2 hours. Even when a nurse would say they would let you sleep from midnight to 4am, it was more common that the nurse schedules would get disrupted and they would come in early at 3am or come in late at 1am instead of midnight. Because my blood pressure was low (from laying in bed all day from strict bed rest), my nurses panicked and interrupted my sleep more frequently to check blood pressure more frequently on the first few nights.

Blood Pressure

I wish I had known my blood pressure will be shot from laying in bed immobile all day every day - as mentioned, the nurses will panic and fret over this, but the solution is simple - sit up when they take your blood pressure. Elevating suddenly "fixed" my blood pressure readings. The only downside is that this did apply some pressure to the sutures, since you aren't supposed to sit - but even just elevating to a 45 - 60 degree angle helps avoid the blood pressure reading too low, the pressure from the bedpan and toilet use were what caused complications, not sitting at 45 degrees - go based on how you feel, but some elevation can help the nurses leave you alone. I have never had problems with my blood pressure, and I had no symptoms or reasons to be concerned from the low blood pressure readings the nurses were getting, but the nurses think in terms of standarized procedures and are not necessarily the most rooted in reality (so it's more important to check my vitals every hour than to let me sleep, even though my blood pressure was not dangerously low and I had no symptoms and it was just from lying in bed). Basically: learn what the nurses need to check their boxes, and learn to juke those stats. Elevate to get the blood pressure reading normal, don't drink any water right before they take your temperature, etc.

Dilation education

When they teach you to dilate, do not let the doctor leave until you are able to lay eyes on your vaginal canal opening directly with a mirror and you have demonstrated you can successfully get the dilator into the canal on your own without guidance or help - you need to know exactly where to put that dilator so you can be confident when pushing it in, if you apply the pressure in the wrong place you will cause complications like wound separation. My doctor helped me successfully dilate the first time and it seemed so easy, I knew roughly where to go and how to do it, but when I went to dilate on my own a few hours later, pressing where I thought was the right place suddenly caused a lot of pain and blood to gush out. Long story short, I was probably pushing in the wrong place (too high up, to avoid the "W" stitches below that I was explictly told to avoid, but which ironically was right where the opening was), and it was hard to tell where the right place was because of the inflammation. I had to problem solve the inflammation by using ice to reduce the swelling (something at discharge I was told explicitly not to do, I have heard this undermines nerve growth?) and getting a doctor to come back and help me dilate. It took them over 24 hours to get a doctor to help me dilate, and in the meantime I attempted to dilate three times and each time caused more bleeding and physical trauma. When a doctor finally saw me, they ordered me not to dilate and packed some gauze where the bleeding was. This was one of the most distressing parts of the hospital stay, and admittedly I completely broke down from the experience. It all could have been avoided with a little more education up-front, and even after I got help with dilation again, the new doctor made the same pedagogical mistakes as the first one: they helped ease the dilator in and then I didn't know how to do it myself. They had to come back later after a second, failed dilation attempt on my own (under their supervision so they saw I was doing it all "right" but still not able to dilate), and finally I explicitly asked them to show me the vaginal canal so I knew exactly where to go. Once I laid eyes on it, I knew exactly where to go and it has been trivially easy to dilate since. Force them to show you, make sure you see it and grok it before they leave.

Things that went really well

Just to not focus too much on the negative, here were some things I wanted to highlight as going better than expected:

Lube Syringe

The lube syringe was an amazing idea - it was less messy to suck lube into a syringe and then insert it and deposit it than to try to awkwardly squeeze KY jelly onto the tip of the dilator, the syringe is a smaller diameter and was helpful for identifying the vaginal canal before committing the girth of the dilator to pressing in, and the lube on the tip of the dilator was worse at distributing the lube and lubricating the dilator than the lube deposited directly into the canal (more lube was lost from the tip when first inserting)

Support person

Having someone in the hospital with you is absolutely necessary - during strict bed rest you are extremely vulnerable. If you drop something on the floor, you cannot get it back. You might wait a while before a nurse is able to come help you. Having someone there to help is essential. I was very lucky to have someone there for me, but I'm thinking this was far more necessary than I ever realized. At one point the psychology of spending a week in strict bed rest really got to me - my bodily autonomy had shrunk to the confines of a single bed. You are at the mercy of the people around you to ensure you have water, food, and access to information or anything else you need (like sanitary wipes).

Dilation is easy!

If you ignore the extremely difficult experience of learning to dilate, once I knew how to dilate I was surprised by how easy it was - people describe dilation as painful, difficult, the worst part of the whole experience. Some people describe feeling like they spend all day on dilation: dilating itself, and preparing for it before, and cleaning up after ... but in the first week out of the hospital, I actually found dilation was easier, less painful, and took less time than I expected. I even enjoyed dilating, stragely (not like sexually, but the process of deeply relaxing my body and mind to get the dilator in me was a nice forced break in some sense, a guaranteed zen moment in my day).

Equipment lists

For dilation, I kept near me on the bed:

  • hand mirror
  • bacitracin,
  • gloves for applying bacitracin,
  • a stack of smaller blue puppy pads to be used on top of the larger puppy pad / chuck so I can replace the larger chucks less frequently
  • menstrual pads,
  • extra pairs of fresh panties
  • wet wipes,
  • dilators,
  • lube, and
  • lube syringe

Near the toilet:

  • wet wipes,
  • menstrual pads (I often replace a pad after I pee),
  • Dakin's solution (basically bleach you use to sanitize your anus after a bowel movement),
  • an extra hand mirror would have been nice

I can come back with more, but this is what I have for now.

Also, feel free to ask me anything!

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You can call me Elle. I am three years into transition that began 2022. I have a love/hate relationship with being transgender but I become healthier everyday. I am latin mixed, I have the most stubborn fast metabolism. I like wearing cutesy ruffles, sweaters, skirts, tops, and I have 3a curly hair that cascades reaching below my neck. Hm, and what about other purely positive attributes about me? I enjoy spicy snacks, I kill for a quiet setting and peacefulness, when everyone is as is, cannot fail to pleasure me. I want to post about my body, intimacy, journey, and clothes, tips, and answer questions, and have fun on this platform.

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
 
 

Do any of y'all have any advice, tips and tricks on dyeing underarm hair? We are thinking of dyeing it for two different prides and just in general with some manic panic dye as that is apparently deemed to be safe for such things and we were wondering how to do it safely (moreso than just using a safe dye), how long it would last etc.

Any advice, tips and tricks or even links to exhaustive, easy to follow for beginners guides would be useful. Thanks!

15
 
 

I recently had to realise that seeing the pictures of transition timelines of others is like literally an instant trigger for my Dysphoria. That's why I would really like if could put an NSFW Tag on The pictures, so that I or others dont have to see them if we dont want to. I would really appreciate that. :)

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I hate being trans (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
 
 

I wish this wasn't my lot in life. I didn't wake up one day and choose this. I identify with being a woman and feel weighed down by being trans and wish that part of me didn't exist. I don't really feel pride anymore.

Thinking back, I'm realizing that I wasted my entire life just trying to survive. I spent my entire childhood depressed and sometimes suicidal because I could never be a woman. When I was 18 and realize being a trans woman was possible, I wasted seven years toiling over whether that was the right choice, whether I'd be happier opening myself up to constant mistreatment if I got to live on my own terms. When I finally realized I couldn't go on anymore and found a therapist and started HRT, I was 25 and male puberty and completely run its course. I lost so much during that process. My transition has gone much better than expected, and I have my moments, but I will never fully pass now.

Conservatives say we make being queer our entire personalities, and I try so hard to resist that. I have other interests, but I'm just so exhausted by life all the time and I can't do them. I want to write a book, learn a language, learn code so I can make an indie game. I've been trying to learn piano for three years now and I'm still not very far. I wish I could have had the time to learn all these things earlier. So much my time has been spent either depressed about society's transphobia or trying to "catch up" on being a woman, learning how to dress and put on makeup years late, coming out and having to revisit my relationships with everyone I know, making new friends to make up for the ones I lost, doing voice lessons, going to protests, laser and surgery, constant appointments, undergoing the lengthy name and ID-change process. I could go on. I've missed out on so much in my life on account of being trans. I read a lot about authors who grew up writing fanfic wishing I was one of those people, instead of just being sad and doing the bare minimum besides keeping my grades up and reading books. These days, I just go to my job, sometimes work overtime, play catch-up, spend time with my partner, and read the news.

And now just three short years of being fully out and on hormones, it's all being taken away and I genuinely don't know where I'll be in four years or whether I'll be alive.

There's probably nothing after this, and this is the only life I get. I can't have my own consciousness if reincarnation is real. If the Christian god is real, then at worst I have being turned into a genderless angel-thing and being stripped of my womanhood in heaven, or hell at best. I'm not saying being born a cis woman would solve all my problems. I've dealt with sexism too and know how harmful it is. But I don't think I will ever get to live a normal life, and now at almost 30, I don't think trans people will ever achieve social acceptance in my lifetime. Things keep going worse, and our most influential trans person in office says we need to slow down trans acceptance.

I think a lot about the concept of people just living, wanting to do things but who end up just working and being tired, and then dying before they get to accomplish any of the things they wanted to achieve in life. At this point, I've whittled down all my life goals to just two things: get married to my fiance and make some piece of art that someone says they liked, even though I'm so far behind and it wouldn't be very good.

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I just realized today, while looking at old pictures, how much I have changed already. Still a long way to go, and yet very proud !

19
 
 

Hi y’all! Do you have any advice on how to start building a wardrobe of femme clothing?

I’m starting to feel braver and want to start wearing girl clothes out in public more. The problem is 1) I have next to no girl clothes, just the few affirming things I wear around the house, and 2) I am overwhelmed by the amount of options I have and don’t know where to start.

Historically, I’ve dressed more workwear (flannel, denim, leather) in the winter, and more normcore (solid color tees and chino shorts) in the summer.

I’m not sure how to translate those into feminine clothes, if I even want to. I really more so want to take the opportunity to find a more expressive style (I always disliked how few options men are given when it comes to fashion), but I still feel like I need a few kind of “core” outfits that I can easily mix and match, like a capsule wardrobe.

I also expect there to be an awkward phase as my body changes and I start to figure out my style, but I’d prefer to not make any glaring faux pas either.

Any advice is greatly appreciated 😊

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For context, see my initial post here.

I've made a plan with my therapist, and I'll be admitting myself. I've also been advised that given some recent behaviors and events, it's in my best interest to be evaluated for bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder (yay ;-;). Whatever happens, I'm mentally prepared to step through the doors and allow myself to seek treatment. Maybe all I need is a change in medication, or a place where I feel safe enough to process my emotions and work through them. Regardless, I understand what to expect, and I'm confident that it's what I need right now. I can't get by just letting things happen as they are currently, because I'm only continuing to get worse without proper treatment. I'll likely make a new post when I'm discharged about my experience. See y'all on the other side.

21
 
 

Not fluid, non-binary, or agender. More like a superposition.

Binary, but also neither, and both.

I was AMAB, and presenting as female feels more natural to me, but I feel like a male and female in one body.

22
 
 

If any trans women here have been admitted to a psychiatric ward, I'm looking for advice/experiences. My main concerns are the following:

  • Losing access to DIY HRT
  • Inability to shave, or is I can shave, having to be watched while doing it
  • Being strip searched
  • Transphobia from other patients and staff
  • Food

Context - I live in a blue part of Washington State, fairly progressive, and I'm working with my therapist to get a personal recommendation for a facility (she mostly treats LGBTQ+ patients, so I'll be asking specifically about that).

I currently take Estradiol Cypionate by injection, once per week as monotherapy. I've used a tool to estimate my E levels, and I've determined I could likely go 14 days before things get bad (below 100pg/mL), but obviously that would not be an ideal experience for me hormonally. I just tested my levels last week and my E came back significantly higher than I expected (could maybe go longer than 14 days), and my T levels were incredibly low (16ng/dL). So much so that I was planning to reduce my dosage this week, though I think I'll wait to reduce until after my stay in case it lasts longer than I expect. I am almost 100% not going to be able to get them to administer my DIY hormones to me, but if anyone else has had this experience, please comment. I think I've rationalized it enough that I wouldn't be devastated if I were denied access (or more accurately, when I am), assuming my stay isn't longer than 2 weeks. I'm worried that they'll see them and throw them away instead of just locking then up, which would be a big problem because shipping would take about 2 weeks and I don't even have the money for it right now.

However, I am quite concerned about shaving. Since I'll be a voluntary admission, I've heard there's sometimes leniency for supervised face shaving, but I'm also worried about being able to shave my body. Granted, I'll be wearing clothes that cover up all my skin, but the feeling of being unshaven is incredibly dysphoric for me. I could live with it, except for genital hair. I unfortunately have extremely sensitive skin, and I'm pre-op, so if I don't shave for a few days, I will get intense chaffing and irritation, which is the most dysphoric thing I have ever felt in my life. I would be in genuinely severe mental distress having to live like that. But even if I were granted some exception to let me shave there...I'd have to be supervised. And I'm having a really hard time trying to mentally prepare myself for someone watching me shave naked. Especially because I don't know if I'll be allowed to ask that it be a woman that supervises. I've been told it varies wildly from place to place for strip searches, and I assume it would be the same case here.

And then...there's being strip searched. Again, no idea if I can decide if a man or a woman watches me strip and reveal every square inch of myself, which is horrifying. I would feel mildly less mortified if my genitals matched my gender identity, but...I'm not there yet.

The fear of experiencing persistent transphobia while I'm there is also incredibly present for me, especially given that I'm nowhere close to passing. This will be my first time publicly presenting femininely but I think it's what's best for my mental health because it's exhausting having to hide myself in person when I have been open online for almost a year now, and on HRT for 5 months as of today. The only thing holding me back has been living with transphobic parents with a long history of abuse. There are two angles to the transphobia fear. The first is that there may be other patients admitted who are transphobic, and in severely deteriorated mental states, and the second is that staff could be transphobic, and they hold an immense power over me as a patient. Both are terrifying to me, and I don't know how I would deal with it.

And perhaps something more inconsequential is food. I have a milk allergy, so I'd need that to be accommodated, and I'm also autistic so I have a lot of food triggers. I'm worried about not being able to eat enough, to be honest.

None of these things are going to prevent me from admitting myself, I know I need help right now, and I need serious intervention to be able to recover and to keep myself safe...from myself. I'm not going to get into the details because that isn't what this post is about, I've just been having some anxieties about what it's going to be like, and the chances of me leaving the hospital severely traumatized.

If any of you have been through it, what has it been like for you? Any advice?

23
 
 

It seems like, that the longer I am aware of me being trans I keep unlocking new forms of Dysphoria. I never really had any problems with my deadname, but now it does hurt a little bit when hearing it from other people, because im not officially out to them. Today I also realised that apparently I know hate seeing hairs on my arms, which was never a problem before. Hearing my voice also gets progressively worse. What the fuck is this? Why cant I not feel shittier as time goes on. I am on my way to transition, my body could decide to not make my life shit in the process.

24
 
 

I picked up a crowdfunding flyer for the movie at pride last weekend, so I had to check out the manga as well. It's four poignant short stories featuring trans girls at various stages of their transitions. The author is of course trans and the characters are spot on. The physical presentation of the book is very nice too, on thick paper with a pink, white and blue glitter on the cover.

Apparently the stories have been around on the net for a little while, so maybe there is an English translation out there somewhere?

Anyway, ¥1815 well spent. I recommend it if you read Japanese and can get hold of a copy.

25
 
 

I have been trying every evening for the last few days to get a good tuck for an hour or two, but no matter what I do, my balls pop out of place in short order. I tried doubling up on panties and that was decent, but things still wouldn't sit still, and now I have a gaff I've been practicing with. With panties, it feels like they're just not putting enough pressure to keep my sack in place and keep my balls up, and with the gaff, but also to a lesser degree my panties, the crotch is so narrow, my sack will inevitably hang out one or both sides enough that a ball can pop out and hang out in there instead. I haven't tried tape yet because I have done 0 hair removal because I'd rather get that area done professionally at least for the first time, and shaving has always resulted in a red, irritated mess, down below, or on my face. I don't know if I just have a particularly large and fleshy sack that refuses to be contained or what, but if you have any tricks you use, I'll try anything right now.

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