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.
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- 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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It does seem like cis people have a particular way of "seeing" gender, and it's hard when the body or gender presentation you have conflicts with what you want people to see.
I'm rather conformist, it's very important to me to do everything I can to make my body and gender presentation match what people expect from a woman, so they see a woman. I don't really expect the average person to see a woman if I don't look like one, and I feel really awkward expecting them to think of me as and see me as a woman when I don't appear as one.
That said, I understand the frustration, esp. if you provide pronouns and the other person doesn't make an effort to respect them - at best it seems impolite and rude, at worst it seems hostile and violent.
I really hated early in transition the way I went from tolerating the wrong pronouns (in pre-transition) to feeling like no pronouns worked for me - if someone used my "preferred" pronouns (she/her) it felt like they were just being polite. (I wanted to be a woman, not be coddled in my delusions and politely referred to as a woman while nobody actually sees me as a woman.)
On the other hand, if someone used a different pronoun it felt like they were being either impolite, forgetful, or outright hostile. Before transition it was easier to just swallow the he/him and remain under the cover of being "normal" - but after transition it was like I "ruined" my gender and my gender was never "right", and no pronoun felt safe or appropriate.
After a year and a half of estrogen injections, my body has changed enough to fit within cis standards for a woman, even though I can't see it myself. The estrogen, and of course all the immense amount of work I have put into trying to pass (voice therapy, skin care routine, diet, exercise, education on fashion and makeup, etc.).
It feels weird now, like I'm no longer "trans" in the same way because I am gender conforming enough now. So instead of being overtly trans, my transness is a hidden flaw in my gender, something only a small number of people can see (usually only other trans people), and which is lying there waiting to undermine my womanhood for anyone who notices.
I don't know what your gender goals are, but I really feel for non-binary folks whose gender expressions fall outside of what is commonly accepted, it is just so hard to get "seen" correctly by people when you are trans.
I’m eleven years deep into HRT. I try my best to present binary female, but some sort of quantity prevents even my fellow trans people from giving me anything other than he/him without incessant prompting.
I have a call center job and I know my voice passes just fine. It’s probably all in how I move my body (which isn’t well—who knew being a stroke victim also removed gender?)
Anyway, I look like this on an average day:
You look well within the norm of women to me (cis woman). 🤷🏻♀️ Probably because you are one.
Haters gunna hate, especially if there’s anything “off” about you (sorry for the phrasing, I hope you know what I mean), such as having had strokes. I’ve been accused of being a man before (likely personality-based), and it’s wildly uncomfortable. I’m sorry you have to deal with that, as I’m sure it’s much more impactful for you.
I will offer that you may want to consider a different hair styling, maybe waves/curls or something like long side-swipe bangs to help frame your face rather than having your hair straight and fully pulled back (kinda more common style on long-haired men, ime). It wouldn’t be any more work than you do now to style, really, and should help accentuate the feminine aspects a bit more (being a totally feminine haircut). I have fine, straight hair, and it’s a pain to do anything fun with other than basically the style you have now, but with a good stylist to get you the cut you want, something like below would probably look fab on you. I’m probably biased tho because that’s sort of the cut I have, just without the volume, and in black and gray 😉
These days I just keep it pinned up in a rhinestone-studded French clip, with the bangs swept to the side, but not ear-tucked. Takes 2 min and looks nice.
My right hand doesn’t really have much in the way of motor control, so my hairstyles naturally tend to more simple stuff. Plus, the longer I attempt to look at my face in the mirror, the more of a migraine I get, as I can never quite resolve what I’m looking at. (The notch you see in my glasses over my right eye helps me to pin the approximate location of my head in reflections and such.)
So I usually just wear a medium bun and go with a clean presentation, or I let my hair fall in the back. Once in a while I’ll just let my hair hang loose, but it’s long enough it gets in the way.
I generally like just looking simple and presentable.
Those styles look amazing with side-swept bangs, tbh (I know because I do them, that’s what the French clip is for - replaces the hairbands for my buns. Just twist and clip, cuz I’m a lazy removed).
The only effort you’d need to put in to styling that you don’t already, is to use your brush to separate some of the bangs chunk from what you pull back. Literally that’s it, and depending on your hair, that might just naturally happen when you go to sweep it all up, meaning it’s zero extra effort. They are wicked easy to maintain and live with, imho. And if you keep them a bit longer, you don’t have the annoying hair-in-eyes thing.
Just, you know, something to consider :) I also tend to prefer the clean and easy look, I just have a really large forehead I got made fun of a ton as a kid/young adult, so needed something to sort of downplay it. This ended up being the best of both worlds for me.