Long story short I'm a twenty year old trans woman in an extremely transphobic third world country so I have to diy- HRT.

I previously was able to buy HRT and ship in to my country around January this year but three month in it started leaking so I had to throw away the vial. I suspect this was because I was using the wrong sized drawing needles.

Now that I'm trying to get access to HRT again the site I was using to but crypto (Binance) is now telling me its unable to accept my card, google pay isn't working and due to where I live doing a back transfer doesn't seem possible. Ive already tried getting a new card it does not worse.

What course of action can I take to get hrt? and what Size syringe should I use for drawing in the future?

The thing chain saw man those really well that people here are really talking about is visual story telling.

During the movie scene where makima cries, the scene shown on screen is simply to characters who clearly know each other hugging. this not horror, or comedy or action or anything else is what moved makima to tears.

This seems like a small scene but when you think about it with the context of the ending, what makima really wanted was a friend, but since she was the devil literally born to subjugate others the only creature she could possibly have an equal relationship with was a creature that couldn't be subjugated, the chainsaw devil. Makima imagined the chainsaw devil to be this completely wild untamable force of chaos because deep down that's what she needed him to be so they could actually be equals. Because of makima's desperate need for the chainsaw devil to be this wild monster she could never actually realize what he really wanted or needed.

when her reincarnation appeared Denji asks how to give makima that relationship she deeply wants and Pochita says "lots of hugs".

This is powerful because of who is saying it not what is being said Pochita is the chainsaw devil and he is showing deep empathy and understanding to Makima inspite only ever fighting her in hell.

this is wear the movie scene comes in because Pochita inspite not being visually present is watching the world through denji's eyes. he also watches the same movie sees the hug scene relates to the movie as another devil who's true goal was companion ship and realizes the makima is similar to him in that regard.

Makima set up the whole date to manipulate danji with the goal of getting to chainsaw devil yet ironically her showing vunerability and crying at the movie is not only the closet she has ever been to the chainsaw devil emotionally but it is also everything she thinks the chainsaw devil is not.

One layer deeper than this this movie scene happens during the reze arc and this is important because again ironically enough reze and denji hold a similar relationship to pochita and makima.

reze ultimatly falls in love with denji because she relalizes that their similar people at heart but denji refuses to run away with her because he is still caught up with the idea that what he needs is a place to stay, food and and sexual fufilment. (everything makima is promising him) rather than deeper emotional intamcy and care what he really needs.

Pochita in the movie scene must have had a similar realization to reze except he also realized that makima would never be able to to be a companion for him because she is still caught up with the idea of needed to be equals with a force she can't control rather than deeper emotional intamcy and care what she really needs.

Its funny because once you realize this parallels you also realize that by extention makima and denji are also very similar characters with very similar needs and very similar misconceptions about reality which they both refuse to let go of.

Makima believes she needs this equal she cant control because she is under the mistaken belief that as the devil representing control she is incapable of truly connecting with someone weaker than her.

Denji believes he needs basic neccesities and sex to be happy in part because of Makima's manipulation but on a deeper level its because he is under the mistaken belief that he doesn't deserve a family or deeper levels of intamcy outside of sex due to his relashionship with his father (those who know know)

Both realize their mistake atleast to some degree with the birth and subsequent family dynamic of nayuta.

its also funny because denji is actually more like the vison makima has of the chain saw devil that pochita is (every time we see pochita fight he is actually shown to be very careful and intelligent, by contrast denji's fighting style is way more chaotic and beast like than the chainsaw devil.) but she can't see that due to her delusions about power

and again the parrallels because reze is more similar to the vison denji has of intamcy (sex feeling better the more you know about and care about the person) than makima is but he cant really see that again due to his delusions.

Pomni in this episode is acting like she is the main character in a story (which she is but stay with me), and Jax is the guarded Emo character that just needs to be shown a bit of care and affection and will come to their senses joining the rest of the group.

As someone who suffers from both CPTSD and other mental illness in real life I absolutely hate how fiction has normalized the idea that you can just "fix" these kinds of problems with a hug and pep talk during a darkest hour or that it can even be completely "fixed" at all.

Inter personal trauma is not something that can just be solved with an "I'm here for you whenever you need it", it requires multiple good experiences with other people so that you can relearn you whats "safe", it requires you actively confront your emotions about what caused the trauma (often in therapy, often by reliving those experiencing in a safe environment), it requires lot of time and personal growth often when no one else is around and often even with all that you will still have minor scares left behind from it.

The fact that so much of the sentiment around this show is treating Jax like she's just supposed to get over it and be normal is insane to me.

Yes, Jax is a fictional character, but what she represents is something real world people have and are currently going through.

I, from the bottom of my heart, hate seeing people treating opening up and or letting other people in as these super easy to do obvious solutions to problems.

It's not easy, its not something that comes naturally to some people and can be actively painful depending on who you are, something being simple for you doesn't mean that its simple for everyone.

I, in general, don't like how the fandom is also pushing this narrative of just be open about your feelings and everything will work out that T.V has indoctrinated us with over the years. Many people may have the privilege to get that type of treatment but it is not universal, everyone is "accepting" until your problems start to inconveniences them.

The truth is that most people wont accept you for being different, or for having problems that they don't understand. Not wanting to put your self in a vulnerable position especially when one of your core fears is being exposed to other people is not paranoia is basic self preservation.

It brings me back to a post I saw before about how autism specifically is treated in media where intentionally or not the vast majority of media essentially says that autistic people are making up their own problems and would be perfectly accepted if they just got out of there own heads and talked to other other people. link to original post about NT Gaslighting

All NT people are open and accepting saints yet SOMEHOW almost every autistic person I've ever talked to remembers being bullied and excluding in school.

SOMEHOW almost every autistic person I know was either abused or neglected by their parents.

SOMEHOW autistic people have less than half the life expectancy of NT's and are 9x as likely to kill themselves.

SOMEHOW 90% of autistic people with no learning disability are unemployed.

Every NT will always claim that they would never bully someone just because their autistic, would never fire someone just because their autistic would never undermine someone and treat them like their stupid or evil just because their autistic.Yet almost every autistic person has the experience of being bullied, fired without relevant cause and treated like there five years old by their peers and superiors.

The post I referenced above was about autism but this kind of reasoning applies to the majority of minority groups. If you where good, proper and accepting you would be accepted in return.

Another classic I've seen repeated is saying "It's and explanation not an excuse" and while I understand what this phrase is trying to say, in theory, I have never seen this sentence not used as a dog whistle for ableism.

Disabled Individuals, mentally or physically, are not allowed to have problems that effect the abled population. It is always your role and responsibility to adapt to what society deems necessary for you often while having no say in the matter but god forbid you ask this to be reciprocated your now an entitled asshole who expects "everyone else" to change "Just for you".

People who know nothing about what it's like to be in your position are always the ones with the final say on YOUR needs and abilities.

And any "help" or basic human decency they give you is predicated on the idea that you accept their framing of your issues.

With the term "It's an explanation not an excuse" being used as a shaming tool whenever said disabled person can not meet those expectations they had no hand in setting.

The abled person can then uses this framing to show "Just how much they have to go through to help you" and "How ungrateful you are for their assistance".

It's all pretense to justify why a disabled person "deserves" poor treatment or doesn't "deserve" accommodations.

All this goes beyond just mental illness and trauma though. I have for the most part avoided talking about Jax being a trans woman as this ironically enough doesn't have much to do with how people treat her relationships with other characters in the show but the core idea is still present.

Now again before I start I am not saying that Jax hate comes from her being trans, I am well aware that Jax was already hated long before it was confirmed that she was trans.

With that being said I'm not going to sit here and pretend that most of the rhetoric used to "disprove" that Jax is trans isn't rhetoric also used by transphobic people against trans people.

"Their were no signs"

"Can't I still just call you "x" like before?"

"Your a bad person so I won't respect your identity"

"I don't know I just don't think theirs enough proof that your trans, have you tried "x"."

"Well they didn't come out to me personally so I'm just going to call them the same thing as always."

Versions of these phrases have been used for Jax countless times after the ending.

Let us not be intentionally obtuse, no one was asking for the "foreshadowing" that Kinger had daughters or that Gangle was black hell people are more accepting of Ichigo randomly being a Quincy in bleach with no foreshadowing prior to the arc it became relevant than they are of Jax being trans.

If it was genuinely about writing we would not see essays on essays about the topic and people going insane arguing in comment sections.

Not to mention the fact that we are all aware of the culture we currently live in.

I find it very hard to believe the "I don't mind Jax being trans it's just poorly written" crowd when we have already scene the discourse that surrounds other "well written, well behaved" trans women.

Let us not be asked to fall for obvious deflection tactics. The goal of people going crazy every time a trans character is written into media Is so that trans people stop being written into a stories in the first place.

As is the case with most bigotry.

First it was "we don't mind trans people just don't change already established characters to be trans".

Then it's "I don't mind trans people just don't put them into already established universes that have nothing to do with "that stuff" it's inappropriate" "trans people need to make their own media for themselves not "invade" our spaces"."

When new media came out with likely trans characters that fit into their universe it's somehow "Femboy Erasure" and fans "pushing their culture onto unrelated characters" and "you don't understand they only say "I am a trans woman" in the English dub in the original Japanese they don't use a slur for trans people.".

Now that a trans creator writes a trans woman based on herself and confirms she's trans out of universe all of a sudden it's "shoe horned in and bad writing"

This is nothing new for trans woman, in fiction the goal post of what is acceptable "representation" will always be moved until they can not exist in any form and in real life the definition of what a "Real Woman" is will constantly be moved in an effort to exclude trans women and third gender them.

(This might piss people off but I genuinely believe that the whole sex and gender are different nonsense popping up around the same time sex change surgeries started being a real possibility for trans people is not a coincidence)

And like I hinted at earlier while the fact "that" Jax is trans had been a large part of the discussion around her, both before, and after the final episode. Discussion around "How" being trans uniquely effects her story has been noticeably absent from that conversation.

The closest I've seen people come to that is arguing about weather her being the way she is good or bad representation.

Trans characters rather than being treated like individuals who's transness may or may not affect their life experiences and how they process it (like any other characteristic example race, sex, class) are instead forced to be political statements about what a trans person should or shouldn't be.

Which again extends to how trans people are seen.

Trans people are treated like our existence is a statement about about social norms and gender and not like we're people just trying to live our lives as best we can.

My problem is when people will read a book and say something like "why in a world with fantasy powers are men more likly to persue magic than women when their both equally capable of this must be proof that the author hates women"

I think a really good example is how naruto fans claim the author is sexist because most of the female ninja are weaker than the male ones and never "got" to persue their ninja job like the men". (note i do think the author of Naruto is sexist i just don't agree with this reasoning.)

When, in the Naruto universe, men and women don't have the same social norms as the real world. Not only are women in naruto from the clans are expected to and are forced to be ninja (essentially child soldiers) Most of early Naruto is literally both them the women and the men in the story lamenting the fact that being a ninja has stolen their lives away.

The women in Naruto going against the cultural norms of their society and actually freeing them selves from constant violence is not them conforming to patriacal standards especially not in universe its literally the exact oposite of that. It literally blows my mind that people make that point.

The sad thing about Sakara isn't the fact that she never became as strong as Sasuke and Naruto. The sad thing about Sakura is the fact that even after multiple years to think on the problem she still thinks that she could have solved Sasuke's emotional problems and trauma by punching him hard enough that he is forced to stay in the leaf. She never actually learned to communicate with other people outside of power and dominance and because of that is never truly able to empathize with either Naruto or Sasuke.

Also i just tend to look at fictional socities from a martrial realism point of view rather than a sociological

If you watched the the show for Re zero you wouldn't see what I'm talking about but it extremely clear in the web novel that Subaru is just a trans woman.

I plan on making a detailed post about this later and even a youtube video but just as a small thing;

in the very first volume of the web novel Subaru rants about how he misses being a kid because of how feminine he was, his long hair made everyone treat him like a girl and he then explicitly says that this was before puberty ruined his life.

then later when we get his back story its explained that he started high school cross dressing felt like his "real self" for the first time and was happy until his voice outted him as cross dressing.

His tragic back story is literally male puberty.

Im saying this mostly because how Subaru is written becomes really sad when you read some of ther Q and A stuff the author is on record saying.

Tappie the author of re zero was be on record saying (and this is paraphrased "I wrote Emila to be naive and child like because to me childhood and innocence represents people being their true selves, after puberty people are forced to give up their true selves to fit into society and this goes doubly so for men its my to me the ultimate expression of being who you really are can only be experienced by women"

"Subaru cross dressing has nothing to do with them being gay, Cross dressing is a normal thing guys like doing Subaru is just really good at it, their wont be any lgbt relationships or characters in re zero"

Like I understand this might just be a thing where it sound way worse because this is not the original japanese but just the general idea is still crazy.

All this added with the fact that his two biggest projects are pretty on the nose representations of dysphoria especially VIVI and them writting only female protaganists outside of subaru who himself is constantly said to be more like his mom than his dad.

i dont know it just feels like so many japanese mangaka are have these half way to being trans characters

I'm a 21 year old trans woman living in the Carribean. Due to both the the extreme homophobia where I live and just generally unsafe neighboors hoods across where I live. I don't even feel safe coming out to friends or family because not only would I be kicked out, direct violence against gay people (trans people are just considered gay they don't care enough to make a distiction) is extremly normalized i would also likly lose my job if anyone found out since my country is small enough that everyone basically knows each other.

for these reasons and others I want to permanently move to another country and continue my transistion, while doing so as secretly as possible. I've been searching on the internet for a while but after a plan I had to study temorarily in another country on scholarship while trying to get citizen ship their fell through I don't really now what to do or where to go from her. I have an Associates degree in electronics enginnering and am a licenced electrician though my current job requires neither skill but I also have adhd autism and a non visible physical disability that is short makes me constantly tired and have headaches If i dont take my meds every day. Due to my salary being small while having to constantly buy medication saving is difficult but not impossible as long as i don't have unexpected expenses. Basically I just want some advice on where should i go, about how much money do I need to save before I go, and what that general process like? Ive been searching online bust most advice is either for americans or extremely vague. If anyone can help me I woulkd be extremely greatful?

One of the most basic facts about biology we have known for decades is that a woman's estrogen levels are supposed to go up and down quite significantly during the course of her cycle. A cycle that starts around the same time as Puberty and which ends during menopause.

It makes no sense to me that in spite this being common knowledge doctors and even fellow trans people will parrot the idea that you can just average a woman's cycle out and as long as you stay around that average (often far below average) you'll be fine.

To me this comes from the transphobic idea that trans women and cis women are these fundamentally different creatures who respond to estrogen very definitely.

I didn't test this intentional at first but "luckily" Hrt isnt a thing in my country (trans people as far as the medical system is concerned don't exist) so I've been forced to DIY. As a result of fumbling around trying to figure out my doses without really checking levels I came to realize multiple things.

My sex drive changes depending on my dose. High doses meant for the week my libido would be very high low doses meant the opposite.

Where I felt changes (my skin stretching from fat redistribution) changed depending on dosage. Typically a lower dose meant more chest development while a higher dose meant I felt more stretching in my hips)

Emotional changes where either more present or less present depending levels

After doing a bit o research I found that all these things are natural things the majority of women go through during their cycle.

The trans people who completely lose their ability to have a libido are likely just on a dose which represents a low for them and since they constantly stay at a low they don't experience what their natural libido is supposed to be.

And on the flip side the trans people who become hyper sexual have the reverse issue. They are constantly at a level which represents a "high" for them meaning they never get a break from it and are also robbed of what a natural libido is supposed to feel like.

I'm tired of people trying to claim at x dose you should experience changes as if looking feminine is the only function of estrogen in the human body and as if "average levels" Don't already look way different from person to person.

Trans women are normal women and shouldn't be robbed of as natural of a hormone system as possible. Our current system is working backwards from the idea that trans women are just men who "want" To look like women when that's not true.