[i am unsure where this belongs, transjoy? mental health? here where i made the mentioned first post? ... idk how crossposing works here 👉👈]

you may remember me lamenting the loss of the 'gay' label since empirically i was usually atracted to men but due to me being mtf that's quite straight now ... well there's a lot to say about this. i might be best described as bi/pan actually.

anyhow. peeps, i met the bestest girl in recorded history. we've known each other for a while and shared a hobby, but recently found out we might like each other more, when we had a ridiculously romcom-esque weekend. so we started dating, and my heart is exploding. every day. i will see her again tomorrow, but it doesn't feel like i can survive that 24 hours. (yes, all very fresh.)

the only thing i am afraid of rn, is that she eventuall 'finds out' i am just three(+) diagnoses in a trench coat. i admire her and her work so much i don't know how she could be interested in me. i also don't want to make her reassure me all the time .. bc we don't feed the brain worms. but i feel like, i needed to tell someone. 😘

i don't know, maybe some of you know the expirience or at least something similar. i was thinking about asking this on the more general trans comm, but .. idk.

i used to play the male part for most of my life. i soon discovered, i liked boys a lot. (also i did like girls, but that faded somehow. i have new theories abt that...). it took long to accept that, even longer to embrace it. but when i went to uni in another town, i did not want to hold anything back anymore: i was gayyyyy.

i think now, that i repressed a lot of my bisexuality in that move. i wanted to be that deviant boykisser. what did i like abt homosexual relations?

• hotties be hotties ofc.
• it was radical defiance of norms! (edgy, i know. but that's what it felt like. the drama is different)
• i wasn't expected to use my genitalia for penetration. (that i understand now)
• i was allowed, to be softer, more feminine in presence of gay men. (that too, i only see now)

i know and accept, that i am trans for 1,5 years now. i'm on hrt for 6 month and it was the right choice. over the last months i joked about being unsure how i felt being straight now. it's not a joke. it's ramping up in the last weeks. there is this first thing, that it's basically not true, that i am exclusively into men. but i come to understand that of all men it's the gay ones (the fruity ones to be precise) that i love, as friends and as partners.

i am afraid rn that i am closing that door. that gay space i called home for 15 years (or so) may still welcome me, but it won't be my space anymore. it's bad statistcs, but gay men treat me differently. (which means i look more and more fem? yay.) it is less flirty (in the "yeah we're all gay" way, not the sexual way). i can't really describe a thing yet that i only noticed when it stopped.

i am sad. i can not see me dating heterosexual men. i know bi men exist, and even some heteros are a little softer. but this is not so much about dating. i am not interested in that rn. it's more about the label and an image of oneself. i feel naked without that gayness.

i feel there is a specific gay expirience, when you have to ask yourself for the first time if it might be okay to show some affection (just a little) toward your crush/friend. to show weakness, to break out of your role. i feel this was an expirience that connected me with my partners in the past.

ok i am loosing my point. TL;DR: i am increasingly sad, that i am not gay anymore.

xoxo kluczyczka

(also, do i call myself ex-gay now, to annoy the biggots?)

i (transfem) slept in a little, woke up super relaxed. cozy, cozy. put on cozy clothes and took my E. then i made coffe and shared it with one of my roomies (the third one is gone out) in bed. coooozeyy!

then, the doorbell rang. i said: "ugh, that's the neighbour for sure." my roomie: "nuh-uh, it's way to early for them." so i got up.

it was the mail person. they had a delivery for my roomie with a male first name. they asked me: "i got this for roomie's name. ... i need your name."

only then i realised they did not think twice that i might be the one who is called by a male first name. that's a first. i used to just impose as my roomie in such situations.

then i got back to bed. and drank my coffee. smiling.

have a nice weekend!

well i know, that's a weird flex. honestly i wanted to post something that is not related to the desastrous family visit over easter. i wrote pages about what i learned there and what i feel, but nothing that is close to be ready for sharing. on the other hand, i need to yap these memories away. heeeere we go! :3

what i like

my trainer. he. is. the. cutest. guy. on. this. planet. i feel super safe with him i am even comfortable to explore dysphoricly deep voices with him. he is very warm and caring. that helps a lot. i started in the third session already to talk to him about the situations, i tend to fall into male patterns, and how that stems from my anxieties. since he is gay, we can discuss such internslised misogyny/homophobia very deeply i feel.

also i like that there is a place in which i can try out voices, modulations and stuff, with someone who gives great advice on that. i finally get challenged to try out these new characters. i wouldn't have had the audacity otherwise.

i even like the daily practice, though it's awkward and even a bit embarassing. i don't have the power to practise every day extensively, but i try to do at least a little, even on busy days.

what i don't like

i am still super bad at carrying this in my everyday life. with my friends i am comfy enough to not care abt my voice. (it even felt weird, when they started to use my chosen name, bc it felt like they were now putting in effort for a foemality, while i felt seen by them at every point in the last years.) so i don't care abour voice around my friends. at work i am still boymoding (rediculously bad), so i don't do new voices. when outside i often have to be louder, so i use the louder voice i know. when around men, i still have the (ridiculously wrong) urge to not stand out, and so i often speak with a lower voice, while wearing a skirt. when i feel unsafe, i do not speak at all.

only sometimes i surprise myself suddenly speaking to the cashier in this softer tone. just a "thank you" or so. but it happens.

a big problem is that with what i can do today, i sound like a dreamy/high mess when i talk for longer. i already told my trainer, we will look at that in the next sessions.

some advice?

i am quite new to this. have you had similar expiriences? how did you start to actually use your new voice?

i thought it would be nice if we shared some general expiriences. i list some of my learnings below. feel free to add! :))

note that i was a part of my local queer spaces for longer already, so my thoutghts on networks might seem obvious to you. but since i gad my inner coming out my love for my communities has only intensified.

local networks are key

there are a lot of good reasons to seek out for other queer people in your area (be it a queer party or a self help group). the obvious downside is that you need to trust those people. especially in harsher political/societal environments it might be a hard decision, who to trust. my pros:

• you will find people who live in the same city/region and who can give you important advice.
• you can exchange contacts of doctors/practioners and learn who to avoid.
• you will find yourself in a (more) accepting space, where people will sit next to you while you vent your frustration and share your joy.
• you will find radical friends. solidarity is strong. queer groups tend to make happen a lot of crazy stuff for their members. you will be adopted by them.

being out might not just help you

this is anecdotal but i have helped some people navigating early transition, which i could not have done in the same way, if i hadn't been out to my friends and haven't had the confidence to (quasi) publicly share my expiriences. similarly i know a person who is very stealth (transitioned as teen, moved ...), and is only out to a few close friends. she is scared of the political climate and with this very alone. when i came out to her, we talked a while and i promised to be a proxy for her to our local groups, if she doesn't want to out herself but needs help.

don't get too excited – but celebrate steps!

i'd advice general scepticism. your hormones might get lost in the mail, your surgery postponed. or some other shit doesn't go as planned. there is a lot of potential to get your hopes crushed. believe it when you have it.

frustration will build up. so celebrate any little step you achieved.

being yourself is so much easier than pretending

first i was afraid, (i was petrified), it would be hard to play a new role, that i needed to put in hard work to convince people i was a woman. in the end i am still myself but i don't police myself as much anymore. sure i have done a lot more shopping lately, but that was fun, not a chore. i wear what i deem fitting. in short, i stopped worrying, if i was presenting too fem and just started to go for it. and that's so much easier.

so yeah. i established a persona that wears whatever ages ago. the only relevant steps in my coming out (in my city) are therefore name and pronouns. it is horrific. i don't want to talk abt myself or be the topic of any discussion. i like the anonymity here. but these people know me.

i just turned off notifications and spammed a few group chats.

... guess i'll burn my phone.

update: i'll survive. i had a good, long and agitated walking-around-in-the-flat-while-crying, then had a peak into the messages. had 2 really cool chats with ppl i hadn't talked to for a long while. the rest is a lot of emoji noise. which is nice, but i don't know what to do with that. it's the nice ones.

i'm curious, what you think.

heyhey,

this here might contain two questions actually.

1. got an idea, what instrument might suit me?
2. how, actually learn?

background

i am not new to learng stuff by myself, mostly languages in the widest sense. the only thing i can't really get my head around is music. i know rudimentary how to read notes, but ofc don't really grasp what they mean. when i learned a bit about electronics, that explained a lot more about music for me. i tried to learn the recorder (bc its was there) and keyboard (bc super versatile). by now, that all didn't work. i am a beginner.

i guess that is abt how these are played. i am used to grab a book sit down in a comfy position and read. keyboards need setup and are relatively large. the recorder is small and portable, but you need a decent body position, to control your breath.

i was thinking about some kind of ukulele, maybe? how do i build a habit, that works for practice?

update

ty all! all your comments really helped a lot to think clearer abt the why qnd what. i am a little overwhelmed and can't answer each of you. but tyvm! in some cases i feel like there is an answer that needs to get out. in others i don't know what to say other than "ty for sharing!"

i grabbed a guitar from a friend, now my fingies hurt. but i am also surprised of how quick you can get interesting results from such an instrument. i will try it out a bit longer and then maybe try a ukulele. i know they are quite different, but more similar to each other tgan to flute or keys.

maybe there's a journey starting. :)

i am two month in and i feel so good! (i remember, that i was publicly desperate a few weeks ago, yes.) let me explain.

food

there is one food item, i ate often during lunch break, that suddenly tastes bitter to me. it's some kind of soy-yoghurt. i didn't love it, it was just convinient, so it's not a big loss.

i feel like i got a little more into food, especially sweets, but that might aswell be seasonal.

mood

i lived with constant, vague depression and anxiety since ... early adolescence? i really noticed that, when i started anti-depressants a few years back. they took the pressure but also my drive. now after a bit more than two months on E, i still get occasional spikes in anxiety, or deep sadness. but i can feel it properly and let it go after a while. i even notice where it's coming from sometimes.

before, some weird thing in the morning could ruin a whole day or multiple. i would have shut in asap and sleept until it'd be gone. the fact that i can now be sad, cry for an hour and share a nice evening with friends after that is pure gold! the permanent anxiety is gone, but i am still actively living my live.

sexuality

don't hate it, but i am severely uninterested since a few weeks on E. it's actually quite nice. had a dream of a person i like, in which they kissed me on the cheek 🤭. even my wildest dreams are now "having a cozy day with friends". that's nice.

body

of course not much has happened yet, but there are a few things. since i started the sport i do (10yrs?) i felt better connected to my body (in terms of movement, balance, and control). i therefore can't say much about feeling more inside my body through hrt, but i got more sensitive to or more aware of touch. that resembles the feeling of when i was on antidepressants. my bed was softer, the cotton sheets more interesting and scratches more ouchy. this goes both ways. but i love how comfy i can get again.

also body hair grows slower and a bit thinner. whee i smell nicer, my skin i softer. my face has become ever so slightly more feminine

other people

i'm not out at work yet, and even outside that, i'm often not trying to present super fem. but the combination of the subtle changes (mostly facial skin?), my new attitude, that's not as disconnected anymore, and the new bodily expression i increasingly allow myself after hatching seemingly work: cis people who don't know me are more frequently a bit confused at first when they expected a mr. something. my roommate asked me some weeks ago if i wore make-up, when i didn't, just been pwetty. and other queer folks who i wasn't out to suddenly asked me, if my name was still up to date.

it's doing the trick. it's getting harder to perceive me as a man. :)

the scary

i lived under the expectation (delusion?) that boobs would take a while to start. i had permanent pain in my breasts after 3 weeks. by now i can even feel a little lump of new tissue that might soon become visible through a t-shirt.

is that fast? i feel it's faster than i hoped for. not because i don't want breast growth, but because i can't imagine how it will look like. and i feel like that's fast. where shall this end?! also, i need to research bras sooner!

all in all it seems like every cell in my body was prepared for estrogen, sad about not getting it and finally having a big party. around 2021 i described my situation to a therapist. i said i felt like i was being addicted, but didn't know to what. i was restlessly searching for stimulation, happiness and rest, but nothing worked. after my egg cracked, this hole in my existence started to fill, E ist filling in the cracks as it seems.

this was the right decision. besides hrt i made progress in my search for the right name. things are moving. i hope someone will find this little report helpful or at least interesting.

voice might be the next step to take? that's weird to me. this feels like putting in efford to play a role. when up until now it was just stopping the act and letting the fruitiness flow. but often enough, i want to play the part and not blow it with my first line. what are your feelings towards voice training?

yours kluczyczka

there is an anxiety in my trans circles that the future might become worse, that access to surgery, new passports and stuff might become harder. i feel like i should hurry to get shit done.

but i can't. it took sooo long until i knew for sure, i wanted to go on hrt. i am now and it's great. not for the reasons i imagined, but for all the small things i never thought about. yet i don't know what i want my name to be. it is such a hard question for me. i start to rethink sexuality aswell esp. since my libido seems to have vanished under estrogen. this i like also. but what does it say about my sexual identity? or my gender identity? will there be a point at which i want a bottom surgery? there are so many questions that i can't answer (yet).

meanwhile the whole world seems to demand these answers and wants them to align with their cis-het assumptions. health care wants me to display a binary persona for access to hrt (i played the part), and surgery. my aunt immediately fantasized about me "certainly" looking for a man to have a family with. everyone really wats to have an update on how to handle me. no ambiguity.

i realised that in my trans specific therapy group i get quiet and anxious when they are all discussing hospitals, doctors, procedures and all the technicalities. i feel like i am behind. always behind. i haven't done my homework. i didn't know forever that i was a girl. i don't know today. i'm just starting to get a sense of self. something that was shattered and buried through thorough suppression. i am putting together fragments like an archeologist. but being trans is in a way still just a working hypothesis. it's highly plausible, but i can't see the bigger picture yet.

i am afraid, that all of this will take me too long, that i will have to jump over new hurdles, or old ones, like when the rubber stamps from my therapist will be too old. i feel like i have to figure out myself now. i feel alone with that. even in self help, and therapy groups everyone is always so sure about themselves. just not me. i should seek out enby groups maybe? plz hit me up, if you ever felt this way too. 😥

he's been with me for 10+ years.

(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