Hello everyone!
I just recently came out to my partner as possibly (probably) trans. Everything has gone well and they and our closest friends are very supporting and caring. I couldnt really have had a better opening up I feel like.
Now, I feel like this has been a long time coming. I have never really felt comfortable with who I was ever since I was 12-13, I am 26 now. I have never had the space, surroundings or environment to explore or talk about this until now so I’ve had a lot of time to think and feel.
I am pretty sure I am trans but Im still not a hundred percent. I know she/her pronouns resonate well with me and I feel very good when wearing feminine clothes and showing a more feminine side that otherwise has been repressed. My partner helped me order some clothes the other day and I am very hyped to try those out.
Theres alot to think about and things I want to try and do, but I wanted to ask you all. What are your experiences, lessons or tips from your journeys? Is there anything I or maybe others in my situation could learn from?
Happy to hear anything and everything you want to share ❤️
Let’s see, generic trans and trans fem advice. Stream of consciousness, no particular order. A lot of these are assuming you’re a binary trans person aiming for a binary transition to female. If passing isn’t something you care about, then a lot of this won’t apply. A lot of this also discusses things that arise from medical transition such as HRT. If that’s not something you want, then some of these won’t apply.
If passing is your goal, start working on your voice today. Voice is one of the strongest tells there is. Medical transition is an agonizingly slow process, waiting for hormones to have their time to act, waiting for surgical wait times, etc. But voice is one of the few parts of transition that is effort-based and also costs nothing. Start working on it today; there’s simply no substitute for putting in the work.
EYEBROWS!!!
When picking out a wardrobe, be sure to dress your age. If you just want to say, “fuck the world, I don’t care what you think!”, fair enough. If you want to transition and assimilate into the world as a functioning adult woman, then you need to dress your age. Wearing skirts that are more appropriate on a 14 year old can be a fun exercise in wish fulfillment and making up for lost time, but dressing your age is essential if you actually want to assimilate in to the social role of a late 20s woman.
START PEOPLE WATCHING. Seriously. Go to a mall, a farmer’s market, or some other location large groups congregate. Look at people. Actually look at them. Observe the subtle differences in behavior between men and women. Body language. Posture. Speech patterns. This is also how you figure out how to dress your age. Don’t creep on people. But just subtly observe. Yes, some gender rebels will lament that you shouldn’t have to appeal to feminine standards of behavior, and that gender is a social construct. But “construct” does not mean “meaningless.” If your goal is to actually transition and live as a woman in this society, you’ll need to adopt most of the social norms of the female gender. This doesn’t mean that you need to appeal to every stereotype; you can be a tomboy. But if your behaviors fall entirely within society’s social construct of the male gender, you will be gendered male. Once you observe these behaviors, start practicing them and changing yours to match.
If you are seeking medical transition, you are responsible for your own transition. Not your doctor. You. Really internalize this. Trust but verify everything your doctor tells you. Good trans medicine is the exception, not the rule. If you transition and live for years as trans, you will experience mistreatment in healthcare. You will likely be underdosed. There’s a good chance your doctor will tell you your E levels are fine when you’re sitting there with levels of a post-menopausal woman. Trust but verify everything your doctor says. After bloodwork, NEVER simply listen to your doctor when they just say, “your levels are fine.” Insist on seeing the actual numbers yourself, and know what range you should be aiming for. People routinely lose years of progress because of doctors humoring trans people with criminal underdosing rather than actually prescribing effective doses. If you need to, DIY. It’s not as scary as you think it is, trans people DIYing is the rule, not the exception. Learn what trans broken arm syndrome is and be on the lookout for it.
If you’re looking for name ideas, again, it’s a personal approach thing. If you’re looking for ideas and just want something that won’t stand out, consult the census. At least in the US, the Census publishes a list of the most popular baby names by year, sorted by sex. Go and look up the most popular baby names FOR THE YEAR YOU WERE BORN. Often times trans people will chose a name that is popular today, as in a popular name for babies being born today. This is how you end up with someone in their twenties having a name that seems more appropriate for someone in kindergarten. Names vary in popularity with time. If you choose a name that doesn’t match you age, it will stick out. Same thing if you pick a name from anime or from a culture you’re not a member of. Again, if you don’t care about sticking out, fair enough. But imagine yourself at 60 with your name. That’s the kind of timeframe you need to be thinking about.
If doing medical transition and HRT, stockpile stockpile stockpile. Supply disruptions are common, and restarting care can be difficult each time you move.
Be prepared for your position in the world to change. Say goodbye to male privilege. (Though trans people rarely get the full privilege level of their birth sex.) Be prepared to change how you physically navigate the world. People will treat you differently. It will become much less safe to walk out alone at night. You may get catcalled. People will expect you to act in a feminine social role. And if you don’t, you will be judged for it. You will get talked over. Your ideas will go unheard. Sticking up for yourself will get you labeled as “difficult” or “aggressive.” Basically you get all the crap that gets piled on cis women, plus the crap that gets piled on trans people.
Really talk with your partner. Are they really up for this? Most cis people really don’t understand just how much transition can change. Cis people tend to think of transition as a very cosmetic thing; most don’t even know what hormones do. They think breast implants and genital surgery. That is what transition means to them. They really fail to understand that if you go on HRT, you are very literally altering your sex at a fundamental level. They’re not anticipating the entire smell and pheromone profile of their partner changing. They’re not anticipating the changes in body hair, muscle and fat distribution, genital changes, etc that come with hormones, or even just the change in behavior that often comes with transition. And it’s very common for partners to want to make the relationship work. They’ll say, “I’ll love you no matter what,” and they will actually mean it. But you can’t control what you’re attracted to. If someone is attracted to masculine bodies, they’re attracted to male secondary sex characteristics. They can’t help it. They can’t change it any more than a gay person can choose to be straight. But because cis people think transition is cosmetic, they often feel that as long as they’re not bigoted, they can still love their partner and be with them. Then their partner’s secondary sex characteristics completely flip, and they lose all sexual attraction to them. Personally, if I was in this situation, unless my partner had a clear history of bisexuality - having actually slept with both men and women prior to me transitioning - I would assume the relationship to be doomed. Sometimes people can make it work. But transition in many ways fundamentally changes your sex. You are becoming a woman. If your partner isn’t attracted to cis women, they probably won’t remain attracted to you. You can still remain close lifelong friends, but realistically, the vast majority of relationships that are “straight” at the time one partner comes out end up not working out long term.
Learn to dress to your strengths. If you’re like most trans women, you probably have wider shoulders than you would prefer. Certain clothes look good on different body types. Learn how to dress yours.
Sorry for the info dump. This wasn’t meant to be a coherent thing, just a collection of tips and things to think about. I may add others later as well. For background, I’m a trans gal myself. 15 years HRT and living out, 13 post FFS and SRS. I have extensive experience both with the transition process and navigating the world as a newly transitioned woman. Feel free to ask any questions you might have.
This is all great advice and matches my experiences at 11 years hrt. I will add three things here:
Passing for cis isn’t binary, I’ve been misgendered consistently by some coworkers at the same facility where another coworker asked about my birth control before correcting himself upon remembering I’m married to a woman.
Your height may decide how often you pass for cis. The tallgirls subreddit taught me that at my height even gorgeous cis women get misgendered and assumed trans. The majority of women at heights at which this happens are cis.
I really need to second point 8. You won’t just be called a difficult bitch, you’ll also be accused of being a man or whatever else a person can think of to hurt you. Cis women can get away with more aggression than you, I’ve hidden behind plenty of them. Oh and the professional discrimination is brutal and many people will refuse to believe it
Your point three really hits hard. It’s amazing how often respect, even among allies, can be contingent. Among some folks, do something they don’t like? They’ll weaponize your birth sex against you. You can see this tendency in response to news stories. Trans people are just like any other group - there’s saints and sinners among us. Some of any group end up being sociopaths who do terrible things. When a trans woman does something legitimately horrible, you’ll see even allies aggressively misgendering them. When I see that, it’s a clear reminder that they don’t truly view trans identities as legitimate. They respect or humor your identity based on politeness, but they truly don’t view it as real. No one starts calling a cis woman a man when they commit some horrible crime. A cis woman could literally rape and murder children - she still wouldn’t be called a man. She would be called a monster, but her gender would not be stripped from her. The same is not true for trans women.
But yeah, in normal social interactions, I absolutely get the lack of aggression. I consistently feel the need to be less assertive and aggressive than cis women.
Yeah, though I will present a counter argument for why they do that.
A) I do think there’s are a lot of people who see us as a separate third gender (an experience I also find myself getting as a lesbian), and I think they’re on both sides. This comes down to the fact that even the people who insist up and down that they see me as a man still mistreat me in a feminine way. Even when I was terribly disliked pre transition there was a respect and deference I received that I just don’t anymore. Man hating terfs treat me differently now than then and it is more in line with how misogynists treat me.
This is especially the case with supposed allies (and sometimes trans men) weaponizing my assigned sex at birth. They aren’t treating me like a man, they’re engaging in female socialization of me in a way that is comfortable to them. They can push feminine expectations onto us while still acknowledging that those same expectations are damaging to themselves by using this.
B) More importantly, it’s a shut up button. It’s irrelevant to what they think and believe because it’s an easy way to force us to back down. It’s an easy way to force us to be smaller, to be quiet, to pressure us to put up with shit. It’s the only explanation for why I see it used by trans men on us and by cis monosexuals on their trans partners. People who clearly do genuinely see us as our gender pull it out for these purposes.
When a trans woman does bad things, the misgendering her seems to also be an attempt to just hurt her, invalidate her, etc. The right will focus on her trying to frame us all as evil and some on the left will attempt to claim she’s not really a trans woman (sometimes accepting right wing narratives in the process), or just the “this is a bad person, we hurt bad people, misgendering is how you hurt a trans person.” And I’m not even going to go into v coding of trans prisoners, which most people don’t even know about, and some who do still don’t care about how it’s a material reason to not put trans women in men’s prisons.
C) Yeah the pressure to be meek and infinitely understanding for fear of hurting us all. The fucking gamestop video ensured I ask cis friends to correct people who misgender me. I have a friend who offers to be a Karen for me because she knows how afraid I am of standing up for myself in public. Hell this has contributed to my difficulties maintaining my boundaries (not entirely related to being trans), which has resulted in some traumatic experiences.
I hide behind cis people I learn I can trust for a reason, and I didn’t start out that way. Since starting transition I’ve been heavily in lesbian spaces and communities. I was “taught womanhood” by tough dykes who encouraged assertiveness in each other and me. It’s just that eventually I learned all the above and how to gage if a space or group will treat me ok when I stand up for myself.
Conclusion: Sorry this went on way longer than I expected it to. But yeah, for anyone reading this for whom it’s all new information or stuff you’ve experienced but haven’t heard much of people talking about it, if you look into transfeminism you’ll find more of it and even some arguments on why and what to do from people who are much better at feminist theory than a woman who’s sitting around writing lemmy comments at work. Transmisogyny is difficult, and yet transitioning is still the best decision I ever made. I’m genuinely happy, I just would like these difficulties to go away.
And there are cis people I sincerely trust, and not even a shortage of them. My best friends are cis and treat me as fully a woman. My ex would occasionally forget I was trans because it was only sometimes relevant. Hell one casual acquaintance got cheated on by his ex husband with a trans man friend of his because the acquaintance was “too fem” and at no point even when hurting about it did he treat the other man as anything other than a full man.
Edit to add: This is part of why I feel making friends with other trans women is vital, even if you’re looking to go stealth. It’s so important to have other people in your life who have first hand experiences with this stuff.
Oh number 3 really hurts but it’s so true. I’m stealth at my remote job now and I thank my lucky stars every day I managed to pull that off lol Being trans in the workplace and working on site is an awful experience.
Yeah, at some point I need to fix my voice enough to try to do stealth. But also, see number 2… But also in my career, having some masculinity is recommended for being taken seriously. So I’m out here with the “succeed as a woman in my field” advice being often at odds with the “how to pass” advice.
Oh yeah I feel that 100%
Honestly voice training is one of if not the absolute hardest thing I’ve had to do so far but it makes a huge difference in how people perceive you.
Yeah it’s a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse in that there’s no easy fix. You can’t just sit back and let hormones change your voice, at least not for trans gals. And it is just so so much work. As a blessing though, it’s one of the few things that actually can be changed through sheer effort alone. There’s no willing away beard shadow, for instance. And if you are able to master a feminine voice, it does wonders for passing.