(This is a throwaway alt for my main lemmy account because I don’t want to doxx myself. I’m an ally, and my daughter is transfem, but I understand I am not. If I need to remove this post, please let me know.)

Hey all

Early this year I came out as enby. The day I came out, I decided to do something with my mid-back length long hair to feel more femme. As I combed it and actually looked in the mirror for the first time in years, I saw I had thinning hair, looked with an additional mirror/my phone, and sadly came to the realization I had the first few steps of male pattern baldness. I can still ‘hide’ it by combing my hair back, using a small-tooth comb, etc, but soon I won’t be able to hide it.

To my surprise this caused me a massive amount of dysphoria, and I realised that I had only ever been ‘clocked’ as feminine due to my hair, so I had made the connection between the two. I can’t use the hair foams because they are toxic to cats and I would rather die than hurt my cat. I tend to react negatively to a fair number of medicines so the pill options are pretty scary, particularly with ‘permanent E.D.’ being out there. My doctor said I was a good candidate for microneedling/hair transplants, but those are far, far too expensive for me.

My male friends just told me to buzz it off and be done with it. My female/enby friends told me to keep it long for now and go back to my hairdresser when it becomes harder to hide.

I wanted to reach out to my transfem sisters and siblings to see:

Do if any of you had any advice for someone who feels at least part feminine, but doesn’t know what to do to be more femme when shaved headed, or like when to shave their head, etc? Should I just work on my makeup/earring/accessory skills?

Thank you so much <3

Forgot to say I am from Canada if that helps any.

  • Pirky@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 days ago

    Obligatory, I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. This is just my own personal experience.

    I’m also an enby with some hairloss, but up front instead of in the back. I’m currently taking finasteride, 1mg/day, and have been on it for 2 years now. As far as I can tell it’s stopped the hair loss. I was also really concerned about the side effects, but they’re particularly rare last I checked the stats.
    The one side effect I dealt with was hives near the start, but after a week they stopped showing up and I’ve been fine since.
    The nice thing about fin is if you have any side effects, you can stop taking it and they’ll go away. It’s very rare for them to persist after discontinuing use. If you do get finasteride, I recommend getting it through Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Pharmacy. I know this sounds like a shameless plug, and it kind of is, but their prices are really good: a 90 day supply, with shipping, is less than $15 total. Compared to, last I checked, about $45 for a single month from a local pharmacy.

    I tried minoxidil over the summer which did help regrow some hair, but I stopped in August as I didn’t enjoy having to apply it twice a day. On top of that, it was a spray type and would travel down my hair, making it look messy almost right away, which I really disliked. That also led to it getting on parts of my skin where I didn’t want it.
    The spray version also contains propylene glycol which is a skin irritant and would make that area itchy and red. Though there are foam options that don’t contain it, so you could try that route.

    I recently started dermarolling that area, but it’s way too soon to tell if that’s making an impact. It’s important to prep the skin if you roll it to avoid any infections/pimples. I wipe the area with isopropyl, then roll, wipe with iso again, then apply some kind of moisturizer. The skin will be red for a day or two, but I only do it once a week.

    I’m considering doing a transplant, but I need to look into that more first to see what to expect.

    Hopefully this helps! And if you have any questions, I can try to answer them.

    Edit: typos