Good luck! And yeah I hope the trans community here on lemmy can be a good and supportive place. I know there’s a fair number of us here who are post transition

Yeah it was a hard lesson for me to learn. People only want to spend effort fixing things they think are worth fixing. If you could hate yourself better you’d have seen some improvement by now. Improving is hard and involves trying and failing. Self love is the key to not being discouraged when you face difficulties and fail.

And yeah, I’d check your area for trans support groups or meetups. Queer activism organizations like PFLAG may also be helpful. The closer to specifically trans something is the more of a red flag it is if you’re the only transfem present or there’s like one other one. Finding a bigger city is definitely going to help but you may surprise yourself, I found a good friend group when I lived in a smaller city.

And it’s fair to want a closer relationship too. Wanting a partner or best friend/sister figure is normal and these relationships are something we need to be allowed to want without shame. I have built a queer family in my life and I’m married now, and these are things that are worth fighting for. And I’m angry that there are some who try to shame my sisters who don’t have such relationships for wanting them as though our people are less human, less deserving of loving relationships.

You deserve these things, you may have to do some self work to be able to be healthy for others to have such relationships with you, or for them to want to have such a relationship with you, or maybe you’re already fine for them. But it’s just another reason to do that work, because you deserve the effort that that will take. You deserve the fruits of the internal work and of the external effort of going out and meeting people and trying to form ties with your fellow humans.

You got this sis

Yeah I never experienced that because I suspected everyone who offered such things wasn’t genuine. I have awesome cis friends who are genuine allies to trans women, but I still watch myself around them to try to ensure I’m not too much of a burden. And like, my cis now ex (only broke up because I moved away) genuinely was amazing as I was learning to be more feminine in my presentation, we’d go thrifting together and she’d push me towards dresses she thought I’d look good in.

I learned how to do makeup because other trans women taught me some tricks and I experimented and figured out most of it myself (anyone reading, yeah, you can ask other trans women for advice, especially feminine ones, and transfem friends may even help you with it more). And yeah, I really wish I could’ve had a big sister friend when I was early in transition. I transitioned somewhat young (20) and was in the early wave of a lot of people transitioning, so there weren’t many slightly more experienced trans women to go around.

I’m still afraid to ask my cis friends for feminine support and the like. They offer sometimes and I take them up on it, and I’m starting to be open talking transfeminism to them, but it’s terrifying considering how many stories like yours I’ve seen. And that’s despite how much of my transition has been cis lesbians explicitly welcoming me into community.

Tbph I’ve had really good cis women in my life, but I’ve also been shut down so many times by acquaintances and strangers to know not to push myself. I’m cautious and take a long time to trust because of that, and I’ve been hurt pretty badly because of my fear of standing up for myself.

I really wish we could rely on cis women for sisterhood, but we have to be here for each other and the cis women who want to be sisters to us can come join. Not separatism, but self reliance as a community. And more importantly, making sure the trans women in our lives know they can come to us and each other for sisterhood.

Irl socialization is absolutely vital and I’m smacking myself for forgetting to include it. Tbh it may have been more important than the CBT, it’s just that I did it alongside coming out (got involved in queer community). And if you’re transfeminine I’ll also say it’s especially good to make friends with other transfeminine people.

And yeah, no amount or self work will make you feel good in a bad environment, but it can be better and it can help you get out.

Also, it’s important to acknowledge self hate for what it is: a cognitive distortion. Maybe it’s completely unfounded, but even if there are real bad things you’ve done, self hate doesn’t make you better, it isn’t a penance, if anything it’s a distraction from becoming someone you can be proud to be.

You can do it!

And fr, I still was struggling a lot after I started transitioning. Dysphoria was my biggest problem, so I was a lot happier, but it took years of work including CBT to get to where I am now.

It’s ok to relate to characters that have hurt people. Sometimes good people have histories where they weren’t so good (not saying you weren’t good, I don’t know you outside of recognizing the username, though that said I also haven’t consumed either piece of media in the meme). This is growth. Sometimes it’s the characters I don’t like that I relate to that are the most valuable for me, because they show me a direction I should be improving in.

A lot of people in prolonged bad mental states such as dysphoria, trauma, or mental illness have a history of unintentionally hurting people. It doesn’t mean they don’t deserve happiness, it just means they need to learn to take care of themselves and how to stop unintentionally hurting people.

You’re not doomed, you just have other barriers to happiness to deal with first

Unwise but it’s your life and you’ll be there when you’re ready for it

Wait, we’re supposed to stop being doormsts after we transition?

Living as a target of transmisogyny has taught me the world actually wants us to hard commit to that doormat life

Unfortunately bottom surgery won’t stop them from excluding and hating you. I’m generally very pro bottom surgery, I love my pussy, but you need to want it for the right reasons or you’ll always ask what if

If you find you do want it for the right reasons though then get it girl

We’re often both though. Loudly encouraging rejection of gendered expectations and beauty standards is super common among us as we tend to be very vocal feminists. But we’re also often acutely aware that we’re held to much higher standards within those norms and we have a tendency to prefer to take every opportunity we can to culturally align ourselves with our gender.

Like, my legs are currently shaved, but I’ve been with women whose hairy legs just made them feel womanly.

Baggy flannel over a cute dress though

Femme lesbians have the best fashion

Very few people claim to be protecting a group while actually respecting them

I know that The Transsexual Empire (a book that calls for our elimination) basically says that.

Chasers are absolutely overrepresented in the aggressive transphobia community.

It’s been many years since I did the math, but I think it’s in the upper 6’ range where a woman becomes more likely to be trans. But on the other hand I’ve met more cis women that height than trans women

That and also there’s a lot of excitement early into having boobs

And yet my hand keeps going to my wife’s

They were fascist until the mid 70s. But it looks like after the carnation rebellion they unbanned all the books they had banned and they still struggle with the balance between their history and culture of censorship and their freedom of expression granted in their post rebellion constitution. One book was banned after liberalization, but was unbanned later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Portugal

That sounds so nice, I should ask my wife to do that

Nah, I was disowned for being trans, and that’s basically what parents who are bigoted against their kids are like.

Estranged parents as a whole are like that actually