to help with razor burn, sanitize your razor with 70% rubbing alcohol

lol, I also spent a lot of time on /r/egg_irl and knew about egg culture and so on, and still didn’t get that I was an egg. I found the memes relatable and while it was fine to joke that I might be an egg, I didn’t take it seriously.

I’m in the U.S.

After some therapy I called up my primary care physician (PCP), told my nurse I have gender dysphoria and would like a referral to an endrocrinologist, and then gave the information about the endo so they could send over the referral.

Then the endo called me and I made an appointment, the first available was 3 months away. The endo thought it was obvious I should be on estrogen and sent the prescription in immediately, and I was able to pick up the estrogen that day.

Sometimes the psychologist can send the referral rather than the PCP, but my PCP was happy to send it (I got lucky, my PCP was randomly trans-affirming and turns out, unknown to me, they had other trans patients). So one way this can get bogged down is if your psychologist or PCP isn’t willing to send a referral to an endo, or if you’re relying on the PCP for the HRT, they just won’t write you the Rx.

Another way this can get bogged down is if the wait time to see the endo is longer, or if the endo decides they aren’t sure they should prescribe you the HRT.

This is why it’s good to talk to the local trans community to know which therapists, PCPs, and endos to see. If the community doesn’t know, sometimes there are resources and directories collected online - I found my endo through the Trans in the South guide.

Yes, this is a major downside of the current medical and legal approach to minors (similar problems are found with abortion services, e.g. laws requiring parental consent for a minor to receive an abortion).

However, this article seems to have an intention and rhetorical goal of setting the record straight on the reality of trans gender affirming care in the context of a moral panic generated through misinformation and manipulation. The article’s intended audience is likely skeptical of trans identity and reflexively against gender affirming care for minors, and so it makes sense they emphasize how careful and conservative the current medical approach is to such care.

It’s a political asset that the gender affirming care is broken this way because it makes trans-skeptical people more comfortable with it, which should allow it to continue to exist in a world where people operate with the actual facts about the situation, even when they are ignorant or skeptical about the reality of trans identity.

Ultimately the medical establishment does have to be sensitive to the political and cultural context to avoid being shut down, so sometimes it’s a matter of making compromises to provide what they can even if it falls short of the ethical and clinical ideal (and let’s not mince words, this does mean people will die for political convenience, but the question is how many more would die if they were not conservative in their approach and were shut down completely?)

Naturally a common response to this is to reject the whole project of supporting or depending on the medical establishment’s flawed programs, but I think this critique tends to be hyper-individualist and assumes every trans person can overcome the social and financial context they are in and provide their own gender affirming care (or that alternatives to the medical stablishment would be able to fill everyone’s needs). Needless to say, rejecting gender affirming care from the medical establishment leaves behind the majority of people needing that care, and has obvious limits and problems such as not being able to realistically offer surgeries and risks legal trouble for everyone involved.

We need to realize how important this fight is for the long-term future of trans people and their health, and how that requires working with the medical establishment and investing in those compromised projects.

thanks for the pic! very practical, love that in a purse. Thicker strap is more functional and fits this purse well - easier and more comfortable to carry on your shoulder, and across the chest.

I have a few purses that look like this one, love it! 🖤

P.S. your English is great 😊

oo, what does it look like?

I remember first buying a purse when I was a teenager (unaware of my gender issues).

There was this weird conflict brewing inside me, debating whether I could get away with buying and having a purse - would my mom let me? Would my dad find out and threaten me? Would I get bullied at school?

My girlfriend at the time was with me and was so supportive, she was the real reason I felt the freedom to take that little step, to sheepishly choose a purse and buy it.

Wearing a purse was one of the few gender non-conforming activities I took a risk on when growing up: I wore a purse everywhere in high school and didn’t stop as an adult.

Usually of course I chose purses that were more subdued (in colors of browns, blacks, greys) and usually plain and not too feminine in style. But I corrected people when they called it a “man-bag”, insisting it’s really just a purse.

So yay for purses, have a great purse day, enjoy that mojito!! 🥂💖

it’s probably so much worse

yes, and the second one as well - I like your style!

and are inline spoilers supported? seems like only block style spoilers afaik

yay pics!! I love that first one 😍

right!? I don’t like complaining about pronoun circles too much because I understand they’re important for some folks, but I wish zealous liberals were a little more sensitive in their application.

Often times evading the pronoun question came across to people as transphobic and reactionary. I suspect this was also why so often in pronoun circles the facilitator clarified that an answer was required, which only made me (ironically usually the only trans person in the room) distressed and stigmatized.

Just making the question a little more optional could help people who need to disclose identity and pronouns to do so, and people who don’t mind identifying to do so, but still leave an escape hatch for the gender-distressed in the room 😅

not sure if you’re trans yourself, but in case this helps: as a trans person, when someone gets my pronouns wrong, it’s more important to me to know they aren’t doing it maliciously, so catching it and correcting yourself or just showing any kind of awareness or quick apology helps clarify in the situation that you aren’t trying to be malicious or denying my gender.

The intention matters more than the mistake is what I’m trying to say - the mistake itself is not a big deal when I’m visibly trans and I expect people to get it wrong, I just want to know if you’re safe to be around or not, basically.

Though I should say, once I was less visibly trans and cis-passing, a mispronouning can be devastating to me. Since it’s rare, when it does happen, it makes me think I’ve done something terribly wrong with my gender presentation or the way I am speaking - it feels dehumanizing and totally disturbing now.

But tbh, the mispronouning only happens now with people who knew me before I transitioned, and usually only when they have not spent much time around me since I transitioned. They mostly remember me as my pre-transition self. It’s habituated for them to refer to me as he/him regardless of my presentation, and when they look at me they are used to seeing a man, so they don’t see a woman but instead they notice all the markers of my maleness.

Meanwhile, cis strangers who have no history seeing me as a man don’t know to look for male markers, and what they see is a woman so they never notice the discrepancies and they never get the pronouns wrong.

Not all trans people have the same experiences, though - some are more disturbed by mispronouning regardless, so it’s important to understand the sensitivities or experiences of the individual. I just wanted to give you my perspective in case it helps.

🤦‍♀️

tbh I have these kinds of interactions all the time and often the person doesn’t even realize they made the mistake - I wouldn’t necessarily assume the immediate mispronouning was intentional - in this context it seems more likely they were not thinking rather than trying to openly defy or bully.

You have to remember, most people are not used to thinking about what pronouns they are using and it’s a mostly unconscious / automatic process based on quick judgements about a person’s gender. Even I find myself doing this when in trans spaces, when I’m taking my time speaking I can use the right pronouns, but when I get excited or otherwise start thinking and speaking too quickly, I fall back to those automatic and less conscious ways of using pronouns and end up mispronouning people. I do think practice helps incorporate pronoun awareness, over time it gets easier to use someone’s pronouns and to not make mistakes for example.

Not to say bullying isn’t a possibility - it definitely happens, and I’ve had moments where it felt like my colleagues at work were intentionally referring to me with the wrong pronoun and then correcting themselves with a kind of smirk. That just has a particular feel, though - it feels intentional. Much harder to know from an email like this, though, whether it is defiance or a slip of the mind.

When I was an egg and was asked for my preferred pronouns, I usually got really uncomfortable - I never felt like I could ask for she/her pronouns (nothing about my gender presented as female, it didn’t feel like she/her was appropriate), and all other options felt inaccurate or wrong (they/them being clunky and awkward and demanding too much energy from others to change the way they refer to me while not feeling affirming to me anyway, and the default he/him feeling like a lie or even an injustice).

So in my frustration I just started to say I don’t have preferred pronouns - none of the options were great, and that’s not my fault. Referring to me with pronouns is on others, basically - I didn’t want to be involved in that game, people will he/him me but that’s on them and I’m not going to tell people that’s what I prefer.

The pronoun question was extremely uncomfortable for me, and I came to hate that question, really hate it - and to resent the culture and people who perpetuated forced pronoun circles (this was more common in liberal and leftist spaces I was in IRL, like DSA meetings). It felt coercive and like gender policing.

Of course that’s not the only perspective on pronoun circles, I understand they exist to accommodate certain identities that benefit from having an opportunity to explicitly clarify preferred pronouns (e.g. imagine going by Spivak pronouns, how awkward to always have to introduce your pronouns in every conversation - having the default be that people politely ask pronouns first can be a way to take some of the burden off that individual, and make them feel respected and welcome rather than the default assumption that they’re either he/him or she/her based on gender expression alone).

And once I transitioned, the annoyance of pronoun circles diminished, since now I feel my gender expression aligns with she/her and there is no more dissonance there, I can answer the question. But I still feel this pronoun circle practice can be problematic, esp. for trans people who are struggling (either closeted, or in denial, etc.). I have sympathy for people who, like me, struggle with being asked to explicitly affirm a gender that doesn’t fit them at the start of every interaction or meeting.

well, my problem with bleeding is pretty specific to my wound separation complications- it’s possible you would have the same problems, but it’s also possible you wouldn’t have this issue at all if the skin graft takes. It seems like the bleeding most came from where the skin had sloughed off and the suture site was just exposed flesh.

Still, not applying pressure by sitting is the best general advice, and straining on the toilet all the time could get problematic for you. After each bowel movement I have been told to wipe the whole area with Dakin solution (basically like bleach water), to keep the feces from infecting the sutures which are so near the anus. It’s tedious and I have found a lot of basic tasks can become a little exhausting. Not sure how to best prepare for that, though.

In the past I struggled with IBS too, but it seemed to reduce as my mental health improved, esp. once on estrogen. Now it’s rare for me, though I got it right before surgery while waiting to be taken to the operating room. So I can somewhat relate to how distressing that can be. For me I can even get nervous about getting IBS, and that can make my IBS more likely.

I would really suggest doing upper body and core exercises, you need a lot of strength to go from lying down to standing without ever sitting or putting pressure on the sutures. Same with lowering yourself onto a toilet carefully and so on.

I didn’t expect recovery to be so physically demanding this way, so going into it healthy and strong seems like a great way to optimize if at all possible.

ha, no - that’s part of the Project 2025 plan to genocide trans people 🫠

Sorry for the delay, I want to come back to this and I am feeling myself becoming perfectionistic about my response (leading me to not respond at all), but in short I think you’re right. You have captured the essence of the problem, I think: I have had to justify my transition, and all that pressure has created a certain way of thinking about transition that then becomes normative and gets externalized or projected onto others.

There are only a few corrections I would make, e.g. I didn’t mean to imply the “I’m a fucking bad ass and can endure” mindset, but something adjacent to it, more that making sacrifices for the people in your life is a virtuous thing. It’s more about being pro-social than about being macho, if that makes sense. But I think that perspective of mine still misses the point you make, which is that it’s not the kind of moral sacrifice the Mennonite engages in, you are not doing it for your partner, but for yourself because you value your partner. This is just not the same.

Think of it this way - In trying to stess test my transition choices by finding fault this way binary trans people are doing what cis people did to them just in reverse - The requesting or coercing of trans people to defend their transition choices.

This was really helpful framing, thank you for your insights. I still haven’t reconciled my internal cognitive dissonance (i.e. a part of me still thinks there is a way to justify transition as being normative), but either way it is clear to me that this is complicated and the attempt to “help” can create a lot of harm.

I think this is related a bit to the egg prime directive and the culture formed around not telling someone they are actually a trans person in denial. On the one hand if a person is trans and in denial there is a lot of potential harm from that denial and there is a sense of urgency to helping the person past that denial so they can avoid the harm. On the other hand, no one can make those decisions or force that awareness on the person who may or may not actually be trans, even when it seems clear.

Being forced to justify not transitioning is a kind of gender policing, even if a kind of policing in the opposite direction as the dominant ideology (which tells you not to be trans and not to transition).

While there might be a need for some way to help people overcome the social situation preventing them from realizing they are trans and keeping them from transitioning, it’s clear to me those methods shouldn’t be coercive, like the way you mention feeling stress-tested about your decisions around transition.

I have a lot to think through, but I am genuinely challenged by your perspective and this has been so extremely valuable to me - I cannot thank you enough.

Well feel free to reach out if you do get the surgery and want support (or if there’s anything I can do to help you along the way). 🧡

I think I still feel very dissociated about the whole surgery - it’s like I’ve just put myself on a “transition track” and it has led me here. When I first transitioned I didn’t want a vaginoplasty, I only wanted an orchi. I was curious and spent a lot of time afraid of the surgery and obsessively reading about it. The decision flipped after 4 - 6 months on estrogen I believe, at that point it became clear I should get the surgery. Personally it even just felt pragmatic at a certain point, I just want to feel like a “normal” woman (I’m aware that whole idea is fucked up, but I’m subject to it anyway - I have yet to find a way to think my way out of dysphoria and internalized transphobia and misogyny).

My situation is very unusual in that I socially transitioned less than two years ago … only a minority of trans women get bottom surgery ever (only 5 - 10% have had it while 45 - 54% desire it). And those that do eventually get it typically have to plan and wait a very long time, sometimes 5 - 10 years esp. in European countries where gender affirming care is woefully underserved and they have to wait years just for consultations and so on. This puts me in a very privileged position (and that was despite initially being denied all gender affirming care due to an illegal policy that is currently being litigated and is tied up in the courts).

All of this makes me feel so guilty, like I didn’t suffer or desire enough to deserve the surgery, there are so many girls who should be ahead of me in line, so to speak (even though that’s not really the issue - the way healthcare is unfairly made accessible to some and not others is the problem, not that some of us are taking the care from others; simply by having a professional job I am granted access to an insurance plan that makes this possible).

Besides feeling undeserving, I also didn’t even feel the direct desire for a vaginoplasty. It feels like I made the decision on principle, a kind of clinical reasoning rather than rooted in a transparent sense of desire. I was able to connect with that desire when I considered the prospect of not being able to have the surgery, but it was hard for me to actually want the surgery. I think even now it’s hard for me to allow myself to feel happy about it, there are a lot of mixed feelings happening.

I believe I had sufficient evidence to know I had bottom dysphoria, but I always saw it as mild to moderate (though I have a history of underestimating the severity of my dysphoria … I mean, since I was a teenager I have had intrusive thoughts / compulsions to mutilate my genitals, and I have very early memories of feeling something was wrong with my genitals from when I was 4 - 5 years old).

Since the surgery I’m only now beginning to realize the depth of the bottom dysphoria - it’s been weird to feel ashamed or embarrassed for genitals I don’t have anymore, and then to realize I have habitually felt that shame my entire life and only now realize I was feeling it (and that maybe that wasn’t normal), and then to realize I don’t have to feel it anymore. It’s a lot to process.

I feel I owe so much to the trans folks who have come before me and created these possibilities for me. It’s hard to feel simultaneously so privileged and lucky, and to feel not privileged enough to enable me to significantly pay my luck forward or to make the kinds of contributions that would free up access to gender-affirming care to more people. These are political problems, ultimately, and I’m just one person with barely enough resources to cope with my own situation. But I do want to contribute and help in the ways I can personally, so I hope others can find what I have learned helpful, at least. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

keep light

gate boss

girl gas