Turns out I’ve got major gender problems and wish I had been born a girl. [Removed as it was pointed out how problematic and doomer my sentiment was] I’m well past puberty and am very masculine-looking. The dysphoria’s gotten worse over the years though, or maybe the gender affirming feelings have gotten more tempting as I’ve stopped being in denial so much and have explored a bit of transitional stuff — shaving, doing my hair different, less masculine clothing. But I just don’t know what to do next.
I’m terrified by the idea of trying to hormonally transition, mostly because I have a very high sex drive and am very attached to it. Dysphoria about the shape of my genitals aside, I do want my dick to keep getting hard, I want to still be able to orgasm from using it, and I want to still produce cum for my partner to enjoy. From what I’ve read hormonal transitioning would eventually disable all of those, and I feel for me that would be even worse than not transitioning.
I’m also pretty strong and muscular, and I don’t want to lose that muscle and put on a bunch of fat from going on estrogen, which I’ve seen happen to couple friends who’ve transitioned.
So, hormonal transitioning looks too risky for me. Still, I thought maybe I could still achieve a good degree of comfort with non hormonal transitioning, maybe getting rid of all the body hair for a start. But when it comes to non hormonal transitional steps it all feels so incredibly daunting. I’ve been “blessed” with prodigious masculinity, the ability to grow hair all over my body like a beast. Shaving is a pain and I grow hair so fast that my face turns into stubble in less than a day after shaving.
Nonhormonal transitional steps I’ve considered: Shaving all over. Problem: I’ve only shaved a bit of my body and it gets really old and time-consuming really fast.
Laser hair removal. Problem: Supposed to be very expensive, and it works better on people with white skin and light, fair hair, neither of which have I (EDIT: CORRECTION: works better with dark hair so at least I have that going for me). In particular the at-home DIY machines do not work as well in those use cases, and without training there’s more risk of damaging your own skin trying to do it.
Electrolysis hair removal: I had a bit done in the past on my face. It was not super effective, takes a lot of sessions, and was very painful even with a local anesthetic cream. On top of that, while I might be able to have it done on much of my body it is impossible to have done on my face because of Covid — I’d have to take off my respirator and that’s not happening unless I could find a practitioner wearing an N95 in an isolated room with heavy air filtration.
More drastic nonhormonal steps — facial feminization surgery, breast implants — are even more inaccessible because at this point very few healthcare practitioners give a shit about Covid so it’s nigh impossible to see a surgeon or even get to a gender care clinic. Regardless, the uncontrollable hair is a big barrier — I wouldn’t want to consider other options before getting it dealt with in the first place.
Everything seems so painful, risky, and dauntingly expensive to the point where idk how I could afford it anyway.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you, comrades.
it’s way too late to do anything about it now though, I’m well past puberty
Sorry for jumping down your throat in a second, but that shit needs to be dressed, and by that i mean i have to call it out. I get how common this is, but it’s still wrong and that needs to be corrected.
What you have there is a toxic mindset that’s actively harmful to all trans people who aren’t lucky enough to have gone on puberty blockers before any physical changes happened. Which is practically all of us. You’re telling literally every single trans person i know, me, my closest friends and everybody i dated or crushed on over the last years that you find something’s fundamentally wrong about our bodies and that you reject us and see us as failures. That assumption is as wrong, flawed and reactionary as it is insulting. I can’t even get into how insulting it is because that would get this post deleted for hostility and getting this out there is too important for that.
People forget how incredibly rare it is to avoid first puberty entirely, most trans folks don’t even crack early enough to make it an option in theory and that’s before all the hurdles like transphobic parents, medical gatekeeping or genocidal legislation. Most of the underage kids who are in gender affirming care in the first place only got there after they started going through most of or a significant part of their first puberty, taking blockers to prevent it from progressing further. Most people also can’t afford FFS, either and we’re still out there living our lives. I know a ton of trans girls who transitioned in their 30s or 40s who “pass” (fuck passing, btw) and look hot, myself included. The idea that you need to avoid your first puberty to “successfully” transition is incredibly transphobic and cissexist egg shit and you can’t do yourself a greater favor than cutting that reddit bs out ASAP. I know that’s easier said than done, i know that the first steps in a process that takes literal years are daunting, but it starts paying off early on already and a closet ain’t a place to live. I can tell you that much, i’ve tried running away from these truths for a couple decades and i’m honestly surprised i am still alive after doing that to myself. Being an instantly clockable trans woman is still better than perfectly passing as something that makes you miserable.
As far as the dick stuff goes, you can train your body to get erections on E, it just means you need to keep at it and get hard every other day or so. That’s ofc tricky for most of us, but viagra works fine, most of the transfem tops i know use it and these people have way better sex lifes than your average cissie loser. I’m not exaggerating here, i know so many transfems who seriously start living in a fucking porno once they’re past the first few years of questioning and getting their shit together and accepting themselves for who they are (and yes, all of them are people who started out in the same place as you, because i do not know anybody who got on hormones before they were 20 at the earliest). Coming to terms with your own queerness is one of the biggest game changers when it comes to getting laid, i seriously don’t know a single transfem who had a better dating life before she came out (caveat: i don’t hang out with straight trans women, things might be more difficult for them). You can’t function in relationships when you completely fake who you are.
Thank you for calling that out, I’ve removed it so as not to perpetuate a harmful myth, and I’m sorry for engaging in it. I hadn’t meant it in that way but I see the implications and yeah they’re not great or even what I believe about other people. There’s a weird double-standard going on for me I think, like “oh all these other people have transitioned but I could never” and I’m not sure it’s entirely logical.
“Everyone’s (X) but me” is actually a very common thing among dysphoric trans women, i see that al the time. I mean, i get it to a degree, i have bottom dysphoria in spite of being completely fine with my partners not having bottom surgery. How we see our body isn’t necessarily the same as how we see others. But there’s some basic viewpoints that will come back to haunt trans people if we don’t question them, and the whole “it’s over” meme is absolutely one of them.
it works better on people with white skin and light, fair hair
correction, dark hair.
Oh cool thanks for correcting me on that! I got so disheartened when I misread that that I stopped looking at it.
re: hormones. anecdotally i know a bunch of trans women whose dicks still work. they still get hard, they still orgasm, and they still produce cum. similarly, i know trans women who didn’t lose any muscle while on e. you’d need to work out a bunch and it takes effort, but it’s very possible
ultimately it is your choice, but neither of those two factors are as insurmountable as you seem to think
i could have written this myself. im basically at your phase right now.
(CW some dysphoria/self doubt thoughts/health anxiety ahead)
i’m solidly middle aged now and the thought of having to work out nonstop to maintain my mombod makes me exhausted just thinking about it
that and i am agonizing over (what i perceive as) going from being a supposedly attractive middle aged guy to a (what my fears think will be) a fucked up looking butch monster woman. i used to have a really feminine face but age has masculinized it. i don’t think HRT will turn back the clock
and my muscle mass and activity level is keeping me somewhat trim and i’m so afraid HRT will slow me down and make me gain shit loads of weight.
that and everything is in crazy equilibriam. i’m privileged to be bafflingly healthy despite my attempts to circumvent it when younger. i’m so afraid changing my hormones will upset some balance and give me super cancer or destroy my immune system. everything seems so fine tuned and i’m terrified of going the doctor route and getting a shitty doctor or being put on a list
everything else you wrote i have felt, am feeling, and also mulling over constantly
ACTUAL ADVICE:
only difference is i long ago abandoned orgasms that require being erect. if you want to explore your options there, get a cheap magic wand or knock-off and see if that works for you. it can give some real gender euphoria once you realize you can get off in an amazing way without an erection.
my partner is AFAB but was never really into penetration until more recently. if you enjoy that you can always try a good strap-on.
experienced transfemmes on HRT will probalbly tell you your sex drive changes more then simply “decreases”. it’s a metamorphosis
and there’s always viagra!
with regards to sex drive and producing cum, I’ve heard of women being prescribed topical T gel to be rubbed on the genitalia to preserve function, along with utilizing cialis.
