Ammount of courage I got from comments on my first post here is insane, without that I probably would never do what I did. This will be a long post with a bit of rambling.

While I was alone at home I put on my mom’s bra and got some mixed feelings. Bra was great and I’d like to wear those things but it made me feel dysphoric because my body is too big for it. I wanted to put on more of her clothes (dress or something like that) but decided to don’t do it in fear that she will relize someone picked up her clothes. This is my first time actually thinking about fashon, normally I just wear clothes that is comfortable and I hate amything formal (even jeans are too much for me).

After that I installed FaceApp and used gender swaping filter on one photo of me. Normally I don’t take photos of myself, never saw the appeal, but I love this edited photo. When I look at it it feels like that’s who I am. It also looks like I’m wearing a dress there because wind changed the shape of shirt on my arm and rest of it is covered by hair, it made me love the photo even more when I saw it. It also helped me relize one important thing about my beard. I never shave because not having beard feels so wrong but now I relized that feminine face looks even better. Only thing I don’t like about the photo is jaw, it still looks musculine.

I’m also playing games more than before, they allow me to feel more feminine. I even started using feminine forms of verbs and adjectives (this doesn’t exist in english) while playing making me feel even more feminine.

So yeah, there is no way to deny it at this point. I’m a girl. I’m slowly accepting that. It feels great and awful at the same time. Can’t wait to see what future holds for me after this. This is a big weight off my shoulders. I didn’t pick a feminine name yet, any tips on that would be really helpful.

I’d like to come out to people in my life but it isn’t safe. In country where I live most people are very religious and everything that has any connection to LGBT is considered bad. I pretty much know how my parents would react to this. When I came out as atheist to them they were devastated. We had a long talk where I tried to explain my position but they couldn’t understand. After that we never talked about that and they behave like they don’t know anything. Best case scenario with this would probably be them deadnaming and missgendering me. With other people it’s even worse. Sometimes I hear people talking about stoning LGBT people to death so I’m scared that coming out would put my life in danger.

I thought about HRT for few weeks already and it’s something I deffinitely want. From what I could find on the internet it looks like our gender affirming care is decent but there are two problems I see with it. First is that there aren’t many specialists and literally all of them are in the capital. That basically means that if I went to therapist there is a really high chance that they won’t have any experience with trans people. Second problem is that hormones for feminizing HRT aren’t available in my country and our health care system doesn’t cover them so buying from other countries is only option and it’s more expensive. Going to another country is also option, I actually tought about that even before questioning my gender because of me being an atheist in a very religious conutry, but it looks like that would mean waiting more to start HRT.

I basically decided to wait untill I’m not dependant on my parents to come out and start medical transition, it’s safest option and things may change to the better in near future. At least I don’t have much problems with dysphoria at the moment, I mostly just feel euphoria, but I’m aware that dysphoria will become worse over time.

Thanks to everyone who read all of this, it means much to me. I just wantend to share this to someone and this is safest place to do it.

  • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Congrats on figuring things out! Remember that you don’t necessarily have it all 100% correct and that it’s ok to be mistaken, one day you might go “actually I am not a woman” and what that means for you (gender fluid, nonbinary, even cis male, it happens) is up to you.

    Picking a name is up to you entirely. A lot of trans women end up choosing a plants name. A few more of them choose a 3 letter name for no reason other than it’s a cool name. Personally I looked at the people who inspired me, be they real of fictional. Experiment and see what feels good to you, for me once I figured mine out I knew right away that that was the one. Your experience may differ of course, and as always it’s always ok to change your mind.

    For example in our friend group, one trans person changed their name multiple times and asked us to refer to them with a new name every so often. This is fine. It’s not a burden on your friends to ask them to switch the name they call you, if they were going to do it in the first place.

    Tip about figuring out your name: voice assistants can use your name if you ask them, and they sure don’t care what your legal name is. They’re great for trying out new names if you feel like they would be silly, it’s an exterior voice calling you that.

    Best of luck to you, I know life sucks if you’re stuck with religious parents, but it gets better.