Fluffy_Doggy_DG

joined 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Saying something unpopular here: I don't think that picture looks like "a cis woman" tbh. The hormones have definitely worked (if you aren't convinced I'd recommend comparing to a decent sized pre-HRT shot and really zoom in and compare details on facial features one at a time including things like preceived facial diameter, it's many details but they add up!) and you almost definitely don't want to drop the HRT unless your trying to physically detransition!

However, if we met on the street I'd immediately guess "trans-women" and looking at the picture I believe the reason for this unfortunately is facial bone structure, particularily the upper facial half: the forehead is rather steep and the brow ridge is on the more pronounced side as well. (Maybe also chin, but not a big deal really.) Unfortunately, this cannot be changed with surgery.

As others have pointed out this may not actually be the source of your problems, but if your disatisfied with your physical appearance, I think this may be the way to get remedy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I see, just wanted to add after the last post, since it sounded like full DIY may probably too risky from your description: The physical changes will be visible at some point and things might end up badly once they put one and one together.

So if anything, that’d only leave puberty blockers: They’re more expensive than just injections, but they’d stop any further T-related changes from occurring and it’d take many years before anyone would notice that something is “off” and by that time you’d already have had legal agency for a while. (Naturally, you'd have to procure them illegally since you don't have parenteral consent.)

(If you wish for physical changes toward a more feminine appearance getting your T down as soon as possible is unfortunatly pretty important for a good long-term result at your age.)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Since someone else mentioned it in a different context recently: Would DIY be helpful here? Or too risky? Not what you want? You'd need to hide the supplies somewhere out of your parent's reach, but the immediate and long-term benefits of starting early might be worth it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If it helps, starting DIY is really fine. The endocrinologist really doesn't do anything you can't do yourself with a monthly injection and a bloodtest (and even that is mostly for your own peace of mind). There are benefits in being "in the system" of course, but a lot depends on which doctor you end up with and what they prescribe: In the best-case it won't be worse than what you'd get DIY (medically speaking), so you still need to know a lot of things regardless of which route you take.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

That can work. We've been doing something similar: It's slow gains (~8kg/year) but it worked for us.

Changes were:

  • Increase all meal sizes by ~50% - At least for us it meant every meal went from being "decently filling" to "very (but not overly!) filling". Don't repeatedly, find the lining where it still feels OK and don't cross. There is a risk of loosing your body's sense of appitite when crossing repeatedly which causes serious long-term problems (eating disorder).
  • Use lots of unsaturated fats when cooking: Olive oil is great for this - It doesn't add much subjective weight to cooked foods, has a lot of kJ/g and doesn't cause any metabolic disorders if used in consumable quantities (unliked saturated acids or sugars).
  • Bananas and peanut butter also rank high on the "decently healthy, high energy scale" and can be incorperated as/into daytime snaks (mini-meals).

All of this from some reading on the subject and self experimentation - I'm not a nutritionist, etc. 😊

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

For choosing the right foundation, the local drug store had little test bottles from which you can drop some color on the skin to try out in-store (as well as a mirror and some remover and paper towels), so we really didn't need to talk there to anyone find a decent color. (This might not be a universal concept though.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

As a follow-up to this: If you just want to browse go one of the big chains with large stores (like H&M). You can spend hours there gwacking at bras (or whatever else you fancy) and try on as much as you like and no-one will care or even bat an eye over it. (Just don't do it right before closing, the underpaid staff really hates staying overtime for you. 😅)

On the other hand, the smaller stores tend to offer a more interesting selection (you'll find out fast enough if you happen to like theirs or not) and the staff can be helpful (or terrible, kinda a luck thing apparently) once you have an idea of what you like.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Can't tell you if it's actually any good unfortunately, but I know Untag (NL) has something like this. While we didn't end up buying anything from them yet, their designs seem to be pretty well thought out in general: https://untag.com/collections/tucking-underwear

(Was considering ordering a swim skirt from them at one point – avoids the need to actively tuck – but as you noticed it's not exactly cheap, so buying something that we might outgrow soon – we're actively gaining weight – didn't seem worth it with how often we would have ended up using it.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Looked like a colored shopping bag in the thumbnail, but damn that's awesome… 😀

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Agreed! Our GP actually let's us do blood tests whenever we ask for it, so we know that what we're injecting actually contains what's written on the packaging and that it yields the expected levels. We (mostly me) also spent a lot of time reading up and preparing before even starting the FHT… Just wanted to add a coma to your original statement, didn't intend to make it sound contradicting. 😅

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Even if doctors prescribe it where you live… Around here that still generally means oral estrodiol in low doses (WPATH SoC 8 if you want to know the details) which is known to cause unsatisfactory results due to unstable levels. When doses are increased it affects the liver in potentially negative ways. In also requires usage of an antiandrogen in humans with intact testosterone production, which all have known unpleasant sideeffects… (+ A lot of gatekeeping to even get the prescription in the first place.)

Compare that to doing a single DIY injection a month with no known negative side-effects if administrated carefully (other than feminization, duh) even Less safe than prescribed is a dubious claim, I think.

 

Apparently it’s been over a month and a half since we reached internal consensus on this, but I still haven’t made any progress on this subject other than asking at a local support group: Unfortunately no-one there seems to care much about this subject (only SFS/SRS for some reason), so it wasn’t much help.

What I want to know is: How do you actually find a surgeon to perform this kind of procedure? And how do you decide if it turns out there are multiple practical options? Is it worth leaving the region to go by plane (post-surgery train ride sounds a lot nicer than flying…)?

Details: We’re located in the EU and the public health insurance carriers don’t cover it.* We have the money to pay for this kind of procedure privately, but it would be better not to put too much stress on our savings as our income isn’t that great. This also means there is no list of “in network” surgeons (that’s a USian concept, I think?) to consult. We’ve been on HRT for over a year and a half, still weigh less than 90kgs and are AMAB and unlikely to be inter (that checks all the usual boxes, I think).

Any resources or personal stories would be appreciated as well.

* In fact, they were apparently recently sued into at least covering facial lasing, but everything trans-related is a default-no with public insurance unless overruled in court. In theory one could perform the procedure in Denmark (where it is covered), get the SS2 form rejected by the public health insurance around here, then spend the next couple of years in court with them though.

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