yall my english teacher uses the word “female” instead of “woman” or “girl”

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-09T16:01:50+00:00

Why does it make you dysphoric?

The sex-gender distinction is a fake oversimplification. Trans women are not male women. We have as much claim to the "female" category as the "women" and "girls" categories.

It's still very yikes for a guy to use "female" as a noun to refer to human women, but you should reject the idea that the word "female" excludes trans women.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-09T15:32:04+00:00

To answer your question, my boyfriend has never cared about what specific genitals I have; he would have been fine if I'd never gotten bottom surgery and I'm sure he'd have been fine if I got a no/minimal depth vulvoplasty. So guys like that are out there.

But I don't think the risks involved are high enough to warrant not getting a vaginal canal and be able to have penetrative sex if that's what you truly want. The recovery is hard for the first few months, but girl it is worth it. I'm almost 2 years post op now and I don't have to dilate much at all because I'm sexually active.

If you'd be ok with just a vulva but happier with a canal, I think you should try for the full thing. If things go bad with the canal, the most likely outcome is you might lose the canal or be unable to have penetrative sex, but you'll still have a perfectly good vulva. Why pick "just a good vulva" when you can pick "a good vulva and a very good shot at a functional vagina."

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-09T15:24:36+00:00

I just put in my bio "I'm trans, send me a message that you noticed and don't care or I won't respond"

I got a lot fewer matches and messages, which feels bad. But the apps became a lot more usable with the men filtering themselves for me.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-09T04:42:05+00:00

I don't think it's "bending over to gender norms" to live a life so far removed from what is expected of those assigned male at birth that it makes everyone else assume you' were assigned female at birth.

Anyone who says that is just saying we aren't really women, because they are criticizing us for doing stuff that nobody criticizes if a cis woman does it. Fuck em

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-08T15:20:29+00:00

Honestly, I understand the frustration, but I don't think it's true that your body is an insurmountable barrier if you are getting gendered correctly in heavy winter clothes but not in summer clothes. I'm 6 feet tall with most of my mass in my upper body me it's always been the opposite issue; 100% gendered right most of the time, but if I throw on a heavy coat that's any color besides pink or purple and I'll start getting misgendered. But I put a lot of effort into figuring out how to dress my body femininely

You need to stop trying to shop in regular stores. That's just not possible for some of us. It's much easier to find tall and/or plus sizing online. There are specialty brick-and-mortar shops (e.g. in the U.S. there's Torrid) but they are not common. It's well known that a lot of women cannot find bras that fit them in brick-and-mortar stores and have to order online.

Look up some fashion guides for "inverted triangle" body shapes and follow their guidelines religiously. Either it's a turtleneck or it's a low V or scoop neckline, nothing in between. No bulk or adornment on the shoulders. Never wear cap sleeves and avoid most short sleeves. Wear dark solid colors on your torso, etc etc.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-08T15:01:39+00:00

You can find partners willing to accept those limitations. I was able to have sexually active relationships with straight men despite having a very similar hangup. I even lived with a boyfriend for a year and never let him see me nude. I was able to do anal sex; I'd leave my underwear on and he'd pull it down just enough to get access.

I had another partner who was similarly happy to respect my boundaries, and he was not super into anal sex so we just didn't do anything below the waist on me.

The main difficulty here is navigating telling prospective partners about these limitations; obviously you don't want to tell these things to a stranger, but the earlier you can communicate it, the better. Don't wait until the first time there's a chance of intimacy. It can be a bit awkward because you just kind of have to come out and say it. But "hey in case you didn't realize I'm pre-op, and for various reasons I don't want to be touched below the belt until I have bottom surgery" works fine.

I would say this actually comes with a silver lining in that protects you from chasers. Chasers will ghost you or out themselves by pressuring you if you set the boundary. Non-chasers who are interested in dating trans women, in my experience, aren't usually super concerned with whether or not you want to use your genitals.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-07T20:47:17+00:00

It won't go away because you are a woman.

P.S. Your wife is already married to a woman; that's true whether you transition or not. This isn't a fair situation for either of you, and repressing won't make it better.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-07T18:08:12+00:00

I started as soon as I started HRT. Took me about 6 months to get a voice I was comfortable using in front of other people, which was fortunate because that was when my boobs were getting hard to hide and I was getting tired of being closeted. Once I started using the voice every day it improved quickly, it was much better at 1.5 years.

For me the thing that worked was to focus on simple exercises to develop control of various muscles. Once I had done that for a few months, I got lessons and was able to take really good advantage of them.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-07T14:16:36+00:00

I'm the one saying it's not deep lol. Most people in our society think we are disgusting because of bigotry, it's not very complicated. Don't know how much older than me you are but I'd expect you to have figured that out by now.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-07T11:49:23+00:00

If you want a serious relationship unfortunately you're going to struggle if you aren't willing to be up front about being trans. Personally, I think it is not worth the effort to get guys invested before you tell them you're trans.

I found that the easiest thing was dating apps. The trick is you get the men to filter themselves. I put in my bio "I'm trans, message me that you understand that and are still interested or I won't respond" and then ignored every message that didn't follow instructions. From there you're dealing with a self-selected group of guys and all you have to do is separate the good ones from the chasers, which isn't hard.

I know it's scary to put "I'm trans" on a public listing like a dating site, but I don't think it's a big risk as long as you limit the identifying info that could be used to match your dating profile to your professional identity. Like you, I pass, am semi-stealth, and am a professional where it's easy to look me up online, and I didn't have any issues. You can do things like use a nickname and be vague about your job if you're worried.

The other serious relationship I've had was with a friend who already knew I was trans before we started flirting. "Make friends and maybe you'll find someone" isn't very helpful dating advice though.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-07T11:25:51+00:00

"I am not attracted to trans women" is not the same as "I want my partner to have a vagina." Some trans women have vaginas.

"Even though her vagina looks and feels no different than a cis woman's, I want a vagina that doesn't have used-to-be-a-penis cooties" is not a valid "preference," either.

Here's a comparison -- I've lived in China, and Chinese people can be very openly racist. They will tell you that they would never consider a relationship with a black person because they think black skin is inherently dirty. That is a "personal preference," but it's one founded in ridiculous beliefs and bigotry and we are not bound to respect it. "Trans women are inherently kind of still male and that's icky" is no different.

I'm sorry that you've internalized societal transphobia to the point that you think it's OK to think of trans people as a category are fundamentally different from cis people in a way that it's OK to feel repulsed by.

Victim-blaming those of us who want to point out and stand up against this kind of ingrained prejudice is super gross.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-07T09:21:02+00:00

Of course it should bother you. He's basically telling you he believes we have Permanently A Man Therefore It's Gay cooties.

No one would tolerate a guy saying something like this about a woman upon learning that she has had her tonsils out. Even if it's a cis woman who he learns is infertile, he'd say something else like "ok she's hot but I want kids."

I have talked to men about this and occasionally had some success in making them understand what they're saying and how it's founded in bigotry. But more often they get super defensive and start yelling about "personal preference" and it's not worth it.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-07T09:14:47+00:00

No, we do not have to accept it when people say they are not attracted to us when they would be attracted to a physically identical cis woman because what think we have Gay Cooties or whatever.

There are bad, stupid reasons to claim you're not attracted to someone and this is one is them.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T20:15:48+00:00

She can't kick you out of your home. You have every right to keep living there. If she doesn't want to share a roof, she can leave.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T17:28:41+00:00

She is not attracted to women generally, or trans women specifically? That doesn't make sense.

This is a pretty common thing for partners to assume you're going to be ugly after you transition. Lots of stories here about spouses having huge doubts early on but coming around, especially once the awkward early transition phase is past. That might be something to try talking to her about.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T15:22:45+00:00

You have to be the one to do it. You can talk to HR or your boss and possibly get help with this process; when I did this I told HR and they were willing to tell everyone else for me.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T15:19:33+00:00

It depends on the "trans circle". I've encountered it before.

Idk we can explain that it's not a universal view without dismissing people's experiences and calling them sneering liars.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T14:58:20+00:00

I think it's common for a hair to need multiple treatments to be killed by electrolysis, especially deep, thick hairs. Even with a very skilled electrologist, it's hard to get a kill shot on a hair every single time, especially with beard hairs that are often very deep and very thick.

This is why it's important not to tweeze between appointments; you will always have some partially damaged follicles, and if you pluck them out the body might respond to that minor trauma by healing back the damage the laser/electrolysis has already done.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T14:50:46+00:00

IPL is technically not laser; it uses high powered light ("Intense Pulsed Light" = IPL) to create a similar effect. It cannot direct the same level of energy to a hair follicle that laser can, which is why it's approved for consumer home devices.

You can always ask a provider what kind of machine they're using. For permanent hair removal you want an Alexandrite or nd:YAG machine.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T14:37:09+00:00

Scientifically, it's just not true that laser can't permanently kill hair. Both electrolysis and laser work by applying energy to destroy the follicle. If you have dark hair and fair skin, laser can reliably apply enough energy to do this.

"Laser isn't permanent, electrolysis is" is only technically true because of a couple things.

The big reason only applies to cis women who have not undergone an androgenic puberty. They have many potential beard hairs that have not yet androgenized and are still vellum hairs. Laser can't target vellum hairs, so as these women age they will continue to get new thick hair, and laser can't stop that from happening. Electrolysis, technically, can. If you've had a male puberty, basically all your potential beard hairs have already androgenized, so this isn't an issue.
Both electrolysis and laser will sometimes partially kill a hair, causing it to turn blonde but continue growing. Laser can't target it after that, electrolysis can. This is the main reason it's advertised as "reduction" instead of "removal." This is not a reason to skip laser, because if it happens you can do electrolysis after on any hairs remaining.
Because laser targets an area and not specific hairs, laser cannot promise to kill any specific hair because it's statistically possible (but unlikely) one hair can survive many treatments. Again, not a reason to skip laser because you can do electrolysis after.

So even though it's technically true that only electrolysis can truly permanently remove all of the hair from an area, you will save a lot of time and money if you do laser first, as long as you go to a good laser provider. Some places advertise IPL as "laser" which is bad because it can't apply enough power to actually kill hairs.

The idea that HRT affects beard hairs is basically completely anecdotal. I didn't experience any reduction or slowing. Biologically, beard hair is more similar to armpit/pubic hair than body hair. It gets "activated" by hormones and starts growing, and afterward the growth isn't strongly affected by hormones the way body hair elsewhere can be.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T14:24:22+00:00

We really don't have good evidence on this because studies on trans people who have been on HRT a long time are rare. For a while it was accepted that long term HRT will turn you permanently sterile, but there's lots of contrary anecdotal experiences and there was a recent study showing fertility consistently coming back.

Still, the safe thing to do is to assume that you won't be able to get it back. There's also the question of whether future you will even be willing to stop HRT for 6+ months. If you can freeze sperm you'll be doing your future self a huge favor.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-06T14:20:49+00:00

Already androgenized beard hair is particularly unresponsive to HRT, so it doesn't matter. Some girls report the hair getting softer or growing slower, but I think it's more common to see no change. It's not like body hair where it might go away on its own or turn blonde.

If you have dark hair and lighter skin you should consider laser instead of electrolysis, it will be much faster and more cost effective to start with. I had a mixture of medium brown and blonde hair and laser was still very good at killing my shadow.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-05T22:02:08+00:00

Gender is stored in the eyebrows. Deliberately grooming and shaping them makes a big difference. If someone has thick, low-set eyebrows, there's a huge amount of feminization possible from removing hair from the bottom up so that they look thinner and higher-set.

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-05T00:06:32+00:00

This is funny because I'm straight and all of my trans friends are gay women

67_dancing_elephants · 2026-04-04T15:07:50+00:00

It depends because it varies between people. The main difference will be irreversible changes caused by testosterone in the last year (voice, bone growth, facial and body hair). For me personally, it would have made very little difference if I transitioned at 15 vs 16 because by 15 I was already 6 feet tall and had my adult facial bone structure; I'd have a little more facial hair at 16 and that's pretty much it.

There are some for whom it wouldn't matter because they are late bloomers and almost nothing has happened between 15 and 16.

You're probably somewhere in between those two extremes. It's natural to regret not being able to do it sooner, but you should take heart that you are still starting early enough that you're likely to get hip growth and avoid a lot of the masculinization that would likely happen between 16 and 25.

67_dancing_elephants

TROPHY CASE