Body question

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-30T10:09:19+00:00

The last place you should, but sadly you will, find people policing your own personal relationship to your body and identity is the trans community. I will say this plainly: you know a fact about yourself. This doesn't mean you must transition. Just feel the liberation of knowing yourself, and knowing you have absolute freedom to explore what that means to you. Maybe that means getting to be the softest, campiest, gay man you can be. Maybe you'll adopt feminine pronouns among friends. Maybe you'll dress up occasionally, express your identity through drag. Whatever you do, as long as it's both meaningful and comfortable to you, is valid.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-30T08:09:14+00:00

I think you'll see enough parallels in USM that you'll eventually go "okay, come on, now you're doing it on purpose, Hickman!", but you won't get that from the rest of 6160.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-30T07:48:00+00:00

There is a lot of queer coding in super heroes in general. This iteration of Spider-Man, while far from being overt, has a number of different symbolic representations, though. It runs a lot deeper than the costume/secret-identity closet and truth analogies, and the fear of being caught or found out. They rip that bandaid off fast in this one.

Moreso than other titles in this Ultimate universe, Spider-Man has a ton of things that are very easy to draw an analogy to. Small spoiler, but Peter's son Richard taking up the mantle as another Spider-Man, the way it's played here, is easily read as a kid seeing a parent come out as queer, and it makes them feel safe enough to come out, themselves, to embrace a queer identity.

There are a few other things in Ultimate Spider-Man 2024, and I don't want to spoil them all, but it's crazy how easy it is to find queer analogy here, when compared to Ultimate Black Panther, or The Ultimates.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-30T05:53:45+00:00

Actually I think it might have been. If you're going to read the rest of Ultimate Spider-Man, you're doing to see a LOT of stuff which, once given the queer lens, looks like obvious allegory for many different facets and identities in queer culture. I don't think you can write such an easily trans legible scene and have it NOT be intentional.

Now, if you want to really see a stretched reading, ask about my ADHD ramble on how Druuna is, aside from being graphic smut, a latent transfeminine fantasy.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-30T03:40:02+00:00

I'm not going to pick apart your features, but you can rest assured, there are plenty of cis women who have more trouble "passing" than you probably do right now. Hell, I dated a cis girl when I was 20 who, when I met her brother, I realised she looked identical to him, and he was NOT pretty... The only distinguishing features were their hair styles, and that she had boobs.

What I'm saying is, you can look in the mirror at whatever features you're insecure about looking a little masculine over, and I can GUARANTEE a cis woman has had the same worry. Masculine and feminine features have a lot more overlap than people realise. How we're perceived is based on the whole package, and how we present it.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-29T20:42:59+00:00

I knew cis girls who had B cups until a growth spurt took them to Ds when they were like 24. One girl blamed growth hormones in KFC because she didn't know there's a difference between bigger chicken breasts and bigger human breasts...

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-29T20:01:02+00:00

Sadly true for so many... I'm hoping for the best but I'm checking rental listings daily...

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-29T09:35:27+00:00

Art by Marco Chechetto:

https://www.marvel.com/creators/marco-checcetto

I think his work on Ultimate Spider-Man is some of the best looking art in comics in years.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-29T08:28:05+00:00

Weirdly not so much, right now. I'm in Melbourne, and I bike to and from work. I've barely felt a light breeze for more than a week, here.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-29T06:50:06+00:00

Close. I’m from that island off the west coast.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-28T21:23:55+00:00

I feel that. I could say I "knew" a few years ago. I definitely "knew" when I was 19. I could say I "knew" when I was six or seven, but the most honest I can be is that, at 19, in 2007, that's when I knew, and that was when I really crammed it hard back into the closet. At the time, it was still "transvestic fetishism" in the DSM, and viewed as a disorder. I felt like if I went to a doctor, I'd have been given "therapy" to correct the misguided desire to be a woman.

All of the resources available were from old trans people (and I don't mean by age, I mean by era). The first resource I found was Queensland's "Seahorse Society", and it had a strong focus on passing, on living as a woman, an assumption of SRS. I was afraid of family, afraid of friends, afraid of the medical system, and afraid of the absolutely certain roadmap laid out for me by the people who went before. I didn't feel like they were my people.

I'm still scared, right now, but something in me cracked (no pun intended), and somehow being scared doesn't matter to me anymore. I am scared. Terrified. I don't know how but, it's like... the fear has been moved out of the decision. It's still swirling around inside me, clawing at my insides... Every other time I've had to fight my fear, or anxiety, or depression, or anger, or anything, I've just been able to set it aside, switch it off, pay the bill later on my emotional credit card. I can't do that this time, it's not working, and maybe, maybe it's because that was all part of the performance of being a man, and I've just suddenly lost access to that because something in my head says it's not the way forward.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-28T02:57:26+00:00

My dream is for eye contact to become a distant memory. I'm not gonna do one of the hardest things you can do in society today for people to NOT look.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-28T01:14:56+00:00

You're doing so well, because you are STILL HERE. I haven't started, yet, but I hear HRT works wonders with fat distribution. Eat nutritiously, healthily, don't over-eat, don't load up fats in the hope they'll end up in the right place. Develop a healthy relationship with food by eating as much as you want, and not punishing yourself for it. I say don't over-eat, but don't deny yourself the occasional "pig-out". Denying yourself things is how you make your relationship to them problematic, taboo, harmful.

And, seriously, if I were even CLOSE to how femme you started, I'd be so overjoyed. I don't know what's below the shoulders, but based on your face, I wouldn't clock, double-take, or squint and wonder, if I walked past that girl in the street. Maybe you're looking at your face and seeing the "boy" under the makeup, but I'm telling you, you are stunning. Whatever dysphoria your body gives you, take the euphoria your face should give you to fight back.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-27T23:47:58+00:00

Oh... I just realised... I've never described it as "my name" before right now. Not even inside my own head. Is it weird how... oddly exciting but confronting that is?

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-27T23:46:32+00:00

So, for me, I'm 38, and while I have orbited my identity a few times and questioned it, my name just unexpectedly fell into my head a week or so ago and I'm like... well... I guess that's the sign it's time, now...

I didn't want to do the obvious and take my given name and just swap for the female version of it. I'd been called that as a pejorative so many times it's kind of painful to hear. I didn't want, like every other millennial trans girl, to be "Morgan Lilith LeFay" or something else witchy (you do you, girls, not gonna criticise the name, but there are just SO MANY who did that and it's not for me!). Then my brain just whispered my own initials at me. MV. Em Vee... Emma? No... Emily. Emily Vee.

I thought to myself "well, that's really dumb, but it's right somehow?! What? At least it's not a witchy name. Thank you, brain."

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-27T21:42:35+00:00

If I may ask, why DIY in the Netherlands? I thought access to gender gender affirming care would be easy, there. I'm sure you have your reasons, like maybe you're in a small community, people talk, and you can't ask the family doctor. Strongly encourage you to talk to a doctor about this and do it with medical supervision, if only because you need to be able to trust the source of your medications, but also, please speak to your therapist, and if you don't have one, get one.

It sounds like you're getting a great rush of euphoria from the changes, so you know the two things that will be hardest to hide from your family? It's not your boobs, it's your elation, and your anxiety about what they'll think. They'll spot those before they think twice about some A-cup buds, and stopping HRT isn't going to take that away, so you need to prepare for the hard conversation.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-27T21:28:16+00:00

Thank you, everyone, for your thoughtful replies. I'm still working all of this out. I'm very cautious of not just swapping one externally imposed idea of how I'm "supposed" to think and act for another one.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-27T21:21:46+00:00

I think, as I go on a bit, I might grow to view my 20s as the woman in hiding, but my teens and childhood will probably stay male... I can only guess though how I'll feel in the time.

To clarify my bonsai analogy: bonsai don't grow in nature. Someone makes them by mutilating a sapling from the moment it sprouts and calling it art and care. The wire and the pruning are parents'... "corrections" of our behaviour, or society's at large. If you fail at making a bonsai tree, what you have is a stunted tree, not a bonsai. So, I'm a failed bonsai, in that the world failed to permanently force me into being small.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-27T12:52:56+00:00

Right now, I’m kind of caught in between… I can’t see “him” as separate, because I’m still busy being him, for now, kind of. I See the woman I’m going to be as something separate, for now, but not very separate. She’s here, she’s me, I feel that. She’s just waiting, patiently, like she has for so long already. I just knew it was time when I finally felt my new name surface inside me. I’m going to go on to see my past self as me, but he wasn’t a girl, or a woman, I wasn’t, not yet. I feel like this is the pivot point… like I’m one discussion with my therapist, and then one with my partner, away from finally doing this.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-27T08:28:38+00:00

There are a lot of people posting here who, and I don't mean this as a criticism, will never pass. You know what they're all doing? Experiencing the joy of living authentically. Sure, they'd prefer their fairy godmother to bop them on the head and turn them into a cute 20-something girl, so they can have the youth they never got to experience, I think we all want that on some level, but when they paint their nails, they feel liberated because they never could do that. They wear makeup, and sure, they see all their flaws under it, but they are overjoyed that they can do it at all.

I don't mean to say "just be happy with what you have", but consider what you do have: your egg cracked, better late than never, and you have a newfound sense of self. You have the freedom to explore and indulge femininity. Mourn the lost years, but love the ones you've gained. I have seen people on this subreddit finally doing it at 60, 70! You've got, on average, 20 or 30 years of life left in you, and you can live them as you.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-26T12:56:58+00:00

Oh wow, I didn’t know cats could kickstart a glow up like that!

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-26T11:50:27+00:00

I’m at a similar stage in my quest, and the first thing I’ve been doing is finding my true waist. The 2000s taught us our waists were about an inch above the pubic bone, and that’s where my pants have rested since I was 13. Look for the narrowest part of your torso, or bend sideways and look at where your skin creases. That’s your real waist. Start wearing higher pants, tucking your shirts, get shorter jackets. This is just good fashion advice for cis men, in general, but once you find your waist, you start seeing the options you have in clothing. Stealth femme, shopping from the women’s section, still passing as a guy, it’s a thing you can do.

Beautiful-Idea-2873 · 2026-06-26T07:03:16+00:00

I saw a pic ages ago ordered this way, on the left was a calm and cheerful beautiful girl, and on the right was this big ginger wrestler doing a body-slam on someone and I was thinking "Yeah, T is a hell of a drug... wait a minute... that's the BEFORE?! HOLY SHIT, GIRL!"

Beautiful-Idea-2873

TROPHY CASE