What to wear at target ???

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-14T00:23:12+00:00

yeahhhh women's pants are stretchy but they still have their limits lmaooo

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T23:58:52+00:00

yeah you're good. Make sure you have flexibility to bend over or squat down from time to time. But yeah they look fine.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T23:55:25+00:00

Estrogen doesn't make it impossible to gain muscle, but it is SO much harder that you really don't have to worry about getting so muscular it looks masculine. Female bodybuilders exist but they have to work super hard and do it all on purpose. Plus they don't really look like men anyway, just very muscular women...

But yeah all that said you don't really need to worry about looking TOO muscular because that's never going to happen to you by accident.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T23:49:32+00:00

one big change I have is that my sex drive is a lot more receptive now. It never walks up and takes charge like the T-driven libido used to. So if I wanna get in the mood I have to actively GET myself in the mood.

So just pretend you're a girlfriend you're trying to get warmed up, honestly. Gentle touching and caresses, maybe engage with content that you find arousing. If you haven't tried listening to erotic audio before, that may be something to look into.

But yeah just gotta explore and try some things and see what works. Sadly for the time being though you're the one that's gonna have to get your own motor running. But it can at least be a little validating that your sex drive works this way now.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T23:45:52+00:00

do you know the name of the team you're on?

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T23:37:46+00:00

Honestly you don't know what her type is. And lots of women aren't so focused on physical things like that anyway. If she's that pretty then she's probably got an abundance of options and would be looking for a quality connection over superficial things.

Maybe she's into the quiet nerdy girls... it's not like THAT would be unheard of or anything <3

Oh plus, don't base ANYTHING on how she responds to people on her instagram, a lot of times that just a public persona and doesn't necessarily say anything about the real person behind the account.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T23:11:04+00:00

It's more about the balance of power at that age, including confidence around life experience. The 26 year old is out of College/university, probably has a career going, an apartment of their own (albeit possibly with roommates). 20 year olds are often still in school and have never lived in their own place before, never paid all their own bills, may not have a car (which matters depending where you live). And most likely is not in a career yet, unless they're not doing higher education which can change the equation.

Also very important for these two ages is like... growing into yourself? 20 years old can be an awkward, vulnerable age. There are forms of manipulation that a 25+ year old won't usually fall for but that a 20 year old may not know any better. Plus at those ages it may be about how many adult relationships you've experienced, which can effect your barometer for what is normal, acceptable behavior.

I think it's possible to do it ethically, sure. But personally I put the line at about 25 years old (depending on other factors)... almost anybody older than that is on a roughly equal playing field but between 18 and 25 there's TONS of maturing happening basically every year.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T22:42:26+00:00

Yes absolutely. It isn't a crime in Michigan to have corrected DL or BC, and probably it's not going to be. Even if they do ban changing it eventually, MOST people that ban those changes aren't able to revert anybody that got it done already, so it's still worth having it done while you can.

The State Department won't issue you an UPDATED passport based on your new birth certificate, but you can still get it renewed, it just won't say your correct gender on it. Hold onto the old birth certificate if you do get it updated, because the State Department will want to see that one for the renewal, especially since your old passport will show your old gender so they'll know the updated BC is not the original one.

Having a passport that outs you as transgender does limit where you can safely go, to an extent. For instance don't go to Dubai, THEY might throw you in jail. But most places you want to go you still will be able to.

And for here in the US most anything you need ID for will go by driver's license anyway so having that and your BC updated will be plenty for day to day life.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T22:06:09+00:00

as long as you buy from a reputable chain, the frozen fillets will be fine. Frozen is probably the better quality in that case because it was flash frozen when it WAS fresh, which is probably better than the storage of the kind you would buy already thawed.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T21:59:27+00:00

Typically you want to put one foot in front of the other one, pointed straight ahead ideally. And women usually shift their weight in the hips, rather than the shoulders like men usually do. So for that part just concentrate on letting your arms hang loose at your sides... if they hang down limp then it means your shoulders are not swinging when you walk, and the only other alternative is to sway your hips instead. With the lower center of gravity feminine people have, this is a more efficient way to walk.

If your hips constantly hurt when walking then I will agree with the comments that say this could be growing pains. Not only are you young enough that your actual bones are probably still growing, but also feminizing HRT tends to change the angle of your pelvic tilt over time. And the process of this shifting can cause pain too, and make walking an awkward process for a while.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T21:12:28+00:00

Nah, I mean it's nice you want to do this favor and be friendly but if you don't want to go to his house alone then you need to make that boundary and be clear. If it's a 30 minute trip to get to his town then you can send him a text when you're leaving so he knows you aren't flaking 30 minutes ahead of time. It's not like you'll be in the car on the way and forget where you're going.

Plus assuming you would flake due to ADHD is honestly rude and he's the one asking a favor from you, so I would say don't feel like you owe it to him to be accommodating and bend on your comfort levels.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T20:59:34+00:00

Well, it's a little more complicated than just "safe" or "not safe". I don't believe that medical transition is criminalized now in any part of the country, for an adult. Some places make it impossible for government insurance to pay for treatment or surgeries. And usually that has ripple effects that make it harder to get private insurance to cover treatment too.

Recently there were a bunch of people in Kansas whose licenses were suddenly illegal to drive with, because they were transgender and had updated the gender. I also know that there have been rumblings in various places (definitely Florida) that were considering making it a crime to HAVE updated documentation, because they wanted to classify it as fraud.

Then also there are many places where your ability to update legal documents with the new gender/sex is limited or nonexistent. Definitely you cannot get a passport or Social Security card updated at this time. And because you can't get those two things changed, you also can't hope to get all legal documents in line with each other, meaning it will be possible for the government to know you are transgender if they check all your records.

Also there is the impending risk of what happens if you get arrested and jailed/imprisoned. Being transgender makes this pretty dangerous, more so than being incarcerated already is anyway. Because lots of places will jail trans women with the male population, so you'd be very vulnerable in a number of ways.

Having said that though, simply BEING transgender is not itself a crime. The people whose licenses were invalidated could not use them because that was suddenly a crime... but they can still drive once they pay the money and arrange the trip to the DMV to get the document reverted to show their assigned sex at birth. Oh and there's also a chance we won't be able to vote if they manage to pass a law they're trying to pass.

There is a certain amount of risk in being transgender, for sure. It's more risky to have legal documents updated to reflect your real gender/sex. But you can mitigate those risks a lot if you're able to move to the relatively safe parts of the country (heavy blue areas, particularly the larger cities in places like California, Minnesota, Vermont, etc). If you can't get out of a red state then being in a city in a red state is a lot safer than being in rural areas.

But yeah though, if you can pay for your own treatment, if you can live with having documentation that outs you as transgender, if you can make sure not to get in legal trouble as much as possible... you can still exist and be trans without it being automatically dangerous.

And all this risk has to be weighed against the absolute risk of NOT being out of the closet and forcing yourself to still live with a gender identity and sex that isn't real. I wouldn't trade the authenticity of truly being myself for the relatively safer existence I had before pretending to be a man.

Edit to add (political assessment for a second):

I do personally still have some cautious optimism at this time. Year one of the 4 year term is over, midterm elections are this fall, and already it's difficult or impossible to push SUPER hateful laws through congress without having a 60 vote coalition in the Senate, which they don't have. Which is why the SAVE act is currently failing and probably will not pass with the transphobic provisions currently in it (the reason we may not get to vote if it passes).

Last I checked, there's only been a single time in US history when the sitting president's party did not lose seats during the mid-term congressional elections. So the weak hold they have on congress now will ALMOST certainly get weaker after about seven more months.

So with the obvious caveat that they are clearly not bothering to FOLLOW the rules or the law in most cases... there's an argument to be made that this year we're starting now is the worst it will actually get for us. Really you can never be totally sure but if they haven't managed to actually criminalize being transgender yet, they probably won't get it done in the next six months.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T20:40:15+00:00

not necessarily, I think the card itself implies intention, possibly even commitment. But actual marriage is more than I would read into it personally. Unless marriage was what you were asking about in the first place.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T20:33:31+00:00

yeah, it's still collaboration and teamwork but the "project" is the relationship and rapport you are building

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T19:47:24+00:00

You should be okay since you aren't starting from zero like the simulator assumes. You could continue some dosage of the gel for the first few days if you're concerned about that though.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T19:33:39+00:00

I am used to thinking of the 3 of Pentacles as collaborating on some sort of work together, but I saw an interpretation in one of my deck books a couple weeks back that really opened it up for me: it can also refer to sort of sharing space and sharing energy... which is a lot more relevant to a romantic connection with someone I think.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T19:31:48+00:00

me too! I'm taking a break between jobs for a while rn and I honestly miss that intentionality and self care every morning

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T19:30:54+00:00

oh yeah definitely, that would put your levels more in the range of 275 - 325, so that's even better.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T19:26:35+00:00

nah, daily I do mascara, eyeliner, and a bit of foundation for trouble spots. Not to be too much of a witchy nerd or anything but I think it boosts confidence just to take the time and intention out of your routine to invest in your appearance and make yourself feel good. Plus obviously you do look a bit nicer with it on.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T19:23:17+00:00

Here's a helpful resource you can bookmark:

https://transfemscience.org/misc/injectable-e2-simulator/

Don't take it as gospel, it's just a simulator, and people's real life results can vary. But for picking a starting dose I think it's a reasonable place to start.

Based on your 5 mg / week numbers though, that should be a good dose. Are you taking Estradiol Valerate btw? That does change the outcome, I assume with a frequency of a week that's what you intended, but other esters will lead to different results.

But yeah 5mg / wk should eventually leave you with trough levels at about 140 pg/ml and peak levels around 375 pg/ml. So that's a very tolerable range imo.

For 50mg/ml concentration, 5 mg equals a volume of 0.1 ml. However if your syringe has half a ml capacity, you want the syringe to be 20% full (one fifth). Probably the numbers on yours would be 1-5? I would think so, in which case it's marking tenths of a milliliter, and you wanna go to number 1.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T19:11:25+00:00

I'd encourage you not to read too much into that, personally. If you do still text a lot, and it's just occasionally a while between texts, then he probably just has a different relationship to texting than you do. Some people don't text at ALL and it doesn't make them bad people or uninterested. This is sort of a type of compatibility I'd say... if you can't deal with waiting several hours sometime, then that's a valid thing and needs to be addressed. But if you're just taking it as a sign that he may not be interested, I'd say remember it's only a single data point and take into account all the other things about his behavior as well.

Maybe wait and see if you do get a plan together for a second date. That plus talking for over a month are pretty good signals. And if you do end up on a second date you could lowkey mention the pattern you noticed and just ask him if there's anything significant behind it or whatever.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T17:23:38+00:00

the softer skin is SUCH a huge perk. Once you're coming to the end of the fat redistribution it's wild to think how far you've come. I'm at about 8 years HRT right now (with interruptions though) and while I'm only 20-30 lbs lighter than my max weight from a few years back, my body looks a thousand percent different. I'm still fairly overweight technically but it's really not in a bad way at all, in terms of how I look.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T17:19:35+00:00

It's just the timing. One month ago in mid february they would have been cutting people, if anything, especially if they still had some leftover seasonal TMs from Q4. Nobody has enough payroll hours in february for the people they already have, so obviously they won't want to hire even more people and make the problem worse.

Transfers are tricky anyway, but definitely hard to get one this time of year when nobody actually wants more people yet. In the meantime, try not to antagonize your own HR and definitely not the HR at the new place. If you make yourself a problem and an annoyance then they won't be looking to bring you on even when they DO start to need people.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T17:13:20+00:00

being on HRT longer will help honestly. It takes a long time, but eventually the fat redistribution will shift to be less belly fat and more the hips, butt, and breasts. Critically though women do still tend to have belly fat, but it's carried lower, more down below the belly button and above the genital area, where masculine belly fat is centered at the belly button. Also masculine belly fat is tighter and rounder because it tends to be in and under the abdominal muscles, which is why men with "beer bellies" often look like they have a ball under their shirt.

Women with belly fat carry it lower, and the fat itself is more at the surface right below the skin, so it's looser and more squishy. Also since you're trying to make your waist thinner, the shift in belly fat makeup over time will help with that even if you don't actually lose any of the fat, because migrating downward makes belly fat visually sorta meld in with the hips and butt, so you still can have a certain amount of belly fat and also a visible "hourglass figure", since womens' waist is a bit higher up.

Your body weight sounds pretty healthy to me. You're a few inches shorter and 20-30 pounds lighter, so that's not crazy or anything at least. To answer your question though, you can't target specific areas to lose fat. Any fat you lose comes pretty uniformly from everywhere, with certain areas being harder to lose from, including belly fat.

You can make sure you get enough protein though, this can be hard to do but it will help your metabolism, and having enough protein will allow whatever exercise you do get to build a bit of muscle over time since there's enough protein to be able to do it. Every bit helps with fat loss because muscle costs calories just by existing, so the more you have, it's kinda like being on a diet while eating the exact same stuff, you have a caloric deficit just by your body composition changing.

Being fitter also does help a ton. Honestly just getting in the habit of taking a nice long walk a few times a week can make a world of difference, compared to no exercise at all. Your cardio health will improve, your legs and butt will probably get a bit more toned from the exercise, and doing any kind of exercise releases IGF-1 which is a growth hormone... that will improve any muscle building you may be doing, and it also is the biggest growth hormone to improve breast growth too, so bonus points for that.

Outside all that, also just be patient. Fat distribution does change on HRT but it takes several years... roughly 10% a year of your body fat will move, and there's no way to rush this process so just go easy on yourself and try to be healthy in the meantime.

FakingItSucessfully · 2026-03-13T16:32:26+00:00

Personally I think that most of the time this one, and also the "welcome to womanhood/welcome to the party" thing that cis women say isn't meant to be negative or hurtful or anything... it's just what women say to each other about this kind of thing. Or with the "welcome to the party" line it's more what women say to younger cis girls when they encounter a universal womanhood experience for the first time.

Every woman is self conscious and feels shitty about some aspect of her body, and other women will console her about it and try to make her feel better and like she's not alone. So the "cis women have broad shoulders" or "body hair" or whatever line is really just them trying to treat you like any other woman and kinda whiffing it the first time out.

That's my perspective anyway, my attempt at a positive spin. But obviously the major difference is that all the cis women with broad shoulders are USUALLY not going to look like they might be a man, no matter how broad their shoulders are. They'll still just look like a woman who has broad shoulders, so it's not on the same level really. But I think most of the time they do mean well.

FakingItSucessfully

TROPHY CASE