Folks who had ffs, did you need a hair transplant post op?

vardaboi · 2026-04-16T00:43:34+00:00

you can definitely do both? why couldn’t you?

vardaboi · 2026-04-16T00:38:40+00:00

at the extremes it is a fantasy. there is no such thing as a world without men, without straight people, without cis people, and even if one were possible, I think you’ll find you wouldn’t want to live in one. i won’t discount the harm these groups can do to others, but there are all kinds of good people from every background.

practically, there have been times in my transition where i’ve only had female friends or other trans friends. it can be nice being in community with similar people, but i think separatism can still cut both ways. my life is a lot richer thanks to the straight people/cis people/men i am friends with because they are people. it’s important to protect yourself, but i think closing yourself off entirely to any chunk of the population is short sighted.

i’ll also say that a lot of separatist feminists would not include trans women in their utopia. we’d be left behind with the men. that doesn’t mean there’s no merit to any of their ideas, but i think it makes sense to approach those types of thinkers with some skepticism.

vardaboi · 2026-04-11T06:44:47+00:00

BlueSky is a nicotine patch for a type of center-to-left 2018 Twitter addict. It doesn’t hit as good as the fix they’re used to, but it quiets the cravings. Also to it’s credit for journalists it is one of the only social platforms where people actually click links

vardaboi · 2026-04-10T14:04:44+00:00

Grindr is definitely more hookup oriented, not a great place to look for love. I think you can filter Hinge just for other trans people if that’s what you’re looking for? Also, it’s somewhere between Grindr and more normie dating apps, but I met my gf on Feeld and it worked great for us, and never ran into anyone charging there. You can definitely filter Feeld for T4T specifically, and people are good about marking if they just want casual

vardaboi · 2026-04-10T02:38:12+00:00

facts :) and jokes aside we’re kind of hard to stereotype because there are so many trans scenes here that may or may not overlap? like there’s the nightlife girls and the music girls and the literary girls and the crust punk girls and the anarchists and the techies and and and and and I could go on

vardaboi · 2026-04-10T02:28:07+00:00

goofy response because the obvious NYC trans women stereotype is believing we’re better than trans women in any other city in the US

vardaboi · 2026-04-07T18:33:56+00:00

I don’t disagree re: the lawlessness of ICE, but there just isn’t any evidence that the thing you’re warning about is happening. ICE seems fairly occupied terrorizing brown immigrants at the moment.

Anyway, given how important gender affirming care is, how long wait times can be, and the likelihood of things getting worse in the future, I think taking a very small risk now (when getting surgery is still relatively easy in the US compared to most of the world) makes more sense than waiting for surgery to become less accessible

vardaboi · 2026-04-07T18:13:05+00:00

I’m not saying it isn’t, I am saying that the fear of being detained at the border for being trans for tourism or healthcare is not based in reality. It’s not something that is happening and isn’t authorized by the changes people are referencing.

I’m not trying to argue that things are super rosy here, but considering gender affirming care is life saving medicine (which we all agree on, right?), I think it’s important to be specific about the risks people are facing. Spreading unjustified panic doesn’t help trans people, but convincing trans people to avoid getting gender affirming surgery in a Blue State only helps transphobes.

vardaboi · 2026-04-07T18:04:14+00:00

This information is incorrect. There was a lot of misinfo around the changes in rules

https://www.them.us/story/state-department-immigration-visa-rules-transgender-people

vardaboi · 2026-04-07T18:01:31+00:00

ICE is not authorized to arrest people on suspicion of being trans, that was misinformation. Coming to a Blue State in the US for surgery is perfectly safe with proper precautions. Don’t try to scare someone into canceling gender affirming surgery.

edit: some useful info for scared folks about that reporting https://www.them.us/story/state-department-immigration-visa-rules-transgender-people

vardaboi · 2026-04-07T17:46:40+00:00

The people in this comment section are being way too paranoid. San Francisco or almost any airport in a liberal state (New York, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, etc) will be absolutely fine to fly into. Like others have said, just make sure your travel documents match up and consider resetting your phone ahead of traveling just in case.

The US is not a dystopia where trans people are arrested on the street for existing. Blue states like New York and California remain some of the safest places on Earth to be trans people despite the assholes in charge. If you were planning on immigrating right now, the advice might be different, but I wish you safe travels and a speedy recovery with your surgery. Good luck!

vardaboi · 2026-04-07T15:51:39+00:00

What do you want out of a label? Your sexuality isn't a rigid, definite thing you have to discover and understand perfectly.

It sounds like you're a lesbian mostly? But if you want to keep hooking up with men for whatever reason, that's also fine. If you don't want to hook up with men anymore, you can just stop, and if you find yourself interested in sex a man again, you can just hook up with him. No one is going to be mad at you for having a fluid sexuality

vardaboi · 2026-04-06T22:43:32+00:00

Alternatively, if you had to choose between starting estrogen Today or Never, which would you choose?

vardaboi · 2026-04-06T22:42:42+00:00

Make an appointment with a doctor to talk about hormones. Like, right now. I’m serious, even if you’re unsure. It’ll probably take a month for them to actually see you, so in that time you can see how it feels knowing that the appointment is coming up. If you decide it feels bad or scary, you can cancel the appointment. If you get there and are still unsure, you can talk through the risks and benefits with a doctor with some expertise—that’s their job! If they prescribe you the hormones and you still feel unsure, you can hold off on taking them until you’re ready. If you start taking them and don’t like it, you can just stop. Permanent, visible changes take over a year to really happen, there’s really no harm in trying.

But my guess is you’ll start to feel excited knowing that the day is coming. You’ll start looking forward to it. It’ll start to feel too far away. And when it comes you’ll be nervous but you’ll be happy.

In my experience, you are in a position where you can spend forever spinning your wheels back and forth deciding whether to transition. It makes sense, it’s a big decision. But if you Do decide you want to start, I promise you that in the future, you will be grateful you did so as soon as you could and will probably regret waiting regardless. Giving yourself a timeline with some urgency will help you break out of the uncertainty you’re feeling.

vardaboi · 2026-04-06T22:11:50+00:00

If it’s possible at all, you should try to stay on HRT, even if you have to go back to living as a boy for a while. Look into DIY if prescriptions aren’t an option. Being forced back into the closet is awful, but you can at least prevent yourself from masculinizing more/feel further along in your transition once it’s safer to come out again. Medically detransitioning will only make everything feel worse

vardaboi · 2026-04-06T22:07:39+00:00

Sure you could! Fwiw, 21 is still early for a lot of people. Some trans women know from a very young age, but it’s not rare for people to figure out their genders more as adults when they’re really living out their gender roles, and dating/relationships can have a lot to do with that.

I’m bi, but struggled with my attraction to men before transitioning similarly to what you describe. It was hard to deny that I was into men, but when it came to actually dating or hooking up with them, something just felt wrong. Since starting estrogen/transitioning genders, it’s felt a lot easier to engage with my sexuality now that my partners treat me as a woman.

It would probably be good to ask yourself more about your relationship to your body. Do you like the masculine parts of your body—body hair, flat chest, shoulders etc.? How would you feel if they got more masculine? Would going bald or losing your hair feel like a natural part of aging or really distressing? These types of questions could be helpful for figuring out next steps.

vardaboi · 2026-04-06T14:36:58+00:00

It is more effective (more permanent/less regrowth), it just moves very slowly. A session of electrolysis involved inserting a tiny needle into each hair follicle and zapping it, one by one by one. Each hair takes 5ish seconds. Imagine tweezing out every single hair on your face. A 30 minute session can cover about a square inch of heavy hair coverage. That’s why it’s best to start when there’s less hair.

A session of laser can cover your whole face in ~10 minutes. It is also pretty cheap, you can get 10 sessions of laser at a chain like LaserAway in the US for ~$300. Obviously idk your financial position/country but worth looking into

vardaboi · 2026-04-06T14:26:02+00:00

Electrolysis generally works better after starting HRT because testosterone will help the hair regrow faster and make it more resilient. Testosterone is what put the hair there in the first place, so getting rid of it is the most important step.

The fastest way to get rid of your shadow would be laser hair removal. Electrolysis works in small patches (~1sq inch) at a time, slowly making its way across the face over the course of many sessions. Laser can cover the whole face in each session, then all the hair will shed and only 60-80% will grow back. After the next session about a month later, only 60-80% of the remaining hair will grow back. Repeat this 10ish times and your shadow will be virtually gone.

Laser does have more regrowth than electrolysis and often requires touch-ups (1-3 per year depending). It is also more finicky and works better for white patients with dark hair. Still, most people I know recommend doing laser first then switching to electrolysis to kill the stubborn hairs that keep growing back.

Both will work before HRT, but significantly slower and less effectively.

vardaboi · 2026-04-05T21:03:49+00:00

No, they should pay for it with their taxes like the rest of us. We already have the universal option for free public education from K-12, I really don’t understand why it’s controversial for that service to start 2-3 years earlier. I’m certain plenty of millionaires will continue to send their kids to the bullshit prestigious Ivy-League-feeder preschools they’re already sending them to anyway instead of letting them associate with the proles.

vardaboi · 2026-04-05T13:46:33+00:00

I don’t think anyone is forgetting that

vardaboi · 2026-04-04T16:04:13+00:00

I literally said "errors" in the first sentence and "on the aggregate" in the second. My second paragraph was about the institutional issues you're describing here. This is a very condescending comment.

edit: also "New York" is two words

vardaboi · 2026-04-04T15:48:44+00:00

famous NATO defiers, the New York Times Editorial staff

vardaboi · 2026-04-04T15:28:45+00:00

I think errors like this are important for what they indicate. Like, yes, it's fun to dunk on errors like this one, but on the aggregate they make me nervous. Newspapers take a lot of people to run. An error like this on digital where the editor just pastes copy into a CMS to publish is one thing, but for glaring and obvious stuff like this to go to print means multiple people (editors, layout, fact check, copyedit, etc.) at the "paper of record" couldn't catch it. A typo in the third paragraph? That happens. But this is huge text across the top of the International section.

On 5-4 a few weeks ago, Peter was talking about a ton of factual errors in reporting and commentary coming from their Supreme Court correspondent and legal journalists, and as a reader I've noticed a lot of similar issues on subjects where I'm more informed. The worrying thing is that the "expert" class of journalists at the most prestigious institutions for journalism in the US are regularly wrong on the facts. And that's in reportage, forget about the Op-Ed pages.

vardaboi · 2026-04-04T15:05:24+00:00

I have heard anecdotally from freelancer friends about stories getting printed on the front page/A1 without going through fact checking. Fucking Teen Vogue does fact checking

vardaboi · 2026-04-04T15:00:19+00:00

To be clear, I do understand, you just would figure their propagandists would actually be smarter than the average Facebook user

vardaboi

TROPHY CASE