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Share some activities you've been interested in doing but couldn't do because you're closeted.
Transmasc, Transfem, Nonbinary, and Gender Non-Conforming answers are all welcome and encouraged here.
wear the clothes i like and be comfortable in my body
Change my name. Care about my future.
Personally I like my name, it's a very nice and ambiguous name. I definitely need to work on that second one though.
Be comfortable in my body
Wear the clothes I like
Express my joy at this cute thing I just found
Feel good when I wake up in the morning
Openly express my love for the people I hold dearest to me
Go into stores like Victorias secret
Stop for 2 seconds to oogle the cute dress in the window of said vs
Paint my nails
Listen to certain music
Look too long at a third of the people I find attractive
Grow boobs
Ect ect could go on you get the idea
When I was closeted I often thought about transitioning as just a way for me to finally wear dresses and skirts in public that I was secretly wearing at home. And when considering whether to take things further, I would weigh all the downsides of transition (the cost, the social stigma, the danger, relying on exogenous hormones the rest of my life, etc.) against those benefits and it would make them seem not worth it.
But in retrospect, transition was different than I thought - estrogen changed my mood and solved mental health problems I didn't realize were even problems, that I had lived with my whole life and had internalized as normal and just part of who I was. I would have never understood how important or necessary transition would be to my basic health and sanity.
So yeah, now I get to make and wear amazing outfits every day I would have never dreamed of before, but that's not really what makes transition worth it, it's like a side bonus. The truth is that I needed those exogenous hormones, transition wasn't choosing to need them, I needed them the whole time. The need wasn't optional - in a real sense transition wasn't optional.
I could have not transitioned, but the alternative wasn't staying cis. The alternative was not growing old.
That's about right.
It's funny how I held on and didn't transition for other people, but when I transitioned pretty much nobody cared that much. Transition felt impossible and so selfish before transitioning, yet on other side it seems like it was self-destructive to not transition and trivial compared to how difficult I thought it was going to be. (Though transition is difficult, don't let me mislead - it's just not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and there are so many things that went better than I thought.)
I guess this is just a lesson in how easy it is to rationalize and build up your fears, and how you are your own biggest barrier.
I currently have a similar thought proccesss to how you described yours.
Transitioning feels like this super selfish thing, where many of my friends and family will just not accept it, and where I drag people more down than I help myself.
Unfortunately I have not convinced myself to another point of view yet.
People who would get "dragged down" by someone they know transitioning are doing it to themselves. There is no logic in laying the blame on the person transitioning.
It costs nothing to be kind and supportive to those around you, so I would consider those who won't even do that, to be the selfish ones.
If a person struggles with someone they know transitioning, good, because maybe that finally provokes the introspection in them, required to become a better person.
If it doesn't, I don't know how to help them.
But I know how to help you. Transitioning is not selfish. It's life-saving.
Yes, in my experience the only people in your life who really struggle are people who have their own issues (i.e. it never actually seems to be about you or your transition exactly) e.g. people who are closeted and who experience pain when reminded of their issues when they see you.
Usually even a bigoted religious person isn't directly mean to you, it seems like the Christians generally reiterate how much they love you and so on (but they don't want to talk too much about gender). In fact, I don't find anyone wanting to talk about gender IRL, lol. Anyway, it's hard to tell how it will go - I think it's also different if you're a minor living at your parents' house compared to an independent adult. It also depends on who is in your life, and how they felt about you before you transitioned.
Either way, transitioning is like taking medication as a diabetic or someone with hypothyroidism - it really is life-saving and necessary.
To be fair, I never convinced myself of the other view point, even now I think transitioning is "selfish" in a sense, it's just that on the other side I can confirm it wasn't like I thought it would be and that there was also something "selfish" about never taking care of myself and being a burden on others because of that.
Yeah same ~
(I'm working on it, okay)
You can do it!
I find that interesting because I really expected to wind up more butch than I did. I transitioned for the body and to be seen as a woman socially. I didn’t even really start wearing makeup until I learned eyeshadow while recovering from bottom surgery.
Huh, did you mean to respond to a different comment? Sorry, I'm just not sure how your story relates to mine. I'm interested though! What got you interested in eyeshadow at that point, and what was that process like?
Personally I learned makeup before starting hormones, and it was crucial for the months of waiting for my first appointment. There were times I became suicidal where makeup legit helped me recover emotionally. But I wouldn't expect myself to be butch, I'm a femme (even though I'm not straight).
The differences between our initial approaches to our transness was interesting to me. Mine being “I may not even bother with anything beyond jeans and tshirts I just want a female body under it” vs your wondering if hormones would be worthwhile and wanting them to enable you to be comfortable dressing feminine everywhere.
I’d been interested in learning for a while but that was a period of about a month stuck at home with a huge financial burden finally lifted. And yeah I was in my process of accepting that I’m a femme I wouldn’t be taken any less seriously as a lesbian seeking badass vibes if I was a femme.
I had tried crossdressing for years before transitioning and it’d always only made me more dysphoric. The thing that made me embrace that I was trans was homemade breast forms. So to me a lot of makeup was also for a long while associated with that time period. I just wore eyeliner on special occasions.
Ah, I don't think we're that different, maybe just the timing of things were a bit different.
I didn't take hormones to change my body, but rather on the possibility that it would help my mental health - wishing for a female body under the t-shirt and jeans was too much hoping for me, I think.
Meanwhile, once I socially transitioned, I felt going back to t-shirt and jeans was akin to going back in the closet, so I forced myself to stay femme so I would stay "out". At first I really struggled with a femme identity and makeup, until I read Julia Serano and read about femmephobia and worked through the relationship between femininity and feminism. That really helped me feel like I could use makeup, and then I just saw it as a useful tool (rather than a betrayal towards women, which was basically how I felt before then about using makeup).
Crossdressing and anything feminizing also made me more dysphoric pre-transition, which I took to mean at the time that I wasn't trans, lol. My transition never had to do with my body or exploration that way - I struggled with being a man in the world, and I wished I could be a woman. My egg cracked when I was looking for resources to undo male socialization because I didn't like that I was acting as a man sometimes, and of course those resources were in the trans community and inevitably I found videos about whether you're trans, and this video in particular about common excuses to avoid transitioning. The video so specifically applied to me and I had had those exact excuses, so I was sort of shocked to learn I really probably was trans, at least according to these videos. Previously I had only used the DSM-V's criteria for gender dysphoria to define trans-ness, and I didn't understand the shape dysphoria could take to recognize it. I actually accepted I was trans before I realized I had dysphoria or how bad it was.
That’s very fair lol. The militancy with which I’ve noticed many trans women approach feminism is also interesting. I to this day stand by my collegiate commitment to never wear makeup to work or to appear professional and to only use it to enhance or express never to hide perceived flaws. It’s important to me not to hold up the unfair expectations on my fellow women. And yeah Dr. Serrano also played a role in my willingness to embrace my femininity, but so did some very loud and outspoken femme lesbians who taught me to associate femininity with having the potential for power when I wield it for my own desire rather than for the desires of others. That said I’m still very much a lazy femme.
And I kinda get that feeling that going back to jeans and a tshirt would be like recloseting. I definitely cringe at how long I wore oversized men’s shirts. But for me it was always “well this is what the other women in my life wear.” And for me there was the big beard shave that was my crossing of the rubicon. There was also an element of the fact that I had a pretty bad nlog phase in response to the expectation of hyperfemininity that was just starting to be relaxed on trans women in the mid 10s. Hell I could do a whole rant about how the the expectations that had been placed on trans people by the medical establishment in order to transition fucked me up even though I managed to transition relatively young for the time and not be blocked.
And yeah I thought I couldn’t be a trans woman because I wasn’t hyperfeminine or boy crazy. My teenage relationship with femininity was downright normal by cis lesbian standards and my attraction to men was so mild and rare that I only really became fully aware of it when it went away after starting hormones. It took seeing trans women online who were just normal women (albeit normal by traumatized lesbian standards). Well that and they used to say that you shouldn’t transition until it was your only option to continue living. It was from an era where it was safe to assume transitioning would cost you everything, and well I waited that long. I just lucked out with how young I hit it.
And yeah, as I came out and began transitioning the social floodgates continued bursting open. And thankfully I got out of my nlog phase and got to know women who’d transitioned before me. It gave context and provided me with the opportunity to grow into myself. That and spending more time with other lesbians. Sorry for the history rant lol, idk how I got to act so damn old despite only being 30.
Shaving. Now, that also does have something to do with low self-esteem and being scared about how I'd look without beard since I am bearded for half my life and didn't shave my face smooth since I was 16, but I'd like to try but then everybody and their mom would ask why and I don't want to answer (I'm a bad liar and don't feel comfortable lying, too).
Edit: I appreciate y'all wanting to help, but please stop. I didn't ask for advice, I'll probably eventually figure something out and I kinda feel pressured and pushed, it's really not great. Sharing your own experiences is fine, but more is really not needed (especially if you're suggesting coming up with excuses)
"Because I want to" is a valid answer.
It should be, but isn't exactly for my family. They're already completely losing their shit when I tap a toe outside my usual 'I wear black until there's something darker'-presentation.
"I bought an electric razor to try it out and see if it's more efficient, but accidentally shore a giant hole in my beard and had to do damage control" is also a valid answer.
That's how I ended up full-body shaving (feels so much better); got an electric on a whim, did a section, waited a day, did another section ~~clogged my tub drain~~ and said "fuck it", and did everything below the neck 😅
Not that you should need an excuse, but if you wanted one...
Anytime I clean shaved, it usually genuinely started with me trimming.
But then I take too much on one side, which looks weird and I try to make the other side symmetrical but I take too much there too until it's unsalvageable and I just give up and shave everything.
Either that or...
"I found a spider in there when I woke up"
I don't know anyone who would question that logic.
Edit: sorry, I had missed the part about avoiding lies in your first comment.
I get that. I didn’t shave my beard until the weekend before starting hormones. It was an armor I grew to protect myself (partly from seeing my face) and I let it go when it was time. I had the same reasons for not shaving sooner. So grow it until you’re ready to shed it sister. Your body is yours alone.
Hey, I'm just here after reading your edit, and I just want to say that you're totally valid.
I have a big bushy beard and I wear dresses and skirts and such. I know that I'm definitely in the minority, but fuck it, life's too short not to do what you want.
Ever since I was a kid I wanted a beard like my dad. Now that it's come fully in, I haven't shaved my face in a decade. It's at least as much a part of my identity as my femininity, and the two don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Anyway, I don't want to add to the pressure you're feeling. You're the only one who can say how you should live your life, and there's no wrong answers. But I've lived in the closet for a long time, and while I was there it might not have been comfortable, but it felt safe. But now that I'm out, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Yeah, I kinda wanna try shaving off my beard as well. It'd be a bit problematic for me though, all my ID has me with a beard, and i look completely different without it (photo ID gets checked a lot for work). Whole reason I grew it was because it's so dense and grows so fast shaving smooth regularly was a pain in the ass.
Does your beard grow quick though? But yeah, how much a full, thick beard changes your appearance is often underestimated.
Yep. I'd have most of it back inside of 2 weeks.
When I shaved and people noticed, I just told them I used to shave that way or that I've always preferred it this way, and the only reason I had a beard before was because I was so busy for a while and stopped shaving to save time, so I was just getting back to my normal habits. You can probably find a similar excuse, that you have always preferred it this way and you're just getting back into it.
I should emphasize: men shave all the time, there is nothing suspicious about shaving your beard, hard stop.
Been there, done that. What helped me was two things.
Finding out nobody cared that much about my beard missing, except some close friends/partner but they also know me
Just saying "I wanted to try something new" which is definitely not a lie :3
Honestly shaving makes a huuge difference. Even now, a couple of months into hrt and permanent hair removal the difference a fresh shave makes for my self-recognition in the mirror is astounding!
- Finding out nobody cared that much about my beard missing, except some close friends/partner but they also know me
It's mostly about my family, especially my mom. She's a different kind of judgmental sometimes. And she's the last person I want to get a sniff about me changing in any way.
Honestly shaving makes a huuge difference.
I know... I'm happy it's long pants season again so I can shave my legs and it hits completely different.
I might shave my face, too, but only when I don't have to meet with my family for a few weeks so I can grow some of my beard back. After New Year is probably gonna be good time since it's probably scarf season anyway.
Rubbing your own smooth chin after a long time without shaving is so weirdly pleasant even though I can't find the words to describe the feeling properly.
I was able to use covid as an excuse as there was a chance I was going to go back to work in the labs and the advice to workers was to be clean shaven if possible. I don't miss it one bit and after the first time I met somebody I knew they never commented on it again.
Maybe keep trimming it shorter and shorter until it's gone?
I never considered mirror towels thx!!!
Mother said I was being too dramatic, but they really do help. The only thing now is my reflective monitor screen...
Ask the cute guy to cuddle :c
I desperately want to do a spa day and get properly pampered...