i am two month in and i feel so good! (i remember, that i was publicly desperate a few weeks ago, yes.) let me explain.
food
there is one food item, i ate often during lunch break, that suddenly tastes bitter to me. it’s some kind of soy-yoghurt. i didn’t love it, it was just convinient, so it’s not a big loss.
i feel like i got a little more into food, especially sweets, but that might aswell be seasonal.
mood
i lived with constant, vague depression and anxiety since … early adolescence? i really noticed that, when i started anti-depressants a few years back. they took the pressure but also my drive. now after a bit more than two months on E, i still get occasional spikes in anxiety, or deep sadness. but i can feel it properly and let it go after a while. i even notice where it’s coming from sometimes.
before, some weird thing in the morning could ruin a whole day or multiple. i would have shut in asap and sleept until it’d be gone. the fact that i can now be sad, cry for an hour and share a nice evening with friends after that is pure gold! the permanent anxiety is gone, but i am still actively living my live.
sexuality
don’t hate it, but i am severely uninterested since a few weeks on E. it’s actually quite nice. had a dream of a person i like, in which they kissed me on the cheek 🤭. even my wildest dreams are now “having a cozy day with friends”. that’s nice.
body
of course not much has happened yet, but there are a few things. since i started the sport i do (10yrs?) i felt better connected to my body (in terms of movement, balance, and control). i therefore can’t say much about feeling more inside my body through hrt, but i got more sensitive to or more aware of touch. that resembles the feeling of when i was on antidepressants. my bed was softer, the cotton sheets more interesting and scratches more ouchy. this goes both ways. but i love how comfy i can get again.
also body hair grows slower and a bit thinner. whee i smell nicer, my skin i softer. my face has become ever so slightly more feminine
other people
i’m not out at work yet, and even outside that, i’m often not trying to present super fem. but the combination of the subtle changes (mostly facial skin?), my new attitude, that’s not as disconnected anymore, and the new bodily expression i increasingly allow myself after hatching seemingly work: cis people who don’t know me are more frequently a bit confused at first when they expected a mr. something. my roommate asked me some weeks ago if i wore make-up, when i didn’t, just been pwetty. and other queer folks who i wasn’t out to suddenly asked me, if my name was still up to date.
it’s doing the trick. it’s getting harder to perceive me as a man. :)
the scary
i lived under the expectation (delusion?) that boobs would take a while to start. i had permanent pain in my breasts after 3 weeks. by now i can even feel a little lump of new tissue that might soon become visible through a t-shirt.
is that fast? i feel it’s faster than i hoped for. not because i don’t want breast growth, but because i can’t imagine how it will look like. and i feel like that’s fast. where shall this end?! also, i need to research bras sooner!
all in all it seems like every cell in my body was prepared for estrogen, sad about not getting it and finally having a big party. around 2021 i described my situation to a therapist. i said i felt like i was being addicted, but didn’t know to what. i was restlessly searching for stimulation, happiness and rest, but nothing worked. after my egg cracked, this hole in my existence started to fill, E ist filling in the cracks as it seems.
this was the right decision. besides hrt i made progress in my search for the right name. things are moving. i hope someone will find this little report helpful or at least interesting.
voice might be the next step to take? that’s weird to me. this feels like putting in efford to play a role. when up until now it was just stopping the act and letting the fruitiness flow. but often enough, i want to play the part and not blow it with my first line. what are your feelings towards voice training?
yours kluczyczka
i lived under the expectation (delusion?) that boobs would take a while to start. i had permanent pain in my breasts after 3 weeks. by now i can even feel a little lump of new tissue that might soon become visible through a t-shirt.
is that fast? i feel it’s faster than i hoped for. not because i don’t want breast growth, but because i can’t imagine how it will look like. and i feel like that’s fast. where shall this end?! also, i need to research bras sooner!
I suggest getting generic-sized bralettes (e.g. come in sizes like small, medium, large) with pad inserts; the pad inserts are important because they hide the nipple well and provide some padding (as they grow the boobs get really painful and sensitive to being poked).
I had really fast breast growth as well. Everyone has different experiences, but I remember feeling breast buds in the first few weeks, too. Baggy clothes are your friend if you’re not socially transitioning yet (look at tips in trans masc communities for how to hide boobs).
i described my situation to a therapist. i said i felt like i was being addicted, but didn’t know to what. i was restlessly searching for stimulation, happiness and rest, but nothing worked.
this sounds exactly like my experience of anhedonia, pretty common symptom of biochemical dysphoria - I also experienced it as a craving and like being addicted, life becomes so unbearable I seek constant easy rewards like an addict would. I tended to find those easy rewards in food, video games, etc. I think this is also part of why drug abuse is so common in trans populations.
voice might be the next step to take? that’s weird to me. this feels like putting in efford to play a role. when up until now it was just stopping the act and letting the fruitiness flow. but often enough, i want to play the part and not blow it with my first line. what are your feelings towards voice training?
Yes, voice training is essential, especially for passing. I didn’t think I was voice dysphoric until I actually started to pay attention to my voice. I would say the process of voice training is a bit like acting, and that can feel like you are sort of “playing a role”, which is ironically part of what makes voice training so dysphoric - it feels artificial to sound like a woman, which breeds insecurity and a sense of being a fake imposter.
That said, it’s so so so important - so definitely get started on voice training. It’s hard, but it’s also one of the few things in transition you actually have direct control over.
I personally found it helpful to see a speech-language pathologist who specialized in working with trans patients. Not everyone has good experiences, but after 8 months of weekly sessions and daily training, I had a passing voice. Some people take longer, some find it more quickly - but I do think seeing as SLP was necessary for me to make that progress. I needed feedback and someone who could guide me through the compensatory strategies, how they work, and to confirm when I was doing them correctly or not.
You’ve just put word on something I’ve been dealing with since my teenage years : anhedonia. Something I’ve been dealing without medication for 15 years or so.
I feel more at ease with myself since I started HRT. Still I don’t know if I should consult for that. I know I’ve been better lately since my egg cracked and started HRT like I’ve been laughing more easilly, feeling more to be put bluntly.
thanks for pointing me to bralettes. i really woudnt have known where to start. i only got a sports bra so far. i got that idea from trans mascs. ;)
i’m gonna look into voice training next. this is again a thing in which i may have needed other trans folks to tell me that it felt weird for them too.
Yay, hormones!
Boobs for me were both faster and slower than I expected. I got buds pretty quickly, and I soon had to be careful what I wore to keep the pointies hidden, but it was about six months before I felt a bra wasn’t optional any more. And then it was a very long wait before I got to “ok, these definitely look like boobs now”. Still hoping for some more volume in the coming years.
Oh, and voice: yeah, I’d get started ASAP. I switched to trying to do a fem voice full-time pretty much immediately, and it was closer to a year before I was reasonably happy with my voice. (It was passable after maybe six months though). It will massively help you pass as a woman, and helped my dysphoria a lot.
oo, our voice timelines were similar - with full-time fem voice, daily practices, and weekly SLP sessions, I had a passing voice after around 8 months of training.
I’m still very unhappy and dysphoric about my voice (here’s a clip I recorded around 10 months ago), but I recently started to re-engage voice training with the goal of addressing vocal dysphoria rather than just focusing on pragmatic goals like passing (which was my only focus before; you would think they’re the same, and there is a lot of overlap, but I don’t hear my passing voice as female, so …).
woah! to me your voice sounds hyper femme!
i remember hearing abt cultural differences in pitch early in my linguistic studies. so maybe that’s at play here too, but no doubts. ;)
Yay, voice clips! <3
ok, ok, it’s possible to do it! i will make appointments. :)
My experience with boobs is very similar to yours, and with the right bra, I look like I I’m an A or B cup at 4 months on HRT. I still think my chest looks like a slightly overweight guy, but my wife is insistent they look like boobs, which is unfortunate because I was around someone I haven’t come out to yesterday, and if she’s right it would have been pretty obvious 😅.
When it comes to voice training, at least get on a waitlist asap. Where I live, it’s covered by public heathcare, but the only places you can use that coverage have a 3+ year waitlist
I still think my chest looks like a slightly overweight guy
i think thats my main concern, will my boobs be proportional to my chest? and wouldn’t that proportion mean rather large breasts? the history of my top disphoria is complicated. for a long time i thought my chest wasn’t flat enough. maybe i just thought it was too bulky? now i’m growing boobs.
i once tryed stuffing a bra to test a top. i like it better with breasts, and i’d love my breasts looking more natural, than what i did that day. i gotta stick to that. i also have to trust my body that it knows what to do there. breath in. and out. ;)
I’ve been using C cup silicone breast forms in my day to day since a little before starting growing my own and with them my measurements put me at around a D cup at first, probably closer to DD now, and they’ve always looked proportional for me at that size. I am also very broad in the shoulders, which is a source of dysphoria for me, but having proportionally sized breasts definitely helps with it.
This makes me hopeful for when I finally get my E from my supplier.
Edit: as far as voice is concerned i sort of agree with you. My plan is to have a feminine voice I can use publicly just to make day to day life easier, and retain my current voice for family etc.
do you have to wait long? i waited 5 month for the appointment and it took me like 8 month to get an appointment. that was a long time.
Yeah I’m not going to get seen by the healthcare services here. I don’t want to get srs or present femme before the hormones have made me actually look feminine so I’m not trans enough for them. The plan is to sneak a homebrew vial or two into the country and then next time I go to mainland Europe acquire enough raw enanthate to last the rest of my life and brew my own. I know enough about biochemistry, endocrinology, and neuroscience that I’m relatively confident that it’s the right choice for me. I also don’t want my name to appear on some fucking list if things go the American route.
jurassic park theme playing from afar clever girl!
;)
(sry, will delete if too weird)
I like weird.
(sry, will delete if too weird)
you are so cute 😄
As for the noticeable breast growth and pain after 3 weeks, that is much earlier than mine, that said, it sees all over so I don’t think I would be concerned.
