Had a dream that someone in my life reciprocated feelings, so today I’m living the worst kind of dysphoric depression.

Congrats on all the progress you’re making, that’s amazing to hear. I’m definitely going to try out a sleep dress soon!

A friend took some photos of me on a holiday, and when another friend saw them she asked who the girl was.

I nearly died from happiness

Thanks Ada,

That’s more or less what I’ve been trying to do, reading lots of reviews and trying to find someone trustworthy, I even mentioned that to my doctor but he ignored that too :/

Thankyou, I think I needed to read this

Fantastic! Thanks so much!

Hi Ada, I’m in Australia too, any chance you could DM the name of your surgeon or clinic? I’ve been trying to research options but it’s hard to find Australia specific recommendations

That’s very understandable!

It’s good that it’s an option for you then, best of luck!

I got a referral through my gender clinic for mine which included some really nice storage prices.

Abstinence is definitely encouraged and seems to help. They should let you know if you’ve got enough stored to have a good chance at a future pregnancy, but you can likely just go for a second time to store more without increasing the costs, at least it didn’t increase my costs.

My first appointment resulted in 11 straws, and from memory each storage straw is one try. By the second appointment I had 25 or so, and thankfully they were much more healthy that time, but that amount is kinda overkill from what they described.

Personally I wouldn’t want to do mail in, just in case. It’s insanely awkward going to the lab, but they really prefer you do it there to have the best chance of viable sperm to store. But mail in might be okay, I never researched it because it wasn’t an option for my place.

This is so amazing to know of, I’m making a note of this for the future!

Perhaps they can point you to someone who does do informed consent, given how invasive and awful I’ve heard getting a dysphoria diagnosis can be, I’d really recommend you make an informed consent clinic your first preference.

When I walked in I literally just said “yeah I’m NB, I want these things” and my GP just said okay here’s how we get you there. I’ve had experiences (with an entirely unrelated medical condition) where I’ve not been believed and had to advocate to receive the care I needed, having a GP who was fully in my corner was not just better, it was a legitimately lovely experience.

Oh, if it’s a possibility then it’s definitely worth pursuing!

I don’t know what the process will be like for you at all, but I went in as a complete and utter idiot and came out absolutely enlightened because everything was explained to me without me needing to prepare or prompt at all.

For a first appointment, just knowing what your goals are is likely enough, it took me an initial consult followed by a second appointment to talk about options before a third appointment where everything was set and all the necessary tests could begin. Fourth appointment I walked out with my prescription.

I honestly think you’ve got all the main questions covered, if your endo is providing referrals to things they might also be able to offer a referral to a voice coach like mine did (but mine was all through an informed consent GP so it might be different).

Best of luck, I really wish you didn’t need that accursed diagnosis, I’m sorry you have to go through proving you exist.

Did you even read the summary? They’re literally both being pursued

Oh my

If people want to play Hogwarts Legacy, they should pirate it.

I think there’s some justification in seperating shitty people from their work because people enjoy it, but we should enjoy it in a way which doesn’t support that person and the cancer they spew.

Also Harry Potter is kinda meh anyway :/

Joanne Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter, is a gigantic TERF and often tweets about trans people and how terrible she thinks they are.

She actively causes significant harm and supports TERF groups, all in the name of looking after women and children.

I’m no expert so I have no more detail than that, I actively avoid knowing about her any more than necessary

I just liked potato girl

I’ve known others who have used characters from shows, it’s not uncommon

You know what, I can immediately see in the way you talk about this that you’ve started making good progress. That’s some really good self insight, and that’s something to be damn proud of.

For what it’s worth, I think you’ve already started breaking that cycle just by starting this thread.

Something that I might add if it helps, internalizing other people’s views is in some way a survival instinct.

If you feel like you’re still struggling for survival, then that might be making it harder. It might be that you need to change your situation in life, maybe cut out toxic people or move somewhere that’s socially safer. I cut out the worst person in my life and sought out the support of good people, and it made it possible for me to finally accept myself.

I can’t pretend to know anything about your situation, but it might be useful to consider. I also appreciate that this often just isn’t possible.

I’m so sorry to hear how much you’re struggling with this. I wish I had all the answers, but I don’t, this is something I’m still struggling with too.

I do have two small things, the first is to try to forgive yourself for having these internalised issues. I know this is hard, so goddamn hard, but it’s important to be able to look inward and see yourself as someone deserving of compassion. You are human, and it’s a very human thing to struggle, to get frustrated even to be full of self hatred. Every single person deals with all of these, but you have something to be proud of, you want to change. To be able to look at yourself and want change, to try to change takes a lot of courage. Self forgiveness is as much a learned skill as anything else, so experiment and see if something works. In all honesty I’m not sure how I do it anymore, it’s almost become a reflex. I think I just try to imagine someone else in my position, trying to have compassion for their struggles.

For me, overcoming internalised transphobia has been a very slow process. It’s mostly been about slowly sorting through my feelings and thoughts and realising that these aren’t really mine, they’re someone else’s. We are social creatures, and our internal view of ourselves is as much constructed by our own beliefs as it is the beliefs of those around us.

Something that has helped me with this, is exposing myself to other people’s experiences and thoughts. This has largely been through YouTube, and even reading posts on communities like this one. I found the part of the world that accepts and even celebrates this part of me, and it started to replace those old beliefs with new ones. You can take this kind of thing slowly, and it’s okay to have setbacks. If I could recommend just one video, it would be this one: https://youtu.be/AITRzvm0Xtg?si=NKQD1tM1clIUvtWp

I’m afraid my experience only runs as far as internalised transphobia, but at least on this one issue I want you to know: I understand how you feel.