It took me a few months and I still hesitate when gendering myself sometimes, but it’s hesitation now, not correction. It helps that I’m out full-time now, though and have been for over a month. You’ll get there, girl. Just be kind to yourself.

What the actual fuck

I’m craving ramen now, thanks 😅

I’m still discovering that myself 😅 It can be hard to find nutritionally balanced snacks, so I like to keep a variety around. Things that I like to have around are popcorn/potato chips, fresh veggies, tortilla chips and salsa, lunch and snack meats, and of course some sweets like gummy candies and chocolate. I try not to eat too much of one thing. If you’re thinking about reaching for a whole bag of chips, maybe make a sandwich instead.

I struggled with disordered eating before HRT. A few weeks in, another trans girl explained to me that the body needs energy to do its thing. It’s basically second puberty and you know how much teenagers eat.

I was like you, being able to eat a couple of meals and be satisfied. Now, I snack more. I also eat smaller meals as it takes less to fill me up. I’m also ~6 months on E, so I’ve lost some muscle mass. Despite my new eating habits, I’ve been able to maintain around 70kg at 180cm tall. Meanwhile, my body’s been burning the fat buildup from T and packing it onto my butt, thighs, and chest.

If you want my two cents, try snacking more and just eat when you’re hungry. You don’t have to eat until you’re full, just until you’re not uncomfortable anymore. Trust the process and let your body do what it needs to do.

If you start going in a direction you don’t like, you can stop. You might also consult your doctor for advice

Maybe submit a GDPR request to get all of your photos from FB in a nice clean package so you can pack them up into cold storage and nuke the albums on the platform entirely.

My friend and I had a dynamic like that in a campaign. He was playing a dwarf barbarian who only spoke dwarven and I was playing a dwarf witch. When his barbarian would mouth off in dwarven about the party, my character would “translate” to something like, “He wishes you all good luck.”

Not cause it’s a good language or nothin’ scoff who would do that?

Francesca or Frankie

That sounds delicious

This should probably have been marked NSFW…

This is a weapon of mass destruction. It’s too cute; I have perished from it.

That makes me wonder what personal expression would look like. Clothing might have been developed completely differently if certain garments were made to fit more body types.

The best analogy that I can imagine is this: Imagine that you went to go get fitted for a suit. You go to a seamster, get fitted, and they make you a suit. You put the suit on and it doesn’t feel right. You tell the seamster and they insist that the suit was made to your measurements and that it is correct (they even have patterns and measurements to prove it.) You shrug, pay the fee, and leave with your new suit. Wearing it out, you confide in your friends that the suit doesn’t fit, but they all tell you that you look great. Despite your insistence that the seams on your shoulders don’t line up and that the waistline is far too off-center, your friends insist that your suit is well-fitted and you look great-- that you should be happy and grateful to have such a fine suit. Meanwhile you feel awful; dreadful. You just know that somebody is going to notice and call you out on your bad suit. You’re trying your best to accept and maybe even show off your expensive, non-refundable, sold as-is attire, but the weight of it and off-balance feeling it provides is a latent part of every move you make and every word out of your mouth. Furthermore, present circumstances have made it impossible for you to have another suit made. Even if you did, they’d just use the same measurements, come up with the same patterns, and make the same mistakes-- No, you’re the one that has to wear the suit; they don’t. You have to feel the fabric against your skin. You have to feel its seams snaking over your body. After wearing it all night, you know what’s wrong with it (or at least what will make it feel right.) Your only recourse is to find a tailor willing to help you alter it to your specifications or to alter it yourself. Let the opinions of everyone else be damned. After all, they’re happy in their suits.

I don’t want to butcher the English language

Singular they/them/their is a concept brought to English in the 14th century. It’s not butchering the English language to use they/them/theirs to refer to one person. You probably do it automatically without realizing it when referring to people wholly unknown to you when nothing can cue you in about their gender, like when referring to somebody that somebody else is talking to on the phone: “Who was that? What did they want?”

'Ey, check out my SoundCloud

What you’ve said in your second paragraph resonates so much with me and has helped reaffirm that I’m on the right path. Thank you.

I suppose this question is basically, “what are my goals?” I consider myself fairly feminine in mind, but I lament how unfeminine I am in body. In mind, I am emotional and empathic. I deeply care about other people and their feelings and I feel a lot, but I find myself unable to express it without inebriants.

What’s feminine to me is the ability to be emotionally available, freely expressive, caring, and nurturing. I don’t want to be tough and stoic. I don’t want to be strong and unwavering. I want to be flowing and expressive. I don’t want to uphold masculine expectations because emotionally, I feel trapped inside my own head. The main issue is that I don’t yet hold the keys to the cell. I wear a mask whether I want to or not and I live inside my own head.

As for expression, I want to be small, graceful, and delicate. I want my body to flow in movement and shape just as I want my emotions and mannerisms to flow from within me. I want my wardrobe to be complex and for my outfits to match my internal state. My current wardrobe is so boring: it’s just the same cuts of shirts and pants and I’ll only ever find more of the same off the rack at the department store. It should be vibrant and varied. Without going into detail, there are a few pain points on my body that need to be addressed. I guess it’s a roundabout way to say that I want the outside to match the inside.

I also want to be allowed to feel vulnerable and for that to be acceptable. I’m not good at being a man because… I’m not. And I shouldn’t be expected to be if I don’t want to. Nobody would expect me to be a carpenter just because I own a hammer, so why should this be different? I hope that answers your question. My neurospicy brain likes to tangent and ramble a bit.

So true. If you’re going to live in your body, you should make it feel like you and it should feel like you own it.

I had a similar realization. I found a moment of clarity and realized that I have the power to change my fate and I am the one who controls me. I should pursue happiness for myself and nobody else. If it’s a problem for anyone else, they’ve made it their problem, not me. I get to be selfish about this and so do you. Go get it, friend. You’re walking this path with millions of your own cousins.