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haha, fat definitely increases calories, though I find it’s less directly fattening because it doesn’t seem to increase insulin resistance the way simple carbs and sugars do (and insulin seems key to controlling your weight). Though targeting insulin resistance is like aiming to get diabetes, so I don’t suggest it, lol. Still, it gives you a way to really gain weight.

I’m not the most fond of sugar though I think I crave it more since starting HRT. I do typically crave simple carbs like bread, potato chips, etc. - eating more simple carbs can definitely be another way to fatten up (they’re often not as filling either!). I have noticed stress tends to push me towards eating high calorie foods like simple carbs, sugars, and fats, and Robert Sapolsky talks about the mechanism for this in Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.

If you want to gain weight it helps to incorporate high-calorie foods that don’t stimulate the over-full feeling, so something high in sugar like soda or ice cream. Obviously eating enough of that can cause metabolic disorders, but over time eating these kinds of foods will be fattening, though it can take a bit of time as your basal metabolism will increase and burn up the extra calories at first. Just be moderate I guess, obviously these are unhealthy tips, lol.

I have the opposite problem though, I struggle with losing weight and not over-eating (even when I’m eating really healthy foods). Fasting has helped me lose weight, personally.

It’s probably not a healthy tip, but I think there were some studies that showed being overweight led to more breast growth. It sorta makes sense, the breasts are a place where excess fat is stored. That said, being overweight creates lots of other health risks, so it’s probably not good to target that as much as fat cycling where you shed and put on weight might be part of a strategy of transitioning.

Have you talked to your doctor about it?

Just reading briefly, it’s normal to have low prolactin levels (less than 25 ng/mL) for women who aren’t pregnant. If you were trying to prepare to breastfeed and your levels remained low that might be something to talk to your doctor about. However, I wouldn’t worry about it for normal breast growth.

The things you should focus on to promote good breath growth are things that keep you in good health generally, like

• eating a healthy and diverse diet (e.g. incorporate more salads with vegetables and nuts, choose less refined sources of carbs like whole wheat instead of white bread, etc.),
• staying hydrated (keep water by you all day and drink it regularly),
• avoiding drug use (especially tobacco and alcohol),
• keeping good sleep hygiene (helpful PDF),
• regularly exercising (both aerobic and strength training, aim for 1 - 2 hours of intense aerobic activity per week),
• reducing stress (including worrying about your prolactin levels, lol; meditation can help with stress reduction & helping to identify and redirect unhelpful thoughts; recommended reading: Judson Brewer’s Unwinding Anxiety, and for a meditation manual, The Mind Illuminated by John Yates).

Yes, I recommend watching all those videos. They were what finally forced me to admit I was probably trans and that I should at least try hormones and socially transitioning to see whether it made things better or not.

I recommend watching this video if you haven’t already: Common Excuses to Avoid Transitioning

Can confirm, I still don’t know that I’m trans, all I know is that I started HRT and transitioned socially and I still like it so I keep doing it. Sometimes you just have to admit it’s scary and you’re taking a gamble, but you can always take stock and see if the transition is still right for you. It can feel like you have to commit up-front and know for sure, but I’m not sure anyone knows for sure.

When I’m feeling the most doubt I like to sit down and write out the reasons I think I’m trans or why I think I might not be trans. Usually by writing it out I am confronted with all the reasons I have for transitioning and I feel better, more grounded in my choices. I think this is probably just fear and internalized transphobia that causes me to endlessly doubt and question whether I’m actually trans.

For me, I personally reacted differently to different labels and pronouns as I transitioned. When I first started I didn’t think my deadname or old pronouns bothered me at all, nor did I think they would in the future. It only took a few months for that to change.

In my opinion, early transition is not a time to make these kinds of promises, your intuitions might not be the same a year from now if you medically transition and live as a woman. You also aren’t thinking about what it might be like for your children to call someone who looks and lives as a woman their “dad”.

If possible, I think it would be wise to seek couple’s counseling (ideally someone with a PhD who has experience working with couples where one of them is transitioning), not because anything you’re doing is wrong but because it will give you a context for working through the active issues in your relationship. (Sometimes people see couple’s counseling as something you do when you’re failing, but in my experience if you are proactive and seek couple’s counseling before the relationship has reached a critical point where it’s too late and the relationship is ending, the counseling is more like an investment in the relationship that breathes life into it and can help sustain it.)

I wish you luck in your transition, I wish you lots of gender euphoria. ❤️

Came here to say the same. I’ve seen other people claim Leviticus 18:22 was mistranslated, but all the actual Biblical scholarship and evidence I have found does not support this and the word is indeed a generic word for “male” that doesn’t imply age. Would love to see evidence to the contrary, though!

However, there is a debate about what “Paul” (the author was probably not actually Paul) meant in the New Testament in Corinthians by malakoi (“soft”) and arsenokoites (“man-bed”) and some people argue this is about pederasty and not about homosexuality, and that is at least more plausible than the claims about Leviticus 18:22.

Of note perhaps to @June and OP: a documentary was also recently produced called 1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture, which makes these kinds of arguments.

Thanks, I love how genderqueer the underwear models are 😁

I do have one of their gaffs and it works for me really well. I tend to wear underwear over the gaff, and while it doesn’t entirely eliminate all bulge or completely smoothes out the area, it does a much better job than just underwear. I wore the gaff through a couple TSA pat-downs and it was perfect for that kind of situation. It also lets me wear dresses that otherwise show too much, if you know what I mean.

I recommend a gaff from origami customs, as they don’t charge for making your gaff to custom measurements, and they have a free gaff program.

EDIT: Origami Customs is based out of Canada and they ship internationally. Since I don’t see any of their in-person free gaff programs partners in Austria, your best bet will be their online free gaff program through Point of Pride, here are their requirements:

We have only two requirements in an effort to be as inclusive as possible:

• You identify as transgender (MTF, genderqueer, non-binary, genderfluid, gender non-conforming, and every other non-cis identity assigned male at birth within the trans umbrella.)
• You cannot afford to purchase femme shapewear, or you cannot safely obtain femme shapewear.

We accept all requests for support, and applications are open year-round. Once you complete your application, your request will be added to our waitlist. Shipping is discrete and 100% free, and we ship internationally to 90+ countries and counting.

Point of Pride sources their gaffs from Origami Customs. You have to take measurements, fill out an application on this Google Form, and they will contact you when it’s ready to ship. They do ship internationally for free.

I think the main “catch” is that there is a wait-list and presumably a long wait time. Even buying a gaff directly from Origami Customs I placed my order in December 2023 and it didn’t ship until March 2024. I suspect it will be a much, much longer wait for a free gaff through Point of Pride.

I would take bio-identical progesterone (P4) prescribed by a doctor. The common recommendation is to press the pill (normally taken orally) up into the rectum, since taking it orally causes the liver to filter most of it. Bypassing the liver by putting it up the rectum allows it to absorb readily in the lower intestines.

See:

https://transfemscience.org/articles/transfem-intro/#rectal-progesterone

A common recommendation is to start progesterone a year or two into HRT once the breasts have reached Tanner stage III, as taking it too early supposedly can negatively impact breast development (take this with a grain of salt, may or may not be true; there is also no empirical evidence progesterone helps breast development, it’s all anecdotal reports).

I started injecting into tummy around mid March, so I guess it’s been a month since I gave up on injecting into the thighs. I started the 5 mg / 4 days in mid February, so I guess it’s been two months at that dose.

In that case it seems like injecting into the tummy shouldn’t be the reason I started to experience dysphoria. I do think sometimes that some injections depot better than others, and that it depends on various factors like whether I hit any blood supply, how much bleeding I cause when I inject, etc.

Thanks for the tip on the thigh - I can’t remember if I’ve heard that as well, but it’s good to hear what people are experiencing.

❤️

I obviously can’t speak to your particular circumstances or the risks involved in remaining closeted and hiding your HRT, etc.

What I can say is that I wish I had transitioned much earlier, and that life without HRT left me with serious mental issues that weren’t resolved until I started HRT. A lot of masculine features didn’t show up until my mid to late 20s.

Different people respond differently to HRT, so my experiences may not match yours, but I seriously underestimated the biochemical and cognitive impact HRT would have.

Waiting 5 - 6 years seems insane to me, and HRT takes time to cause changes. Starting while still young will have significant impact on your development for the rest of your life, even starting at 18 compared to your mid-20s is a huge difference in my opinion.

If I were you, if it were at all possible I would choose to start HRT as soon as possible, but that’s a highly contingent statement based on my narrow set of experiences. Starting HRT can be its own stress and not having the space to accommodate that in your life may or may not work. Looking back, I tried to come out of the closet and transition over and over in my life, and it wasn’t until I was much, much older with a stable career and home life that I was finally able to accommodate transitioning. Still, I wish I could have started HRT when I was 18, or 16, or 13. I wish I could have avoided the failed suicide attempts, the self-harm, the crippling depression, the anxiety. There was so, so much suffering I had no idea was being caused by going through the wrong puberty, and I still can hardly believe the way I feel with injections of estradiol. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone. It’s like asking if you should start injecting insulin as a diabetic, it seems like the only answer is yes. Still, I know it’s more complicated than that.

Consider educating yourself on transfeminine HRT and sourcing hormones on the grey-market if possible. Even if you are able to see a doctor and go through official means, educating yourself is important as doctors won’t know much about how to treat trans patients. The DIY route might also save you from the potential of being outed by going through official channels (bills, paperwork, etc. can easily end up going to your parents if you live with them, etc.).

Be smart, prioritize independence. Save up money, be safe, and take care of yourself.

I wish you luck my sister.

hey hey, I’ll take it!

yes, Reddit has a surprising amount of useful information; I wish there were a project like Wikipedia (or to a lesser-extent, stackoverflow) that organized and made this kind of information and community wisdom an accessible and well-maintained Commons for anyone to benefit from (like online community as a long-term humanist project, haha)

sorry to hear that :-(

hope you are able to get some rest and relief soon!

It can be hard being an alien, but learning how to interface with people and navigating the bizarre world can be a rewarding (if at times exhausting) endeavor. I wouldn’t place disconnect in terms of blame, though it is easy to do so - better to think of it neutrally, as information to help orient yourself.

I find when I blame myself and get caught up in being wrong I have a harder time staying emotionally aware and doing the right things, so even if just for pragmatic reasons it is good to be easy on yourself.

It’s more important to be going the right direction and to persist, to have an element of quick recovery and trying again, than to punish yourself for failures. It’s even less useful when the failures are caused in part or by whole by the conditions you are in rather than the way you are; for example, if you were on-time according to a schedule but the bus didn’t follow the schedule, it’s good to know that you might have to come earlier than the schedule says to eliminate that possibility of missing the bus, but it is also reasonable for you to follow the schedule and it’s not entirely on you that you missed the bus.

Either way, sounds like you are on the right track and doing a great job considering your circumstances, and that’s the best anyone can do. Exploring the city and riding the bus to get more familiar is really smart, it’s much better to miss the bus and learn the lesson under these circumstances than when the consequences might be worse (like if missing the bus made you miss a job interview, or something like that).

So, well done, you’re doing great!

Dysphoria increased for me when I finally confronted I was trans. Women in general are under intense pressure to conform to femininity and certain gender norms, so all that internalized sexism seemed to act like gasoline to my dysphoria, turning it from a fire to a conflagration.