Oh, I've been in the closet for 11 years. I've had a LONG time to do my research. The problem is that the clinic I'm seeing is being overly cautious, and I don't want to end-run them to DIY because I need them for lots of other things, some related and some not. They put me on 50mg spironolactone, which I guess did the job. Almost. T is at 70ng/dl. Since I'm in the US, cypro isn't an option and the clinic is paranoid and told me they won't prescribe anything with a side effect of "death" listed, even though you and I both know that's infinitesimally small a chance and bigger for cis-women than us. So that means no bicalutamide.

I'm also unfortunately on 4mg oral estradiol tablets. They don't want to make ANY changes until the 3 month mark, so my E2 is sitting at 70pg/ml. The clinic seems happy with this. I'm beside myself at how low it is. I have asked to move to intramuscular estradiol valerate at monotherapy dosages, but they keep pushing back. My age likely doesn't help, though. I'm over the hill. And fairly lean, since I run marathons and cycle centuries. So there isn't a lot of fat to redistribute, but I should still feel the pain and sensitivity. It's frustrating.

When I had that model, I just forced it to be function keys permanently. I spend a lot of time with strange terminal programs, so Fkeys were important. Think "managing solaris devices" or "ancient ISP hardware used via serial terminal".

I'm 7 weeks in to HRT and have no changes yet. How? How do you already have this feeling? I'm glad you're euphoric. I'm just jealous.

Arch isn't necessarily about minimalism. It's about the distro not doing things for you and mostly leaving the defaults the way the upstream developers intended. So you DIY most of your distro, but you do it exactly the way you want. I very much do the exact same thing you just did for every work-issued macbook I've gotten in the past 10 years. Excepting, of course, the current one because the M3 isn't really usable in linux! Package groups are great for bigger things like DEs because they're developed together, so you get the entire experience the way the devs intended it. I think the only really big thing that's broken for KDE is Discovery, because pacman support isn't great there. It works fine for flatpack and others, though. Use it the way you want to!

mrrp

As a sort-of developer myself (mostly network automation tools and backend things), it's not something I'd really share publicly. Not because of shame, or even worries of safety. Just because I don't really share my code or projects with the public anymore. I haven't worked on open source software in a long time. I wish I still could, but it's not in the cards for me. Most of my "a bit idle" time has unfortunately gone into obsession over "perfecting" my transition. We'll see if therapy helps there, but I honestly think it would just shift to life planning endeavors instead.

That said, maybe look at this with a different lens: while it would be good to band together and write our own things, software doesn't have a gender. Find projects that help with things you believe are worth doing. Sometimes it's tools to help the transgender community directly (https://github.com/cvyl/awesome-transgender could use some updating here!) and sometimes it's just making the world a better place for humans to be kind and helpful to each other.

I get the desire for community, though. I've posted about this myself, but it's very difficult to find people that "get it" who aren't already trans or questioning. I'd love a circle of friends to relate with. The software world can be pretty socially closed off, sometimes!

Welcome to the fold, sister 🐧🧦⚧️

Whatever you do, please get a first aid kit and learn how to use it (and rotate the perishables!). I understand the point here is to defend yourself, but keeping yourself and others from losing their lives to injury is just as important.

After viewing and funeral shenanigans of having to be dead named and referred to as "son in law" and "husband" all weekend, I would welcome this. I think I may just visit the specialty ice cream shop and suggest it for dinner to my spouse instead of normal food.

Hey, I know this feeling. Let it pass. Dwelling here leads to bad places that nobody should have to be in. You deserve love and peace, just as much as anyone else. Please don't be a statistic! If you need help, reach out! DMs are fine here. Call the Trevor Project if you're still feeling this way. It hurts me worse than dysphoria to see stories like yours. They're valid feelings and they're real, but they stem from external factors. Push them away and spend some time thinking about the you that you love 💖

;{ You don't have to stop here. Pause, collect yourself, and keep telling your story!

Transfemme here, and I just wanted to say that anyone who refuses to accept you in a queer space would be a hypocrite. You're valid being you, whatever you happen to be feeling that day! A good friend of mine has an afab child who realized they were non-binary in early high school. They're in college now and doing just fine, though still exploring what that means to them. Just like we never stop learning our whole lives, I don't think we ever stop discovering things about our own selves, either. I didn't come out until I was 40, and there's a long road ahead of me to find out just how far down the femme road I need to go to feel right, too. Just hang in there and be the you that feels right! That's valid and should always be accepted!

Listen I tried. I actually went to what I thought was going to be my therapy appointment and all I got was: "I'm not a therapist. This is a consultation. You should se a therapist, though! Here's a list; see if any of them are covered by your insurance. And I have no idea if any of them are trans-affirming". So yeah, I tried to do something, but ended up doing nothing. I'm still a dysfunctional bitch, though.

One thing I wanted to mention but didn't: I wrote this to show that it could be possible to be you and be in a loving relationship. They don't all have to end just because of a change. My spouse and I still love each other as much as the day we met. I'm starting thereapy to work through my transition, and at some point I will bring them in for a couples session (or as many as we need!) to make sure we are both doing the things that are right for us. I'd love to remain in this marriage the rest of my life. I hope they do as well, but if there are needs I can no longer fulfill or the attraction isn't there anymore, I'm willing to accept that. Life was never fair (I'd have been born with two X chromosomes if it was!) and I know that changes can come and that some can be worse than others. For now though, I have a trusted partner, best friend, and loving spouse to help me through it, all in the same person.

There's a lot of great advice here already, so I'm not going to reitreate. Instead, I'm going to offer an anecdote:

My egg cracked 11 years ago. At the time, my spouse and I had been married for 5 years and together for 10. They meant the world to me and were the only thing driving me every day. I always said that my career was second; they were the smarter one (higher academic degree, more published papers, more detailed mathematical work) and so I could pick up anywhere and do whatever as long as they were doing what they wanted. I would then and would still, now, gladly take a bullet to keep them safe.

I put this out there to lay the foundation for my decision when I discovered, cognitively, that I was transfemme. My immediate and lasting reaction was to shove that in a box and bury it. I refused to harm our relationship or my spouse in ANY way, including but not limited to: socially, emotionally, economically, physically. I was thinking about the direct and indirect effects on them from knowing, and dealing with, me, my transition, or the way others would react to it with them or to them.

I missed a very important factor in all of this: me. Forgetting, just for a moment, how miserable it is to live through over a decade of dysphoria without help or even a verbal outlet, I harmed my spouse by being absent from life in general. I was always stuck inside my own head thinking about how life could be instead of how it was at the moment. After I came out, received a diagnosis and eventually began HRT, they told me they could tell I was actually with them again. I was there. Physically, sure, but also mentally! I was aware in full of the world and events around me and actively taking part in life again.

Did I do some damage? Yes. Some of it is yet to be realized, since I still fully pass in boymode and am sticking to that in public for quite some time. The difference is that the issues we face now and will face in the future are ones we'll face together. I won't face them alone inside my head and they won't face them without me really being in the moment. We're actually a couple again, everyday, and I wouldn't give this up for anything.

I have one regret. I regret not doing this a decade ago.

Dandelion, have you ever considered writing professionally? You answer so many questions with thoughtful, insightful, and exquisite prose. A "transition experiences guide" or a memoir from you would make for a delightful read.

Also, I definitely needed to read this comment today. I spent the day boymoding and doing home renovation and it was unpleasantly dysphoric. I am not intending to be misogynistic, because there are plenty of women around me absolutely nailing the homeowner thing, but standing on a ladder getting caulk in my fingernails and forcing a hammer drill into a wall is not my idea of a good time.

I am trying to avoid this, though I know it's proably a good answer. I've never had an account with any of Meta's properties and I block them at the router (hooray for a null-route-injecting route reflector). Outside of Lemmy, I've never participated in any social media whatsoever, even though I was around in the BBS days. I suppose time on IRC counts, sort of? It just feels so slimy to me.

The thing about clubs and other events like that is they almost always mean "looking to date". I've been happily married for a very long time and we don't intend to alter that arrangement. I want to meet friends, not potential partners.

All this to say that it's not what I wanted to hear, but you're likely right and I value your input. Thank you!

My small town neighborhood is pretty similar, and in a way terrible because it's quite rural. Not much around me unless I drive a ways. I'm trying to get out of here. We moved because it was quiet, but the neighbors are getting unbearable and I just don't want to take care of all of this land and house. I'd love to move to a European village near a real city with some good rail. Nothing waould make me happier than biking through a countryside and into a city, like almost anywhere in The Netherlands, or Spain, or France. I'm not just not sure how I'd even BEGIN that process.

I miss Meetups, too. I used to run one in the Philadelphia area for a tech stack I worked with. It really was a good way to meet people based on a common interest instead of a demographic, wasn't it?

This definitely happened to me a LOT when I was growing up. Oddly enough, right around the time of puberty. Which, now that I think about, explains a lot. Mine was usually right after dreams about being small. I ended up over 6 feet tall by middle school, so that's either an expression of dysphoria, body dysmorphia, or both. I'm going with both.

Were we separated at birth? I swear I have the exact same experience as you. The slight difference for me might be that instead of nightmares, I just literally haven't dreamt AT ALL since puberty. And then had a real dream once I was on estrogen. I am hoping things get better from here. Nothing much happening in the first month (besides my spouse telling me I don't smell like a man anymore) but I am hoping it turns out well. Your accounts are both mirrors of my own life and very affirming that I have made the right decisions. Thank you for sharing!

I met up with some friedns for brunch this weekend and one of them said "Your weight loss is going well and you don't look like you're cradle-robbing anymore.". My spouse and I were very confused, since we're almost the same age. Estrogen and weight loss together are the literal fountain of youth. My personal favorite weight loss tool that isn't "eat less" was getting on Zwift. Plus, cycling helps with your legs and butt. Wins all around!