21-12-2021, 07:16 PM
Six months on HRT, some nice little stories from the way & assorted rambling about transition
When they say that transition is one hell of a roller coaster ride, they're right, it is. I'm now six months in on HRT, almost a year since I came out to the world and started to present fem 24/7. It has been nothing short of amazing and mostly extremely positive experience. All the pain and mental down time is hard to take but its definitely worth it.
What has amazed me the most is how accepting the people in my life have been, how seemingly easy it is for me to pass well enough / get treated as a normal person. Also how well my body is taking HRT is phenomenal.
The acceptance, its crazy! I was expecting much more trouble, the hardest to deal with so far has been my mother. It took her more than six months to finally make her mind around the fact that her son is actually her daughter. Now she genders me correctly (Finnish language does not have gendered pronouns btw.), calls me by my chosen name Lara, which has one letter difference to my dead name. She calls me her daughter and introduces me as such to others. She has also started to be supportive with other things, she paid my labs which I have to pocket at this point and paid a hairdresser as a Christmas present. She even said once that she's sorry for not being wealthy enough to pay my transition which surprised the heck out of me, my mother is the type who NEVER throws money into things she things are not necessary. My gf told me that just yesterday she spoke with the father of my half brother who asked how I'm doing and mom explained to him that I'm in the process of correcting my gender, using those exact words which was fantastic. Bro's dad took it so well, apparently he just noted, "well, that's life". I knew he would likely be very cool about it, mom thought he would not... I didn't even mind that mother outed me to someone as she apparently did it the best way possible. Bless her. <3
Recently I got in touch with a cousin of mine, I hadn't heard of her for over fifteen years and she starts calling me out of nowhere. I visited her last week for few days and had the most amazing time. She promoted me to a sister when I complained that I've always missed having a sister... <3 She's so amazing, supportive and genuinely interested. She also kinda cryptically said that we likely wouldn't be in touch if I hadn't came out as trans, not explaining why it is so. She also did something very surprising, I'm very cuddly and affectionate with close friends, but she started showing her affection very openly being physically close and cuddly. I never expected it from a cousin and specially not her. She said so many nice things, she doesn't even remember the guy any more, she called me pretty many times and apparently forgot I'm trans few times as we talked so much girl stuff that usually only cis girls talk about. I can't wait to meet her again, she's so awesome, my best real life cis friend so far. Others live further away and they aren't that close.
Passing is very interesting thing, how does it really work? My conclusion is that when enough small details go spot on, there's a threshold, which when reached, flips most people's perception on "female setting." I am not picture perfect, I have some edges to my jawline, broad shoulders, I'm taller than 95% of women in my country, I have tiny bit of beard shadow still remaining, my mannerism isn't always completely feminine. My voice is either a dark female voice or something very androgynous. Yet I seem to pass for a cis woman almost all the time... The only way it can work for me is that I have reached the point where enough small things are right, so people perceive me as a woman. I have written about some previous passing experience, but here's something new. I was a week away from home, first in Helsinki and then Mikkeli. I went out for drinks, christmas shopping and so on. Not a single long judgemental look at all! Normal reactions, normal interaction with all people I talked with, many guys checked me out.... And yesterday coming back home the coolest thing happened. I met my bands ex vocalist and his new gf on a train station half way home. He did not recognize me! We hadn't seen for over a year, but I had been sending voice messages to him a while back. Yet he did not know me until I took my mask off to show my face. That was so amazing! I have known with this guy for years and he failed to know me by my looks or voice... Now that is really something, I've had some other old friends not know me recently. A colleague from my previous job stood right next to me in a store a while back, looked into my eye, heard me speak and he did not know me. I worked with the guy for eight months, five days a week, eight hours a day and I was unknown to him.
So yea, when I see girls here being so extremely distressed about if they pass or not, don't feel desperate. I thought I could never pass for a woman and always be openly trans, but it seems I was very wrong about that... Get enough details right and you WILL pass for who you are! It takes effort, but if I can do it, you can too. Although I have been in luck with genetics as I have naturally androgynous and feminine features which now are becoming much more prominent....
And this brings in the third point of amusement. That is HRT and my body changes. Its been amazing, nothing short of mind blowing what fixing my hormones has done to me. I'm very pleased about the rapid pace and the extent of it. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I'm genuinely happy and proud of how things have developed. My approach to HRT is a little bit unorthodox as I'm using some other supplements on the side to help it out and before going on conventional medication, I was on herbal program for almost a year. This gave me a nice head start as I was able to find the right people with right information to find out what worked on me. Starting HRT just made it all gazillion times better and faster.
People have said that I'm very lucky, won the genetic lottery, that I'm an outlier and all this stuff... From what I've seen, they are right. The kind of pace and extent of changes I've had is similar to what girls in late teens and early twenties seem to get. Far better than I ever expected to have starting at the ripe age of thirty seven. Who ever is interested in talking about HRT stuff, come chat with me, I really like to talk about it.... I have learned a lot about endocrinology in the last few years and will keep on educating myself more on the subject. I know that our healthcare system is slow and some times even incompetent. When I get to deal with who ever endo I get, I want to be completely in the know about everything. I'm naturally curious and finding out more about hormone functions has been hugely helpful.
So yea, that's about it. Oh btw, I'm having a break from most social media until March 19th... I thought I need a time out, to concentrate more on real life things than overthinking like crazy about stuff online. And also to not hurt myself, comparing myself to others is self sabotage. So I rather steer clear of a lot of online trans spaces and rather get validated in real life. Why March 19th? On that day I've been nine months on HRT, I'm thinking about making a picture update on that day, about my body changes in general and something to the breast timelines... My boobs aren't even close of being done growing yet. <3
Ok, this post has gone long enough. Anyway, this first half a year has been full of first times, full of surprises and mostly positive experience, also a lot of pain and depression, but that's what a dark night of the soul is all about.
When they say that transition is one hell of a roller coaster ride, they're right, it is. I'm now six months in on HRT, almost a year since I came out to the world and started to present fem 24/7. It has been nothing short of amazing and mostly extremely positive experience. All the pain and mental down time is hard to take but its definitely worth it.
What has amazed me the most is how accepting the people in my life have been, how seemingly easy it is for me to pass well enough / get treated as a normal person. Also how well my body is taking HRT is phenomenal.
The acceptance, its crazy! I was expecting much more trouble, the hardest to deal with so far has been my mother. It took her more than six months to finally make her mind around the fact that her son is actually her daughter. Now she genders me correctly (Finnish language does not have gendered pronouns btw.), calls me by my chosen name Lara, which has one letter difference to my dead name. She calls me her daughter and introduces me as such to others. She has also started to be supportive with other things, she paid my labs which I have to pocket at this point and paid a hairdresser as a Christmas present. She even said once that she's sorry for not being wealthy enough to pay my transition which surprised the heck out of me, my mother is the type who NEVER throws money into things she things are not necessary. My gf told me that just yesterday she spoke with the father of my half brother who asked how I'm doing and mom explained to him that I'm in the process of correcting my gender, using those exact words which was fantastic. Bro's dad took it so well, apparently he just noted, "well, that's life". I knew he would likely be very cool about it, mom thought he would not... I didn't even mind that mother outed me to someone as she apparently did it the best way possible. Bless her. <3
Recently I got in touch with a cousin of mine, I hadn't heard of her for over fifteen years and she starts calling me out of nowhere. I visited her last week for few days and had the most amazing time. She promoted me to a sister when I complained that I've always missed having a sister... <3 She's so amazing, supportive and genuinely interested. She also kinda cryptically said that we likely wouldn't be in touch if I hadn't came out as trans, not explaining why it is so. She also did something very surprising, I'm very cuddly and affectionate with close friends, but she started showing her affection very openly being physically close and cuddly. I never expected it from a cousin and specially not her. She said so many nice things, she doesn't even remember the guy any more, she called me pretty many times and apparently forgot I'm trans few times as we talked so much girl stuff that usually only cis girls talk about. I can't wait to meet her again, she's so awesome, my best real life cis friend so far. Others live further away and they aren't that close.
Passing is very interesting thing, how does it really work? My conclusion is that when enough small details go spot on, there's a threshold, which when reached, flips most people's perception on "female setting." I am not picture perfect, I have some edges to my jawline, broad shoulders, I'm taller than 95% of women in my country, I have tiny bit of beard shadow still remaining, my mannerism isn't always completely feminine. My voice is either a dark female voice or something very androgynous. Yet I seem to pass for a cis woman almost all the time... The only way it can work for me is that I have reached the point where enough small things are right, so people perceive me as a woman. I have written about some previous passing experience, but here's something new. I was a week away from home, first in Helsinki and then Mikkeli. I went out for drinks, christmas shopping and so on. Not a single long judgemental look at all! Normal reactions, normal interaction with all people I talked with, many guys checked me out.... And yesterday coming back home the coolest thing happened. I met my bands ex vocalist and his new gf on a train station half way home. He did not recognize me! We hadn't seen for over a year, but I had been sending voice messages to him a while back. Yet he did not know me until I took my mask off to show my face. That was so amazing! I have known with this guy for years and he failed to know me by my looks or voice... Now that is really something, I've had some other old friends not know me recently. A colleague from my previous job stood right next to me in a store a while back, looked into my eye, heard me speak and he did not know me. I worked with the guy for eight months, five days a week, eight hours a day and I was unknown to him.
So yea, when I see girls here being so extremely distressed about if they pass or not, don't feel desperate. I thought I could never pass for a woman and always be openly trans, but it seems I was very wrong about that... Get enough details right and you WILL pass for who you are! It takes effort, but if I can do it, you can too. Although I have been in luck with genetics as I have naturally androgynous and feminine features which now are becoming much more prominent....
And this brings in the third point of amusement. That is HRT and my body changes. Its been amazing, nothing short of mind blowing what fixing my hormones has done to me. I'm very pleased about the rapid pace and the extent of it. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I'm genuinely happy and proud of how things have developed. My approach to HRT is a little bit unorthodox as I'm using some other supplements on the side to help it out and before going on conventional medication, I was on herbal program for almost a year. This gave me a nice head start as I was able to find the right people with right information to find out what worked on me. Starting HRT just made it all gazillion times better and faster.
People have said that I'm very lucky, won the genetic lottery, that I'm an outlier and all this stuff... From what I've seen, they are right. The kind of pace and extent of changes I've had is similar to what girls in late teens and early twenties seem to get. Far better than I ever expected to have starting at the ripe age of thirty seven. Who ever is interested in talking about HRT stuff, come chat with me, I really like to talk about it.... I have learned a lot about endocrinology in the last few years and will keep on educating myself more on the subject. I know that our healthcare system is slow and some times even incompetent. When I get to deal with who ever endo I get, I want to be completely in the know about everything. I'm naturally curious and finding out more about hormone functions has been hugely helpful.
So yea, that's about it. Oh btw, I'm having a break from most social media until March 19th... I thought I need a time out, to concentrate more on real life things than overthinking like crazy about stuff online. And also to not hurt myself, comparing myself to others is self sabotage. So I rather steer clear of a lot of online trans spaces and rather get validated in real life. Why March 19th? On that day I've been nine months on HRT, I'm thinking about making a picture update on that day, about my body changes in general and something to the breast timelines... My boobs aren't even close of being done growing yet. <3
Ok, this post has gone long enough. Anyway, this first half a year has been full of first times, full of surprises and mostly positive experience, also a lot of pain and depression, but that's what a dark night of the soul is all about.