In that case, I highly recommend Julia Serano’s Sexed Up for its analysis of gender.

I’ve also been trying to work my way through Down Girl by Kate Manne.

In terms of fiction, I was deeply moved by Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, which I read as a teenager.

ha, good to know - I honestly haven’t paid much attention to him before so I didn’t even recognize his name

is this fiction only, or does non-fiction count too? (I only ask because most of my feminist reads are non-fiction 😅)

ah, I am sometimes clueless of sarcasm, my bad 😅

he’s a known anti-trans activist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Linehan#Anti-transgender_activism

Added writer C.B. Huckabee: “Malcolm Gladwell is an archetype of the modern journalist: -cowed by the crowd -serves self over truth -mediocre writer who leverages group identity.”

fucking lol

the body be like:

Writing on his blog, Mr. Linehan said he was taken into police custody, searched and interviewed in relation to three posts he made on X in April, including one that read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

…

Mr. Rowley defended the arrest in his statement, saying that the law “dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offense” and that “most reasonable people would agree that genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group should be acted upon by officers.”

In the 12 months that ended in March 2024, almost 4,800 hate crimes were recorded against transgender people, British police data shows, up from 2,800 hate crimes in the 12 months that ended in March 2021.

…

Mr. Linehan, 57, is set to go on trial on Thursday on separate charges of harassing an 18-year-old campaigner for transgender rights, accusations he denies.

Linehan made three separate threats, is already on trial for harassing a trans-rights activist, and is a known anti-trans activist - the context is important, it’s not like this is being overblown, a bigot is advocating for violence against a minority group he campaigns against.

when I think enough about it, I can start to think everything I tell myself is a lie

pretty much same here

the only differences on my end are that I occasionally shave my arms if I notice dark hairs there (probably less than once a month)

it makes me so sad that this is the state of things, but maybe I shouldn’t generalize, like, the youtube comment section isn’t an accurate representation of average people’s views because it’s swayed by bots and political actors to create a false sense of consensus - but I do find I psychologically cede that territory anyway

DIY just means not through a prescription / doctor, maybe you thought I meant “homebrewing” (i.e. compounding your own prog)?

If you are seeing a doctor (i.e. not DIY) you can just ask them to prescribe you prog, at least in the U.S. it’s typical to be able to access oral biodentical prog gel capsules that can be safely used rectally for proper absorption.

I agree, I don’t see any rules around sourcing - it’s a common rule to protect the sources, however, and I’m just flagging the norm in case you run into trouble.

Have you checked out the Matrix HRT chatroom? That might be a better place for these discussions? 🤷‍♀️

I assume this is for DIY? I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be sourcing in a thread like this, tbh - that can lead to trouble (though it’s up to the mods, I know a lot of communities ban sourcing discussion).

I haven’t notice any difference with my allergies either way - but I never had a perpetually runny or stopped-up nose.

I would give it more time - it’s only been a couple weeks, so it could just be a coincidence. What little I glanced at indicates estrogen might cause worse allergies if anything.

thank you 🥵😩😌

By translating my feelings into action.

The way I see my situation is that passing is a matter of survival - so I put all that anxiety and fear into my self-care and into my transition. The fear motivates all the exhausting labor put towards transition like hair removal, getting surgery, etc.

It helps motivate my willingness to take care of my body (skin, hair, nails, etc.), to learn and refine makeup and fashion skills, and to hydrate, eat healthy, and exercise.

Every step helps make it more likely I will pass as cis and be safe from stochastic violence. The steps I have taken have helped me survive interactions with the police, for example. Prioritizing passing has helped me reduce or avoid the cumulative stress that living as visibly trans incurs.

Focusing on action also translates to other efforts, like the long-term project of moving from a hostile place to a place with trans protections, or going through the bureaucratic process of updating all my legal documents.

By translating fear into action, I not only pragmatically prioritize survival, I also can put the emotions aside and focus on the problem solving. Rather than giving into despair, I try to find the next foot hold and stay calm, focused, and moving towards the next tangible step I can take. This creates a sense of autonomy and control, which is also helpful for my mentality / psychology.

When it’s not adaptive or helpful to get lost in despair or emotion, I stay focused, but I find when there are moments when I can afford to, I can hold space for my feelings, allowing myself to experience the despair and breakdown crying. Seeing a therapist, writing in my journal, and talking to friends can help me process my emotions. Leaning on drugs is a coping mechanism I leaned on during pre-transition, but once I transitioned the motivation to take care of myself and the mental health benefits of transition naturally reduced the need for that coping mechanism. (I have fallen back to alcohol a few times - ironically I hadn’t had any alcohol for a year before when I socially transitioned, and when my egg cracked I drank an entire bottle of wine. The same happened the night Trump won his most recent presidential election, despite not having had alcohol otherwise for many months.)

Otherwise I just try to stay a bit disconnected from the reality while remaining open to the variety of possibilities, and trying not to pre-judge or assume how it will go. There are many possible bad outcomes, but I have been surprised with how many good outcomes happen anyway, sometimes even as a downstream result of a bad outcome. (Semi-related, see also the Chinese parable, The old man lost his horse.)

So just ride the waves and direct yourself towards a better reality, and in the meantime take joy in the present moment and remain open and aware of the possibilities.

Well, in terms of pronouns, if you really aren’t sure you can always just avoid pronouns entirely. For example:

Elliot page is who acted in Juno. Elliot was pregnant in that film.

You can just use the name instead of their pronoun. It can be a little awkward, but if you are really concerned about not getting the wrong pronouns, that’s the best option.

Normally I would just suggest using singular “they”, but this can be problematic for some trans people who do not appreciate having “they” pronouns applied to them, especially when “they” is used when gender is perceived as ambiguous.

Imagine a binary trans woman who lives as a woman and wishes to be seen and referred to as a woman. If someone suddenly referred to her with “they”, it might feel stigmatizing because it highlights how her gender appearance is ambiguous or not feminine enough to easily be referred to as “she”.

So using a name instead can be a way to avoid this until you know for sure what their pronouns are (which you can do by checking in with them and asking, hopefully privately in a polite and affirming way that doesn’t draw too much attention to their transness).

The problem is that trans people are so different from one another, so what is upsetting to one is affirming for another. There are non-binary trans folks who love having a gender that cannot be pinned down and who might find it extremely affirming to be referred to as “they” in the way I mentioned above can be upsetting to a binary trans person who is trying to pass as one gender or another.

Either way, my advice is to not get too concerned about playing the pronoun game perfectly, instead just center yourself in fundamentals: have the intention of respecting someone’s self-identity, and learn to think about a person in terms of their identity to make that easier. If you are doing this, and it’s clear you are doing this, a trans person generally won’t mind a slip-up (they are probably used to honest mistakes and are only worried about people who are indicating they don’t respect their identity, so just catching your own mistakes and correcting them quickly is more than sufficient usually).

Lastly, I did want to say one more thing about your question regarding Elliot Page: one reason to use the current name and pronouns when referring to a time before they transitioned is that it’s not uncommon for a trans person to feel their identity did extend into the past, in the sense that they probably wanted to transition earlier and have always been that way.

I am a trans person who certainly felt this way, I distinctly remember being 5 years old and thinking there was a cosmic error and that I was meant to be born a girl. There is a feeling that I was sort of like a girl on the inside even before I transitioned, and referring to myself before as a woman or girl doesn’t feel entirely wrong (it even feels like it honors a part of me that was not recognized or taken care of). But there are other times when I feel like my deadname or pronouns feel applicable, when describing a particular way I was before I transitioned. I did live as a boy and a man, at least socially - though always in an alienated and outsider fashion.

So it’s complicated and probably very specific to each trans person how they think about themselves over time, but in general it’s probably safe to refer to them using the name and pronouns they have now.

Generally you use the current name and pronouns as though they had always had them.

So Elliot Page is who acted in Juno, he was pregnant in that film, etc.

This is just the safe and polite route when you don’t know the trans person’s preference. If you refer to their deadname and use their old pronouns, it could be misconstrued as indicating you don’t respect or acknowledge their current gender identity, so this just avoids that situation entirely.

Always playing girls or male none-humans in pretty much all forms of fiction

✅ Yes, I usually preferred to play a female character if I could get away with it (i.e. if I wasn’t going to be bullied or teased for it). Sometimes I thought this was for sexual reasons, but it didn’t make sense because it rarely fulfilled sexual desire for me - it really was more about identity. For example, my Stardew Valley character was a woman …

Hating the way guys treated girls (most often in dating)

✅ Didn’t feel this way about dating in particular, but I was a very vocal feminist and had very negative opinions of men and the way they treat women.

Rejecting traditional masculinity, hated the idea that it was expected to act like that

✅ Yes, I was never masculine and never liked masculine things. Never wanted to be a father, never wanted to be a man or boy, tbh. It always felt wrong on a “cosmic” level - it felt like the universe made some mistake.

Ungodly ammounts of trans related porn and no interested in traditional one

I liked all kinds of porn, including trans porn - looking back the porn was related to gender issues, but I am not sure how I would have figured that out at the time based on how broadly I consumed everything on the internet.

What I will say, though, is that my earliest sexual experiences were not from visual depictions of sex, but rather about romantic and sexual stories - I remember reading a Cosmos magazine when I was 8 that had stories about women who had sex with their boyfriends and husbands, and one story about a couple getting caught in the rain and then partially stripping and having sex while still wet was the earliest example of media that served a prurient interest for me. It was actually years before I took any interest in porn, and it was always side-by-side with erotica, though eventually porn became economical and more frequent, erotica was always more fulfilling and “better” in a sense. I don’t remember this being true for any other guy I knew, and now I think it makes a bit more sense.

Very open and radical pro-choice position, even from a relarively young age

✅ See above about being a staunch feminist.

Being around guys was always scary and wrong, while being around girls made me feel safe and in the correct place

✅ Yes, a good way of putting it - with guys I was always on-guard. Guys were typically violent, and I always had to be vigilant around them. They were also inconsiderate - if I had guy friends over for a sleepover they would trash my room and place and leave the next day without helping clean up. Women were always more considerate and never would do that. Guys were generally more selfish and prioritized their needs and desires. Other boys stole from me, bullied me, physically and verbally abused me, etc. Meanwhile I rarely was mistreated by women, and I always felt women were more mature, more considerate, and certainly safer (girls and women were never physically violent with me).

You could not bring me to undress in front of guys

✅ I generally had straight-As in school, but I always made a C in gym class because I refused to strip and change clothes in the boys’ locker room. It never felt right, and I couldn’t explain why - I rationalized that it was just body dysmorphia, that I was too fat, etc. But other fat kids changed who were ashamed of their bodies, I was the only one so frozen by it. Likewise, I never liked taking my shirt off when swimming, being topless always felt wrong. I always wondered why I felt this way, I wondered if maybe there was sexual abuse I just didn’t remember or something. It didn’t make sense.

Dating trans women

🚫 Never dated a trans woman, no. I was strangely curious about and attracted to trans women, though.

Watching trans porn

✅

Jealousy of women

✅

Hatred of masculinity

✅

Nonbinary Internet persona

I even identified as nonbinary IRL, but in general I opted for an agendered identity as much as I could.

Avoidance of all haircare and skincare products marketed to men

I avoided haircare and skin products in general, I neglected my body completely.

Crossdressing while in total denial of own transness

✅

Literally wishing that I was trans so that I could access bottom surgery

🚫 I didn’t experience this, nor did I ever particularly desire a vagina. After 3 - 6 months of estrogen, I realized I really felt a need for bottom surgery to help my integration as a woman both personally and socially - I wanted to have the “right” body. But even then it was hard for me to feel the kind of direct desire for bottom surgery you have expressed.

I realized I specifically wanted an orchi and tried looking up excuses to get one without considering side effects (didn’t realize loss of hormone production without replacement was a problem) or considering that it might somehow be related to related to gender. I had 0 clue why it was so appealing and I refused to think about that for even a second.

✅ Strangely I had a similar experience - when I was around 16 - 17 years old I learned about eunuchs in the context of The Gate to Women’s Country and actively wished I could be a eunuch so I could be accepted among women as a man.

Getting extremely uncomfortable when someone asks you your pronouns.

✅

One thing I remember is gaining muscle after working out for a few months and feeling this really confusing sadness when I noticed that my shoulders got broader. I was so confused as to why so many guys liked being muscular but it just made me really depressed instead. Took me a while to realize that that strange feeling was actually gender dysphoria.

✅ I had a similar experience, but it was from a physical labor job. At one point my shoulders had become so filled out and broad, and I couldn’t fit some of the women’s clothes I liked to wear. I hated the way I looked and felt, and like you I had no idea why.

I would jump at any excuse to wear skirts or makeup or do traditional feminine activities.

✅ Same, I loved doing nails, I was always curious about makeup (but hated it because it made me very aware of how masculine I was, and it never looked good - seeing a man or boy wearing make up in the mirror made me want to cry, so I assumed I just didn’t like makeup). But I also sought any other feminine-coded activity, I happily learned to bake, cook, clean, sew, iron, etc. growing up. Those were activities I took a great interest in despite them being domestic labor that most people didn’t value.

also was basically a never nude; not in the shower but near 100% of the time out of the shower. in over 20 years together my wife only saw me nude a handful of times. Now I love my body, wear all sorts of tight clothes, love myself in the mirror and I have no problem at all being topless or naked in front of my partner. I didn’t even know i had body issues i just thought i hated being chubby.

✅ I did avoid being nude a lot, but not as extremely as you. I hated my body, and I always wanted to cover it up by wearing long sleeves and pants, even in hot weather. I didn’t wear shorts until I was in my 20s (despite growing up in the South). Like you, I thought I just hated that I was chubby, but when I transitioned I realized that being fat and chubby in a feminine pattern doesn’t bother me the way fat distributed in a male pattern does …

1. I hoped my future partner would be bisexual “just in case”

✅ It’s not a coincidence I only dated bisexual women … and I certainly felt a comfort and certain amount of affirmation in dating women who were interested in me because I was feminine.

2. Always being weirdly interested in watching trans youtubers and learning about HRT “as an ally”

✅ I didn’t learn about HRT, but I did enjoy ContraPoints in ways that probably had to do with the trans content she created.

3. And also weirdly envious of lesbian relationships, yet finding it hard to imagine myself in a relationship as a guy

✅ Yes, I sometimes felt like I was a lesbian on the inside, this was the closest I came to some amount of awareness about being a woman.

4. Whenever I’d see a transition timeline, my immediate thought for transmasc ones was “good for them!”, but for transfem ones it was “dang, that’s goals” followed by “wait I’m cis, where did that come from”

🚫 I didn’t really look at transition timelines before I transitioned, and if I did I think I would (wrong-headedly) feel confused about why trans men would want to become men, and probably feel strangely critical of trans women for not being feminine enough. Probably all related to my own dysphoria and discomfort with how masculine my body is.

5. I “knew” I wasn’t trans, but kinda wished I could be

✅ I didn’t want to be trans, but this is close to how I felt - I “knew” I wasn’t trans, but there was a sense that being trans would make sense of a lot 😆

6. Just before finally fully admitting I was trans I started HRT so I’d “know for sure”, and was worried that after starting I would realize I wasn’t trans and not be able to keep transitioning lol

🚫 It worked the other way around for me. While I wanted to start HRT to test and know for sure whether I was trans, I was so afraid I would go back to denial before I had access to HRT that I forced myself to socially transition first so that I had a sense of public accountability and wouldn’t fail to socially transition later.

Imagining that it was perfectly rational to keep a complete set of women’s clothes in the house just in case you end up having someone over who has somewhere important to be the next day and no clean clothes to wear.

🚫 I never had a bra or panties, only skirts and dresses - but those were very much mine, and even became “male coded” in my associations, so I just coped and rationalized in a slightly different way.