You got it! It’s really an excellent video essay.

I’m just now starting to work through his other works, but everything he does is magic. Honestly the topic of “I Don’t Know James Rolfe” was basically as dull as the dictionary to me, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Currently working my way through his “Mantracks” video, which is so far about fossils and creationism.

well, my problem with bleeding is pretty specific to my wound separation complications- it’s possible you would have the same problems, but it’s also possible you wouldn’t have this issue at all if the skin graft takes. It seems like the bleeding most came from where the skin had sloughed off and the suture site was just exposed flesh.

Still, not applying pressure by sitting is the best general advice, and straining on the toilet all the time could get problematic for you. After each bowel movement I have been told to wipe the whole area with Dakin solution (basically like bleach water), to keep the feces from infecting the sutures which are so near the anus. It’s tedious and I have found a lot of basic tasks can become a little exhausting. Not sure how to best prepare for that, though.

In the past I struggled with IBS too, but it seemed to reduce as my mental health improved, esp. once on estrogen. Now it’s rare for me, though I got it right before surgery while waiting to be taken to the operating room. So I can somewhat relate to how distressing that can be. For me I can even get nervous about getting IBS, and that can make my IBS more likely.

I would really suggest doing upper body and core exercises, you need a lot of strength to go from lying down to standing without ever sitting or putting pressure on the sutures. Same with lowering yourself onto a toilet carefully and so on.

I didn’t expect recovery to be so physically demanding this way, so going into it healthy and strong seems like a great way to optimize if at all possible.

Stanley Meyer’s invention was later termed fraudulent after two investors to whom he had sold dealerships offering the right to do business in Water Fuel Cell technology sued him in 1996. His car was due to be examined by the expert witness Michael Laughton, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Queen Mary University of London and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. However, Meyer made what Professor Laughton considered a “lame excuse” on the days of examination and did not allow the test to proceed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuel_cell

Probably the dune buggy never ran on the system he claimed. He was a fraudster, so probably it was just running on gas like normal while he was claiming it was all water.

a video to help people understand the problem with crypto: https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g

I know the video says it’s about NFTs, but it touches on Bitcoin and blockchain first as background.

Sorry for the delay, I want to come back to this and I am feeling myself becoming perfectionistic about my response (leading me to not respond at all), but in short I think you’re right. You have captured the essence of the problem, I think: I have had to justify my transition, and all that pressure has created a certain way of thinking about transition that then becomes normative and gets externalized or projected onto others.

There are only a few corrections I would make, e.g. I didn’t mean to imply the “I’m a fucking bad ass and can endure” mindset, but something adjacent to it, more that making sacrifices for the people in your life is a virtuous thing. It’s more about being pro-social than about being macho, if that makes sense. But I think that perspective of mine still misses the point you make, which is that it’s not the kind of moral sacrifice the Mennonite engages in, you are not doing it for your partner, but for yourself because you value your partner. This is just not the same.

Think of it this way - In trying to stess test my transition choices by finding fault this way binary trans people are doing what cis people did to them just in reverse - The requesting or coercing of trans people to defend their transition choices.

This was really helpful framing, thank you for your insights. I still haven’t reconciled my internal cognitive dissonance (i.e. a part of me still thinks there is a way to justify transition as being normative), but either way it is clear to me that this is complicated and the attempt to “help” can create a lot of harm.

I think this is related a bit to the egg prime directive and the culture formed around not telling someone they are actually a trans person in denial. On the one hand if a person is trans and in denial there is a lot of potential harm from that denial and there is a sense of urgency to helping the person past that denial so they can avoid the harm. On the other hand, no one can make those decisions or force that awareness on the person who may or may not actually be trans, even when it seems clear.

Being forced to justify not transitioning is a kind of gender policing, even if a kind of policing in the opposite direction as the dominant ideology (which tells you not to be trans and not to transition).

While there might be a need for some way to help people overcome the social situation preventing them from realizing they are trans and keeping them from transitioning, it’s clear to me those methods shouldn’t be coercive, like the way you mention feeling stress-tested about your decisions around transition.

I have a lot to think through, but I am genuinely challenged by your perspective and this has been so extremely valuable to me - I cannot thank you enough.

Well feel free to reach out if you do get the surgery and want support (or if there’s anything I can do to help you along the way). 🧡

I think I still feel very dissociated about the whole surgery - it’s like I’ve just put myself on a “transition track” and it has led me here. When I first transitioned I didn’t want a vaginoplasty, I only wanted an orchi. I was curious and spent a lot of time afraid of the surgery and obsessively reading about it. The decision flipped after 4 - 6 months on estrogen I believe, at that point it became clear I should get the surgery. Personally it even just felt pragmatic at a certain point, I just want to feel like a “normal” woman (I’m aware that whole idea is fucked up, but I’m subject to it anyway - I have yet to find a way to think my way out of dysphoria and internalized transphobia and misogyny).

My situation is very unusual in that I socially transitioned less than two years ago … only a minority of trans women get bottom surgery ever (only 5 - 10% have had it while 45 - 54% desire it). And those that do eventually get it typically have to plan and wait a very long time, sometimes 5 - 10 years esp. in European countries where gender affirming care is woefully underserved and they have to wait years just for consultations and so on. This puts me in a very privileged position (and that was despite initially being denied all gender affirming care due to an illegal policy that is currently being litigated and is tied up in the courts).

All of this makes me feel so guilty, like I didn’t suffer or desire enough to deserve the surgery, there are so many girls who should be ahead of me in line, so to speak (even though that’s not really the issue - the way healthcare is unfairly made accessible to some and not others is the problem, not that some of us are taking the care from others; simply by having a professional job I am granted access to an insurance plan that makes this possible).

Besides feeling undeserving, I also didn’t even feel the direct desire for a vaginoplasty. It feels like I made the decision on principle, a kind of clinical reasoning rather than rooted in a transparent sense of desire. I was able to connect with that desire when I considered the prospect of not being able to have the surgery, but it was hard for me to actually want the surgery. I think even now it’s hard for me to allow myself to feel happy about it, there are a lot of mixed feelings happening.

I believe I had sufficient evidence to know I had bottom dysphoria, but I always saw it as mild to moderate (though I have a history of underestimating the severity of my dysphoria … I mean, since I was a teenager I have had intrusive thoughts / compulsions to mutilate my genitals, and I have very early memories of feeling something was wrong with my genitals from when I was 4 - 5 years old).

Since the surgery I’m only now beginning to realize the depth of the bottom dysphoria - it’s been weird to feel ashamed or embarrassed for genitals I don’t have anymore, and then to realize I have habitually felt that shame my entire life and only now realize I was feeling it (and that maybe that wasn’t normal), and then to realize I don’t have to feel it anymore. It’s a lot to process.

I feel I owe so much to the trans folks who have come before me and created these possibilities for me. It’s hard to feel simultaneously so privileged and lucky, and to feel not privileged enough to enable me to significantly pay my luck forward or to make the kinds of contributions that would free up access to gender-affirming care to more people. These are political problems, ultimately, and I’m just one person with barely enough resources to cope with my own situation. But I do want to contribute and help in the ways I can personally, so I hope others can find what I have learned helpful, at least. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

keep light

gate boss

girl gas

It’s funny you say that about stoicism - what I haven’t disclosed is all the times I just completely broke down crying in the hospital.

I certainly feel proud of myself for keeping my shit together in the necessary moments when I needed to work on the challenges in front of me (like when I spent nearly 6 hours straining and working on getting myself to urinate for the first time after my cath was removed), but in the moments when I could, I absolutely did lose it. Being in the hospital was one of the more challenging weeks I’ve experienced (even if it wasn’t the worst).

Let me know if you ever have questions or are just curious about something, or if something could be better clarified in the writeup.

Yes, in the absence of awareness of your situation, I make various assumptions or guesses about the situation. I had considered that your partner never asked you to not transition, but what happens I think is that all the other conversations I’ve had with people whose situation seemed similar to yours get conflated or generalized, and so I respond as though you are one of the many others.

This is of course a gloss, and that is unfair to you since it makes assumptions that aren’t true and aren’t relevant.

At some point I think I was aware of the irrelevance of my words to you and your situation - or at least aware of the likelihood of that.

I think this is part of why I said things like if I put myself in the shoes of your partner and imagined even if not asking just knowing I was a reason for someone not transitioning - it’s not that I absolutely ignored that possibility, I just didn’t know whether it was the most likely possibility.

So yes, assumptions were made - but part of that is because I don’t wish to pry or confront, to engage directly on your circumstances is not my goal, instead I just react to what you have disclosed so that I’m being transparent about my own hang-ups, faults, reactions, and so on - partially because I think I want this feedback from you about how to be better, and for that you need to see how I’m thinking in the first place.

You are absolutely right that I made bad assumptions, and I’m sorry for that. The assumption that your partner asked you not to transition was never so “solid” or sure on my end, but I can see how it comes across that I’m thinking it anyway.

I also think there was some conflation of medical vs social transition, but this was again just a generalization or a gloss, handling each separately didn’t occur to me as much in that situation, and maybe generally, for various reasons. To be honest, I think even if we split the two and talk about “social transition” and “medical transition”, we are still glossing and generalizing. To be honest a lot of this is just about the economy of language and thought, I am happy to be super narrow in my concepts but I think it can be tedious to read, and overly verbose - two things I already skew towards in my writing. Not every trans person has the same “medical transition”, for example, so often when I’m talking about “transition” in this context, I’m really talking about the (offensively assumed) “missing component” of HRT, even though the term otherwise implies much more (even HRT itself can designate different things, and depending on the route of administration and the dose, HRT can have dramatically different results for people and mean different things for people).

So, to continue in my thought-transparency (sorry, maybe this is not useful to you), I socially transitioned before I medically transitioned, and my own experiences certainly skew the way I think - particularly what I experienced was that social transition made my life worse in many ways and maybe wasn’t the best choice, while HRT was life-saving. Truly, HRT was the most clinically relevant component of the whole transition experience as far as I can tell. Social transition for me was just a way to force myself out of the closet and prevent further refusal to transition.

In many cases of my friends who have medically transitioned the decision to medically transition was ultimately a lot less difficult than the decision to socially transition because by the time they got there they’d already experienced bigotry and yes, their lives have gotten markedly better since…

So this is pretty much my perspective too, in conflating social and medical transition I think the challenges of social transition were generalized and put together with medical transition… So of course I agree with you on everything. Surgeries can be quite painful and difficult to get through, but at the very least I think HRT is quite wonderful, and makes life easier and better. That’s the fundamental point I’m trying to get across here: it’s so great, you and every other trans person should at least try it to verify whether it’s also a life-saving medication or not. And again, that mindset is built on the empirical evidence we have that not doing it results in worse health outcomes and deaths while doing it alleviates those risks.

But they also do not pity me and that is the tone of what you give off here (particularly in quoting a book about a womam dealing with religious trauma and internalized homophobia) the sense that you aren’t simply empathizing or sympathizing with the aspects of my choices which are difficult but that you veiw those choices as harmful or misguided.

Oh, I didn’t feel pity at all, lol - sorry, maybe that would have made sense, but you just don’t know me and it makes sense you wouldn’t understand. I think what I’m feeling is maybe a connection to my pre-transition self and all the sacrifices they made, basically I haven’t really accepted being trans and I’m still occupying a mindset of believing what I’ve done is selfish and wrong, and so I basically glorify your choice to sacrifice for your partner by not medically transitioning (note here I’m making more assumptions, I have no idea if you have taken medical transition steps, maybe you just haven’t had surgeries but you’ve been on HRT and this whole conversation is just me making really dumb assumptions). I don’t feel sorry for you, I feel envious - I spent a lot of my life being “good” the way you are now, making that kind of huge sacrifice and carrying that burden. In all my self-loathing and guilt, I think I miss that - my fucked up psychology seems to feel it’s much better to be a martyr than to engage in self-care. The change in that perspective has not been complete.

I do think your choice is probably self-harming, but what you miss is that I think this is maybe a good thing still. I can’t help but still operate under that old logic, I am skeptical that taking care of myself this way is really justified. That said, I’m pretty sure that’s just my desire for punishment and suffering, and it’s probably not healthy or good - or even related to you, tbh. Sorry, I really am, I hope by being so transparent I’m helping somehow, but I worry it’s just indulgent and wasting your time.

I am glad that you found happiness and comfort in your transistion. It’s obviously a great fit. Maybe rethink your approach to non-binary folx as it seems like you bring a little overmuch of your personal baggage with you.

So, I am confused, I thought this started by talking about how you use non-binary as a quick gloss of your gender, but that seemed to imply your actual identity isn’t non-binary, it’s just the result of this compromise you have made about transition … was I mistaken about that?

And yeah, a lot of personal baggage comes up with the trans stuff - I am projecting like crazy, making bad assumptions, etc. but I think the fundamental message still holds. Maybe an awkward analogy would make this interaction so much worse help explain my perspective: imagine someone had cancer throughout their breasts, but the cancer had become dormant. Let’s say there is empirical evidence that this situation could result in increased risk of dying early, maybe the body isn’t as healthy with the cancer in it, maybe the cancer could come back at some point - the analogy here is the way that the “wrong” hormones in the body cause depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, etc. - it’s biochemical, the brain is altered by it. Let’s say the dormant cancer messes with the body and mind too, and so you won’t have the same energy, happiness, or general well-being unless the breasts and cancer are removed. It’s a stretch, but we can imagine it, right? So, what I hear a lot of people saying (not just you, mind you - this is part of what’s going on here, I’m interacting with lots of people in marriages who refuse to transition, socially and / or medically), is that their partner really likes their breasts, they are attracted to and attached to their breasts, and if they have their breasts removed it will be devastating to the relationship. Their partner won’t be attracted to them anymore and it will spell the end of the relationship. They can’t help that their partner is sexually attracted to their breasts, and so they have to choose between keeping the dormant cancer-ridden breasts and the risks and health consequences that come with it, or they can have the surgery and risk losing their relationship.

I just don’t find keeping the cancerous breasts a reasonable option, ever. I think the trans issue is actually worse than the cancer, because it has to do with identity and who you are - living as someone else for a relationship is worse than just leaving dormant cancer in the body.

My view is that the only reason we think it’s reasonable to keep the cancer is because we have been acculturated to believe it’s wrong to transition, that it’s a betrayal of the spouse, and that it’s not that helpful medically. But that’s just not what the empirical evidence shows.

I think this might be my struggle with black & white thinking, there are a few things going on with me. I might also feel like I had to justify my transition and that requires an extreme position, otherwise I have to admit I could have been like the Mennonite and gone the rest of my life without transitioning and I should have just toughed it out.

Anyway, my point is that I’m not trying to apply this to you as much as I’m trying to show my hang-up, I guess I’m hoping for you to complicate my view, to show me why I’m wrong. Maybe you can’t do that, maybe it’s wrong for me to expect or ask. Either way, that’s how I think about this, and nothing you’ve said makes it make sense.

Of course, on the other hand I completely understand your perspective, that a partner is like your life blood, more important than even your own self. I would do the same.

Lily Tino generates rage bait for a living, and it’s not surprising that other people are going to target her for being a toxic member of the community.

Respectability politics is a common dynamic in gay and queer politics - many people don’t want to be associated with the extreme fringes that get highlighted in the popular culture, and they try to emphasize how much they’re actually just like other, normal straight and cis people.

Respectability politics often leads people to gatekeep identities, e.g. binary trans people who medically transition trying to distance themselves from less understandable or acceptable identities like being non-binary.

So I think this might be the underlying mentality that motivates transmedicalists to gatekeep trans identity, and as to why people are trying to strip Lily Tino of her validity as a trans woman.

Because Lily Tino generates content intended to generate anger and hatred which then draws hatred and resentment against trans people generally, there is a desire from others to create distance and separation from her - a desperation by other trans people to not be associated with Lily Tino, and the way they do this is to strip her of her status as a member of the community.

This gatekeeping is rationalized or justified in various ways - it’s not uncommon for transmedicalists or gatekeepers to point out the ways the “bad” person doesn’t put enough effort into passing to call into question the authenticity of their identity.

The trans woman and right-wing Youtube influencer Blaire White did this to other trans Youtube content creators who were transfem and not as gender-conformist or passing as she was. She refused to use the correct pronouns, and cited their gender presentation as a reason for not respecting their identity and pronouns.

So the same justifications are being used with Lily Tino to strip her of her trans status.

This goes against the larger trans community’s fundamental rule of respecting self-identity. This is basically a wedge issue in the trans community, with some of us believe respecting self identity is a fundamental moral principle, while others are more willing to express skepticism about identities they don’t understand or don’t like and wish to not be associated with.

This tension is partially because trans activism as a movement forms a big tent that holds alliances across very different groups - a non-binary person, a medically transitioned binary trans person, a drag queen, and a cross-dresser are all people under the trans umbrella but who have different needs and experiences.

Sometimes people don’t feel seen or understood when an umbrella term encompasses so many disparate groups, and so it’s not surprising when people desire better representation for their particular group or seek different alliances. There are some transmedicalists who believe trans people (which for them is a particular way of being trans, generally having extreme dysphoria and socially & medically transitioning to a binary identity) don’t have that much in common with the rest of the LGBT+ community, and should essentially stop being associated with being queer or gay and form their own identity.

This desire to break from the LGBT+ alliance is another form of respectability politics, for some trans people queerness is not a part of their identity, especially if they medically transitioned and managed to re-integrate into cis-normative society as their target gender. They might live as a cis-passing straight person and think of their transness as an incidental medical fact about them rather than a major political identity, and for them queerness is a liability and not something they want to associate with, esp. if they have primarily straight, cis friends. Blaire White married a straight, cis man - she lives her life as a cis-passing woman, and it’s not surprising then that from her position she can think of herself as not queer. She likely doesn’t have queer friends and doesn’t see herself as a part of that “community”, which then makes it easier for her to not see the reasons for solidarity and alliance with other queers, and socially that alliance can look like a liability rather than a strength.

All this to say, Lily Tino deserves to be censured for being toxic and intentionally generating so much hatred against the trans community, but dehumanizing her by misgendering her is unacceptable and unnecessary to achieve the goal of condemning her.

I feel the same way about anti-trans activist and detransitioner Chloe Cole, refusing to respect her pronouns and identity as a detransitioner is probably tempting for some trans folks, but it goes against the principle of respecting self-identity thus against everything the trans community has been fighting for.

I appreciate the apology.

Of course, I’m sorry - I want to keep things wholesome. ❤️

As a suggestion it’s best to ask clarifying questions before handing down judgements about what counts as healthy for someone or offering advice.

That’s a good idea, leading up to it rather than starting with it.

As a long term non-medically transitioning person I receive a lot of unsolicited advice about how to live my life from people whose circumstances are much more clear cut.

That makes sense. I’ve heard similar stories about how binary trans people will tell non-binary folks about how they might not be non-binary, etc. - there is a lack of awareness of how many of these conversations you are having to field with others.

It comes across often as quite condescending when someone extrapolates from a very small snippet of personal information that mine were not carefully thought out and reasoned choices that are made daily.

To be clear, I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t carefully reasoning or thinking through your decision … rather, my perspective is that any person that asks their partner to not medically transition because of their phenotype preferences doesn’t have their partner’s well-being as their priority. It comes across as a red flag to me, and I can’t see a way it can be justified.

If I put myself in the shoes of the person whose partner is transitioning, I can’t imagine ever feeling right asking the person not to transition. I can imagine the pain and grief of losing that relationship, or even sacrificing and staying in the relationship for the person even if it means losing that part of the relationship, but I can’t imagine asking them to not transition, or even without asking, being part of the reason that person doesn’t transition.

The question we should be asking ourselves is always “are the decisions I am making wholistic towards the outcome of making my life the best it can be.”

I would have never transitioned if I followed this logic, tbh. I underestimated and fundamentally did not understand the significance of HRT to my health and well-being until after. Now I balk at how I used to live, I don’t know how I survived.

For a lot of people the decision to medically transition is a no brainer, there is nothing keeping you but for some it comes with a slew of either/or sacrifices that impact other valuable aspects of the human experience.

Hmm, this is surprising to me - I am not sure I know anybody where transitioning was a no-brainer. Transitioning is usually an extremely difficult decision to make even with ideal circumstances. Many people lose their jobs (most trans people I know IRL lost their jobs when they transitioned). Many lose their family, their spouse, and face a long, painful, and expensive transition process without adequate support. We also live in a context where transitioning is subject to political scapegoating and persecution.

I consider my own transition conditions extremely ideal, and even so I rationalized myself out of transitioning for years to protect other people in my life, and in the end I did lose family due to transition.

For some of us there isn’t a good solution without pain of some kind and the only choice we can make is what is preferable to endure. The reasons other people have to make are their own to make and not seeking “treatment” is not a metric of whether they take their situation “seriously”.

It never seemed to me like you weren’t taking transition seriously or you weren’t putting thought into your decision. Usually, actually, I think people who don’t transition as a sacrifice for people in their lives are doing the opposite - they put a lot of thought into it, and usually they are making the difficult choice to prioritize others. This is not a bad thing in itself, I think the opposite mindset (not considering the impact on others) would be disturbing and would come across as immature. No, you strike me as mature and like someone making difficult sacrifices for someone you love.

There is a very big difference between how people carry pain endured for little to no reason versus pain that is the willing price paid for something cherished.

I feel quite emotional reading your message. It reminds me of a part of Little Fish by Casey Plett where an older Mennonite woman turns out to have been a closeted lesbian her whole life but who stayed straight out of religious devotion, and when confronted by a trans woman about her sexuality, she says:

“You have no excuse,” Anna cut her off. “The choices you have made in life. All of you people. None of you are lazy. None of you are stupid. There is much you could have weathered. But you don’t believe in yourself. And you’re not sorry. I can tell right now: You are not sorry. You learn faith. Tulip. Marvin. Whatever you want to call it. God’s fire is pure. You may have thought you needed to be a woman or die. Have you any idea what you can manage? You think you’re weak. And because you think you’re weak, you can’t actually do anything. So you choose the easy, selfish path. Now, I’m telling you that.”

You’re not doing it for religion, but out of love for your partner. But you are not weak, it takes strength.

People make sacrifices in their lives, and it takes that strength to do so. To come out of the closet or to transition can really seem selfish. At least I always thought of transition that way, as selfish. I held on to that responsibility for a long time.

It was only when I learned that by not transitioning that I was hurting the people in my life that the logic reversed, and I realized I had a responsibility to transition. Yes, for my well-being - but I didn’t care as much about that as for the well-being of others in my life who were suffering because of me.

My experience is probably not relevant to you (even if it’s not surprising when other trans people do have similarities anyway). Regardless, I respect and understand your choice, I made the same choice for over a decade. I would still be making that choice, if not for a very particular set of circumstances that happened to me.

I wish you the best. Thank you for being so patient with me as I stumble and fail to handle this well. You’re really kind. ❤️

Yes, of course you’re right that this is not my call.

I am aggressively in favor of medical transition in these contexts not because I dogmatically believe it’s the best for everyone (I know for a fact it won’t be - there are plenty of trans people who respond poorly to HRT, for example), but because so many people who would benefit and arguably need gender-affirming care do not seek it for various reasons that we would never consider reasonable for any other medical condition. I believe it’s our culture’s anti-trans bias that makes it so easy for trans folks to sacrifice their well-being and delay or refuse treatment.

On an epidemiological level I think this results in worse outcomes and great harm & cost for society (suicides, drug abuse, etc.). So on principle it seems like good clinical advice to suggest people with gender dysphoria take it seriously and get treatment. That doesn’t mean it’s simple or that you as an individual are absolutely compelled to follow that clinical advice, esp. when the costs are so high.

That said, I respect your boundary and don’t feel the need to convince you, as I said it’s something you have to figure out for yourself, and I have already admitted it’s not always the best path in the end.

Sorry for over-stepping and creating stress, you shouldn’t have to set that boundary with me and I need to think more on how to best approach providing a different perspective without coming across as too prescriptive.

for real, she’s crushing it - I am amazed 🤩

Well, from your photo I definitely can see the feminine, it’s not like it’s not there - I just think there are some remnant masculine qualities that seems to be tripping some people up. You’re not that far away, and in a more gender-expansive group you are already there - I am able to think of you as a woman, but I have more practice doing this because I’m a trans woman who tries to make an effort to interact with other trans women and participate in our community.

It sounds like you enjoy having a bit of an agendered androgynous body, which is definitely a look you’re giving, and that comes through (I love it, very authentic and captures “you”). Honestly the problem might be more with how people “see” - male characteristics tend to be more heavily weighted or considered when gendering someone than feminine qualities (maybe due to sexism, tbh - not sure why the psychology works that way). This puts the onus on diminishing those masculine qualities more (or less effectively, over-emphasizing feminine ones) to compensate, which then probably feels imbalanced.

Just a gentle suggestion that not physically transitioning for your partner’s preferences is probably not healthy or OK, I know it’s difficult and you have to figure that out yourself - but I encourage you to seek counseling and find a way to help your partner see that being trans is a genetic and medical condition that for your health and well-being you really shouldn’t ignore and forego treatment on, esp. for something like their preferences. Not all trans experience is the same, but it’s probable that medical transition would significantly improve your life.

Also, I hear you re non-binary and they/them being used to just make it “easier” or more understandable for people, which is so ironic considering it sounds like you would be able to conform to people’s gender expectations and a binary model better if you were free to …

Either way, I’m sorry for your situation, that’s rough 🫂

That is mind-blowing. It is impressive you have survived two strokes and are still walking and talking, let alone with style and doing so well.

You definitely don’t have to emphasize breasts, it’s just one way I happen to feminize and honestly for me it’s rarely that I feel sexualized or busty, but instead the gestalt is just that it “looks better” by not emphasizing my more masculine qualities. I just don’t want to look like a man, so those strategies help. It’s unfortunate feminization is sexualization in Western / Christian society - we are made to feel uncomfortable in our bodies if we feminize, and are judged if we are too feminine as being manipulative and sexual.

Either way, you have a sense of your preferences and that’s awesome, and it also sounds like you already have a good sense of how things look on you, which is also great.

And regarding getting someone else to do makeup, it doesn’t have to be a cis person - I bet there are trans women in your community who could do your makeup, even just for fun.

It sounds like it would be impractical as a daily thing, but it can be nice to doll up for special occasions, and having some way to do that might be fun for you. Just brainstorming, but I also understand if this is just not a priority considering everything else going on - survival comes first, and you have been doing a great job with that.

Thank you for being so open, kind, and vulnerable with me. 💕

Sorry, I never meant to imply OP is non-binary - I just wanted to be sensitive and not assume they were binary; additionally I was thinking about how rough it is to live as a gender non-conforming person, esp. for some non-binary folks whose gender expressions and identities don’t fit in society (and how that will always be true for them, it’s not a rough stage that might end, as it can be for some binary trans folks early in their transition - that’s just life for them, what is authentic to them is what creates friction in society, and that really sucks).

Not passing is entirely separate from identity, and identity can be quite separate from expression, too. Some trans women are binary but never medically or socially transition, their expression conforms to cis male norms their whole lives - but they’re still women, for example.

hm, do you know anyone who would be willing to do your makeup for you?

I know you can always go pay someone to do that for you (e.g. in the U.S. you can go to a Sephora to get a make-over), but sometimes girlfriends are willing to do makeup for fun, if I were there I would totally do your makeup for you 😊

either way I’m sorry to hear about your fusiform gyrus - do you know why it’s shot? That doesn’t sound great 🫠

I mean, there are probably things you could do to fem it up more if you wanted.

These are just suggestions, not criticisms.

Based on that photo, your lashes are very light colored, but even with my dark lashes I like to use a crimper and apply mascara whenever I go in public - you could try that out and see - it can make a big difference.

The forehead, nose, and chin also appear masculine. I use contouring makeup to diminish my nose bridge and lift my cheeks and diminish my neck and jawline.

For my forehead, I cover mine up with bangs. In general I try to direct attention to my eyes - so for example instead of a red or dark colored lipstick, I might use a light-colored pink tinted lip balm.

I can’t see your eyebrows well, but having those worked on by a professional every few months and tweezing to maintain between appointments can really help fem up a face. Your hair is so light you might look at using a brow tinting brush to darken the eyebrows.

I also avoid turtle-necks because of the way they frame my neck, and certain cuts of shirts that direct the eyes to the wrong places, e.g. preferring v-necks to crew necks. I want to divert eyes away from my neck and shoulders, and towards breasts and hips. Wearing a long piece of jewelry can help with this too, as well as avoiding boxy cuts or ruffly shoulders, and avoiding anything that exposes the back.

The pattern of the clothes and the colors also make a difference in proportion and composition and the way the eye is directed.

I also think cycling my body fat has been really helpful, and I tend to have more body fat than most, which helps by giving me larger breasts and hips, and the fat on my face is distributed in a way now that is more feminine and gives a softer and rounder appearance.

Anyway, there’s a ton more to discuss, but these are just some ways I tend to feminize on my own.

You don’t have to feminize to be valid, but you might find it helps people see the woman you want them to see. Still, there is a kind of toxicity there - I’m not saying passing should be your priority.

It does seem like cis people have a particular way of “seeing” gender, and it’s hard when the body or gender presentation you have conflicts with what you want people to see.

I’m rather conformist, it’s very important to me to do everything I can to make my body and gender presentation match what people expect from a woman, so they see a woman. I don’t really expect the average person to see a woman if I don’t look like one, and I feel really awkward expecting them to think of me as and see me as a woman when I don’t appear as one.

That said, I understand the frustration, esp. if you provide pronouns and the other person doesn’t make an effort to respect them - at best it seems impolite and rude, at worst it seems hostile and violent.

I really hated early in transition the way I went from tolerating the wrong pronouns (in pre-transition) to feeling like no pronouns worked for me - if someone used my “preferred” pronouns (she/her) it felt like they were just being polite. (I wanted to be a woman, not be coddled in my delusions and politely referred to as a woman while nobody actually sees me as a woman.)

On the other hand, if someone used a different pronoun it felt like they were being either impolite, forgetful, or outright hostile. Before transition it was easier to just swallow the he/him and remain under the cover of being “normal” - but after transition it was like I “ruined” my gender and my gender was never “right”, and no pronoun felt safe or appropriate.

After a year and a half of estrogen injections, my body has changed enough to fit within cis standards for a woman, even though I can’t see it myself. The estrogen, and of course all the immense amount of work I have put into trying to pass (voice therapy, skin care routine, diet, exercise, education on fashion and makeup, etc.).

It feels weird now, like I’m no longer “trans” in the same way because I am gender conforming enough now. So instead of being overtly trans, my transness is a hidden flaw in my gender, something only a small number of people can see (usually only other trans people), and which is lying there waiting to undermine my womanhood for anyone who notices.

I don’t know what your gender goals are, but I really feel for non-binary folks whose gender expressions fall outside of what is commonly accepted, it is just so hard to get “seen” correctly by people when you are trans.