I can’t tell you exactly how it came to be, but it is a traditional emblem of socialism that has been in use for almost 60 years. There are some left-handed variations of it which can be found in this Wikipedia article about it .

I never had a choice, I was forcefully transed by my leftist parents who made me wear my older sister’s clothes when I was a child.

Congratulations! It is great that you feel more confident and euphoric by making such a discovery about yourself.

I do not want to diminish your joy, but keep one thing in mind: You are in for a marathon, no matter how much it may feel like a sprint right now. You have time to figure things out: What suits you best, what you want to do in regards to your appearance and your presentation and which steps to take next, etc.

Some things unfortunately take time, but that is also why it is important to not pressure yourself too much. You do not need to have all the answers right away.

One example is HRT: While the start of HRT is a big moment in the lives of most trans people, HRT is a slow process overall. Just finding the right dosage for yourself may take months and depending on various factors (genetic, age,…) visible changes may take a long time to manifest.

So, take the time you and your wife need to adapt. You can figure things out along the way.

In regards to the trans haircutter: As you do not seem to know that person, perhaps do not ask about her personal journey right away. It may come of as intrusive. If she offers such information on her own, sure, go for it.
But my advise would be to ask her about local resources. Most cities of a certain size have a trans/LGBT+ support network of some kind or other, something the haircutter may be a part of and/or may have taken advantage of herself.

Such networks are very useful to know about because its members can tell you about the right doctors which are familiar with HRT (not every doctor can be trusted with it unfortunately), other trans friendly health care providers, queer friendly businesses, various safe spaces, meetups and more.

But despite my reservations, please do not feel discouraged! Be assured, I am glad that you already feel more like yourself and I wish you all the best on your journey! 🍀

The links to the registration do not work for me.

Interesting. I have never tried to do such long ferments with milk breads. I have to try that out. Thanks for the tip!

I am a big fan of sourdough breads with milk, but from my own personal experience you have to be flexible with the hydration. Milk breads tend to be more dense and can be very hard to knead. Usually I up the hydration even further than the recipe suggests: When my usual breads tend to have a ~70% hydration, I often go up to ~80% when working with milk.

Obligatory “Only you can decide who you are and who you want to be.”
The trans community is usually very cautious not to tell other people who and what they are, because that’s the negative experience that most of us made: Other people told us who we are and/or who were supposed to be (assigned gender and all that) and it went badly for most of us.

For me personally, I also lacked the language to express my gender feelings when I was young. I was a precocious, sensitive kid that had more female friends than boys usually had. Yet I did not reflect on my gender very much.
Only during puberty did I realize that something was off. I realized that I did not want to grow up to be a man and desired more than anything to be female. Yet I also lacked the language to express myself. I grew up in a small city with no visible queer scene, so I did not really know how to express myself and ultimately surrendered to grow up as everyone expected me to.

But it never felt right. “Maleness” was like clothes that did not fit me, no matter how hard I tried. I often felt like a “fake man” and that I had to perform maleness as much as possible, because people expected it from me and I was not good enough at it.
Meanwhile my desire to be female also never went away. Looking back I now understand that this was gender envy, but in the moment I experienced it as a constant yearning that pulled on me and while it got weaker from time to time, it never fully went away.

My only outlet were games and virtual spaces wherein I usually played female characters. The easiest way for me to lose interest in a game was if it forced me to play as a man.

My egg finally cracked when I realized that my gender envy encompassed trans women too: Why could they have a transition while I did not? Why could they take estrogen while I could not? Why could they wear female clothes, etc. These kind of thoughts ultimately led me to realize that I am trans myself, because I wanted to change my gender so much and I was the only one who could make that happen.

Ultimately my transition was not only an embrace of my own femaleness, but also a rejection of maleness.

It’s a very strange coincidence that these are the subreddits that are suddenly experiencing a “bug”.

Look! It’s… Ooh, snacks!

Many crossdressers use “breast forms”, fake silicone breasts that one be worn with a bra. Some come as a “bra”, of sorts. It may be worth looking into for you. AFAIK it is recommended to not go for the cheapest ones though, because cheap silicone can be smelly and/or uncomfortable to wear.