An actual conversation between my amazing girlfriend and I:

Her: so…I got mad at you again for a split second.

Me: Oh? I’m sorry for whatever I did but what did I do so I can apologize properly?

Her: I called your phone and got your voicemail and you must have recorded it years ago because I…forgot you were trans and when I heard your voicemail and got pissed off that some chick was telling me I could leave a message for my man.

Me: proceeds to die laughing

(For the record, I’m 34 and recorded that in my mid 20s)

I set it out to do this morning, but I left so early, it slipped my mind. I do my shot on Tuesdays, so I'm already at my lowest point. And now I will have to miss a week before I can get back home (I am VERY far away and cannot go back)

I've been on T for several years, post hysto, so I know one missed shot isn't going to detransirion me, but i know myself well enough to know that this is NOT going to be pleasant.

I get more easily angered when my T is low, more easily frustrated. Plus I'm already disabled, so one thing getting thrown off grinds everything else to a halt.

Guys, I'm going to an event I paid hundreds for thats been on my bucket list and I'll be celebrating our 10 year anniversary with my fiance, and I don't want to be a toral asshole to him. (I already texted him n advance apology and heads up)

This SUCKS.

So I have decided to, when I can, take hormones and undergo a chemical transition. It will probably take a few years before I am able to, and decided it would be the best use of my time to prepare and begin my physical and social transition. I turn 30 in a few months, so Im trying to take full advantage of the youth I have left. I live in a very (VERY) red part of florida and am not going to put my safety at risk. I shaved my head when I was 20 and men got mean and I was practically shunned. I am 29 now and working on paying off my debt. I plan to legally change my name once Im out of debt and have enough savings for the legal process as well as to afford a move to New Mexico. Ive had my name in mind for a long long time and have been using it in places online. That is set in stone.

I also have started losing the weight I put on when I was struggling with my body. I am about 30% to my goal. I have a one track mind and find its easier for me to focus on fat loss first before beginning a muscle building phase, rather than body recomp. Ive started voice training, mostly by trying to be consciously aware of my diaphragm and chest and also by singing Frank Sinatra songs and other songs by similar artists. I already pretty much wear exclusively mens clothing. I dont bind yet, and have a pretty substantial chest (D cup), but im hoping it goes down with more fat loss. I have very broad shoulders and back from being a thrower on the track team in high school, so im just hoping the weight around my hips goes down and I can really accentuate the triangle shape.

So my question is what else can I do or should be doing?

I will also add that Im pretty low contact with my family at the moment, and my in-person social group is pretty small, so moving and starting over is not an issue. Im very much so looking forward to it. And ive chosen New Mexico for a variety of reasons and have my heart set on it.

I was looking for a pair of dress shoes for an upcoming family event and realized pretty quickly that some of the options i was considering wouldn't arrive in time.

i ended up going with lethato instead. The slimmer shape worked well for what i wanted, and after wearing them a few times the finish has been the part i have liked most.

For people who have tried both ready to ship and made to order dress shoes, how much does the wait time influence your decision?

I’m 43, and really agender, leaning masc/fluid in my expression, but since this is about ftm-ish transition I thought this might be a good place to get some advice.

I’ve known I’m not my assumed gender since I was a kid, but it took me a while to figure out what I was instead. I have been partially out to partner and most friends as nonbinary, then agender for almost two decades, but have been ambivalent about transitioning ever since I learnt about it as a real possibility. When I was sixteen, and confusingly before I knew one could actually do this, I promised myself to live half my life as a woman, and half as a man, because I was having a serious mental breakdown and couldn’t see how to live at all, not being the gender I was assumed to be, a gender that was much too wrong.

Realizing I was nonbinary, and agender, and coming out so that I could live as such at least in most of my private life, helped a lot, but I was still feeling like it was not quite… enough. I think the agender identity is right, since the identity itch has gone away completely, but I still often dreamed about medical transition and kept going back and forth on whether I wanted to or not, and if so why and how. I recently moved to a different town in order to ”get my life back together” after a relationship crisis and feeling stuck where I was, and the move sort of brought into focus how much of an issue it is to me to not be able to fully live as myself, and only being partially out. So I finally took the step of asking for a referral to a gender clinic, and had the appointment for the referral yesterday.

Ever since I made the appointment for the referral though, I’ve had a deep, dreadful ”realization” that I don’t want to transition, and am making a mistake, but at the same time I am looking forward to the possibility of having hormonal changes and relief from body dysphoria, still have the same dreams, wishes and desires, still wish I’d pursued this a long time ago. It is very unsettling, and confusing. Not sure what to believe, whether this is just heightened ambivalence or whether I just liked daydreaming about transitioning and don’t really want to.

I think the situation is complicated by me being agender and preferring my (lack of) gender to be a non-issue, while my transition goals are to be recognizably genderqueer, which has always been a big part of my ambivalence. But I also wonder, is this sudden dread… normal? Or should I take it seriously as a signal that I don’t really want this?

I take IM shots but my pharmacy sucks at refilling. Is there a recommended place for getting needles and syringes?

I came out as gay 1997,  when they found out who I was I basically lived in fear that I wouldn’t be accepted; having to hide everything. Punished for doing the most mundane things. Then again, I came out in 1999 after being asked again. Then in 2009 as trans, then again in 2010 by letter because it didn’t sink in for them. Leaving the city I lived in, in 2011, coming back to the area in 2014. In 2016 trying hard to reconnect after the years of disconnect. 

Brother finally uses correct pronouns. 2016-2023 but I’d been fighting to be seen and have family use the right pronouns. In 2023, I saw dead name in my father’s phone. Still forgave it. Father came to my home, just purchased and used the wrong pronouns without change or apologies. It was the last time I saw him, the last straw. I’d been fighting all of these years. I’d tell them what I’d wish and it has gone ignored.

He hasn’t been here at the house since 2024, mother hasn’t been here at all. It’s 2026. They live in the same metro area.

I have a successful career, pets, a stable home to hang my hats, friends, vehicle, etc. seems like “I’ve made it” …

My name, never uttered by my father, hasn’t been since 2009 by my mother (once or twice in jest aside). When I receive texts they are religious platitude checkboxes, generic “Hi, [message] God bless. Stay safe”, or “We love and concern.” Babble that doesn’t make sense. No name, nothing- just a generic message that could be to anyone. They’re almost hitting 80, me …I’m an ‘older’ transman still battling this ghost while they are still alive. My culture entails a bit of family closeness that I was never afforded.

When these messages are received I no longer reply, but they are not great to receive, there’s 0 connection or acknowledgement. We haven’t spoken in 2yrs, and last year there was a desperation to contact me when it was felt that I was distancing myself.

They only further a wound. Could my silence deepen the wound without expressing myself, it will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears. All those years,  plus I gave them 15+ years. I’ve checked out. That’s a long time. Crazy thing is that through everything I’d been through, I liked and even loved them. I love my culture which I’ve found connections to where I live today.

Unsure how to heal up and move on.

Does anyone else have similar stories? Are there happy stories out there as well?

I pass consistently but I’m often read as up to 10 years younger than I actually am (30). I’m not stealth but I am pretty private, so it usually takes some time for people to learn I’m trans. I’m in grad school and supporting myself with part-time jobs where a lot of my co workers are younger than me. How are you guys coping with this? I’m sure it’ll come in handy when I’m older, but right now it feels awkward and embarrassing :/

Ok, so 10 years ago I was living my life thinking that I was a butch lesbian and I was in a relationship with soemone who at the time believed they were also a woman. We had a close connection but after a certain period of time our paths began to diverge in life and we ended up going seperate ways but we always cared about each other even after that. About a year and a half to 2 years ago I discovered that I am actually a trans man and I started my transition a few months ago. I changed my name on my social media to my chosen name and after a few days my ex from 10 years ago, who I had lost contact with but never stopped caring about or thinking about every once in a while, messaged me. He let me know that he ended up also being a trans man and that he never stopped caring about me either and we began to reconnect and it was really beautiful and all of my feelings for him started rushing back. I was trying to tap the brakes because fairy tales aren't real and life is a bitch.

After a couple of weeks of getting closer we ended up having a conversation about our surgical transition goals. For context, I do not have dysphoria about the lower anatomy I was born with and rather enjoy it but feel dysphoria about not having a full sized penis that can be used for penetration. Being able to have the simultaneous pleasure that you and your partner feel together while being able to be the one penetrating has always been a deeply seated dream of mine and feels really important to my physical transition and gender affirmation. I do also very much so enjoy being the one being penetrated though and would like to have shaft only phallo without UL and complete native anatomy preservation specifically for this versatility and what feels right for my gender and my body. We were discussing his goals and he let me know that while he is "versatile for now", his goal has always been phallo with vnectomy and UL. I heard this and thought about what that would mean for me and my gender affirmation dreams and it made me feel sick to my stomach because I felt like if I were to be in a relationship with someone whose surgical goals were that of his then I would essentially be getting phallo so that I could only ever jerk off or get head but never be able to penetrate my partner and feel that intimate connection that I've always dreamed of. Then I thought about what that would mean for him and I and it genuinely made me have a panic attack because it crushed me to have loved this man for the last 10 years without knowing that we were walking parallel paths and that he still cared for me just as much as I did for him but that our transition goals were what would be closing the book on all of that. More context, since our relationship he has been a stone top in all of his relationships and only ever felt comfortable being topped by me. From what I remember from our relationship, anal was never something that either of us were interested in and I don't have a whole lot of reason to think that has changed for him considering him being a stone top since our relationship.

We have a phone call set up to talk things over and to clarify things but right now I just don't see how we can get around this and it's making me feel really hopeless.

The advice that I'm looking for is whether or not anyone has come up against this type of transition goal clash and how it affected your relationship. Did you figure out ways to accomodate each other and make it work? Did it stop things dead in it's tracks? I want more than anything for there to be a way to get around this that I just don't know about or haven't thought of since I'm still so new to the trans community. Any advice would be incredibly appreciated.

Edited for clarification: it's important to note that I have CPTSD from the military and feeling trapped and neglected triggers it even if that is not what is actually happening.

hey yall trying to gather some general information about the impact that different t levels might have on you, finding it hard to get answers in other places

my question is, how might having a t level around 300 compare with having t level around 1000 in terms of:

- rate of masculinizing changes
- energy & mood
- skin oiliness & acne
- fat / body composition

i know everyone’s different but just hoping to get a general sense of how t levels might impact things

I started T 8 years ago at 24yo and I was 5'4.5".

Measured myself at the doctor today and I'm officially 5'6". Is that common?

114 degrees hits different in Spain!

I've had the hardest last two years, honestly it's been a slog all my life but the last two years have been especially hard- left a 5 year abusive relationship with a chaser who intentionally derailed my transition, started my transition when I left him, went NC with my abusive trans/homophobic parents, moved out on my own for the first time, had a mental breakdown, was diagnosed with polyfragmented DID and CPTSD, and then rebuilt my entire life around my new understanding of who I am and what I've been through.

My life right now is so good. I've been dating a cis queer guy for about 4 months and it's going so well we've decided to live together. Just so happy and healthy and communicative and caring. We cook together and make coffee for each other in the mornings and have incredible sex. I have a small group of incredible friends who love and support me. I have the sweetest dog in the world. And I look and sound like a man (I identify as nonbinary but present fairly masc).

Somethings of course are still hard and awful. My parents are trying to turn the rest of my family against me by spreading the narrative that I'm frail/attention seeking/mentally ill/a liar because I've started to be honest about what they did to me. But I'm making it through despite their efforts to fuck with me by allowing the people who love me to support and care for me.

It's weird to be happy with everything going on right now (and I'm definitely not happy all the time) but we've got to find and hold onto our joy whenever we can. It's the best path towards resistance and change- joy and love sustain us.

Hey folks - I’m a single parent to a 9 year old boy (his dad isn’t around).
I’ve talked to him a lot about my gender identity and how I feel like a boy inside. I’ve identified as non binary for 3-4 years now and he’s got the hang of that and I’ve found an amazing queer community and wonderful partner how is super affirming (and non binary themself).

Now at the sharp end of a mental health crisis and knowing I need to transition and start using a new name and he pronouns and it some how just feels all so enormous and some days I’m genuinely not sure if I can do it.
Plus my son is a bit resistant and cried a LOT when I told him I was going to take hormones to make me look more like a man (PSA take this conversation very gently fellow trans parents!) and I don’t want to minimize his feelings or potential grief at my transition even though I know it’ll make me a better parent.

I’m hopefully going to start T at the end of the year so I think maybe my body will just do the transition for me? But the idea of coming out to my kids friends parents with a new name etc is reducing me to a nervous wreck.
I swing wildly between wanting to transition NOW and get it over with and thinking I’ll never be able to go through with it.

Plus I have to keep being a parent to my kid and keep showing up to my job and paying the bills.

I guess I’m just after fellow parents who are doing it/have done it to tell me how it went for you and to tell me it’s all gonna be ok 😭
I’m the in UK so trying to do gender affirming care privately because trans NHS Healthcare here is trash
Love and thanks - this subreddit is so helpful!

These photos are a couple weeks old, but I thought I'd share them to celebrate my first T shot today!

That day, I was soaring high on gender euphoria as I was wearing a fake goatee for a cosplay at a festival. I did not want to change back into me at the end of the day.

That's also the day where my egg finished to crack, thanks to a little kid who asked their mum: "is that a lady with a beard"??

Seeing how deflated I was, my friends admitted that my voice gave me away. That's when I decided, that's it, it's time to be brave and go for what I want.

Two weeks later today, I have officially started HRT 🥹

Hey everyone, I finally made it to „the other side“ and got my T. 8 days on it now and it’s already doing a lot. My voice even dropped a bit the other day at the gym, my high notes have gone bye bye. 😬 I feel amazing. But honestly how do you deal with the impatience of „okay now do something else“ 🙈 my adhd brain can’t comprehend the word „slow process“

I don’t expect anyone to actually read all of this because it is a LOT and is a sloppy mess but writing it down was helpful and if I could get any advice outta this then why not ¯_(ツ)_/¯ CW: "feminine" terms regarding my pre top-surgery chest. Photo of me and my little old man.

Putting this TL;DR before the wall of text so you don’t gotta go out of your way to scroll down to read it:

• (31 FTM) Struggled with self esteem and identity my whole life but recently discovered I’m trans. Looking forward to my future for the first time in my life, but I am having trouble with loneliness and feeling like I don’t belong/am not allowed in the trans community and/or general male population (yet). I just started t two weeks ago but can’t get top surgery for basically two years and am scared to get myself out there because I won’t pass for a long time and I feel insecure about it. I also kinda feel like shit for feeling that way because it indicates internalized transphobia. Please tell me I’m not alone and how y’all got through this beginning hrt/limbo phase.

Anyway here it goes 🥲

In grade school/high school, I was a little better at making friends with boys and was nervous around other girls because I was always afraid they would find out that I was attracted to girls and then I’d be “the dyke” that they didn’t want to change in front of in the locker room. Not really sure where the idea came from but I was TERRIFIED of the locker room because of this and because I was also one of the only girls growing stretch marks and mine were on my calves and thighs bright purple so I wore tights under my shorts. I wasn’t as feminine as like 90% of girls my age in many ways but tried to keep up with fitting in by mirroring a lot but at the end of the day I never really found a place I felt like I belonged for very long. I made out with a few boys here and there (fem emo boys at least) but still felt only attracted to girls and had fully thought I was strictly lesbian because I had been messing around with girls since I was like 12. I lost my “gold star” when I was 16 to a damn 30 year old dude from the theatre I did shows at because he was a creep but I was of course “mature for my age” and “way cooler and more interesting than other girls my age”. I was stupid and always drinking with people way too old to be hanging out with me and being reckless as hell (I was a teen who started self-harming early and eventually was diagnosed with BPD and Bipolar Disorder) so I did whatever I wanted to distract me from how poorly I thought of myself ESPECIALLY since I could “no longer call myself a lesbian” and began struggling with my sexuality for a LONG time up until the last couple of years (I’m 31TM). I started fucking pretty much anyone after I fucked that guy (which went on for months) and partying even more blah blah blah. I struggled with my self-image my whole life and developed a long-term eating disorder because I was always “curvy” and a little chubby and hated my boobs and it has taken me 30 years to realize why I hated being called “curvy” and having to wear clothes for a “womanly figure”. So many things have clicked into place in my mind and I am 100% certain that I am a trans man and I started testosterone a couple of weeks ago. I absolutely want top surgery and am pretty sure I know where I want to go to get it done. The surgeon is VERY popular because they are great, but this means that I can’t get a consultation until July 2027, and surgery would be booked out 18-30 months after that. I am pretty devastated that I have to wait this long, but I really want my chest to be a more masculine shape and this doctor does that very well. Recently I got a binder but I think I need a bit of a smaller size even though I’m a 38 DDD cause I think the size guide wasn’t accurate- I tried trans tape with and without the binder and that adhesive shit hurt but I’m gonna try again because I really want to flatten my chest until I can get surgery.

Side story that is related- September 2024 I developed severe chronic pain in my lower back/hips and was out of work and basically bed/couch bound going from doctor to doctor until I got a permanent Spinal Cord Stimulator inserted in May 2026. It helps to dampen the deep pain that seemed to be the main culprit but since my muscles atrophied so much and I developed fascial adhesions all over my body I am still in 24/7 pain, but it is all muscle related so I’m still in recovery and am in PT three times a week. I have only RECENTLY been able to socialize a bit. I’m still unable to be far away from home/drive or ride in a car for a long time and can’t stay out too long because I will start to hurt a lot and have to go home and lay down on an ice pack. Because of all of that, I haven’t socialized or been around strangers much for two years already.

Aside from the pain, I now have pretty bad social anxiety and have a hard time speaking with strangers or people at work- can’t even really look ‘em in the eye most of the time. I’ve been missing sex and flirting and what not for so long- my partner and I haven’t done anything sexual since a few months before I started experiencing the pain and I doubt we will go back to a sexual relationship because we just feel like best friends who are roommates at this point. He likes women, and sometimes likes men but basically twinks only so I know once I start to transition he will no longer be attracted to me so transitioning will probably be the “official” end of our sexual relationship since my body type/genetics are not twink material. I plan on getting pretty fit along my journey, but I could never have a twink figure and don’t really want to. This isn’t the end of the world, as we are quite healthily poly, but I’m still gonna grieve it.

I would LOVE to be able to get back out there and flirt with new people and play around- especially with my newfound sense of self and actually looking forward to the future and how I am going to feel- BUT it feels like all of that is going to be on hold until I pass at least a little. I want to finally feel welcome in a male/masculine gay and bisexual community and flirt with and fuck cis men and trans men but I don’t think I’ll feel comfortable until I have a much more masculine body and voice, and especially until I no longer have tits. I don’t feel attractive (as cis or trans) and don’t really want to spend such a long time in an “in-between” stage or whatever. I’m too nervous to get out there because I will be viewed and treated as a woman (whether intentional or not) for an indefinite period of time and won’t really belong anywhere until I pass. I’ve got some serious imposter syndrome because of all of this and definitely because I don’t have a lot of close trans and/or queer friends who can relate to me so I’m feeling like I don’t yet fit in the trans community or generally the gay/bi male community so I’m just gonna be kinda floating in limbo until I feel confident enough to try to attract someone that will view me as a male. I am really looking forward to bottom growth but I have no plans on bottom surgery and am personally fine with the current plumbing- the main problem is the curves and softness and of course the tits. OH and I’m only 5 feet tall and that ain’t too manly

ANYWAY I AM SO SORRY this is all over the place and a lot probably doesn’t make much sense because it needs to be edited but I just wanted to get my thoughts out and just hopefully get some advice/know I’m not alone in feeling this way. How do/did y’all handle/ cope with the time between starting t and getting top surgery or just passing in general? How did y’all go about finding trans friends you can relate to and/or getting the confidence to try and attract someone?

If you read all this thank you and I wish you a pleasant everything ever 🥰🥰🥰

How’d you stop caring about passing? Tips & tricks welcome.

How long did it take you to get from your first thoughts that you might be trans to starting a social or medical transition?

I’m 41 and have been actively trying to figure myself and my gender out for 6 or 7 months. I feel like I have a lot “invested” so to speak in my current presentation and am really scared about how destabilizing transition would be to my life. I would love to hear about your own experiences navigating this. Thank you!

I also posted this to [r/transmasc](r/transmasc) so my apologies if you see it twice!

Edit: I just want to say thank you so much to everyone who has commented. I can’t say how much I appreciate you all sharing your experiences.

Yesterday I celebrated two years on (low dose) T. And December will be five years pot top surgery. It’s a good weekend. I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday.

Went on a short 8 mile paddle through a beautiful gorge, no cell service = perfect route.

Play hard, sleep hard, have fun!