That_Bitch_Is_Cily

There's a youtuber named Sofia Love who made makeup tutorials years ago and I love her voice. She hasn't put out a video in years though. The girls from the Doll Deranged podcast are also a good example of how trans voices don't need to be hyper feminized to still be feminine and passing and beautiful.

My breakthrough came when I stopped overanalyzing every little mannerism and getting overwhelmed at the thought of needing to relearn how to pronounce every word in my vocabulary. Until that point, I had thought that I needed to learn how to act feminine and that induced a lot of imposter syndrome. I then realized that the only acting I was doing was pre-transition when I presenting masculine because I am just a naturally feminine person. Once I realized that, I kind of just let myself express how I naturally would and its mostly all fallen into place. Hopefully that makes sense. Its 3 am and I can't sleep.

I have a friend that knew me way before I transitioned and we were always really touchy with each other. One day a few months after I began transitioning we were joking around with each other and he pokes me right on the boob (which wasn't really there yet) and just freezes, says "waaaiiitttt" really slowly, then we just look at each other like 😯.

I just started laughing and was like "yeaaa so that's different now, huh?" Establishing new boundaries is a very interesting experience especially when they're inadvertently crossed.

Brooke Autumn gives me such incredibly cozy vibes, I love that one the most.

Hi! Just going to address a couple points since I'm honestly not too familiar with the intracancies of sexual orientation and gender identities and the crossover in between. What I can speak to, as a trans woman, is my interpretation of trans invalidation. My first point is to be careful in using trans as an adjective instead of a noun. You typed "transwoman" and "transman" several times and that is incorrect. I am a woman who is trans and I am also tall. You wouldn't call me a "tallwoman", since tall is a descriptor. It's a minor distinction grammar wise but i think most trans people are sensitive to it.

Second, you mentioned being afraid of accidentally invalidating trans people by using gender neutral terms as a default. I think this is something that is highly variable person to person. I would personally rather get referred to with gender neutral pronouns than the wrong ones, but it does make me upset that my gender expression is ambiguous enough that it makes folks question. I would much rather be gendered correctly from the get go, but that is asking for a lot of guess work from strangers. On the other hand, if someone has made you aware of their preferred pronouns, still using gender neutral ones is very invalidating in my opinion.

Hope this helps!

Hi Penny! Days like that are always a bummer but I'm glad that you're still feeling good! I LOVE heels :)

And I still kinda long for and mourn the childhood and teenage years of the person I wish that I had been but wasn’t.

This hits so hard. It's one of the hardest things for me to grapple with. In hindsight, knowing that I knew better, that I knew myself better, but lacked the self-agency to hold to my convictions and fight for my true self. But that's also a lot to ask of an isolated teen in a rural area so I try to be nice to my past self.

Yea this was me too. I grew up pretty isolated and wanted to impress my big(oted) brother so I emulated a lot of his worldview. The 90's and 00's was also a tough time for a queer kid who had no supporting community to grow up in and most of the queer representation she saw was either negative or heavily mocked. I didnt want to be the butt end of a joke so I became overly homophobic to try to deflect attention from the deeply confusing and shameful-at-the-time thoughts and feelings I had. Luckily I never directly bullied anyone, but I'm sure there were countless peers who could've used my support (and who I could've used theirs) that never got it. And I missed out on being part of a rich and amazing community. But we move on, hopefully better than we used to be.

I have a very reliable period about every 24 days. I use a period tracker app to document my symptoms and predict when it'll start.

It's definitely not stupid. It's a nice hope to have. And no one knows what comes after so why not hold onto that if it's something that helps you navigate this life in a positive manner. It's literally not hurting anyone.

Personally, I don't believe that anything comes after this life and that our consciousness is nothing more than an evolutionary trait that hominids developed to gain an advantage for survival. Therefore I have to keep my momentum going to make this life and whatever time so have left in it something that is worth enduring and enjoying. Grieving the life we didnt get to have when its appropriate, but recognizing that no one gets to have exactly the life that they want. At the same time, transitioning gives us an incredible opportunity to right some of those wrongs, perhaps more so than most cis-people get. In that way, I view transitioning, with all of its peaks and pitfalls, as an incredible gift. But I've also had an incredibly priveledged transition so I understand if other folks don't view it that way.

Thank you!!! I just want more IRL trans fransssss lol

But fuck that. I want it and I want it now, that's what it is. I've been fantasizing about this for years, way before I realized I'm trans.

For real. It may seem like I'm rushing through my transition and, from the outside perspective, that I'm being rash and not thinking things through. But in reality, these feelings have just been at critical mass for a long time, I just didnt say anything about it until now. So it sucks to be at the point where I need things to happen now but also need to wait for loved ones and the medical process to catch up.

Can't even say I'm 100% certain it's the right call, but I definitely don't want to spent the rest of my life wondering.

Inaction is still action. I know what that life is like and it doesn't work, so why sit stagnant in it when I could do something to maybe make life better.

Can't say I'm super excited about having to dilate for the rest of my life or the infection risks, but I just hope it'll be worth it.

Same. I just couldn't close off the possibility without experiencing it first. I don't want to disappoint myself later on because I cannot satisfy cravings that I could have because my anatomy doesn't allow for it. And to have that due to a choice I made would probably induce a different type of dysphoria.

Wow, it brought the wait down ~2 years for you? Now I want a mental breakdown x).

Yea super fun, highly recommend... Lmao I am thankful that transitioning unlocked this sassy, spicy, bitchy side of me that helps propel my self advocacy. Not getting surgery this winter was not going ti be an option with the plans my wife and I have made moving forward. So I'm so psyched that I was able to find an alternative who is reputable, experienced, and comfortable.

Which means, the break me and my boyfriend are having is over.