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[Murdercakes~]

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[Missadventure]

I'm not stalking you. I swear! Although it is starting to seem that way... 

Anyway...

I'm still waiting to see what HRT will do for my face, if anything at all.  I lost about 50lbs a couple years ago, to the point of being just borderline underweight.  Still kinda floating around that lower end of "healthy" which feels nice with my relatively active lifestyle.  But the weight loss left my face really deflated, and I absolutely hate it because it looks ~soooo odd~ (and masculine) from some angles, unless I carry a big cheesy grin 24x7 to puff up my cheeks...

I have the same exact problem. I dropped ~65 pounds over the past two years. And, it hollowed out my face. And although HRT is causing me to gain back weight (15 pounds in the last three weeks... GRRRR) it's all filling out my gut, strangely, and very irritatingly...

I know what you guys will probably say if you've seen my pictures, you'll probably say that I already pass and don't need surgery.  But keep in mind I'm only showing you the most flattering ones from the best angles.  I don't pass as well in 3 dimensions as you might think.  Pictures tend to lie. 

I've seen you in person... Soo... Being brutally honest (and, please feel free to reciprocate it. I'm firmly convinced the rest of my friends will NEVER give me constructive criticism because they're afraid I'll think they're insensitive bigoted ->-bleeped-<-s)... Your jaw and chin do emphasize a little bit of masculinity. Not from every angle, mind you, and really only when you're smiling real big. I honestly have the same problem. I solve it by not smiling, ever, which sucks, but, I also have a very british smile and I'm WAAAY more self conscious about that than any facial feature, so for me the lack of a smile is a twofer. A friend of mine pointed out there are makeup tricks to emphasize/create the illusion of fullness in the cheeks. Once I can get her to teach me said tricks I'll pass that along. I've also found that keeping my head slightly angled down deemphasizes my chin, although it's hard to do in any situations other than just looking in the mirror.

The upper half of my face is much less problematic IMO.  I couldn't give less of a ->-bleeped-<- about my nose right now.  I honestly don't know if it is masculinizing or not, but I have never really hated it so why fuss over it?  The only other things I am seriously considering messing with up there are my noticable brow bone/forehead, and my hairline, with its badly receding corners.

Your brow was only really noticeable to me in total profile. And even then it wasn't that bad. And, how often do we sit there and look at people in total profile anyway? I mean, aside from mug shots? At best it's somebody walking past us, or, as was the case with me, sitting next to us. And, of those, sitting is really the only one where someone will be there long enough to really notice anything. I always keep my head cocked to the side. I don't know if it helps. I hope it does. It probably makes me look stupid to anyone looking head on though. Sight...

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I can see my mother or my sister.  In fact, sometimes when I walk by a mirror I'm startled because I swear I look just like my sister.  The weird thing is that whatever features make me see my sister or my mom, it seems that make-up really brings them out somehow.  That's unexplainably strange because I've never know either my mom or my sister to wear much makeup.  But makeup works miracles for me, at least in my own eyes, with regards to passing---and eyeliner has been my secret weapon.  When I wash it all down the drain my face is completely male again, *and* I lose that connection to my family.  It goes straight down the drain with my makeup.  I just don't get it. 

I like my face better as a female face, because not only does it feel right, but I feel more connected to my family.  And while I can't deny that it's still difficult to be seeing a "new" face staring back from the mirror, the connection I feel to my mom and my sister helps a LOT.

Here's the thing that worries me when it comes to FFS.  While I can't put my finger on it exactly, I am pretty sure most of these recognizable features are coming from the upper half of my face, above my jaw.  I don't want to cheat myself out of having the best possible FFS, but I also don't want to destroy the connection I feel when I look in the mirror.  I'm afraid of the idea of losing that recognizability.  Therefore, I'm waffling about the idea of doing anything whatsoever to my face above my mandible.

I also look in the mirror these days and see my mother... In a weird creepy Freudian kind of way I think that's why I like wearing purple eye shadow more than other colors... A. I think it looks better on me... And B. When I was growing up my mom had these glasses that were tinted purple along the top half of the lenses, so that when you looked at her face on it looked like she was wearing purple eye shadow... I had actually totally totally forgotten about that until right now. Weird. But, I get the familial connection. There are some features of my face which are very reminisce of my mother (eyes, mouth, ears). And some that are very reminisce of my grandfather (nose, chin, jaw). When I first started down the road to transition, and I was pondering what all I wanted to do along the way, I thought "scrap this face. Start over"... But, the more I've been looking at myself in the mirror... I dunno. I think all I would do is just slightly deemphasize  my chin and brow and call it a day. My face would still be pretty manly. But, there are plenty of ciswomen with manly features. And, well, it would at least still be authentically me.

[LizMarie]

I wonder if you are simply being too harshly critical of yourself?

I felt much that way until a friend sat me down and compared my face with my daughter's (who they knew). I really have three glaring deficiencies - brow, slightly too strong jawline, and nose. And as my friend pointed out, FFS on those and I'd look almost exactly like my daughter. I then trotted out pictures of my sister and my mother and my friend did it again.

Once I began to try to see myself as others see me, I began to see me poking through instead of "him" all the time. It's a process and I admit that, but I do spend time looking at those photos and comparing so I can remind myself of how close I am to begin with to looking the way I'd like to look.

[Missadventure]

I wonder if you are simply being too harshly critical of yourself?

^^^^^^ This is very valid.

Before I started HRT I went through with photoshop and feminized my face. And I told myself "If I can look like that in reality, I'll be very happy"

Today I just compared it to a more recent picture, which honestly looks like ->-bleeped-<- because I had been crying for an hour before it was taken... And, well. The more recent picture is actually more feminine looking than the one I had artificially feminized - in spite of the fact that I definitely looked like ->-bleeped-<-.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203247476848163&l=4dc31734c5 There are still many masculine traits. But. I think once the beard shadow is gone, and I get these goddamn f&#*ing hormonally induced tear fests under control, well, I think I'll be happy with my face the way it is.

And, anyway, to put an awkward period at the end of the sentence. I've seen you. You're kissably cute.

[Missadventure]

Aww... I am glad for that.  Well, I like you just the way you are.  You look plenty ladylike to me, and beautiful too... but I've also only seen lady you.  I don't notice your shadow but I'm also a blind ass mofo.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202013640923036&l=d27b952563 There... Now you (and the world) has seen the most recent picture of boy me. That was taken in september. And, I just realized, to my amazement, its one of only 13 pictures of boy me in existence since I turned 18. I dunno. Its somehow amusing to me that there are only 13 pictures of me to cover a 15 year span of my life, yet there are at least 100 pictures capturing the 2 months I've been a woman. Crazy!

And... Yeah. You are a blind ass mofo for not seeing my beard shadow. But, it's somehow sweet of you to not see it. 

That's pretty interesting... I can't really put my finger on exactly what those traits are for me, that remind me of my family.  That's why I'm so afraid of messing it up.  So maybe I need to do what you did and look more closely at some photos.

If you wanna REALLY get crazy about seeing which of your facial features are family induced... Look for a piece of software called Abrasoft FantaMorph. Get high resolution pictures of you and your relatives taken from the same angle. Feed them in there. Match up the dots. And run through the morph animation. The features that don't drastically change are familial traits. And, what's more fun, if you save an image capture at the 50% point of a morph between your face and a close female relative, it amounts to a poor mans DIY virtual FFS. I did this myself with my close female relatives. The result was interesting. I'll have to show it to you sometime.

Some days I'm okay with my face.  The ladyboy look isn't always a bad thing.  I don't look like other girls, because I've got something they don't, and I can play it up with confidence because I effing deserve it.  (Yay, body positive...)  I'm leaning more towards some minimalistic FFS, just to deal with my jaw and adam's apple.  Everything else can maybe stay the same.

Your look is unique, I wont lie about that. But, it's definitely not a "ladyboy look". Just sayin... I mean, that man who asked us for money did refer to both of us as ladies. Granted, he also said he'd been in prison for the past 17 years. But, I'm choosing to remember the fact that his opening sentence was "Can I ask you ladies a question?" 

Also, you are cute, and you have the confidence to sell who you are. Which is awesome.

Though I totally feel you on the adams apple. For a while in high school I wore a 1 inch wide nylon dog collar. I have no idea why. Part of me wants to say I was masking my gender weirdness with just plain damn weirdness. But, really, I was probably just a weird kid. Anyway... I sometimes feel like revisiting that, just because it so nicely hid my adams apple. It's a shame I'm waaaay too old to be goth or punk without being pathetic, cause a studded leather collar is at least an acceptable fashion accessory in those worlds. 

[JamesG]

We are our own worst critics...

Prominent cheekbones, chin, and jaw line can be feminine.

Olivia Wilde:


You could try a tretinoin/Retinol cream. It speeds turn over in skin cells and makes the skin smoother and puffier. Takes a while to have effects though, like anything that actually works.