This afternoon, I almost handed in my "trans" membership card and decided to stay male. After reading this thread and some answers people had given me in other threads about confidence, I decided to get my eyebrows done. A change that I can't hide from public view, and a small but important step in the right direction towards gaining the courage to walk out of the house looking more feminine each and every day (or at least doing things to myself that force me to look more feminine in public whether I like it or not). Plus when I wear makeup, my eyebrows are a dead giveaway and they needed tidying up.
Found a local threading joint - nice Indian lady inside who proceeded to lure me into a chair and then torture me with what looked like dental floss. Tears streaming from my eyes, hands and forehead sweating from the repeated cycles of anticipation then agony, anticipation then agony. I had bushy eyebrows beforehand, so I knew there was some work to be done. But my god, that was painful - like up there with "first laser session on upper lip" painful; up there with "screw being trans" painful. Took about twenty minutes from start to finish. I had asked for something more feminine, and with the amount of huge rips of hair she took off again and again and again, I was expecting to be left with the world's thinnest eyebrows.
But no, I now have two neatly-trimmed and shaped androgynous eyebrows, a great first step towards gradually shaping them in a more and more feminine style. The tatty outlines are now gone, the bushiness has been trimmed away, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. And the first session is evidently the most painful, so next time should be far less miserable - although I do intend to ask the lady to make them a touch smaller each time I go. Redness subsided within thirty minutes. My eyes even look slightly more open now that the bottom of the eyebrow has been moved upwards by what must be no more than a millimeter or two. Can't wait to see how this affects me when I put makeup on.
Rather pleased with the result, to be honest. It's not a huge change, but it's certainly a change. And nobody has commented on it either - yet...
Total cost: $15 ($10 for the service, and I threw in a $5 tip because she put up with more exclamations of "OH F**K!" than she's probably heard in her entire life.)