I agree with Auroramarianna... Waaay to many people say how it's all about confidence and attitude. No it's not. It's 80% about how you look, and 20% about the voice. Let's be honest, who is trying to fool who? Voice is important, but it's really mostly all about how we look. Even if your voice is 100% perfect, and your looks still get you clocked, you will only pass over the telephone. People are nice, well obviously not all, but a lot of people are nice, and they see what you mean by your overall presentation, and they will use correct pronouns and everything. But that doesn't mean you "pass", it only means that they observe the right things, and that they are nice people. Sometimes they don't really observe that well, and sadly situations like this happen. If you got the looks right, to the point of unclockable, even the voice doesn't really matter anymore (think of cis women with baritone deep voices), and much more important thing happens, confidence is there and it's natural, not worked-on built confidence. Confidence and right attitude in what? I could be wrong, but I think most of us aim to look and present as cis-women... well at least for me it's hard to understand those who do their best to look like trans women (I can only think of certain kind of workers and/or adult type entertainment presenters here..). So we do out best to blend ourself in with the rest of women. If you know you don't blend in exactly perfect, how would having better attitude seem to help there? And how is it really possible to be confident that you blend-in and look cis to everybody, when you really know that you don't (yet). And why would convincing youself otherwise, and having different attitude help here, if other people still read you (clock you) like they do regardless of any of this. Blending in is what most of us want. And you don't get to that with just the right attitude. Surgery can help, and it can even be like a miracle, but it's still a lot about the work and time we put into our apperance, to change the things we can change. And save all the attitude for here, as there are things we can't change and noone else can help us change them... and having the right attitude about those kind things is where it really makes all the difference.
polypagan, changes due to HRT don't stop happening after 20 months. Early changes are easier to notice, easier to compare. Later they seem to happen more slowly, and we usually don't notice them so dramatically like we did our first breast buds, and first real growth spurt, or dramatic skin change, or facial softening. But feminization process doesn't just stop there. How much will more time on HRT be able to help you on it's own, is what you do need to think about. Some things will not be affected, and some of those things are quite important to how others see us. I have a feeling some people here on this forum regard surgery as something bad, almost as something evil, something they would never ever do, despite anything. I only see it as a help. Could be completelly unnecessary help to some (some really don't need it..), but could also be a very good helpful thing for others, which might result in slight or dramatic difference to how other people read and see us. Anyway, don't let this kind of misgendering bring you down, it's not worth it. I hope you're over it by now.
