I wish I knew

[Ruth Ruthless]

I guess this is just another vent.

I wish I knew how much the abuse I'm putting my body through will end up feminizing me. I thought there was progress, but I think it's stopped again. My girlfriend says that I'm "raping" my body and that it did nothing wrong and that I should love it and accept it and be content expressing my gender identity with clothes. And in a sense I feel like I'm giving up to society's standards by trying to change my body to conform to what a woman commonly looks like.



But most of the time I have to live looking like this...



Because the wig itches and wears out quickly if I try to wear it 24/7 and I can't afford replacing it too often, and the dysphoria is often unbearable.

And even with the makeup and the wig and the clothes people still recognize me as male and refer to me as male, even before I say a word.

And I hate looking at myself in the mirror and seeing how male I look. I love my body for functioning well and my face looking pretty, while hating my face for not being feminine.

If I could only know what the end result of all these hormones and future surgeries would be, I could decide whether to continue or not. But I don't. And I'm afraid to regret not trying.

And every time I go out of my protective bubble of friends and trans friendly acquaitances and meet many people who reflect to me that they see a man, I want to lie down on an operating table and have doctors rip my body apart and resculpt it into a female shape. While being afraid not to wake up from these operations or to wake up a deformed freak.

I know for many people the hormones themselves make life better for them, but for me they don't. At best they have no emotional effect on me and I hate how they ->-bleeped-<-ed up my metabolism and my libido... maybe they are also responsible partially for my mood swings, maybe it's just my expectations and hopes not being fulfilled... and most of all I hate how after 16 months I'm still not getting any significant feminization despite paying these prices.

What I'm trying to say is it's kind of driving me crazy the possability that I might be able to feminize this body, so I feel like I have to try... while on the other hand, if it doesn't work, then maybe I could at least enjoy better physical health without the hormones, maybe even better mental health. And I would give almost anything to have a feminine face but I'm afraid to go to all these lengths for nothing.

Not really asking for advice here, I guess. Just venting the same ->-bleeped-<- all over again. Sorry for being repetitive and unproductive.

[Beth Andrea]

*hugs*

It's not abuse that your body is going through...if you're trans, then the body needs to change, and does so willingly, even eagerly...to the best of its ability. It's LOVE that drives us, not cruelty. Love...self-acceptance...is what makes the effort worth it.

Its not very supportive of your gf to describe transitioning as "raping" the body...YOUR body. In fact, it's pretty darn hostile.

No one knows how much hormones will change the body. My experience has been that they helped ease the tension of excess testosterone in a woman's mind.

It sounds like you're seeking outside affirmation of a feminine appearance...but feminity comes from within, and others sense it like a sweet perfume. It's wonderful to look good, but one has to first be (meaning, allow oneself to express and accept herself) a woman inside in order to pass as a woman.

Hope this helps in some way.

*hugs*

[Ruth Ruthless]

I don't picture my femininity as a sweet perfume scent. I picture myself as a tom boy woman. I want to be able to wear the same loose male clothes I always wore and have my face still scream woman. I want to wear also tight feminine clothes and have my face not stick out like a sore thumb. I don't believe in a female essence or female soul. I believe our character has no gender. Call me superficial for that but I want to be the same I've always been as a person but just have a feminine face and hair on my head. Maybe that means I don't understand what being a woman is but it's what it means to me. A woman can be any kind of person just like a man. So for me there is no such thing as internal womanhood. It's all external.

[Rachel]

Hi Ruth,

I have had an unbelievable 28 months from my lowest low till now. I have accepted myself and self hate is gone. I come out to those that matter and I know what I need to do gong forward. I just need to accomplish each future step one by one. I think I have come a long way. I wish things were different and I wish I could be stealth later this year but that is not going to happen. I can make things better but never 100%. I told my 1st therapist I am starting at zero so anything is positive.

I guess what I am trying to say is look at all the things you have accomplished instead of the things that have not happened yet or may need surgeries or may never happen.

[Ruth Ruthless]

Thank you both for your replies, Beth and Cynthia. Beth, maybe you're right about it being self love though it doesn't feel like my body is yearning to become feminine. Cynthia, thanks for your suggestion to look at what I've accomplished.

[iKate]

Hey Ruth,

I have nothing to offer than a hug.

I'm curious though, is the baldness just hair loss or do you have some other condition? I'm really sorry you're going through this.

[Ruth Ruthless]

Thank you everyone for the hugs.

I have no condition. It's male pattern baldness. :-(

I started losing my hair at age 16-18. By 21 I was completely bald on top like I am today and have been shaving ever since.

At age 32 I realized I'm not a man. At 34 I decided to take hormones. I also went to a doctor who sells hair restoration medication and a hair transplant surgeon when starting hrt and they both said my hair is a lost cause. That I am completely bald on top and that my hair on the sides and back is not thick enough to compensate.

Now I am 35 and I see very small very bright vellus hairs on top but I don't know if they were there before and if that could make any difference. The pattern is very typically male which is why I get even more dysphoric if I don't shave my hair regularly.

[Angelgrl]

Hi Ruth.  All I can say right now is that loving and accepting yourself inside is what helped me when I started my transition. 

Angelgrl

[Mallory]

I really don't want to come off wrong or for you to feel like I'm attacking anything about you, far from it! I read something recently that stated MTF's should not try to lose weight or continue to be as thin as possible because the female body thrives on fat and its what produces that feminine glow and softness. My provider also said something about being overweight tends to increase estrogen and that's why men grow boobs and have low testosterone.

So my question is: Have you tried gaining 10-15 pounds to see if that would help produce any sort of positive change in your appearance? The average female body fat percentage is above 20%. Do you have an incredibly high metabolism? Like I said, just trying to help and I know you've probably already tried to address all of that long before now.

Ps. I like both pictures and ill reiterate on what you've already said: Just do you and what would make you happy, image and what the world wants be damned.

[Ruth Ruthless]

Sometimes I binge on junk food for two weeks and gain ten pounds. My digestion goes to hell and 90 percent of the weight gain goes to my belly which makes my body look even more male and less hourglass shape which happens when I eat healthy for two or three weeks. This is another indication for me that my body isn't yearning to be feminine. Only me. The last 10 percent of weight gain goes to my breasts and buttocks and thighs and those are the first places to lose the weight. The belly being the last and huge relative to my skinny body unless I eat healthy consistently again for several weeks. Nothing ever reaches my face, the most important part for me to change.

[Ruth Ruthless]

So I haven't tried to gain weight but it goes up and down anyway. And when I eat healthy I do not calorie restrict. I just restrict myself to whole plant foods and I get 2500-3500 calories a day. The following week is an exception because I'm broke this week from my last junk food binge but I'm still getting at least 2000 calories a day and will get more again when I get some income in a week. But as I said healthy eating for me does not mean calorie restriction. Only restriction of the food quality and I feel my body working better and more energetic when I do that. Gaining weight makes me feel weaker and sluggish. In fact I suspect that eating less healthy calories makes my body hold on to fat and it's when I eat more calories that the body is not stressed to keep the fat and loses it while burning any extra carbs which come from only whole plant food sources with fiber and water so they don't get converted to fat like simple sugars from coca cola and the like would. I can feel myself more energetic and less depressed when I eat healthy but I still get depressed from dysphoria both when I eat junk and gain weight and when I eat healthy and lose it because I basically look the same, my belly being the only variable.

[Ms Grace]

What I wouldn't give for a crystal ball to work out where everything is going to end up. It seems unfair that we only get to try things a particular way at a particular time the once and then have to live with the consequences - good or bad. I often wish I could put my life on a Groundhog Day like loop (but maybe for longer than a day) so I can at least try out several variations... but nope.

Anyway, I don't see your girlfriend's comments about you "raping your body" as being particularly helpful or true. Your gender identity does not align with your body, saying to just live with it is tantamount to a life long prison sentence. If only there was a different and more effective way to go about this.

I'm wondering about your wigs and why they wear out so quickly? What type do you have? Mine are synthetic/microfibre - very lifelike and natural looking, don't cost a lot (about $150) and have lasted me many, many months of constant and regular usage (plus are quite comfortable most of the time). Another suggestion is that maybe see if you can get a wig fitted for your head and face shape - this might help with some of your presentation concerns too.

[Ruth Ruthless]

I used to go with synthetic wigs for 75 dollars each. They itched more and tangled more. Currently I pay about 250-300 dollars per human hair wig custom made to fit my scalp. I don't know what hairdo would look better than my current one. If I wear my wig for no more than a few hours a day or like I do now only when I go out or meet people it lasts me at least 6 months but if I put liquid glue and sleep with it 24/7 the wig burns out within a month. It could be the wig tape instead of the liquid glue that itches but going without any adhesive is not practical for me. I need to be able to braid the front hairs so I can eat without getting food in my hair and it's hard to see with the wind if I don't braid it and if I try to get along without adhesive every time I move the hair away I'm afraid I'm lifting the ear tabs of the wig and if anyone else brushes or touches my hair these sides will lift without adhesive. If I put on liquid glue it's hard to clean it and residue remains on the hair since I can't get everything out making the wig again wear out more than with wig tape and when I take it off if I use liquid glue and stay with the hair for two weeks then my scalp looks horrible pale and peels off in addition to the whole clean up being messy and long and tedious and frustratingly imperfect and wearing out while with wig tape cleaning and removing it is quick and easy and effective and gives the wig longer life. But it means I can't experience hair 24/7 and most of the time I'm bald. At least I get my human hair wigs custom made relatively cheap.

[Ms Grace]

I don't like not wearing mine - but I'd never sleep in it. I have a bit but not much natural hair underneath so also don't glue or tape but I can see why it might be a necessity for you if your head is totally shaved.

Sorry the synthetics don't work for you. I know some of them can be really diabolical - I was pretty lucky to find what felt like the right make and style for me, could have easily gone pear shaped.

The hair in the food and in the face is a real drag, but definitely a side effect of long hair. I use bobby pins and clips to keep mine out of the way.

[Ruth Ruthless]

The hair itself seems genuine enough to most people and no one I know spots it as a wig. Especially when I wear my natural brown hair color in the pictures. Even when I wear my multicolor blue pink burgundy human hair wig people often ask how did I bleach my hair like that and rarely ask if that's bleached or a wig. But having hair that looks genuine isn't enough for me to pass as a woman even with makeup and that's where I was hoping surgery and hormones would come in. Still, I can't wear the hair 24/7 and I look much more male without it.

As for clips and bobby pins, again if I did not glue it the clips would pull the ear tabs up.

I tried growing my hair several times and since I itch after several hours and itch even more when I grow hair the dysphoria of seeing the male pattern of my baldness is worse than keeping it shaved. In theory I could pin it to my hair if it grew long enough but in practice it doesn't work and to be honest if something happens and my wig comes off I'd rather people see me completely bald than see the male pattern. But mostly it's just a problem of not being able to live with the hair this way just like I can't live with a huge belly compared to my skinny body. Both of these make me look even less feminine and more like a bald man and even if in theory keeping the hair and keeping the fat might have some long term benefits the increased itching and dysphoria from the pronounced male pattern baldness and what looks like a beer belly make me consistently go back to shaving and healthy eating to reduce the dysphoria not to mention my body works better as far as digestion and energy goes on whole plant foods.

[Ruth Ruthless]

Hebrew is also a problematic language. I live in Israel. Everything in Hebrew has a male or female pronoun, especially the people but also objects. So strange people often compliment me and say "your hair looks amazing!" but refer to me in male pronouns while doing it. Then they repeat the compliment again while referring to me in male pronouns again because they see me wincing and perhaps think I don't believe their compliment. *sigh* At least they mean to compliment and at least my wig passes as hair, even though I don't pass as a woman.

[Sunderland]

I know this isn't exactly relevant to the discussion, but I just wanted to say that I think you're really pretty, Ruth. Your skin is so creamy and seems to almost have a glow to it, and I feel like I can only dream of being that thin. You're absolutely lovely in my eyes. I'm sorry people aren't gendering you correctly. *hugs*

[Ruth Ruthless]

Thanks. I think I look pretty too and I think my skin improved in the last two years. This is me two years ago.



And this is me on the day I started hormones 16 months ago.



And this is how I look recently on April 8th 2015.



But I don't know if the difference is telling since the lighting and angles are different.

I think the improvement to my skin is part due to HRT and part due to nutrition.

If I didn't eat whole plant foods then I wouldn't stay thin. The HRT would bloat me up and unfortunately from my experience not in a feminine pattern. Before HRT I ate as much junk food as I want and stayed thin but that changed with HRT.

Which is good to some extent because now through worrying about my external appearance I am eating healthy enough to probably avoid the strokes, heart attacks and dementia that run in my family. My dad has dementia and as bad as having a body not matching my identity, if I'd have dementia I wouldn't have a mind to contain an identity at all.

That's another reason why I am afraid of eating junk food and gaining weight. I'm afraid to end up with dementia like my dad.

And with the surgeries I am afraid to come out totally empty handed. To ruin the way I look now, which while I look now like a man, I have a relatively pretty face.

If I would have this same face or worse for all the surgeries and hormones I'm taking, I would rather give it up and try to live with this body. But I can't know for sure, so I feel compelled to try.

[Ruth Ruthless]

And finally, here are some pictures to give you an idea of what happens when I gain weight and why I tend to avoid it and not see it as advancing the feminization of my body...

[michelle82]

You have a great small feminine frame. Maybe not curvy but tall model like. With FFS you will be striking I feel. You aren't unattractive just have some more dominant male facial features.  I'm sort of in the same boat. I have a small frame which I'm grateful for but I fully plan on doing FFS when the time is right.