What are the alternatives for FFS ?

[asi]

I am 4 years on Hormones and i have pretty masculine jaw and forehead.

I know that  change in the fat distribution , proper makeup and cosmetic treatments ,
such as Botox , can help.
However i feel that i order to change significantly the masculine characters in my face,
i could not avoid FFS, but i am still trying to Look for alternatives.
Any suggestions ?

[Dena]

Until you start actually working on hair and makeup, it's difficult to know how feminine you can appear. In addition, you should trust the judgement of others as you may find it difficult to judge your appearance objectively. It took me  a year and a half to see my face as feminine though I wasn't having difficulty in public.

On the other hand, it possible than a minor surgery such as nose surgery might be enough to tip the balance. Others on the site are far better working with this than I am but I have seen some amazing transformation with nothing other than makeup and hair. Yes, some of the following links had FFS but not all of them.

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,106815.0.html
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,144104.0.html
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,168444.0.html
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,210798.0.html

[anjaq]

Changes in fat distribution by hormones are important - it can take more than those 4 years, but I think if you had not a lot of change in those 4 years, the changes after that are going to be subtle.

Makeup can do a lot. I am no expert in this though, as for me, it was not really an option to rely on Makeup. I personally was always striving to be regarded as female even if I am without Makeup, in the pool, while scubadiving or doing sports. So Makeup was for me more something like a crutch - a good temporary solution but no good way to permanently solve the problem. If it is an option for you as you only go out with Makeup on anyways, there are plenty of ways to use it to hide masculine features indeed

Cosmetic treatments and Botox can help somewhat. Cosmetics can make the skin lighter and softer, which is feminine - Botox may be able to change the appearance of the forehead if you have wrinkles there or it can change your eyebrow position and shape. It also can apparently be used to reduce the strength of the Jawline if used in the massetter muscle. These changes are a bit subtle though and they are temporary. So I would not really call them a replacement for FFS, unless the FFS you need is only a subtle one.

If you ask others for opinion about needing FFS - my experience is that unless you very obviously need it, a lot of people who had no FFS will tell you , you do not need FFS, while thos who had FFS or are considering it strngly will most likely be able to analyze the face and tell you what parts are masculine and could or should be fixed - surgeons will do similar things and tell you what can be changed as it is objectively masculine. It still does not mean you have to change it though, just because it is more on the masculine side than on the feminine - a face can have some masculine traits and still be regarded as female. But once you look into FFS and know the gender markers, its really hard to avoid seeing them all the time...

[flytrap]

Mannerisms. Take away the hair and makeup and grow out the eyebrows, and tons of girls would look like guys. A lingering smile on your lips and in your eyes, the way you hold your head, your eyes and your mouth will do as much to make your face look like a girl's as a million dollars of surgery. I can be wearing my Primary's clothes, without a stitch of makeup or jewelry, and assuming he is clean shaven, all I have to do to come to front and people can tell I'm a girl. Being pretty? That's something else altogether.

[Abbiem]

[Sydney_NYC]

Mannerisms are huge. I've seen trans women who blend so well in pictures, but their mannerisms clock them in an instant. Yet, I've seen some that in pictures, I would possible clock and their mannerisms are so spot on, in person the blend just fine.

For forehead, Botox can be use to feminize the forehead, but it only lasts 4-6 months, but can be done in the doctor's office.

[Abbiem]

Permenant makeup, fillers, laser treatments ect.
But permenant makeup can do like lower your hair with microblading, give your eyes a different look, it creates propotions, spacing, fillers for nose to change the size, botox for jaw to make it smaller, permenat lashes for bigger eyes ect.
But in the end, the best is surgery.

Mannerism depends how someone treats you. You are treated right, you treat right.
I think turning the other cheek, is not part of mannerism, if u dont respect yourself, ppl will walk on you, which have been done on me before, but no MORE.

[flytrap]

I am thinking I wasn't clear what I meant by mannerisms.
I live in the US so I can't speak for the rest of the world. It's creepy when you see a guy smile- like he's trying to figure out how to get into your pants or something. But people expect girls to walk around smiling. All the time. Whether you're on your period or just fell in love. And there are tons of studies to show smiling makes you prettier, younger looking and more attractive.

Alot of the things the facial feminization experts attribute to looking feminine happen when we smile.
-Showing the top teeth  raises your Cupids Bow and shortens the space between your nose and lip.
-Parting the lips breaks up the distance from the nose to the chin and makes the bottom of the face look shorter.
-Opening your eyes like you're surprised makes them look bigger. It gives you pretty arched brows without plucking them to death or getting a brow lift, and opens up the face from the eyebrows to the nose. It even gets rid of all those ugly lines in the corners of your eyes!

The 11's we all tend to get between our eyebrows make a prominent brow bone even more prominent. If you can't afford 20U's of Botox, you can soften them just by paying attention to relaxing the muscles.

Tilting the head a smidge distorts proportions. It makes the head look smaller and hides lopsided features of the face.

Girls part their hair on either side but guys only part on the left. So part on the right.

Keep your hair neat, wear a barrette or the front pieces brushed back from the face and over the ear. Guys with long hair never do that.

Girls have high foreheads, receding hairlines, and strong brow bones. They hide them with bangs  (And they wear curls to hide their thinning hair).

There are so many little things I can't even think of them all. Young girls obsess over this stuff. You can get a ton more tips if you subscribe to magazines like Seventeen or Teen. But like I said in my first post, things get tricky because it's easy to confuse being pretty with looking feminine.

Those  expressionless "Before" mug shots they take make everyone look horrible. The doctors know that; it's a trick to  sucker you into surgery. Guys may think it's OK to walk around looking like zombies, but girls in the wild never hold their faces like that. FFS can look unnatural because it's not natural for a face to look that way when you're not smiling. At the end of the day, we all have find a way to come to peace with how we look. But no amount of therapy or surgery is ever gonna do that for you.

[anjaq]

Well, I have to agree on the part that smiling makes the face look more feminine - it is something I recently found for myself when I tried to find out why I see my face as masculine or trans on one moment and female in the next moment. It depends on facial expression. Smiling or looking happy makes me look female and feminine - being tired or neutral or even sad makes me look masculine. Its an interesting observation, but when I look at other women who look neutral or tired they do not look that masculine - and also, I cannot always smile and grin and look happy - that would be weird...

Guys may think it's OK to walk around looking like zombies, but girls in the wild never hold their faces like that. FFS can look unnatural because it's not natural for a face to look that way when you're not smiling.

This I am not sure of. When I go home from work in the evening ad ride the bus, subway, trains - a lot of women who are going home from a long day at the job will look like zombies - well or at least look "neutral" and not smile. But i would not think of them as trans or masculine that much, just as being tired. So some things have to be different in trans womens faces that show more in these situations and tip the balance over to not just looking tired but looking tired and masculine neough to attract looks or even be misgendered...

[Mariah]

locked for review and cleanup

[Mariah]

Sorry about the long delay in getting this thread unlocked. The thread has been cleaned up and everything should be okay from here out. Hugs
Mariah