I've been on HRT for over 2 years now and haven't yet noticed any changes in muscle mass, so I have nothing to go by. But I have a really muscular forehead and it makes my eyes look rather masculine, despite that I have had forehead contouring done. Granted they look a lot better, but the muscles are really big and are still greatly affecting the appearance of my eyes. Does anyone know if this will go away from HRT? Or am I doomed forever?

I don't know . All I have on my forehead is skin and skull . I've been on HRT for 5 months , but I don't think any thing has changed.

No. Your forehead is bony tissue which has been calcified as early as 16. If you're overweight, losing weight will but HRT won't.

Everyone has muscles in their forehead. The main one is called the frontalis. That's how you're able to move your eyebrows. I already had forehead contouring done. The muscle is very large and squishy. Bone is hard.

Note the difference between me squinting, and then raising my eyebrows:

Well... yes... but the frontails is a large, very, very flat muscle which has an average thickness of < 1mm. That's probably not going to get much smaller with a 30% reduction in mass.

Well I would love to have someone explain why the muscle(s) in my forehead are so big. As you can see from the picture, that is not bone.

Girl, you look fine. Everyone's brow muscles do that to some degree. If you've had forehead contouring, you probably still have the sameish muscle mass you did pre-surgery so, when you scrunch up your face, the contracting muscles bunch up due to the way that proteins are wound in the muscle tissue. It's the same reason that, when you flex your arm, your bicep swells.

You look great, don't you worry about anything, hon.

Thank you. I just still don't pass very well and have been dwelling on things like this. You seem to know a thing or two about this. Is it bound to go away some in time? I'm good at analyzing facial features and 99.9& of females do not have a huge protruding forehead muscle even when squinting. There's slight protrusion and you can see the movement of the muscles but I've never seen anything even remotely close to looking like mine. Even on other trans' foreheads in photos. So naturally I can't help but feel like "Why me?" My eyes at times can look out of place and unproportional with my other facial features.

I'm not even sure if the reason people are clocking me just by seeing my hands and shoulders, but that would really suck because there's nothing I can ever do about it. Not to mention how messed up that is because I could just be a girl with big hands and big shoulders. So that's pretty judgemental. I'm just so sick and tired of being trans I just can't take it anymore. If I overhear one more person saying "is that a boy?" I'm going to go off the deep end. Oh wait, I already did..

It's not that bad.. Nor will it get you 'clocked'..

And how many photos of tans women do you see them squinting or similar in?

Look closer at other women.. They do get bunched up muscles when squinting - it's kinda unavoidable. And here's another tip.. Any 'masculine' feature you may claim to have, I can find on a cis woman.

We all have things about ourselves we don't like, welcome to being a woman.. But you learn to either get over it and move on with life, or accept that it's going to eat at you.. Personally? I'd rather live life..

Ya know what?  You are beautiful, feminine, and desirable.  I mostly don't pay to much mind in trying to pass, and just do my best to project an honest image of a desirable confident woman.  Sometimes people wonder at me too, at least it seems so to me, but so what?  Shoot Dee, you are here to inherit the world if you want to and are willing to let it happen.  Some people will never accept us no matter how we present or to what lengths we go to fit in.  Some always will just because we are honest and worthy women.  The latter far outnumber the former, and for that I am thankful.

Being trans isn't a tragedy, It isn't grand either, It just is. We do our best with what we have and are worthy of love.  Go girl!

Blessings,
Julie

Quote from: Dee92xoxo on March 27, 2014, 06:39:04 PM
Thank you. I just still don't pass very well and have been dwelling on things like this. You seem to know a thing or two about this. Is it bound to go away some in time? I'm good at analyzing facial features and 99.9& of females do not have a huge protruding forehead muscle even when squinting. There's slight protrusion and you can see the movement of the muscles but I've never seen anything even remotely close to looking like mine. Even on other trans' foreheads in photos. So naturally I can't help but feel like "Why me?" My eyes at times can look out of place and unproportional with my other facial features.

My partner has bunched up brow muscles like that when she scrunches her face... but most girls *don't* make extreme facial expressions because, wrinkles. Your face looks fine. If you're getting clocked, it may be body-language, movement, or any number of other things. Personally, I think that you're just really super self-conscious about your condition and may not present yourself with the easy confidence that is typical of a woman your age (if I'm guessing the 92 right, that means that you're about 22?)

90.99% of 'passing' is attitude... the other 9.01% is vocal ^,^;

I was watching Glee today, and noticed that when Rachael furrows her brow it is easily as much of a hump as anything in that picture. I bet if I paid close attention to people that do that, I would notice they all have similar sizes of muscles there.

I personally would say there are enough things to worry about without this, but if you are worried then try to express positive emotions, since most of the expressions that will do that are negative ones. 

The muscles of facial expression generally are very thin, and the underlying bone structure will have more to do with the actual contour/shape than anything else.  Some sections of the population have muscles that furrow more and that's normal.

The muscles of mastication (the ones used for chewing) might have slight differences between men and women.  Males generally have heavier mandibles (lower jaws), and with that comes a more substantial masseter muscle.  I am not aware of any empirical data regarding sexual dimorphism of the jaw or facial muscles although it wouldn't surprise me if some of the changes in facial shape under HRT result from very minor muscular changes.

Quote from: Victoria Mitchell on March 27, 2014, 09:42:27 PM
90.99% of 'passing' is attitude... the other 9.01% is vocal ^,^;

Quite sure Sebastien Chabal could not agree more. Unfortunately it's a bit more than that

Quote from: Victoria Mitchell on March 27, 2014, 09:42:27 PM
90.99% of 'passing' is attitude... the other 9.01% is vocal ^,^;

Mmm I'd respectfully disagree. 99% is attitude and so is the other 1%.

Natal women don't have any doubt that they are women no matter how they look or sound.

Neither do I.

Quote from: Cindy on March 28, 2014, 08:37:20 AM
Mmm I'd respectfully disagree. 99% is attitude and so is the other 1%.

Natal women don't have any doubt that they are women no matter how they look or sound.

Neither do I.

my attitude is  that you live the way you need to live regardless of any perceived flaws. It's your life be happy, it's a one way trip ,unless the universe grants another shot at it.