Quote from: Violets on February 03, 2016, 08:53:12 AM
Frustratingly, I've yet to see the real me in the mirror, but you've given me hope. 
FWIW, I've been looking at women a lot, especially ones that don't fit the "true woman" appearance template, and imagining looking like them. I mean, at 62, there's no way I'm going to look like a supermodel, or even as good as Caitlyn Jenner or Hillary Clinton, no matter how many surgeries I have or how much time I spend at the gym. Basically, I'm trying to recalibrate my internal picture of what a "real woman" looks like to include less stereotypically feminine bodies.
Maybe if I find some cis women who look a lot like me or at least what I can reasonably expect myself to look like after a few years on HRT, I can learn to accept my appearance as being "like a woman."
I ran across a video this morning (one of those videos extoling the features of a particular UPS), and the presenter was a woman with arguably "manish" features, and I told myself, she looks like she's doing okay.
On another note, I've been working on my mannerisms. I've been trying out (to myself) various ones that I might have previously rejected as being too "girly" to see if they fit me. I think -- or would at least like to think -- that under all that undermining and invalidation from childhood and beyond there's a playful, coy, flirtatious, spontaneous, affectionate, impulsive, passionate, joyful soul that I would like to allow to let out of its Chateau d'If cell and express itself.
And even if there isn't, well, as they say, "fake it til you make it."