So, as the title says....I really really hate my hips. No, it's not fat, I'm pretty thin, it's just that my hip bones are large, and the fact my waist is small makes it so much worse. 35 inch hips, 28 inch waist approximately (sorry I suck with measures). It's a noticeable difference, obviously, and not what a man would want! Because it looks feminine, because of the evident difference, and sometimes it bothers me more than my chest because those horrible lumps of fat can at least be removed surgically. And I don't care it's considered healthy since I have no waist fat, it just makes me dysphoric and depressed, and I don't think a few inches on my waist would be so bad. I'm jealous of cis men obviously, but also of those cis women who look naturally straight! Sure, I know some guys can have hips too, for example I have a cis male friend who has some hips, and he's not fat. But it's different, because he's a cis male and his body looks male.
I know hip bones can't be changed because bone structure doesn't change after puberty, so I think I should put some fat on my waist to fill up the difference. But it's hard for me to put body fat in general, no matter how much I eat, because it's probably just genetics. Most people tell me I'm so lucky, but I guess they don't know I don't want to look small and being trans is painful.
I work out intensely with heavy weights, so luckily I have large or at least not so small shoulders (naturally, but gym made them so much better). I look hourglassy I guess, except my shoulders look larger and bulkier than most afab people I see around me because of muscles. I'm small, in general, like....my bones are not large, because my parents are small too so it's genetics. I'm 5'5", 116 lbs, I gained a few lbs of muscles because of work out, I train my upper body heavily, and more heavily than my lower body so my upper body can grow more and help me get a more masculine shape. Getting muscle mass on shoulders, arms and lats helps get a nice shape, but those hips and waist ruin everything now! And they make my butt look bad too, no it's not fat so I don't know how to fix it, it's just the shape that looks too feminine to me! I wish it looked square, like a typical male butt, but it looks more like a pear! Ugh, it makes me sick!

My hips are not so visible with clothes on, because I wear baggy clothes or just dress in a way that hides them and makes me look more narrow. But I don't care that other people don't see them. It's me who doesn't want to see them! When I undress, when I take showers, my body makes me feel angry, depressed and sick. Even if I was on a deserted island with no one around to see me, I wouldn't care, I'd still feel dysphoria, because dysphoria is personal, it's that feeling of discomfort with my own body.

Shoulder width is approx 16 inches. I was told they look wide by people, especially considering my overall size.

I know testosterone can't change our skeleton, but please tell me there's a way to change my waist so at least that difference between hips and waist gets much less evident! I've heard testosterone redistributes fat to the waist. That, and gaining more muscle mass on the upper body will help, right?

I can't be on T now because I still live with my parents, so it all just feels so horrible and depressing! Please help me!

testosterone helps rearrange body fat into a more "masculine" pattern. so even though you're doing all you can now, once you're on T, i think you will see a noticeable change. i've seen guys as you describe yourself to be, and once they were on T for a bit, their hips become barely noticeable because they packed on weight/muscle in all the right spots. everyone is different though obviously. as for baggy clothes, i wouldn't do that. honestly, it just makes you look younger and like you can't dress yourself. i was super insecure about my hips, etc. and i would wear baggy clothing. now though i feel like they just accentuate it more. wearing clothing that fits properly allows it to hug your waist so it doesn't seem so prominent imo.

Quote from: invisiblemonsters on April 09, 2016, 08:06:39 PM
testosterone helps rearrange body fat into a more "masculine" pattern. so even though you're doing all you can now, once you're on T, i think you will see a noticeable change. i've seen guys as you describe yourself to be, and once they were on T for a bit, their hips become barely noticeable because they packed on weight/muscle in all the right spots. everyone is different though obviously. as for baggy clothes, i wouldn't do that. honestly, it just makes you look younger and like you can't dress yourself. i was super insecure about my hips, etc. and i would wear baggy clothing. now though i feel like they just accentuate it more. wearing clothing that fits properly allows it to hug your waist so it doesn't seem so prominent imo.

Thanks about the T experiences, that encouraged me   oh well I don't wear excessively baggy clothes, no, maybe I used the wrong term here without thinking much about it. I don't wear tight clothes obviously because they'd show my chest and hips (and I don't have a binder and can't get one now) and I just find tight clothes uncomfortable (the feeling of something tight on my skin). I guess they're large enough to hide hips and chest, but still a proper size for me. I wear a men's S, or M, depends on clothes, so they fit but still hide the wrong bits. I wear larger clothes when I'm at the gym though because of comfort reasons. Rarely, when I see a gender neutral or even masculine looking jacket or shirt in the women's section, I choose an L cause women's sizes are smaller compared to men's sizes, so a women's S would be tight for me and my shoulders wouldn't fit, an M is still tight for me and my shoulders don't fit well, feels like they struggle to fit, so an L is perfect. They tend to make women's clothes small and tight here. But it almost never happens that I choose something from the women's section. It feels unnatural and wrong, so it has to be some really amazing looking thing I can't avoid buying. It's an absolute exception. I just mentioned it too tell more about the sizes I pick.
I look younger anyway though, I guess it's mostly because of lack of facial hair.

I'll trade with you any day!!! I've had lipo & tummy tuck surgery for a nicer mid section but no real butt yet from HRT, Ugggg.

Quote from: FrancisAnn on April 09, 2016, 08:29:50 PM
I'll trade with you any day!!! I've had lipo & tummy tuck surgery for a nicer mid section but no real butt yet from HRT, Ugggg.

I have a pretty flat looking butt though no fat there, so I don't think you'd want it because it looks flat, it's just the general shape that bothers me, together with the hips, they just look bad to me. I know, it sounds funny because trans women and trans men share the same issue but we desire totally opposite things haha.

You could try working out, doing butt exercises so you'll put muscle mass on it and it'll look bigger and rounder. My female friends are obsessed with butt workouts, and they get nice results! Rounder butts that look more evident. If you don't have time or money for gym, there are exercises you can safely learn to do at home, with or without dumbbells, like squats and deep lunges.

You have no idea what exercises I've done all my life but no real butt. HRT helps in so many ways but it's very slow to change where our body fat goes to it seems for me anyway. Al the $ in the world or exercise does not help it seems.

jossam, you said something about putting on weight to hide your waist--it does not help! I'm overweight enough that it's affecting my health and it just made the butt/hip thing worse because that's where the fat went. I'd have to get WAY heavier than this to look "neutral".

I am on T now and banking on that helping. I am also trying to lose some of the fat because as the hormones do their thing it's going to turn into a spare tire which is very unhealthy.

Other than, I sympathize, because the spread pelvis sucks and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

I think if you work out a lot maybe try to work on your back muscles, abs, lats, even neck. A bigger neck and stacked lats will change your overall shape.

AnxietyDisord3r, I'm sorry you're experiencing issues. I didn't mean I want to be overweight, though. I'm just hoping T will put tissue on the right spots, not a lot of fat of course, but just a little bit on my midsection because right now it's a bit too thin to me. I was a bit underweight at some point, now I'm getting better again.
How long have you been on T? It's a bit weird all the fat goes to your hips and butt even while on T. Part of fat distribution patterns is also genetics. Does your family have this pattern too?

As I said yeah I do work on my upper body a lot. Intense upper body workout with pretty heavy weights because strength improves too, obviously. I noticed my neck got bigger. Sure, having relatively wide shoulders and lats helps the general body shape because at least my hips aren't wider than my shoulders, but it really does nothing for the midsection. I do abs too but I'm afraid it'll actually make my waist thinner. Maybe I should add obliques workouts?
It's funny because having a small waist would actually be good, as it'd make lats and shoulders look bigger and gives a V shape, which is considered the perfect shape for a male bodybuilder....but in my case it's not good because of the damn hips, so ughhhh!
Anyway, even if I put a lot of effort in this, I'm still not on T, which means my dominant hormone is still estrogen so it's harder for me to gain muscle mass and the results are not the same as they would be if I was on T (and they're slow). Working out while having dominant T in my body would DEFINITELY make me bigger than I am now, and in a shorter time. Not a huge monster, sure, because gaining big muscles is hard for everyone no matter what their hormone levels are, but I'd be bigger than I am now, that's for sure.

I guess I should cross my fingers and wait until I can get on T. Until then, I should find ways to stop letting my dysphoria make me feel so depressed.

What might help in the short term would be wearing a men's vest. They vary from dress to the padded jacket vest that you see the outdoors type wearing.

Quote from: Dena on April 09, 2016, 10:12:40 PM
What might help in the short term would be wearing a men's vest. They vary from dress to the padded jacket vest that you see the outdoors type wearing.

Oh, I have one! I wear it when the weather is warmer though. Yeah, it makes me look much better, it makes my body look like it has a masculine shape. I thought I was the only one who noticed this effect they give. I should go and buy more though, but for some reason they're not easy to find where I live. I like them, they're part of my ideal clothing style.
Still, it's just a temporary solution, and it's clothes. When I undress and look at my body, it all starts to get depressing again because the problem is still there, it's inherent, it's the naked body that causes me issues 

Googling "mens vest" turns up many ideas but here are a couple that you might find useful

http://www.patagonia.com/us/shop/mens-vests?k=1D-6K

http://www.jcpenney.com/jsp/search/results.jsp?fromSearch=true&Ntt=mens+vest&ruleZoneName=XGNSZone&successPage=null&_dyncharset=UTF-8&rootContentItemType=XGNS

If you already work with weights you can try and build up your oblique muscles. If you do oblique exercises with heavy weights they'll build up like any other muscle group. If you look at female crossfitters (crossfit tends to include a lot of balancing moves which uses the midsection) they're pretty much straight up and down in the midsection, so that's something else you could look into.

I feel as though we sometimes overestimate how straight men are in the hips. As I have mentioned in other posts I ride horses English, so I often see men in breeches and tight shirts (aka skin tight clothing) and many of them have some level of waist even though they are thin and athletic.  I have hips that are ten inches larger than my waist, but I just wear fitted mens' t-shirts and it completely hides this.  Why?  Because my shoulders on T are the same size as my hips so the knit fabric hangs straight and makes me look straight.  Or at least no more curved than most men I know.  A lot of times I think that we as trans people focus on the ideal figure without ackbowledging that MOST people don't have that ideal figure--that is why it is considered ideal, because it's rare!  Having hips is not likely to make people think you look female unless those hips are considerably wider than your shoulders.  I was a total pear shape before T and my hips looked super femme because they were SO much wider than my shoulders.  Now?  Yeah, they are bigger than my waist, but since they are smaller than my shoulders they still don't look feminine.  I know it's tough, but I would try to remind myself that most men are NOT built like comic book super heroes and just because you have a bit of curve doesn't mean you don't look male.  Try and look at yourself with joy for the positives you have--like those big shoulders--which people probably see way more than they noticed a narrow waist.  Another thing that helps is to make sure you stand with your legs quite a bit apart.  I have found people look curvier (in a feminine way) if they stand with their legs together, creating yet another curve.

Quote from: FtMitch on April 12, 2016, 10:24:54 AM
I feel as though we sometimes overestimate how straight men are in the hips. As I have mentioned in other posts I ride horses English, so I often see men in breeches and tight shirts (aka skin tight clothing) and many of them have some level of waist even though they are thin and athletic.  I have hips that are ten inches larger than my waist, but I just wear fitted mens' t-shirts and it completely hides this.  Why?  Because my shoulders on T are the same size as my hips so the knit fabric hangs straight and makes me look straight.  Or at least no more curved than most men I know.  A lot of times I think that we as trans people focus on the ideal figure without ackbowledging that MOST people don't have that ideal figure--that is why it is considered ideal, because it's rare!  Having hips is not likely to make people think you look female unless those hips are considerably wider than your shoulders.  I was a total pear shape before T and my hips looked super femme because they were SO much wider than my shoulders.  Now?  Yeah, they are bigger than my waist, but since they are smaller than my shoulders they still don't look feminine.  I know it's tough, but I would try to remind myself that most men are NOT built like comic book super heroes and just because you have a bit of curve doesn't mean you don't look male.  Try and look at yourself with joy for the positives you have--like those big shoulders--which people probably see way more than they noticed a narrow waist.  Another thing that helps is to make sure you stand with your legs quite a bit apart.  I have found people look curvier (in a feminine way) if they stand with their legs together, creating yet another curve.

Thanks, this sounds really helpful 
Well, as I said, my shoulders are at least as wide as my hips (maybe slightly wider). This was emphasized more by my gym workouts which focus on my upper body - especially shoulders. And I'm pre-T, so I think T will help some more by adding more muscle mass in the right spots. Positive comments by people who know about me being trans also help, because they reassure me my shoulders are wide enough.
I don't stand or walk with my legs together. Never have, lol, it'd just feel weird to me cause I've always been used to walking with legs spread apart (not excessively though), especially because my feet don't follow a straight line when I walk....my legs aren't straight so as a consequence, my feet point outwards when I walk. When I stand, I have the habit to keep my legs a bit apart and put my hands in my pockets, which is another naturally masculine trait I have. I'm also careful in my clothing choices.
Still, when I look in the mirror and see myself naked (horror!) I see those hip bones and feel the urge to punch them!