If I didn't have systemic illness and its complications, I'd likely be another one of the already-looks-pretty-feminine brigade. I did in my limited periods of basically healthy living, at least. But a few decades of ghastly inefficient digestion, plus overall metabolic weakness, plus auto-immune problems have made me so fat that "fat" looms much larger than "masculine" or "feminine". I only figured out some months back that I was having problems staying with any effort to improve because I loathed my body anyway and didn't actually want a fit-guy build. Now that I've got that sorted out, I'm very strongly motivated to get into a good shape as fast as is safe, so that I can launch into more interesting adjustments.
I grew a beard in college because I didn't really like looking at my face so much, and kept it up ever since. I shaved it off at the start of this year as another step along the way toward realizing I'm trans, and discovered to my surprise that it made me look younger. I realized that it's because my facial hair has a lot of gray in it now, but my head hair has none. I'm still not at all sure I like my face, but I think I'm starting to see potential in it.
A small picture taken shortly after first taking it off, in January (I'm going to get some better shots in the next few weeks for my "this is how it was when I started seriously preparing" reference). I keep feeling that with a chin like this, I ought to be opening bottles on it:
Alas, this picture doesn't show my perty blue eye speckles well, and they're among the few features I actually have always liked. I've also really significantly improve the lines and curves from nose to jaw since then by regular use of saline rinses. Holy crap but I had much, much more sinus congestion than I ever dreamed of. Getting that stuff out is doing me a zillion kinds of good, including reduced rate of migraines.
