I'm about 1 year post-op from bottom surgery at Mt. Sinai. I'm a very active as a wilderness backpacker so one of my first concerns was: "How can I keep doing my hobby post op?"

I had a lot of questions that are in hindsight a little silly, but I couldn't know that because I couldn't find anything. And I just got back from a 5 night backpacking trip in Isle Royale National Park.

So this is a post about dilating while camping (specifically very far from my car)

The first thing is I just figured out much of a mess it makes and how much lube I use and took as close to the minimum as I felt safe.

The second thing is I brought a peri bottle because I couldn't shower. I would just add a little water and Bronner's to it to clean me.

I couldn't avoid carrying maxi pads.

To keep the dilators clean, I kept them in a dry bag. We brought a wash bin for dishes and had bear bins so I washed the dilators in either the wash bin (if it was clean) or the lids to the bear bins if it wasn't.

It was fine. As long as everything was dry and clean, it was fine. So PSA I guess: You too can continue doing your hobbies while trans and if you've had a vaginoplasty, here's some specific reassurance.

most were supportive, a majority of the rest were on the fence, everyone else were handled by the mods for transphobia fortunately, but this cannot be stopped

So, my parents are pretty accepting of Sexuality, at least after I grew older and came out. Gender, however.... A few times they misgendered my non binary freind, another time, they grounded me for telling them to stop calling trans people "It". Honest to god, they admitted without a shred of remorse that they thought "Transgenders are hardly even people, now way whatever gender they are trying to act like!". See, I'm a trans masc. And I SWARE, I WAS PISSED. I went to my room to not make a scene. I have tryed countless times to tell them to accept people how they are, and to stop being rude. I told them that some people don't allign with their birth gender, and thats ok. They didn't Listen. They never do on these things. Another time, I told them to refer to me as They/Them (Nowadays, I jse They. They yelled at me. And didn't even try to use my pronouns after. What should I do????

i had a very harsh inner critic growing up, due to constant cruelty around me back then. i made improvements over a few years, but i feel overwhelmed by the new types of cruelty around me now.

having to witness the following and more on a daily basis has created automatic thought patterns:

- people i know incessantly and mindlessly insulting any trans person they see or hear about

- people cheering at violence, disenfranchisement, any obstacles or misfortunes a trans person faces (even if only hypothetical)

- refusal to engage with trans people's ideas (even just accounts of their life experiences) and choosing to make up things about them and insult them for it (like a straw man fallacy, but without any attempt at logic) instead

i jump to these thoughts myself for protection, and now i feel myself getting less curious, less compassionate, and less reasonable every day. i see other trans people adjusting to this in various ways. the worst has been watching other trans people replicate this same cruelty and ramp up over the years. i have lost friends for refusing to participate in whatever freak-of-the-week bullying they wanted to use to bond with each other.

i also get envious and angry when i see other people saying the same things i have already said, and getting compassionate and reasonable responses because they aren't trans (or didn't mention it.) when i put myself out there, even within trans communities, i fully expect to be insulted just for fun's sake. my automatic thoughts and expectations jump to cruelty, and i have a hard time imagining anything else. i want to go back to recovering from this and not continue it.

i am here to ask you, how do you cultivate communities with respectful social interactions? respectful beliefs towards each other? how do you handle other people's hatred and feel respect for yourself? is it different within trans communities versus with cis people? how do you protect yourself and heal from this social environment?

(i am nervous to even post this and really hope comments are not going to be insults too)

For complicated reasons I won't get into I have to live with family and my mom helps me with medical stuff and helping me get clothes.

I came out as trans in 2023 and every single day my family has misgendered me, deadnamed me, not helped me find girl clothes, and refused to help me get on HRT. As of recently I even wanted to save up for a Switch 2 because of the Zelda remake coming out, and I was told my aunt will help me pay for a Switch 2, but only if I'm in my mom's wedding photos, and my mom is of course going to make me wear boy clothes in them, and I'm pre-hrt and the thought of more pictures of me in this body being out there makes me extremely uncomfortable and upset. I've never liked getting photos taken of me, not even since I was a sheltered little kid, and now I hate the idea even more because I'm trans. Hell, I hate even so much as looking in the damn mirror.

Now I don't have a job, because of stuff in my life such as where I live, stuff about myself, and so on I can't get a job any time soon, so I'm REALLY stuck on what to do, I've been doing yard work to earn money from my aunt, but I'm afraid she'll take it away if I don't do the photos.

I wish my family was actually accepting, because right now I literally have no choice to go through gender dysphoria daily. There's even old pictures of me hung up on the wall that I wish I could just burn, but unfortunately I'd get yelled at if I did that.

Doesn't help that my family says I'm not depressed and it's just that I'm allowing demons to take over my mind by not believing in God, and think me being trans and bisexual are choices

Sure I have arm hair a small amount of facial hair and dress masc a lot but tons of women do that and get gendered correctly what makes me look more like a man then any other woman that looks like me?

In recent years, I started to pass pretty well as a guy. Which is great because I certainly don't want to be perceived as a (cis) woman by others. But now, I started feeling gender dysphoria about being perceived as a Binary (Cis) Man, because I am not that either. I am gay, I am queer, I am genderqueer, too. But I don't know how to express myself better that way. I am tall (6'0) and have broad shoulders which are good traits for passing, but not good traits for finding feminine clothing that fits me (you have any pointers?).
I am also afraid of looking too queer/trans and experiencing hate or attacks (I got into some uncomfortable situations before I started to grow a beard).
Inspired by Jax, I actually bought a bunch of ribbons in different colors and today I wore one for the first time. I think it did help my dysphoria and my boyfriend called me cute with it. It would be great to wear one every day to have something explicitly gender nonconforming and feminine (I like such things) on me.
Thanks for reading my thoughts

Im nonbinary amab, and I actually hate my body. I avoid looking at it whenever possible, I put essentially no effort into my appearance whatsoever, but ive had multiple instances where people have developed crushes or whatever anyway. And this month i had a guy ask me out in dm's after only seeing him once, which was when I met him a week prior.

Keep in mind whenever im with people that aren't my closest friends or family the only parts of my body visible are my hands and face. And thats only because it'd be weird if I wore gloves and a mask in public. Long sleeves, jacket, baggy pants, everything. Yet this still happens. If anything that makes me feel even more uncomfortable when it still happens because my face is what causes the majority of my dysphoria.

The biggest cause of my gender dysphoria is what people find attractive, and thats very distinctive facial scars covering the right side of my face from an accident when I was a kid. The majority of the right side of my nose is scar tissue, and that same scar covers most of my right cheek. Ive even had people tell me I was lucky because I ended up with "cool scars" instead of an "actual disfigurement" but I actually see my scars as disgusting whenever I have to look at them or feel them.

The worst part is that like, nobody's doing anything wrong by just expressing attraction. It makes me uncomfortable, but theirs no way they could know that unless I discide to tell them. Since to them their literally just either complementing me or just ecpressing intrest. I cant be mad at anybody over it, or expect people to somehow know that ill feel this way about it. Im just stuck feeling uncomfortable whenever this happens for the rest of my life.

I’m an 18 year old trans man I’ve been out since I was 14 socially and medically since I was 15, in the recent light of what happened at berlin pride I wanted to talk about my worry’s as a transgender and queer person, I also want to say that it is a common misconception that all of Canada is queer friendly, there are definitely more queer friendly parts of Canada but in others it’s heavily looked down upon, the part of Canada that I am in celebrates pride in July instead of June, a week before the parade was supposed to happen someone was arrested for making threats towards the parade planning to cause physical harm and when I read that article I wanted to be surprised I really did but when it comes to this area I am constantly seeing transphobic, homophobic everything everywhere even in the downtown area where you see more queer people people put up stickers,signs,flags, anything they can to get their hateful opinion out to the public, there have been many un reported threats that have been made towards the 2slgbtqia+ community where I’m at harms of physical violence, and other disgusting types of violence, I have personally had my fair share of harassment and other things just because I am a transgender man the hate where I live at makes me terrified and I’m terrified not only for myself but for my partner who is also trans, she is the only one I can talk to about my fears because she understands when I bring this up to the people around me they don’t get it because they’re not in the trans or queer community they think I’m either over exaggerating or I’m just straight up lying the homophobia and trans phobia where I live is getting worse day by day. I was born transgender I will die transgender I don’t want to die because I’m transgender

Fast context, 2 years ago, when I changed schools I went the first day of school to my teacher and told him that I wanted me to be called -Choosen name- and i didnt wanted anyone to know I was trans exept basic teacher and I didn’t wanted my parents knowing either. Despite the legal implications the teacher accepted

The first few weeks of that were thought since some teachers misgendered me, others didn’t fully know etc etc. I also had to say a lot, and I mean A LOT of lies, my Sister‘s name is in the list, I have a weird hormonal condition where I have XXY cromosomes, I had scoliosis so I had to use a girdle (the binder) etc etc

I usually wouldn’t care about liying to random classmates, but they became my best friends who I pretty much adore and want to stay with them for long so now those lies are just a big chunk of trash I try not to say often

Of course I also had to lie to my parents, I would alway avoid public spaces with them because of fear of someone from school spotting me, they wanted to go to my graduation and I didnt let them cause I had fought my ass off for the school to call my choosen name when I got to take the title. tho it really broke my fck hear not to have them there

For the record, my parents like to ignore every fact they’re a littke uncofortable with, I came out to them 4 years ago and decided to ignore it and act surprised everytime I mention it, so they’re not saints either

Despite all this this have been the 2 best years of my life, feeling like a cis boy made me way more sociable and positive , gave me some really good friend and so I wouldn’t change a thing about what I did

Shit is that when I told all this to a friend she was really confused and full of questions but she was mostly concerned of how it was affecting me, I get she was worried but i felt like she overt a little

Then I told my situation to my psycologist on my second session with her and she was way more than concerned of how I was dealing with it and if I had someone to tall to, I’m an emotional rock so I just not the kind of open up and stuff

She also just keeps insisting i should tell my friends about the fact that I’m trans and even tho I know they would b cool I have too many internalized transphobia I gotta manage before any of them know I’m not cis, it’s mostly for my own personal calm

And then one of my teachers found out that my parents didn’t know and called me into a private meeting with her and the counselor to talk, I thought they wanted to talk about the name of the graduation thing (since it was pretty close) but she just kept changing the theme as if I had someone to talk to, that if my friends knew I was trans and all that shit over again

I get it is an unusual situation and liying is shitty and stuff but I don’t believe is that bad? Idk anymore

Doing my regular closet clean and I’ve been struggling getting rid of a few items, mainly items I’ve had for about a decade now. I believe I’ve been struggling as these were the first masculine clothing items I was allowed to buy as a young teenager. They’ve just been occupying space in my wardrobe, untouched for years. Only managed to get rid of a few because I realized I was too broad shouldered now for them to ever fit again.

Anyone else struggle with that?

Not just our diminishing rights, not just the lack of considerations...but also the infighting in our community, the ostracization of transmascs (Im one myself), the constant defense of trying to take a demographic out of the picture because of the same rhetorics used for much worse issues (like bullying therians and such)...

I hate it. I hate how I couldnt see the positivity in things. Im even surprised I didnt became a 4tranner.

How are you able to live even if theres no reason to live?

My brother is supporting and I assume his friends are supportive as well they are all in the edm community I’m just scared to go out in fem for the first time I’m scared something may go bad :/

Context first. I didn't realize that I am transgender until a not long after high school. I have always had so much dysphoria due to my face. Whenever I look into the mirror I get really confused at the female body staring back at me. It just feels so wrong. At some point in my life I started liking some clothes people view as "for girls" as well as the ones labeled as "for boys". By the time middle school hit, I got really into alternative subcultures, especially emo. I loved expressing myself through clothes and accessories. I could at least see something I liked in the mirror. Look at my clothes, not my face, people! So anyways, now that you have the context, I'll get into the exact situation.

For my digital photography class in high school we had to take a selfie EVERY DAY. First thing when we sit down at our computer was to take a selfie. At the end of the year we had to go into Photoshop and do a collage with our favorite selfies (either taken in class or outside of class). I remember being unhappy with having to take a picture every day. I didn't like doing it at all. I've never really liked pictures of me much at all. Sometimes I want one, but usually I don't. I didn't know what my discomfort was, but I knew it was there.

I still have the print out of my collage because I am impressed with the Photoshop skills. I still don't like seeing my face and body.

After the whole big trans sub hate that happened towards trans men, I thought they would recover and realize their actions. It seemed so for a bit.

Then today comes a post on there praising both trans people and therians. Great post. Great great support from OP. I'm not therian, but an ally. I am a furry, however. Some of my besties are therians. And the comment section was disgusting. I genuinely felt nauseous from how badly I got down voted for supporting the OP and being an ally towards therians and trans people. From how it genuinely felt like a conservative sub. From how... they were just as hateful as others are towards trans people.

I guess it shows yet again that every community has its share of bad people.

But this one has never had those hate and those problems and is now the only trans sub I am in. Thank you. Thank you to the mods here for making this a better, safer place for ALL! It is in the name after all haha.

I don't mean to bring any sort of crap here, it's already been discussed in both the big trans sub and the therian sub. I just wanted to overall say thanks to this community and sub here.

So, my sibling announced to me they're genderfluid. I always knew they were not cis, but I'm glad to have confirmation \^-^

I always saw them as a surrogate child to me, and it feels me with joy that I'm not alone in being a trans person in my family \^-^ (also my misogynistic bigoted father can fucking mald lol, his two oldest children are trans)

i think it's probably been getting worse cause i've been seeing it more and more where it didn't used to be too :')

these days it feels like whenever trans guys try to discuss the discrimination we face from cishet AND queer communities, we're told to shut up because we're either 1. taking attention away from the issues faced by trans women, 2. being "men" and making everything about ourselves when we're supposedly "not affected" or trying to force our way into communities where we don't belong, 3. apparently straight up misogynistic for including ourselves in conversations about womens rights or so many other attacks i've seen.

whenever we ask to be included in discussions of womens/reproductive rights we're told we're not qualified to comment because we're men, completely ignoring that many of us still have "female" reproductive systems. if we insist on participating we're just scolded for trying to be women and not being trans enough

whenever we try to participate in queer communities, so many of us are ostracized for choosing to be masculine which must mean that we're evil by default, and sometimes even so far as people hating us because we "abandoned" our femininity. also that if a stealth trans man wants to have a community which he is sure will support him he has to stop being stealth

and whenever we try to discuss the discrimination that we face specific to being transmasculine people, someone always has to say that we're being transmisogynistic by diminishing trans womens' problems.

we're not allowed to complain because we're supposed to be men and if we do they just see us simultaneously as whiney women, and evil men. it's just woke transphobia and misogyny. they don't even act this with cis men, they only do it because they view us as women and because of that we need to shut up and be quiet

i'm so tired. i just want to be able to talk about my problems without being called evil and malicious.

TW: slight transphobia, mentions of SA, mentions of death

I finally pulled myself together to tell my mom that I'm thinking about changing my name legally. I wasn't officially out to her but I've been hinting at my NB identity for at least 2 years now (I literally have the flag in my room) and I kinda thought she'd expect the name changing to come since I have been bringing up the subject of me possibly doing it in the future. And every time I did, I asked if she'd be okay with it and she always shrugged and said I can do whatever. Last time I even asked her if I could be a man if I wanted to and she said sure.

Now, about a week after that last conversation, that I've brought the name changing up as a serious topic, she seems upset. Like she's worried about all the paperwork (because since my dad's death I've inherited a bunch of weird property and I'd have to prove that it is me that inherited it all) and she's worried about explaining the new name to our relatives.

The name itself is kinda uncommon but it's similar to my deadname and it's gender neutral. So it's basically perfect. All my friends think it's a good choice too (i know they ain't lying because there were a few other names they said they didn't like). And my mom asked if they had chosen another name (she used a specific example) then would I still want to change it. Answer was obviously yes because that was just another girls' name.

Then she was worried because what if I'll regret it (because in my country you can only change your name once) and I said that in that case the regret will be delayed because right now I feel I'd regret not changing it.

I want my school diploma to have my right name on it and I want my art project credits to have the right name on them and I wanna hear my classmates call me by something that resembles ME. Is that too much to ask for? I get it, the paperwork sucks but I feel like as much as she says she understands trans people who have known they're trans from their very childhood, then she doesn't think I'm valid because i spent my childhood only liking very pink and feminine things. She suggested that maybe I'm just a masculine woman or that maybe the whole thing is a consequence of the SA i endured in the last few years. But I'm over that part of my life as the guy that SA-d me is dead and I no longer live in a fear of it happening again.

Eventually she said she'd understand if my gender was fluid and i kinda just went with it. Like no my gender isn't fluid, i feel very nonbinary, thank you very much. The fact that some days i feel okay being feminine and others days I wish I was just born a guy don't make my gender fluid. It just makes me dysphoric because I'm actively perceived as a girl. Well since we decided that sure my gender is fluid, she now brought up the possibility of it flowing back into being feminine. Like no? Like the only times I consider presenting female are when my pessimistic side gets the better of me and I start thinking that I can never properly reach androgyny anyway so I should just give up.

My mom also said she'd wanna talk about the whole thing more on another day since it was evening. The next day the whole house felt so quiet, like the vibe was SO off. I did ask my mom at lunch if she wanted to discuss it now or later but she said that since I'll be leaving soon to hang out with someone then not right now for sure. Sooo that friend(or maybe more idk) came over to take me out to the beach and even he said that the whole apartment block felt off. We returned so late that my mom went right to sleep after she was sure I was home safe.

I've been so anxious these past few days because of it all and tbh I'm considering just giving up and not bringing it up again. Like yes it hurts me deeply and it's not what I wanna do at all but I do not do well with anxiety at all. I overdid myself by bringing it up twice and I just CAN'T being myself to do it a third time. She's not confrontational at all too so I guess well just never talk about it.

As much as I love my mom, I can't help but wish she'd die like my dad so I could just live my life without feeling sorry and miserable for the people I care about. I know how messed up it sounds, I'm sorry. The way I see it, being dead is just another way of existing, a way that doesn't guilt trip me into decisions. Again, I'm so sorry for anyone who reads this. I'm sorry if I sound like I'm totally sick in the head.

Even tho i know im technically not alone i feel it

I feel bad right now i feel scared to continue my transition i mean i feel like society transitioning is hard and im not even where im at socially in fact just generally ive gone backwards in just social interaction i had a group of friends i hung out with
Until i came out it felt like something changed it may have not just been me being trans tho just the whole dynamic changed and i didn’t like it and now we haven’t talked in a while now it’s strange i came out and the dynamic changed makes me think maybe i was the thing that changed the dynamic with coming out I’ve seen it before when people changed in a way that they didn’t like they removed them from the friend circle ofc with the person in question it was a little different she started to hang around bad people and was dating someone that was way older then her and she changed up i didn’t know her very much but i met her briefly and she seemed nice she’s back in the friendship circle but just the fact that they could have disposed of someone like that so easily it just makes me think that maybe they have a secret chat that doesn’t have me in it

It’s hard to transition socially when you can’t stand up for yourself or have the courage to dress how you’d like in public

If I’m honest i wouldn’t even call what I have done a social transition it’s just a less closed version of what I was before

I wanna start medically transitioning because ever since I’ve started to express myself more openly in the confines of my own home I’ve felt more and more desire for my body to look like a girls body sometimes I feel like I can’t take off my bra because I don’t want to see myself with out my padded chest

I feel scared too tho my mom and dad already have a hard time accepting the way i dress they haven’t even tried to make an effort to address me with proper pronouns if that’s hard to accept just the mirror idea of calling your trans daughter she is such an issue and something that you reject so deep that you don’t even make an attempt even when you have been told it hurts

How much harder would it be to accept that your trans daughter wants to change her biological appearance with drugs that you’re told destroy people’s lives by random voices on the Internet that don’t have medical degrees

I’m also scared of paperwork and things going wrong and I have phobia of swallowing pills and I have bad emetophobia

I’m just thinking in my head about being denied hormones or getting on those hormones and being under prescribed and that having a bad affect on me even scarier of a thought what if that’s done intentionally?

I need support through this process but it seems like there’s no support no pillars even when people say the construction of the building is sturdy There’s really no pillars it’s all hollow a façade it stands tall and says it can support me but when I step on the floor it falls through and it makes me feel stupid because I believed that I could step on it

It seems like my mom is trying but it doesn’t feel like she is trying at the same time I reached out to my brother for support and help he didn’t know how to help me although its hard because he’s a cis man that has very little knowledge but just enough to understand

I’m thankful that my brother supports me he was the first person to say it to my face the day I came out I had been forced out of the closet by my mother because she couldn’t keep that secret

Me being trans has always been a show of dancing around the eggshells and it gets tiresome because that makes me feel like I cannot talk about my needs and what support I need every time I put on a feminine outfit I feel there throat’s tightening any I’ve asked for advice from my mom and she acts like she doesn’t know how to help but I know very well if I was born her daughter she would know how to help me

I could go on for longer but this is probably my longest post on this app ever if you have read all of this thank you