OK good it's a relief you have that contingency in place. it sounds like you have a really good support system in place and i'm really glad to hear it

so i guess i'll leave you with my best advice for getting through the time until you start HRT:

really sit and internalize that you are a woman. you might think of it as, the way you look right now, on the outside, is not very much like a woman. in a way, it's the least you'll ever look like a woman. but regardless, you must internalize that you are a woman

which means confronting all of the internal biases you have about what a woman looks like. about facial structure, about facial hair, about your facial hair, if you have it. the way your body looks

you are a woman.

it's hard and it's painful to confront these things. but it's important, not even every cis woman looks how they want to, or might look manlier than they want. but they are still women, and so are you

obviously, you shouldn't come out anywhere you feel uncomfortable or unsafe. but, in the places you feel safe, you should be open about your identity. it's nice to be affirmed. if you can find community irl, that would be helpful, too

you'll probably have to work through a lot of internalized transphobia. i know i did, it took me a long time, and i'm probably still working through things

but it's so so so so SO important to internalize that you are a woman regardless of how you look

it is the antidote to the kind of mind poison that comes from scrolling transition timelines and comparing yourself to faceapp

so many trans girls i know look amazing and beautiful and still see a man in the mirror

start seeing a woman in the mirror NOW, so when you start HRT, you can truly appreciate all of the little changes it bring. or if you get surgery or whatever

you can only see a woman in the mirror when you start telling yourself the person in the mirror is a woman

when you feel that bite and sting of dysphoria, remind yourself that you are a woman

you are a woman. now, before the HRT, before you look how you want to look, before everything - you are a woman

godspeed, i hope everything works out for you

i mean, if it's really that important to you to have kids, that's cool. it's a tough spot to be in, but it probably is simpler, in some ways, to wait it out for a couple of years and bang out the kids and then transition

but, if you're already feeling this strongly after a month, i think you should really assess how realistic it is for you to make it through several years. yeah, it sucks for you to give up your life goals, and it sucks for your wife too, but sometimes we wake up and discover we're trans and that's life. you can transition and adopt, or not actually have kids... these are still options that you should at least consider on the table

i think, ideally, IVF would be the route you take. maybe you could take out a medical loan for it? idk if they make non-predatory medical loans, maybe it's something you can look into. and you can just accept if it doesn't work, natural pregnancy might also not work, there's testing you can do for that too

anyways, obviously you're not gonna sort this out in one post, and you gotta sort it out with your wife, too. like i said, really tough situation. just remember, you need to survive it for it to be a viable option. you getting one or two kids in and CENSORED'ing yourself is a non-starter. be honest with yourself and what you can handle

(when you start using language like "i feel trapped in this body", it's very concerning for thoss kinds of feelings)

are you actually OK with putting off your transition to (presumably) have kids? a lot of people have commented about faceapp being bad, and they're right, but this seems like it's indicative of deeper dissatisfaction to me

the person who mentioned freezing sperm has a good point, it might get you where you want to be sooner

honestly check out archipelago, it's a framework that allows you to play a lot of different randomized games with your friends. you can play synchronously or asynchronously, and if you're handy with code, you can even add any game you want to it

while i can appreciate that you're at least respecting that medication choices are between a doctor and a patient, i would love for this myth that ADHD meds are meth to die.

it's incredibly frustrating to see this sort of misinformation perpetuated. it is not difficult to search "differences between adderal and meth", here's one such link if you'd like: https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/how-do-adderall-and-meth-methamphetamine-differ#differences

there is only technically ONE ADHD medication which is meth, which is... methamphetamine, and as i understand it, it is prescribed very rarely and is quite different from illegal meth

adderal, ritalin, and other less frequently used stimulants are not called meth because they are not meth

this misinformation is harmful because it perpetuates the idea that illegal drugs are the same shit that people are taking for treatment, often for necessary functioning or quality of life, and also perpetuates the judgement of those people for taking those important medications. these associations or judgements can make. people reluctant to get diagnosed or treated, which can prevent them from living their lives to the fullest

i've kind of been wondering this whole time, what power does the supreme court have to enforce its orders? if the president is the enforcer of the laws of congress and the judiciary, then who enforces on the enforcer? apologies if this answer is obvious and i'm just not recalling my government studies well

wonder how much of this is due to prevalence of driving culture and awareness of the dangers of driving while intoxicated... ten years ago, i wouldn't mind driving after i had a few drinks and waited a few hours. but nowadays, i don't even want to hassle with at all

i cri errytime

on its 50th anniversary, let's all remember that microsoft has been profiting massively off the genocide in palestine and has recently been targeted by BDS: https://noescapevg.com/xbox-has-been-added-to-the-bds-list-so-what-now/

while noting your experience, i do think it's good context to have that testosterone for trans men / transmasc folks can also improve their ability to process emotions and also generally their temperance (and personally, estrogen just makes me a goddamn wreck; i get depressed, irritable, cynical, etc)

(i worry that the anecdotes you've heard from trans women may be a little biased, as well 😅 i personally tend to think it's more about the right hormones, than what they are)

there's plenty about trauma itself that causes behaviorial instability. hormones may be a contributing factor in some situations, but i question how universal it is

i kinda wish this was........ more? like, this isn't not a part of the process, but it's a pretty limited analysis of why men would be reticent to approach women. there's a lot of (very real and good) consideration for women's safety and consent, which situations are OK to approach in and which aren't, etc

i guess the article is focused on how men feel, which is cool, but i think omitting this point means also missing how those worries feed back into creating those feelings of insecurity of men, too

kinda more like all the fingers merged into one innit?

posts picture of hand with all the fingers merging into one big finger

of course, thank you for the kind answer 😁 hope to see things take off here

do you mind men participating as long as they don't center the space on themselves, or do you not want them to participate at all?

i think that they probably had some sort of choice, but i imagine they also needed to work to live, right? very few places in the world let you have food and shelter for free, so i think there's at least some of an argument that doing this stuff is forced in some way or another. plus, it might (have been sold as) paying better or being safer than the conditions they had previously

they're hardly the only ones to work in unethical (or downright criminal, depending on how you view it) fields. and i'm not sure holding them in crowded, filthy conditions like this, where they're spreading disease among each other and sharing something like one toilet to 80 people, makes amends for what they've done, or even makes the world a better place

i just think we can wish for justice while still acknowledging that people are deserving of some basic amenities for being people

........ can a brother get a source on this??

i guess it's a good motivation to go actually read the paper. i can't stand not knowing if the summary i just read was accurate or not (and i'm assuming that you didn't go double check yourself, either. not hating, but it is a known downside to using AI summaries)

... oh, do you (the reader) want to know if it was accurate? guess you'll also have to read the study to find out :p

seems especially relevant when talking about a study related to discerning truth from false

it... works but it doesn't work nearly as well as discord for gaming screen sharing, at least with the bit of testing i've done with mh wilds

i need to get like this echidna

no recommendations but i just hopped back on HotS and share your sentiment haha