Welcome to Trans Tuesday! It’s July, and not only is it July, it’s the seventh of July! Which means it’s exactly six years to the day that I publicly came out! So that means it’s time for my SIX YEARS OUT AND ON HRT RETROSPECTIVE!
To follow my entire journey on HRT, and being an out trans woman, check out the ONE YEAR, TWO YEARS, THREE YEARS, FOUR YEARS, and FIVE YEARS OUT AND ON HRT retrospectives.
I’ll be using my past retrospectives as a template, which means I’ll be discussing things in the same order, simply so that I remember to mention any updates on specific parts of my transition. Because ya girl is very tired and overworked and I’ll absolutely forget to cover something otherwise.
And before I do that, here’s where I remind you that I discovered I was trans in 2014, meaning it’s been a good twelve years of knowing and accepting my truth, even though I’ve only been out and actually transitioning for half that time. As I’ve mentioned before, the delay in starting was For Reasons I Don’t Talk About Publicly, but it’s nothing nefarious or transphobic. In any case, it’s wild to have hit the point where I’ve been doing this for as long as I waited through so much pain to do this. Next year I’ll officially pass that halfway point, which is exciting.
The newest and biggest change I noticed this year is in just how much I’ve truly embraced my true self, and come to love who I am so very much. It snuck up on me, as these things often do. Especially now, where I’ve hit the point where my transition is just kind of part of the background noise of my life, for the most part. Which is not to say I don’t care about it, far from it! It’s just not actively on my mind anymore, because I’m so happy with how it’s going and who I am.
If you want to learn more about how that realization hit me, check out CONFIDENCE 3: EMBRACING YOUR TRUE SELF.
For the entire past year since my five year check-in, our finances weren’t great. I’ve been through that before (a lot), and it’s something so many people are struggling with in our tanking economy.
I don’t mention this to elicit any kind of sympathy from you, many people still had it far worse than I did. But it was a struggle for us to stay afloat, which means that spending on things we didn’t absolutely need was kept to an absolute minimum. And this is only relevant because I have not been able to get more pairs of heels, both to practice walking in, around our apartment, and to actually wear out in the world (because now I do very much love the extra attention they get me, boosting my 6” 1/2″ to new heights).
Things have stabilized now, so hopefully I can see some advancement there this year.
Despite getting my first bikini last year, I’ve still not actually worn it anywhere. This is mostly because I’ve not had anywhere to wear it to, I’m not really into swimming or Being In Water. I’ve also not had the time to go to anyplace that I might wear it, so… eh. But it’s there waiting, should the opportunity arrive and I happen to feel brave enough.
I still have to shave my face every morning (see GENDER DYSPHORIA) and my body once a week (see BODY HAIR). Getting that hair permanently removed from my face is something that still remains inaccessible to me, both for cost reasons last year, and due to reasons outlined in A PANDEMIC TRANSITION.
There is a new local trans-owned clinic who might be able to meet my I-have-an-immunocompromised-spouse accommodation needs well enough for me to get it done, but it wouldn’t be covered by insurance, and that means $$$$$. It also takes hours and hours and hours of time, and let me tell you what I do not have any spares of. So I’m still unsure if I’ll ever be able to get it done.
It worries me, especially if I get injured and am unable to shave my face myself, or if I end up in the hospital for whatever reason. Would someone else shave it for me, or would I be left to rot in the misery of dysphoria? It’s an unpleasant thought, but I’m kinda stuck, so… it is what it is.
PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS and VOICE continue to present no problems for me. Yay!
BODY HACKING update! If you’ve not read that essay, do so, so you can learn how important exercise, and specifically strength training, have been to my transition.
If you check out the pics in the FIVE YEAR RETROSPECTIVE you can compare them to these new ones. I see improvement, maybe you will too.
This is where I’m at now:
There’s maybe not as much progress from last year as I would have liked, but that’s because after that five year check-in, I joined my local roller derby league! And it kinda changed my life with RADICAL TRANS ACCEPTANCE.
I’m practicing derby twice a week, for two hours at a time, and that eats up a lot of time and energy, so I have less time for my upper body workouts than before. But it means I’ve also had a lot of lower body gains!
One unexpected and kind of amazing thing that’s happened with my growing strength is that roller derby has finally given me a place to use that strength. Before, it was just about being strong because I wanted to be, and that’s of course the most important reason. But now, having something where those muscles and strength benefit me is actually really amazing.
I mentioned in that essay on RADICAL TRANS ACCEPTANCE (roller derby), how I have very low dexterity and I’m not remotely agile. But there’s so many different ways to play derby, especially as a jammer, my favorite position to play (and also the one I am best at).
Some people are incredibly agile little rabbits that are impossible to catch and lock down. Me? My style is more RAR, CAP SMASH and I use my strength to push through the wall of blockers as often as I try to go around them. Both are perfectly valid tactics! And it’s really nice to be so well suited to the “I’m just a sledgehammer on wheels” kind!
My HAIR still remains super important to me, and happily still brings me so much joy. It has been a little difficult with the addition of roller derby, though, because any time I put my helmet on and get sweaty, my hair is absolutely destroyed. It needs a wash/detangle immediately after, and then doing the actual styling takes about an hour.
And I don’t always have time to style it the next day! Which has meant having some days where my hair is clean and all, but it doesn’t look like my usual hair, and that bothers me a lot. Just something I’ve got to live with if I’m going to keep playing roller derby, which I absolutely intend to do. I’m sure there’s a balance there, somewhere. I just haven’t found it yet.
MY TATTOO continues to be perfect, although for the first time I’m contemplating getting another. I’d like to have a lot more, I think, but I don’t know what they might be. If something’s going to be on my body forever, it’s got to mean something to me. And I’m not interested in seeking those out, if that makes sense. But if and when something occurs to me, and it feels like it might be right, then I’m all in on it!
So right now it’s just an issue of being sure of what it is, and figuring out where I want it to go, the latter of which is proving much more difficult than the first, because this isn’t a full-arm or any kind of (even a half) sleeve. But once I get that settled, I hope to get it. And this actually happened because one of the people in my roller derby league is a tattoo artist and posted a new design she did that was really cool, and sparked the idea I have. So that’s fun.
Time for HRT-talk! Injections are still going okay, and I may be struggling with the act of giving them to myself a little less. But the way the E makes me feel and what it does for me continue to be absolute aces. No issues, A+, would recommend.
Progesterone continues as well, though I’m not sure if I’m getting any benefits from it anymore, at least in terms of physical changes. I haven’t seen much breast growth (or more in the hips or butt) in the past year, so those may have all stopped. Still helps me sleep better, though! And helps keep my sex drive alive to combat the way E made it crater.
But you can see in the below pic of my birthday fit last year that, even if they stop growing here, The Ladies E and P have been kind to me.
What has become clear, though, is that I need more low-cut tops because now that I can show them off… I kind of love showing them off? Look at them! Go ahead! I like looking at them too!
For the aforementioned financial reasons I haven’t been able to procure said low-cut tops since discovering I had enough bewb to show now, but that’s something I can hopefully find more of now, too.
In more boobie-related news, I had my first mammogram this year! It’s uncomfortable and weird to have a lady womanhandle your breasts to get them right on the machine and then squish the everloving fuck out of them.
But it’s important! Especially for trans ladies and nonbinary people on estrogen. Our mammograms aren’t based on age like they are for cis ladies, we’re supposed to start getting them after five years of HRT (this is apparently the same guideline used for post-menopausal cis women who are also on estrogen). We worked so hard to get these boobs, friends. Take care of them and keep them safe!
Periods have stayed gone! I don’t know why!
Still do not love my hands or fingers, which remain stubbornly the same as they were pre-transition. It’s a small thing, but they bother me a bit. Not enough to cause a dysphoria spike, but I look at them and I’m just like… c’mon, be more ladylike, would you? Not that I could even tell you necessarily what that would be! Transition is weird sometimes.
Is this leftover, residual INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA I’m dealing with? I dunno, but if my hands read more “lady hands” to me, I’d be happy about it.
Mental changes from HRT remain Most Excellent. Inner peace and self-love are great, it turns out. Give ‘em a try.
Style stays locked in, only… I think I’m moving away from some stuff I was presently okay with, mostly in the t-shirt realm. I was never fond of the “unisex” tees that are clearly just men’s t-shirts that they want to say are for “everybody” because it’s cheaper to only offer one style, but I just don’t like them much. I’ve cut the collars and sleeves on some, and that’s a fun kinda sporty/butchy style… but now I have a lot of shirts like that, and it is Too Many.
So I really do want to swap a lot of them out, even though I love them, for tees with a more feminine cut, or just other women’s tops entirely. Why must we have HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES? Well, we know the sexist reasons why, but still. Hopefully I can replace some of those this year too.
Lemme hit you with the new timeline photo! I continue to get hotter year by year, so by my ten year timeline photo I hope to be so hot it’s like looking at the sun.
Oh hey… have my eyes gotten even more green in this past year? Sure looks like it! How cool. (There are estrogen receptors in the eyes, this is a thing that can happen!)
And… that’s it! Not a whole lot of changes for me this year, which maybe stands to reason when you’re six years in and have gotten (mostly) all you’ve wanted out of transition. I just continue existing as myself, every damned day.
And that’s the best fucking thing in the entire world.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
PS – six-year selfieeeeees!
