Trans 101

ASK TILLY ANYTHING ABOUT BEING TRANS, part 2

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is the continuation of last week’s ASK TILLY ANYTHING ABOUT BEING TRANS. You had so many questions that deserved thoughtful answers so it went long. This week: personal changes, HRT, sex, early transition tips, how to know if you’re trans, and more!

If you missed ASK TILLY ANYTHING ABOUT BEING TRANS part 1 last week, or just want a reminder of all the good stuff that was asked about my name, selfies, trans people/stories in media, and dealing with transphobia, def check it out!

–Did you feel like there were things you had to learn or relearn as you transitioned or did it all just come naturally?–

This one’s going to be different for everyone. For me, I had to learn a whole lot of new things. I’d never experimented with makeup before, I didn’t know how to wear a skirt (or even put one on), I had no idea how to take care of my hair, etc.

But even more than that, you notice things you maybe never did before. A lot of women don’t walk the same way men do. Don’t sit or move their hands the same way. Don’t even just stand still with the same posture or position.

And nobody has to change those things if they don’t want to, but if I don’t do that I risk reading more as a man to people and open myself up to misgendering, or even violence. And maybe it makes me feel more “womanly” if I do?

It’s a very weird situation to be forced into. But it’s also partly internal, and some people may change their mannerisms or the ways they walk or sit or stand long before transitioning or even knowing they’re trans.

When I saw the first full-body photos of me once I started transitioning there was a weird disconnect, because I was standing like I used to but looking more like I do now, and I couldn’t figure out why the two didn’t seem to line up. It’s such a strange thing.

I’ve also been in voice therapy for nearly two years, learning how to change my voice so it reads more as a woman to people I’m talking to (likely on a subconscious level that most people don’t even realize). It’s been the absolute most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. Read more in TRANS VOICES.

HRT does nothing for trans ladies’ voices, so it’s a whole lot of understanding the biology and psychology of speech, and then practicing FOREVER to get it to where you want it to be.

So to sum up, yes absolutely. When you change the way the world thinks of you, it changes the way you think of the world, and everything is different. You have to figure out how to fit in it the way you want to, and get it to recognize you the way you want it to.

What in your life has changed the least since transitioning?

What simply makes more sense, or feels more right, to you about your life now?

(Something that’s always been you, but “fits,” (for lack of a better word) now, in a way it didn’t before.)

My home life has basically not changed at all, which I credit my amazing wife Susan and our son with. Especially Susan, who always allowed me to be ME for our entire life together, so a lot of the opening up/finding out who I really am (personality-wise) happened long before transition.
https://twitter.com/LibraryGirl/status/1555295687570440192

What makes more sense and feels more right is the entire world, and my body, and my place in it. All those bad feelings I had and didn’t understand for my entire life now make perfect sense. LIFE makes more sense and feels right, because I’m being the real me.

The one thing that “fits” better, or I guess makes more sense, is my obsession with writing about the nature of reality and memory and characters who are searching for their true identity. It’s not a surprise that I always connected with those things!

It now also makes perfect sense why so much of my past writing involved people switching bodies… always also just so happening to include a gender change. Ha ha ha, nope, I wasn’t subconsciously working through anything at all, why do you ask?

What were the hardest, & most rewarding, moments (if different) at the start of your transition, at six months, one year, two years?

Could you speak to a time you went back to something you loved, & how your experience of it changed, post transition?

(Like your rewatch of Trek.)

Voice has always been the hardest. Though at first, even stepping outside our apartment as my true self was scary as hell and overwhelming. To be honest, even just dressing as myself at home was incredibly difficult and overwhelming at first. All that got easier with time.
https://twitter.com/LibraryGirl/status/1555296793516072960

The most rewarding and unexpected thing has to be recently hitting a point where SO MUCH of my life changed, due to transition, in ways I could never have even expected. Dysphoria affects us in ways we don’t even realize, and when it lessens or dissipates, beautiful things happen.

Like my discovering that going to a new place with people I didn’t know for the first time as myself was… exhilarating and wonderful, whereas it used to terrify me and make me miserable. I did a Trans Tuesday on that – CONFIDENCE 2: INTO THE UNKNOWN aka WHAT IS HAPPENING aka A WHOLE NEW WORLD.

Or the way dysphoria was occupying SO much of my brain, my time, and my energy that once it was gone I suddenly had the whole world open up to me and found amazing things I never had the capacity to experience before. I did a Trans Tuesday on that – FREEING UP MY BRAIN (aka lunch with Tilly)

Or the COMPLETELY unexpected, and most incredibly joy-inducing thing of photos suddenly giving me… NO dysphoria. At all. I could never have dreamed such a thing was possible. See PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE.

My experiences with *everything* changed, watching them for the first time as myself. Anything even remotely connecting to gender hits me entirely differently than it used to. Just like in my life I notice all kinds of things I could never see before. Like the code of the Matrix!

Do you ever forget that you used to answer to a different name or presented differently?

(Or is this just me?)

I don’t forget that I presented differently, or had a different name, because there are so many reminders of that in my life that I’ll likely never be able to get away from. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot I can do about that.
https://twitter.com/LibraryGirl/status/1555316169350844416

This may come as a surprise, but I ALSO did a Trans Tuesday about how I’ve really got NO ESCAPE from my deadname or reminders of the false person I used to have to pretend to be. I can’t even escape regular reminders that I’m trans. I don’t get to just be a person.

–How much will HRT affect my sexual functionality?–

I’m going to guess you mean as someone assigned male and birth and then going on estrogen and/or testosterone blockers, to which the answer is: likely a lot. Anytime your testosterone is lowered, it’s going to affect your sexual functionality.

That’s a big side effect of all testosterone blockers (most of which were developed as hair loss drugs for cis men, btw… for them the T blocking is a side-effect, for many trans people it’s the desired effect). But even just going on estrogen alone will lower your T levels.

Firstly, in case this is why you’re asking, it’s very likely that HRT will make you infertile. If you want to be a biological parent of any children in the future, you should work under the assumption that after a while on HRT that will no longer be possible.

Also be prepared for your junk to likely shrink. All of it. On the plus side, that may make tucking easier for you. If anyone out there needs a reminder/primer about TUCKING AND BINDING, here you go!

And it’s also very much a “use it or lose it” situation, because spontaneous erections while you’re sleeping will slow or stop, and if you go too long without exercising the muscle, as it were, it won’t work the same.

But that could actually prove really difficult to do because another known side-effect of adding E and/or lowering T is reduced sex drive. Not everyone on E or T blockers experiences that (and some find their drive increases), but it’s pretty common and probably fairly likely.

Estrogen and Testosterone fight each other in the body, because… I don’t know. But they do. Adding in E will lower your T. To get your E higher, you’ve got to block or lower the T. And getting your E higher is what hopefully gives you the results you want HRT to give you.

Annoyingly, hormones affect everyone differently. You have to find what combo of HRT works best for you, and gets you the results you want while minimizing the side-effects you don’t (like, for you, losing some or all sexual function).

It may be that low levels of E do enough for you that you’re happy with it and can find a balance that also preserves your sexual function. It may be that just a T blocker will get you what you need, or maybe low doses of both.

What’s important is finding an endocrinologist who knows what you want and will help you find the best ways to achieve that, and not try to force their own thoughts about what you *should* do onto you. There is no “should” when it comes to HRT, there’s only what’s right for YOU.

And the good news is hormones work REALLY slowly, so if you start with low doses and see how it goes, you can stop something you don’t like at any time. All the changes happen over a long, long period of time. You have time to adjust, but you also have to be very patient.

–Was there a sense of liberation during sex after transitioning?–

I don’t know that I’d call it liberation. I’ve said many times my dysphoria was mostly related to my face, facial hair, and body hair (and to a lesser extent, my flat chest). For many it’s their secondary sex characteristics and external genitalia.

For those in the latter group, it may well be liberating. For me, it just became BETTER because I didn’t have all that pain and all those walls keeping me from everything good in life. It definitely became an entirely new experience.

I don’t want to get too personal, but HRT also changed what physically feels good to me in terms of sex, which was hugely surprising. I mean your body goes through a lot of changes, but *the way things physically feel* wasn’t something I anticipated changing.

It, uh… also changed orgasms. A LOT. They are an ENTIRELY different experience than before. And having had both kinds of them, I can confidently say MY CIS DUDES you do not know what you’re missing! Cause hoooooooooly shit.

SORRY FOR THE TMI look I’m just trying to help. We’re all adults here! Let’s move on. 😬

Obviously all Trans people are born trans, but some seem to break their life down into “Who I was before transition” and “Who I am after transition” as being two different people. Whilst others reject that and insist that they were always their true gender. Any ideas why?

For trans people who transition as adults, I think there’s two ways this goes. There’s my way, which I sadly think is much more rare, and then what I suspect is the more common way.
https://twitter.com/SmashingCrumpet/status/1555973338136190984

My way is that I had such a great relationship with my wife, who always allowed me to be myself and explore and experiment with anything I wanted even long before I really suspected I was trans, that transitioning didn’t change who I was inside.

It just allowed me to be MORE me. And yes, I know, I am A LOT™. I’m so glad she loves me and puts up with all my nonsense. I LOVE YOU LADY YOU ARE THE BEST ahem okay moving on.

For most folks, I think dysphoria coupled with unsafe or bad home/work/social environments means that as part of pretending to be the gender society expects them to be, they do things or “like” things that they don’t really want to do, or like, or say, or believe.

You’re pretending to go along with things because that’s what society expects and you’re trying to be that person, and I think for a lot of people that comes with all that baggage. When you free yourself of pretending to be the shell you aren’t, you free yourself of that baggage.

I mean it even kind of happened for me a little, with my love of bows. I’ve always loved them my whole life, but never felt I could really express that in any meaningful way. You’re never going to believe this, and I don’t want to alarm you… but there’s a Trans Tuesday about that too. See SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER (and bows Bows BOWS).

For people who have a LOT of things like that in their life, there’s probably a much clearer delineation and it maybe even feels like two separate people. Even for me, it feels a little like that. There was “that fake guy” before, and now there’s ME. But I’ve always been a woman.

–hi! im really early in my transition (2mo), and coming out over and over again is so intimidating. what is something that helped you when you were first starting to come out to the world around you? also love your content, it has been very helpful in finding words for a lot of things <3–

Aw yay, I’m so glad! That’s why I do these. So yes, coming out is tough because you very much do have to come out again and again and again to everyone who ever knew you under your deadname and who you still talk to or have any kind of relationship with going forward.

There’s your friends and family, sure, but also your doctors and the insurance company and the DMV and the bank and literally ANY company where you want them to change your name on your account. And these people are strangers! And you have to do it So. Many. Times.

Hi AppleTV+, I’m trans! Hi concert tickets I bought last year and are in my old name, I’m trans! Hi oil change guy, I’m trans! It’s so exhausting. Not to mention it can potentially be dangerous as you never know how they’re going to respond.

My suggestion is to not do it all at once, maybe don’t even do more than one at a time. It takes so much energy because you never, ever know if you’re going to be met with hostility or bigotry just for asking for a name change on your cell phone carrier or something.

Space them out. One a week maybe (or at an interval you feel not too stressed out by). Make a list of EVERYWHERE and EVERYONE you need to come out to and prioritize the most important at the top. Go one by one and work your way down. Be patient and kind with yourself! It’s hard!

–This is probably a generic question but, what do you think are good litmus tests for someone who’s trying to figure out if they’re trans or not?–

I think the best way is honestly to put on clothes from the gender you think you might be and pay super close attention to how you FEEL. Go back to your old clothes. How do you feel now? Do it multiple times, on different days. Do a full emotional inventory each time.

There’s a lot more to it, but that’s one good way. Although keep in mind it’s possible you may just be a cis man who likes to wear women’s clothes, or vice versa, and that’s fine! But if it gives you gender euphoria, that’s a pretty clear indicator. But there are also other ways.

If you could take a pill today that would make you the gender you think you might be, and everyone in your life will also have always thought you were that gender and always had been, would you do it? Yes? Hey, I have news for you: you’re trans!

I just can’t believe this keeps coming up somehow (it’s almost like I’ve done a lot of these!?), but I also did a Trans Tuesday specifically about this which may help you further! If you read it and have more questions, please feel free to ask! See HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE TRANS?

–How do you tell what gender you are? Anyone can be whatever, so it seems a lot harder to pick a gender than the more concrete stuff, like pronouns and presentation–

First, I’d like to say that “anyone can be whatever” reads as a little dismissive, so try to be careful about your wording. But yes, congratulations on discovering that knowing your own gender is the most difficult part of the process!

Though I also think deciding upon your presentation isn’t as easy as you think. There are a million different ways people of any gender can present, and even two years into my transition I’m still figuring that out (future Trans Tuesday coming on that topic).

But also nobody “picks” a gender in the sense that it’s not really an active choice. Except maybe for some gender-fluid folks? But they can speak to that better than I… though I presume even that’s less about “picking” and more about how they feel at a given time.

Your gender just who you ARE, like straight or gay or red-headed or left-handed. But it’s all internal, so it’s harder to spot. See my answer to the previous question and read my thread on How To Know If You’re Trans and that may help you.

Mostly you have to just be open and honest with yourself, and have the guts to experiment and try different genders on, so to speak, and you should be able to find the one (or more! Or none!) that fits. You may find you’re cis! Or trans! Or non-binary! Or gender-fluid! Or agender!

–What’s the most important thing to remember when starting my transition?–

Be kind and patient with yourself, and know there’s no one “right” way to transition. You can do as much or as little social or medical transition as you want. No amount will make you any more or any less trans.

There’s no such thing as being “trans enough” to transition or to become your true self. You’re trans if you say you are, and you have to do whatever is right for YOU and not anyone else. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. YOU ARE ENOUGH. And it is NEVER too late.

Thank you for being part of Trans Tuesdays, whether you reply or just read them. I do them for you, for ALL of you, and thank you for coming with me on this journey. Are there 100 more to come? Let’s find out together. Rock on, my friends.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – Part 3 is here!

ASK TILLY ANYTHING ABOUT BEING TRANS, part 1

Welcome to #TransTuesday 100! Can you believe it?! I’m not sure I can. Yet here we are! I’ve written all of these for YOU, trans/nb/cis alike, and wanted to use this one to answer your questions, and you didn’t disappoint! So here we go with ASK TILLY ANYTHING ABOUT BEING TRANS!

I got so many good questions, and I wanted to give them the replies they deserve, so this is actually only Part 1! If you don’t see your question here, fret not, it will likely show up next week. I just found this thread got too long even for me (which is saying something).

If you’re new around here (hi! welcome!), when I publicly came out as trans I was very, very aware of the privilege I was giving up, the power I previously held in society that I had to cede in order to live as an out transgender woman in a society that largely hates and fears us.

If you’re trans you’ve always been trans, regardless of when you realized and self-accepted, so I was never actually a man. I didn’t move through the world as one and never acted like one. But that’s still how society saw me, and as I’m also white and appeared heterosexual…

I enjoyed almost the highest level of privilege our society offers to anyone, even though I never asked for it. About the only way I could have had more is if I hadn’t been poor for most of my life.

So even though I was giving that up to live an authentic life as myself, I still retained a lot of privilege because I’m (very) white, and I’m tall and muscular and I live in a safe neighborhood/state and didn’t lose my family. And I wanted to use that privilege.

And I’m a writer, so I write. And that’s where the whole Trans Tuesday thing came from. I’m just trying to help people understand in the hope you’ll learn, and come to me with your questions and not bother other trans people with far less privilege and far more to worry about.

I talked about that in-depth here, if you’d like to learn more about CIS PRIVILEGE, the privilege I still possess, and the ways in which those of us who ARE privileged in should use that to help people who have less.

With that brief history lesson out of the way, let’s dive into the entire point of this… your questions! I wanted to be sure you could ask whatever you wanted, and sometimes people are shy about what they want to ask for a variety of reasons.

Maybe you’re trans (or questioning) and have questions but don’t want to post them publicly as then you’d be outing yourself. Maybe you’re a little embarrassed you don’t know something… though you shouldn’t be! This is how we learn! But it’s an understandable feeling.

So I temporarily set up an account with the NGL app for people to ask anonymously. I’ve deactivated it now, but I don’t know if it leaves the question ability open. Which is to say don’t go asking me more questions there because I won’t see them!

Some of you asked publicly, many of you didn’t, and I’ve tried to group them as best I can into sections so they’re hopefully not too disjointed as you’re reading through. But they run the gamut from personal, to entertainment, to broad, to esoteric! Let’s go!

–My only question, right now is: Wow! You’ve done 100 of them?!–
I can hardly believe it myself. I made a list of things I wanted to talk about when I started, and it was huge. Or so I thought. I think it had 20 things on it. I kept adding more as my transition progressed and I had so, so much more to talk about. And there’s still so many more to go!
https://twitter.com/riverag3000/status/1555943613762129924

–Hi! I was wondering if “Tilly” was short for Mathilda and why you chose that name.–

It’s not short for anything! It’s just Tilly, and I chose it because it’s me better than anything else ever could be. I did a whole Trans Tuesday all about NAMES AND PRONOUNS and why they’re important, and the second half includes a detailed explanation for why I’m Tilly.

If you’re interested in learning about the process I went through for a LEGAL NAME AND GENDER MARKER CHANGE, and everything that involved, I did a Trans Tuesday about that too!

–Will the Matrix game(s) be referenced in the upcoming book?–
I’m pretty sure most of you are aware as I think it’s how a lot of you found me, but I spent almost a quarter of these 100 Trans Tuesdays talking about the intentional trans allegories of the Matrix movies.

Many (MANY) of you have asked me if I could turn them into a book, which isn’t an easy thing to do as I can’t just magic myself a publishing deal. But SO many people have asked, and I also realize that social media is a small percentage of the population.

And a book could reach so many more people, and an entirely different audience. And it could help them so much, like so many of you have told me how the Trans Tuesday versions have helped you. And so I’m trying!

The conversion’s already begun, but because they were written for social media they need to be adapted a bit to read better as a book. If/when I have more news I can share on that front, believe me you’ll know. I’m sure I won’t shut up about it.

But as to your question, no. The plan is to cover only the four main films and The Animatrix.

–Do you have any trans head canons? Like, not an allegory just characters that give off trans vibes.–

Yes! The first and foremost, and maybe the strongest I’ve ever encountered, is Dax (both Jadzia and Ezri) from STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. And I’m not the only one, tons of the trans community glommed onto her. True trans rep is so rare we have to create our own sometimes.

Dax’s trans vibes go so deep, and she was SO important to me as a kid who didn’t even know she was trans, that she’s been on my list to do a Trans Tuesday about since the beginning. My wife and son and I recently did a (second? third?) chronological rewatch of ALL of Trek.

And I took notes all through DS9, which is why I’ve not yet written Dax’s thread. I wanted details to better explain, and it took a long time to get through it all and so many other topics keep coming up. But it’ll happen eventually.

Sprite in Marvel’s ETERNALS also reads as incredibly trans to me. If you watch it with that in mind, I think you’ll pick up on it pretty easily.

Even moreso is Sylvie from Marvel’s LOKI show. She reads SO trans that it’s difficult for me to believe it’s all chance, but it could be. I actually talked about that and all the evidence for it on a podcast with my lovely friends from @fanbase_press here:
https://twitter.com/Fanbase_Press/status/1418681481291915265

And of course there’s the Trans Tuesday from last week, THE INTENTIONAL (?) TRANS ALLEGORY OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE’S “NERVOUS MAN IN A FOUR DOLLAR ROOM” that reads incredibly trans, enough that I also have to wonder if it was partly intentional.

Westworld season four has read INCREDIBLY trans to me, but I don’t think you could just jump right into s4 without seeing what came before. It’s a pretty dense show, but I really enjoy it and s4 has been my favorite season so far, even outside of the mega trans vibes.

On a lark I also started doing these tweets with trans readings of songs just for fun, and then it kind of became a recurring thing. It’s goofy, but also those songs do give me trans vibes SO… I’ve actually got a list of songs to add to it over time (because of course I do).

I should probably collect these in a thread or something.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1417161314577752080

Especially if I plan to continue them.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1466455665367343109

Which I do.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1512102436445466626

Because it’s fun.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1519412527318269952

Everyone needs a hobby.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1556733049290641408

There’s also Rey from the new Star Wars sequels, Samus from the Metroid games. And Elphaba and her entire story from the musical Wicked, and Rapunzel (in general, but also very specifically from the Disney version that has even more trans connections).

I may cover these in future Trans Tuesdays, but we’ll see. It’s difficult because it just requires so much TIME to rewatch and note all the little instances that can add up to so much. So I’d definitely like to talk about them, but those are very dependent on my schedule.

I also did a thread about what it’s like to have so little representation in media that we have to find our own representation, through “trans readings” of characters just like you asked about, and PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION. And what happens when that sometimes doesn’t work out well.

has there been an example in media that intentionally got the trans experience right? Like just absolutely nailed it?
It’s hard to say because there’s SO much media now that it’s impossible to see it all. There may well be some that I’ve simply not seen or am not aware of. One I DO know is Dreamer from the CW’s Supergirl show. She could not have been handled more perfectly, IMO.
https://twitter.com/WesWordman/status/1554992214895476736

They don’t shy away from her transness, and there are stories about it, but it’s not ALL that there is to her. The trans aspects are really well done, but her transness is just another part of who she is. There’s so much more to her than just that. And @NicoleAMaines is superb.

Dreamer’s really unique, at least in media I’ve seen. We got to see her on the show for YEARS, meaning they could do so much with her that’s still sadly so rare for trans representation. She means a lot to me, and I’d kill to write for her someday. Hey DC get at me!

If you’d like more on the importance of representation in media, I’ve done several Trans Tuesdays about it. Here’s what it’s like with GOOD REPRESENTATION, and what it can mean to the trans people experiencing it.

And here’s what it’s like when BAD REPRESENTATION hits, and what THAT can mean to the trans people experiencing it.

–will you ever stop posting selfies–

Nah. I mean, maybe? But likely no! Trans people who transition as adults go our ENTIRE LIVES without seeing ourselves, we have a lot of time to make up for. Also being out and visible and showing our trans joy helps other people realize trans joy is possible for them, too.

The more we’re seen, the more others like us might realize they can do it, too. I know it certainly worked that way for me. And besides, as I’ve said before:
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1526614255474073600

–as a cisgender man even i am sometimes affected by the hate directed at the trans community online. how do you maintain composure in the face of it? or how do you regain calm when it gets to be too much?–

Man I wish I could tell you. Having friends, trans and cis alike, who are there to support you and lift you up and defend you and hug you when you need it is so important. And, like, I don’t give a shit what bigots think, because… they’re bigots. Their opinions literally mean nothing to me.

Much worse, for me, is dealing with all the anti-trans legislation in this country (and around the world), knowing people hate us so much they want us dead or miserable for our entire lives.

And we never did anything to anyone except ask to live our lives in peace. But our very existence shows that the cis binary status quo is a lie, and that’s everything cis male white supremacy is built on, and so they come for us.

I know the pain of gender dysphoria. I know how awful it is. When Texas enacted laws to investigate parents who cared enough to treat their children’s dysphoria, to take their kids AWAY, these poor hurting kids who just don’t know why the world is broken and everything hurts…

I had to pull my car over and cry in a mini-mall parking lot. Things like that hurt so much more that bigots online. But all of it adds up. I wish I had an easy answer on how to deal with it or make it better. Some people have detransitioned because of it.

Important for the trans folks out there: @TheBlockBot is VITAL for any trans person on twitter. It blocks everyone who follows huge transphobic accounts, and it makes the entire twitter experience safer, pleasant, and actually usable. Sign up today! You’ll be glad you did.

The one thing that keeps me going, that keeps me getting back up every time I get knocked down, is knowing how much these Trans Tuesdays have helped others. Because you’ve all told me.

I know there are trans people yet to come out, who need those of us who came before. And more trans kids keep being born. And I refuse to let them down, or leave them in pain and confusion any longer than they have to be.

We keep going for them.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.

Ps – Part 2 is here!
tillysbridges@gmail.com

FOUR YEARS OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN

Welcome to #TransTuesday! It’s July again, and that means time to see there things are at in my FOUR YEARS OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN! Body changes, social changes, and so very much more!

If you’d like to chart my entire journey on hormone replacement therapy, and my entire journey being an out trans woman, you can start with my ONE YEAR OUT AND ON HRT RETROSPECTIVE trans tuesday.

Here’s the TWO YEARS OUT AND ON HRT RETROSPECTIVE trans tuesday.

And the THREE YEARS OUT AND ON HRT RETROSPECTIVE trans tuesday from last year.

Year four was wild for me, because after the devastating setbacks I had last summer, I switched my estrogen delivery from pills to injections, and holy crap did that re-kickstart body changes. Here’s the trans tuesday on TRANSITION SETBACKS if you missed it.

One new thing I had to deal with this year that hadn’t happened in quite this way before, was a nasty, loud, public encounter with a very nasty transphobe. Previously all I’ve had to deal with was accidental misgendering and all the staring at me that The Uncomfortable Cis do.

It was sadly inevitable, I think, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to deal with.

I talked a bit about that in the trans tuesdays on THE 2022 US TRANS SURVEY REPORT.

We’ll get to the new developments (ahem) from HRT in year four in a bit, but I’m going to follow the same order of talking about things as I did last year, just because it’ll be easier for me to see where I was and then if anything’s changed since a year ago.

As I said, I’m still on injections and I’m really happy with the dosage I’m at (both for my estrogen and progesterone). If I can just maintain these levels for, like, the rest of my life, I’d be elated. Physically and especially mentally, I’ve never felt better in my entire life.

I’ve talked about this in every year check-in retrospective, I think, because it’s still the largest issue I’m dealing with in terms of transition: I still have to shave, every morning, super close and against the grain, over and over, to remain stubble and shadow free all day.

It still does not cause me dysphoria to do it due to changing HOW I do it, thankfully, but it does make me dysphoric to see the little stubble in the morning that grew overnight. Sadly there’s still NOTHING I can do about it, because covid is still real and my wife is still immunocompromised and I cannot be unmasked indoors with strangers for the dozens and dozens and dozens of hours that laser hair removal and electrolysis takes.

I really wish capitalism and the people running our country hadn’t just decided to pretend covid was over so rich people could make more money again. And selfishly, yeah, because it’s prevented me from doing absolutely anything about the one source of dysphoria that I seem to still have.

But more importantly because it’s abandoned every immunocompromised person and basically barred them from public life. That’s sadly not new for the disabled community, but it’s starkly awful to see it done so clearly and publicly how society just isn’t interested in protecting the most vulnerable.

For more on the difficulties of a PANDEMIC TRANSITION, see the trans tuesday on that very topic.

My body hair growth has slowed even further after switching my estrogen to injections. It’s still bad enough that I have to shave everywhere once a week, but it’s not as bad as it was before and I haven’t needed to go back to weekly epilating, thank goodness. Here’s the trans tuesday on BODY HAIR for more on my struggles with that.

Photos and reflections check-in. You can start with the initial trans tuesday on PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS, and why they can be so tough for so many of us.

And then see PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE, when two and half years into HRT my face had gradually changed enough so that photos just stopped causing dysphoria.

What’s interesting is that photos have somehow gotten even BETTER for me, because the estrogen injections changed my face even MORE in the fall and winter of 2023. You can kind of see it shift in my photos, I think (or at least I can).

I think it’s super clear in the new addition to my transition timeline photo, and it makes me so so so happy. I never thought I’d see ME, and then I did, and it was a miracle. And now it’s somehow even MORE ME, and last year I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.

And not in a “I’ll never get there way,” but in a “I already see myself so what more could there be to see?” way. I thought that was the end of the seeing myself in photos and reflections journey, but there was another bonus extra credit step, and it delights me to no end.

A big change from last year is that I don’t struggle with video anymore! I still haven’t tried recording and posting my own, but at this time last year seeing myself in video was pretty dysphoric, and it’s not now!

Maybe it’s due to the further facial shape changes I just talked about, or my voice, or the combo of the two being way better than before. I’ll talk about voice in a bit.

But if you want to see ways in which my inability to handle seeing myself in video (especially if it was being recorded for everyone else to see forever) affected me, see the trans tuesday on PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP, and how incredibly harmful the refusal to accommodate trans people’s needs can be.

BODY HACKING check in (see the trans tuesday on it if you need more info).

I’m still exercising four times a week, but it’s been two runs and two strength training workouts. I just haven’t had the time to work two more runs in, because the writing my wife and I do has kept me too busy (a good problem to have!)

And y’know, I really should have included photos of my exercise progress in past year retrospectives, it’d be cool to track it. Anyway! My arms are more buff than they’ve ever been, and I have abs now! It’s WILD and I LOVE IT.

My flexed left bicep

My flexed left tricep

My abs! They’re not huge but I have some now!

Me all sweaty in a black workout tank, my hair pineappled and falling in front of most of my face, flexing my left bicep

My hair is still super important to me, and makes me feel like ME. It used to be my favorite thing about my body, though my arms and abs are now right behind (as are a couple other body parts, but we’re getting there). You can see the growing importance of my HAIR in the original trans tuesday on it.

And the follow-up, HAIR 2, when I got my first real haircut and how much it made me feel like ME.
Twitter, Facebook, Google doc

My hair hasn’t changed, except for getting longer. I love it, it’s perfect just how it is. Maybe I’ll want a different cut someday, but right now I can’t imagine that happening. It’s so so perfectly me and I love it in every way.

I’ve had my tattoo for a couple years now (it was still relatively new at the two year check-in), and you can read about the entire process of deciding to get it and why it took so long in the trans tuesday on BODILY AUTONOMY.

Last year I mentioned that photos of me without my tattoo (post-transition me, I mean, not pre-transition super dysphoric me) felt “wrong”, even though the photos weren’t spiking my dysphoria. Last year I said I might write about it if I ever figured out why that was.

The good news is… I have! Figured it out, I mean. But I haven’t written about it just yet. It’s on the list for future trans tuesdays though, so keep an eye out.

CONFIDENCE check-in. Here’s its trans tuesday if you missed it.

And here’s CONFIDENCE 2: INTO THE UNKNOWN, aka A WHOLE NEW WORLD aka WHAT IS HAPPENING, when I could really see it start to shift as transition progressed.

Not only has this continued without faltering from last year, I’ve realized just how MUCH it’s grown when my wife Susan and I redid our wedding this year, to have one with the real me. And the difference in me from the first dysphoric one to the second euphoric one could not have been more stark. See the trans tuesday on A TRANS RE-WEDDING for more.

Voice check in! Here’s the first of three trans tuesdays on TRANS VOICES (the first links to the second, links to the third) where I talk about my fascinating journey through gender-affirming speech therapy, finding my true voice, and culminating with an interview with my Speech-Language Pathologists (including the science behind it and tips for people practicing on their own).

Last year I was pretty happy with where my voice was at, but my stamina for it still sometimes faltered, and occasionally my voice would still slip. But it got better enough that I was able to launch these trans tuesdays as a podcast, and begin recording the audiobook for my book BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX!

That audiobook is now complete (and can be purchased by YOU!), and it was a TON of work and took forever, but I did it.

I feel like my stamina now is even better than last year, my voice almost never gets tired (though it still does a bit toward the end of long roleplaying game sessions that i run where I’ve been talking for four or more hours straight).

Sometimes it’s still hard for people to hear me speaking through my mask, and I’m much better at resonance and being louder now, though I feel when I AM louder my voice doesn’t sound quite the way I want it to. So I’ll probably be working on that a lot in the year to come.

Okay so, let’s talk about what other body changes I’ve seen since switching to estrogen injections! Last year I mentioned I’d gotten to a B cup in breast growth after 1000 days of HRT (it’s true, I counted), and I had tiny hip development and still nothing in my butt.

WELL!

This year I got to a C cup, in less time than it took to get to the B (336 days from B to C)! The girls are still sadly far enough apart that I think never the twain shall meet (the wrong puberty making my shoulders and torso more broad are to blame for that), but I can deal.

A post I made on March 9, 2024 that says “one thousand three hundred and thirty-six days of HRT and- THIS WILL BE A DAY LONG REMEMBERED” [smiley face surrounded by hearts emoji]
And then a photo of the tag from a pink bra that shows the size as 38C

It was a small C, but still a C! And now… it’s a slightly bigger C! I’m nowhere NEAR needing to go up a size again, but, uh… they’re definitely more noticeable!

Me in a low cut black dress with white stars on it, and you can definitely see visible breast growth, my goodness

And it delights me to tell you that my boobs are indeed now tied with my hair and my arms and my abs for my favorite part of my body. Even though they’re oceans apart, and maybe still not as big as I’d like.

Both of those latter things could be fixed (or helped) with top surgery, and I considered it, but… look, every time I see them in the mirror as I’m getting into the shower or whatever, I just love them. Because they’re mine. I grew them. They’re all ME.

They’re what was always coded in my genes and just needed estrogen to flip the switch telling them to grow. And so I find them remarkably beautiful, because they are just what they were meant to be, even if they live in different zip codes due to the wrong puberty mucking up my chest.

And they’re still growing, so who knows. We’ll see. I’ll probably revisit the idea over time and just see how I feel, but right now… they’re perfect.

I was also incredibly startled to discover that I HAVE A BUTT NOW! I mean yes technically I’ve always had one, but it was flat as a board back there. Pretty sure I’ve complained about it in every past year check-in I’ve done.

The weird thing is I had no idea it happened! I mean how would you, I guess, we don’t look at our butts all that often (or DO WE?). Anyway this spring I put on a dress that it hadn’t been warm enough to wear for like six months and was walking out of the bathroom and caught sight of my profile in the mirror, and…. GOSH 🥰

Two side profile shots of my booty in a black dress with horizontal white stripes. It’s small but it exists and has a really lovely curve! yaaaaay!

And about that hip “development”… since I could finally see them, I figured they must have gotten bigger. Since I needed to re-measure myself with the newly expanded bustline, I re-measured my hips… and they’re the exact same as they were when I started HRT four years ago.

They didn’t get bigger, but my hips ROTATED to be in line with cis women’s, which is why you can actually see that i have small hips now, even though the measurement hasn’t changed. This happens in some trans women due to changes in the tendons, and is exactly what cis women go through during puberty too.

This is, like so much of trans life and healthcare, anecdotal. Plenty of cis doctors will tell you this can not happen and is impossible, but those doctors also say the effects of progesterone on trans women are inconclusive and so very many trans women who’ve been on it say otherwise.

For a whole lot more on how trans healthcare is JUST LIKE THIS because cis doctors don’t care enough to study us to get answers, see the trans tuesday on ANECDOTAL TRANS HEALTHCARE.

You can SEE hips on me now, and you never could before, even though the circumference around them is the same. And skirts that I used to be able to pull over my hips I no longer can! But the measurement is the same so clearly they’ve changed position.

And it certainly explains why my hips were so sore for a long time.

I don’t know what else to tell you. The human body is a wild wonderland.

Also regarding HRT-induced body changes, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this in one of these yearly retrospectives before, but I get periods now. I get the same cramps, moodiness, food cravings, etc. that many cis women do.

It’s not entirely regular… meaning some months I get one and some I don’t, but it’s fairly often that I do and this is a known thing that can happen to trans women. And if you don’t see how that’s possible, know that cis women can still have cramps even after a hysterectomy. So clearly a uterus is not required for the joy of cramping.

Cis doctors again seem to think this is impossible, or just don’t believe us, and that’s sadly just par for the course. I know so many trans women who get them. Before I got them myself… I don’t want to say I didn’t believe that it happened, I just was stymied at how.

Well, now I get them, often, and they’re terrible and hurt like a mofo, and I’m still stymied as to how. But it definitely happens to a lot of us! Along with the moodiness, which (for me) can even be slightly alleviated with chocolate! Again see that anecdotal trans healthcare essay.

ALL of that’s controlled by hormones, so when the dominant hormones in your body are estrogen and progesterone, in some of us that’s just gonna happen.

I have noticed one part of my body that I’m newly unhappy with, and that’s the backs of my hands. My hands are pretty big, which doesn’t bother me, but sometimes the backs can look kinda… veiny? I don’t know, it makes them sometimes look a bit more dude-like than I’d prefer, but unless my E decides it needs to store some fat on the back of my hand for some reason, I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it.

I feel like I’ve finally honed in on my style really well, but it took me a good three and a half years to settle into what clothes and presentation feels like it’s ME. See the trans tuesday on FINDING OUR TRANS STYLE for more on how mine is cutesy/girly/sporty and that’s OKAY.

As I mentioned last year, I do still very much wish I’d started chronicling changes earlier. By which I am referring to all the years I knew I was trans before I came out and chose to transition. I basically knew in 2015, but waited to come out and medically and socially transition until 2020 for a reason that is one of the few things I will not talk about publicly (though if we are friends, I’m happy to discuss it privately).

So here’s the new timeline photo! Somehow I’m STILL becoming a truer me than I’ve ever been, and that’s absolutely fucking amazing. What a gift transition has been. For all the difficulty, and all the struggle, it’s worth every single second for each step closer we get to being true and authentic to who we are.

A timeline showing my transition progress from pre-transition, 2020 (when I came out and started HRT), 2021 (one year hrt), 2022 (two years hrt), 2023 (three years hrt), 2024 (four years hrt). You can see my face changing drastically through them, becoming rounder and softer over time. Also the life in my eyes goes from dead, to huh, to yay, to hooray, to OH MY GOD to CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE THIS WHAT IS HAPPENING.

It’s okay if you don’t know that yet. It’s okay if you figure it out along the way.

If I can do it, so can you. I believe in you.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

THREE YEARS OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Milestones abound! I’ve just passed two big dates that are pretty close together, and that means it’s time to take stock of where we’re at. So here’s my THREE YEARS OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN!

For reference, you may want to first read my ONE YEAR OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN thread first to better understand the progression.

And here’s the TWO YEARS OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN, if you want to better chart my progress over time.

And if you’re super brand-new to these, please see the Trans Tuesday on HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY.

And the Trans Tuesday on GENDER DYSPHORIA.

Last year I had monumental gains. This year… well things were good through the back half of 2022, but then I had two things happen that both caused TRANSITION SETBACKS, which I talked about in the trans tuesday on that very topic.

Thankfully things seem to be settled now, hopefully at a good equilibrium. My arm is healed, my exercise is back where it was, and my head feels like me. And I never actually lost sight of myself in photos or mirrors like I was afraid of in that thread on setbacks.

But it still sucks that I had such a backslide. And yeah it’s normal, and happens through all parts of life, transition or otherwise. But that doesn’t just make it easy to accept. Because of course then all I do is wonder where I’d be now if I HADN’T backslid.

But then I also remember that the backslide came with gains I couldn’t get any other way, in breast and hip growth, so maybe it was worth it? I dunno. We shouldn’t have to lose some gains to get others, but life never said it was fair.

Shaving my face doesn’t give me dysphoria, I figured out how to fix that last year. But I still resent having to do it every single day. And the 20-25 minutes it eats up every single morning.

If you look back at my two year check-in from last year, you’ll see I’d finally hit the arbitrary level of testosterone I needed to be below before our health insurance would cover laser hair removal and electrolysis for my face.

Except now, per the thread on setbacks, my T level is no longer below that arbitrary barrier some cis doctors somewhere thought every trans woman needed to be at before she’d earned the right to not ever have facial hair again. Yeah I’m still salty about it.

Know what else I’m still salty about? Covid! Which is NOT over! Especially when you live with an immunocompromised person. I STILL CANNOT SIT INDOORS FOR DOZENS OF HOURS WITH A MASK OFF while my facial hair is zapped away.

THREE YEARS I’ve been waiting, and I’m no closer to being able to do that than when I started. I’m getting really fed up with how our society has just decided to move on and left so many people behind, as if they don’t deserve to exist in public too.

Here’s the trans tuesday on the unique problems a PANDEMIC TRANSITION has brought.

Now that the two big setbacks I experienced this year are (mostly) behind me, facial hair removal continues to be the biggest part of my transition I NEED to get taken care of.

But I’ve seen some other trans ladies talking about at home laser hair removal that seems to actually work. Not as well as getting it professionally done, but it works. And I’m SO SO sick of waiting. So I think I’m gonna give it a go and hope it helps.

My body hair growth, which got much faster during my HRT setback, has slowed back down a little. But it’s not as slow as it was before that setback, and I’m not sure I can get it back there again anytime soon.

This might be my new normal. At least for a while. Again, hormones are weird, so I don’t really know. If this IS the new normal, I’m not happy about it, BUT it’s something I think I can live with. As long as I’m getting the other benefits I want from the micronized progesterone.

Here’s the trans tuesday on my issues with BODY HAIR, if you’re curious.

PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS check-in.

And its follow-up, a long time later when something suddenly changed for reasons unknown, see PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE.

Thankfully this has remained constant for me, even through my HRT setback. I still see ME, she’s still there, and I’m still only chucking out photos because they’re bad photos and not because they give me dysphoria. I really lucked out there, and I’ll never take it for granted.

One thing I’ve noticed, though, in doing all of the promotional interviews for my book this year, is that most of them were being done via videoconferencing like Zoom. And I still apparently still have a LOT of dysphoria revolving around video. I had to do them with my camera off.

I can handle it if it’s just friends, and can maybe struggle through if the video won’t be posted anywhere, though that’s still really difficult. But it is not easy and not okay. Something about photos combined with motion and voice just sets it off. Hope that goes away eventually.

If you want to see ways in which that’s already caused other problems for me (or rather, the ways in which cis people refusing to accommodate my dysphoria has caused problems for me), see the trans tuesday on PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP.

BODY HACKING check-in.

I’m still only getting in a couple 5ks a week, rather than the four I want to be at, but I’ve been so busy with book promotion and writing and then the WGA strike on top of it, I just can’t work any more of them into my schedule right now.

I’m at least walking a lot when I’m out on the WGA picket lines, so that’s good. But running more often would also pose a problem with my hair, which takes a long time to do and the hair product I use is expensive.

It’s not feasible for me to wash/style it every day. Twice a week is about right. But when I run I get sweaty, and so… what do I do? I don’t know. I’m not sure if actually running four days a week will be possible now, given all that. It’s vexing.

But my HAIR is super important to me, it’s STILL the part of my body I love the most. You can see its growing importance to me in the original trans tuesday on it.

And the follow-up, HAIR 2, when I got my first real haircut and how much it made me feel like ME.

When I CAN run, my 5k times STILL continue to rise. Not as dramatically as they did last year, but I’m STILL. GETTING. SLOWER. I hate it! But there’s nothing I can do about it. HRT has totally sacked my running speed.

A reminder that this is just some of the evidence why the whole TRANS SPORTS thing is a complete non-issue that’s really only about punishing trans women and upholding sexist patriarchal gender roles.

I’ve had my tattoo for a while now (it was still relatively new at the two year check-in), and you can read about the entire process of deciding to get it and why it took so long. It’s all wrapped up in BODILY AUTONOMY.

What’s really interesting is now, photos of myself (even ones I really like, post-transition) without my tattoo feel wrong. They feel like they’re not really me. I mean they ARE, and it’s not gender dysphoria per se, but it’s definitely… something.

I mean I guess that confirms I was right to get it and it was absolutely what I wanted, but I’m still trying to parse why photos of me without it feel “wrong.” If I’m ever able to figure it out, there will likely be a trans tuesday about it.

Okay, CONFIDENCE check-in!

And the unexpected, surprising follow-up CONFIDENCE 2: INTO THE UNKNOWN aka WHAT IS HAPPENING aka A WHOLE NEW WORLD as my confidence grew.

Happy to say this has held steady from last year. I’m still super happy to talk to new people in ways I never was pre-transition. In fact just a little while back I spent an entire shift on the WGA picket lines talking to someone I’d never met before.

Like… we spent FOUR HOURS talking. And now we’re friends! We just hit it off and it was never uncomfortable. Even when the conversation would hit a lull for a bit, the silence was never awkward. It was comfortable. And then we’d pick up talking about something else.

It was really great, and let me tell you I could have NEVER done something like that pre-transition. Ever. Even if the other person took the lead. I’d clam up and shut down at the first opportunity. Very glad to see this seems permanent!

Okay, TRANS VOICES check in. This one’s actually been big, and I might not have realized without writing this out! Here’s my original thread on starting voice therapy and how my old voice made my dysphoric.

I’m getting pretty consistent with hitting all the techniques I’ve learned, and my voice usually makes me really happy. I’ve gotten to a point now where I launched these trans tuesdays as a podcast, which I’m sure you’ve noticed.

And I couldn’t have done that before! The few podcasts I was already doing were difficult for me, but I could have never taken HEARING myself on a weekly basis, and didn’t have the stamina to maintain all the techniques that long anyway.

But my stamina for it has grown by leaps and bounds. It still falters sometimes, and occasionally I will hear my voice slipping when I’m forgetting one of the things I need to be doing. But on the whole I’m very happy with it and I know it’ll keep getting better.

It’s to the point where now I believe I can actually record the audiobook for my book! Before I never thought I’d have been able to. It’ll be slow going, and I’ll have to do portions at a time, but it seems completely doable now and it never did before. That’s amazing.

Oh right, and I figure you know since I never shut up about it, but the trans tuesday threads on the trans allegory of the Matrix films got me a book deal and that book is out now! Audiobook coming as soon as I can get it all recorded. 🙂

Regarding my HRT, as I talked a bit about in the previously linked threads on setbacks, my breast growth has continued and I have tiny hips now. Still nothing in my butt though, there is barely one to speak of.

As I mentioned last year, my style in terms of clothing is STILL evolving (I guess it’s probably always evolving somewhat for most of us), but I think I’m finally maybe honing in on it. Last year I said it might be a future thread. Now it definitely will. Probably soonish.

Before we get to my timeline photo, I do want to mention one thing I’ve never talked about in these retrospectives before. And that’s how I wish I’d started them earlier.

I think it’s so important to chronicle these things, both the good and the bad, to help people (trans and cis) see what it’s really like. And there were so many years of transition where I wasn’t doing this, and I’d have loved to remember better how it was going.

My personal transition started in 2015, and up until I came out publicly in 2020, I wasn’t writing about my transition or anything trans-related. I felt I didn’t have the right to, since the world still saw me as a cisgender man.

But I’d love to be able to look back and see what I was going through then in better detail than my memory allows. What struggles and triumphs did I find? I think it’d be fascinating to see. But the past is the past and I can’t change that, so.

I’m gonna wonder, though. Because I’m SURE, especially before any hormones or social changes, I was also experiencing highs and lows, and setbacks and advancements. Which might provide some reassurance now.

In any case, we march on, ever forward (even if the path gets winding and seems to double back sometimes), ever closer to the truest me I’ve ever been.

So here’s the timeline photo again, with bonus pre-transition photo added so you can truly see more of the changes. And I still see it in my eyes, thank goodness. That’s Tilly. That’s ME. And no matter what, I’m not going anywhere. And remember, if I can do it so can you.

A timeline showing my transition progress from pre-transition, 2020 (when I came out and started HRT), 2021 (one year in), 2022 (two years in), 2023 (three years in). You can see my face changing drastically through them, becoming rounder and softer over time. Also the life in my eyes goes from dead, to huh, to yay, to hooray, to OH MY GOD.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – this is my trans tuesday and I’m mad with power, so here’s all the (barely slightly different) versions of the photo I took for this year because I love them all! A lot!

Me with my long brown curly hair up in a pineapple that has fallen to the back, with curly bangs, iridescent white cat eye glasses, dark eyeliner, sparkly dark pink lipstick, wearing a black tank top with white piping.

…a barely slightly different angle of me with my long brown curly hair up in a pineapple that has fallen to the back, with curly bangs, iridescent white cat eye glasses, dark eyeliner, sparkly dark pink lipstick, wearing a black tank top with white piping.

Me with my long brown curly hair up in a pineapple that has fallen to my right, with curly bangs, iridescent white cat eye glasses, dark eyeliner, sparkly dark pink lipstick, wearing a black tank top with white piping.

…a barely different angle of me with my long brown curly hair up in a pineapple that has fallen to the back, with curly bangs, iridescent white cat eye glasses, dark eyeliner, sparkly dark pink lipstick, wearing a black tank top with white piping.

And here’s the one I used in the timeline all by itself, and look, yes, it’s the same as the others, but I don’t care I DON’T CARE. This is ME!!!

TWO YEARS OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week and last week are big milestones for me. As of July 7 I’ve been out as myself for two years, and as of TODAY I’ve been on HRT for two years. So it’s time for a check-in with TWO YEARS OUT and TWO YEARS ON HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY.

For reference, you may want to first read my ONE YEAR OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN first to better understand the progression.

And if you need more info on HRT (hormone replacement therapy), I wrote about that in the linked trans tuesday.

Let’s start with a GENDER DYSPHORIA check-in.

This has been so huge for me. SO so huge. My dysphoria is… well it’s not GONE, it still pops up from time to time. But it’s… occasional? It’s rare! I did not think I would ever live to see the day when this was the truth, but there it is.

I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened to cause this, but still here I am. It’s amazing and beautiful and frankly… terribly unfair. There are trans people who’ve been on HRT decades and had multiple surgeries who don’t get to this point.

I don’t know why I got here and they didn’t. Dysphoria is bizarre and mysterious in that way (on top of being horrible and soul-crushing). As if I wasn’t already privileged enough, now this. I almost feel like I need to apologize for it. Why did this happen to me?

If you’re wondering about how I’m privileged, in ways many trans people are not, see the trans tuesday on PRIVILEGE (time and money).

I’ve searched for how I got here and I still don’t know. My deepest wish is for EVERY trans/non-binary person to get to this point, but I can’t point out a path to get here. Not only is it incredibly different for everyone, I don’t even know how *I* did it! It’s a mystery to me!

As I’ve mentioned many times before, the majority of my dysphoria has always revolved around my face. Facial hair, never seeing myself in mirrors/photos, all of it. Body hair is also bad, but we’ll get there in a minute.

So last year I was up to shaving my face every day and being in near constant pain from it, as I’d started shaving against the grain to get my face entirely smooth, and thus have the rest of the entire day where my face both looked and felt like mine.

I’m still doing that, but the pain is all but gone. There are still some sensitive spots that give me issues, but for the most part it’s okay. And having changed everything about the way I did it, and maintained that for a year, means the act of shaving no longer causes dysphoria.

But it takes me a good twenty minutes to do (if you think about how little surface area your face actually has, you’ll realize how long that really is). Do I resent having to spend that much time on it? SO MUCH. But it’s far better than the alternative.

I finally hit the arbitrary testosterone level our health insurance said I had to drop below before they’d authorize electrolysis. HOORAY! Except it happened right before the delta wave of COVID hit, and things here in LA have just been getting worse and worse.

As I live with someone who’s immunocompromised, I still cannot risk going somewhere to sit with my mask off for hours at a time, session after session after session, while every hair is finally zapped off my face for good. (the entire process takes many months)

I want to do that. I want it gone for good SO VERY BADLY. But I’m not going to put the life of someone I love at risk just so I can finally get rid of it. It’s hard to keep waiting. SO HARD TO KEEP WAITING. It’s the worst thing I’m dealing with right now, transition-wise.

For more on the unique difficulties of a PANDEMIC TRANSITION, see its trans tuesday.

The bonus of my T finally dropping much lower is that my body hair growth has actually slowed. Not nearly enough for my taste, but enough so that I no longer have to epilate. I shave everything once a week and that’s… okay.

The day before shaving is the hardest, when the hair’s the longest, even though it’s still not that long. But not having to spend that 45 minutes of intense pain from epilating every week is pretty nice. I did a trans tuesday on my struggles with BODY HAIR.

PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS check-in.

And its follow-up, a long time later when something suddenly changed for reasons unknown, PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE.

I am so happy (and astonished and bewildered and entirely baffled) to tell you the absence of dysphoria in that very long streak in the second Photos thread has continued unabated. It just keeps happening. I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT!

It’s so strange to know at the beginning of my transition I would (legit) take 200 photos to find ONE I could live with. A year ago that was down to finding one in 20. Now it’s finding one in… one. Honestly it’s just about picking which ones I like best, which is just unbelievable.

I mean there are still some I don’t like! But just in a… normal way? I’m not tossing them because of dysphoria, I’m tossing them for a weird shadow or a flyaway hair or any number of other totally normal reasons.

And sure, sometimes I don’t like the way I look in them, but they’re almost never for dysphoria reasons. They’re just not great photos in a “normal” way? I don’t know. More on this in a bit.

BODY HACKING check-in.

Still running four 5ks a week, up to 300 push-ups beforehand, also doing a bunch of reverse-crunches and side planks to work on my abs, and even extra bicep curls. My biceps are getting bigger, which is… nice. 😎
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1522607592387661824

I mean they look really good and I’m incredibly proud of them!
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1537858792401932289

My 5k times continue to rise. Last year I said I could still get to (or near) my pre-HRT average time, but it felt like it would kill me to do so. Now? It feels like it kills me to get to even a minute SLOWER than that. It’s just destroyed my ability to speedily do cardio of any kind.

This is part of why the whole TRANS SPORTS “controversy” is such complete and utter bullshit. If you missed it.

But let’s talk about those pictures of my bicep linked above. Because now I have a tattoo! And that’s because my body finally felt like MY body, which is something I didn’t even know I didn’t have or could ever get to (which is why it’s not mentioned in the one year check-in).

I did a trans tuesday about BODILY AUTONOMY (and my tattoo).

I’ve had to use more public restrooms, and the ones that aren’t single-occupant still feel fraught. I’m not AS terrified as before, but it’s not great. Honestly though that one’s on society and not me. It shouldn’t be awful to just have to pee in a public bathroom!

If you can’t imagine that because you’re cisgender and thus it’s something you’ve never had to think about, have a read of CIS PRIVILEGE.

CONFIDENCE check-in.

And a completely unexpected, surprising follow-up as my confidence continues to grow, surprising even me. Are you a stranger? Let’s talk, I don’t care! I’m not gonna run away screaming. APPARENTLY. See CONFIDENCE 2: INTO THE UNKNOWN aka WHAT IS HAPPENING aka A WHOLE NEW WORLD.

HAIR check-in.

And here’s HAIR 2 (first haircut).

It continues to be my very favorite part of me, especially now that I’ve learned even MORE about how to care for it and can get it looking how I want. It’s the very most ME thing about my physical body, and I could not love it more.

If you missed it, I did a mini-thread on how it looks at different stages and what it takes to get it to look the way I want it to.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1545544149880827906

Speaking of things I love (or am starting to, anyway), let’s talk TRANS VOICES.

I’m STILL in voice therapy. It’s been two years now, I think. My voice is finally FINALLY getting to a place where… I think I like it! And now we’re working on taking that like to LOVE. It’s not there yet, but we’re on the way.

It’s not easy. I still struggle to remember all the things I have to do, and then I hear my voice sounding wrong and OH HI DYSPHORIA. But I’m now to the point where I remember more than not, and I’m getting more consistent with it.

My voice therapist thinks we’re in the final stages of what she can do for me. Once I’m doing progressing through the stuff we’re working on now, I’ll just be… done with it.

My voice won’t just always be perfect after that. It will continue to take work and practice and time (I have to sit and do my voice homework for 20 minutes every day, recording myself and listening back to hear what I did wrong, each time working to improve it).

It’s still THE HARDEST THING I HAVE EVER HAD TO DO IN MY LIFE. The difficulty level is just off the charts. HRT does NOTHING for a trans lady’s voice. It’s all about understanding the biology of speech and changing the way it works within our body (and mind).

It’s kind of grueling, honestly. Especially since I have to keep listening back to myself messing up (and thus spiking dysphoria) in order to correct and get better. But I can hear the progress compared to recordings from a year and two years ago. It shocks me.

Once I get to where I’m REALLY happy with it, I’ll do a follow up thread with some audio samples so you can hear the difference. I don’t know if it will help me get gendered correctly on the phone (though I HOPE so, damn), but it’s making ME feel better at least.

On the legal side of name/gender change things, most of the important stuff is done. I still need to update my birth certificate and our car registration, and I should probably get a passport before laws are passed making that impossible to get with my real gender on it.

Our marriage certificate will probably never be able to be updated, as we got married in a state that really really hates trans people. But I have the legal document from the judge that links my deadname to my real name, so hopefully that won’t be an issue.

In terms of other changes from HRT, I continue to FEEL like myself every day and that’s a damned delight. My breast growth continues, slowly, but progress is progress (they hurt almost all the time, but that’s from growing so… KEEP IT UP).

And let’s not forget what the absence of dysphoria has done for me mentally. Just an absolutely life-changing difference. See FREEING UP MY BRAIN aka LUNCH WITH TILLY.

Still no development of any kind in my tiny little butt, still no more curve/hips than I had last year. WHAT A SCREW. HRT is a process and it takes time time TIME, and you never know what you’re gonna get or when you’re gonna get it. I continue to hope.

I continue to find my style… evolving. Here’s the trans tuesday on HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES AND TRANS PEOPLE.

I am surprised to discover that it’s still changing, and things I liked the way I looked in just a few months ago now leave me feeling muted. I don’t know what my style is, really, still trying to figure that out (I have some thoughts on that for a future thread).

Remember earlier in the thread I mentioned tossing photos out just because I didn’t like them much, for a variety of reasons, but not for dysphoria-based reasons? That ties in here, a bit, as we get to the end of the thread and the part most of you are probably waiting for…

The transition timeline photos! They’re kind of A Thing trans people do, and they are admittedly cool to see the changes over time. I didn’t think to take a photo of the DAY that I started HRT, but last year I found the one that was the closest and took a new one to match.

I wore the same shirt, did my makeup the same way, all so you could (maybe?) better see the changes to my face from HRT. And so I did that again this year, and for the first time in a long time I… had to take a LOT of photos. But still none of them felt right.

They weren’t dysphoric, but they weren’t… me. As my style evolves, as my tastes evolve and become clearer to me, as I learn what *I* really like and who I am, as *I* evolve… those old photos don’t feel like me. And that’s why none of these were working.

That look isn’t me anymore. I don’t want my makeup like that, I still have that shirt but it’s more something I’d wear to run errands or clean in or when just lounging around on a dumpy day, if that makes sense. NONE of it felt like ME.

So I just tossed them all. I’m not gonna post stuff that’s not who I am anymore. That would be LESS of an accurate representation of the changes over time. So I changed my shirt and makeup and instantly got a ton I really loved, because they. were. ME.

And this is tied in with everything else, all the incredibly surprising new things that have happened to me (in terms of transition) in recent months.

Like that I’ve had the mental energy to try new things, that photos and reflections don’t spike my dysphoria, that my body finally felt enough like mine that a tattoo was something I could seriously consider are all part of the same thing.

Whatever caused it, whatever blessed thing it was, I’ve clearly passed a point where something changed, or enough somethings changed, that many of the issues I’ve struggled with SO MUCH for my ENTIRE LIFE are decreasing, minimizing, or leaving altogether.

And that’s just fuckin’ WILD. It’s why I started transitioning to my true self. It’s what I hoped would happen. But if I’m honest it wasn’t something I thought I’d ever really attain. If it just got better, made the unlivable pain of dysphoria a little better, it’d be worth it.

And now I experience gender euphoria daily! Multiple times a day! All day long! The very idea of this is almost unbelievable to me. If you’re not familiar with GENDER DYSPHORIA, read up!

So here’s the transition timeline so far. Both old photos spike dysphoria now. At the time, each was closer to me than I’d ever been. My face looks so much rounder/softer to me now. If only the poor ultra-dysphoric Tilly of 2 years ago knew the real her she’d find not too far off.

My face isn’t just softer, but look how my hair’s changed. Look at my eyes change!

In that new one? Hi! That’s Tilly! Wait… I’M TILLY! THAT’S ME!

That I’d actually get here, and after only two years? It’s blowing my damn mind.

Nobody who transitions is guaranteed to get to this place, but if you’re wondering if you should? EVERY step closer to the real YOU is worth it. Finally being myself EVERY DAY is the best thing ever. And if I can do it so can you. I believe in you.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – there were more photos I liked, so you’re gettin’ ‘em! Because I will never, ever, EVER tire of getting to see her in photos. Because that her IS me. And she’s cute af. 😉

ONE YEAR OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN

Welcome to #TransTuesday! I’m finally going to do my one year out/one year on HRT check-in! Technically this should have been done a month ago, but I… had the date wrong on when I started HRT. Whoopsie! Anyway, let’s see where things are at in my ONE YEAR OUT AND ON HRT CHECK-IN.

I’m not going to reference every past Trans Tuesday post, just the ones I feel are applicable and due for an update. Also please remember that whatever the first year has been like for ME is in no way indicative of every trans person’s experience.

Let’s start with GENDER DYSPHORIA.

It’s interesting re-reading that, and seeing when I was having to boymode simply because of facial hair problems I could do nothing about. See BOYMODE AND GIRLMODE for more.

I still have gender dysphoria. I’m not sure it’ll ever go away entirely. But it’s not as bad, hits me less intensely, and when I do get the really awful bouts of it they seem to be few and far between. Not boymoding helped that a lot.

So have the changes HRT has brought, but we’ll get to that. Most of my dysphoria has always revolved around my face and facial hair (and to a lesser extent my original, very un-feminine torso).

I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be able to get to the point where I am now, which is… shaving every. Single. Day. And not only that, I’m shaving against the grain. Which is… not great!

My face basically feels like it’s always on fire. ALWAYS. There’s never a time when I can not feel it stinging and burning. But doing it this way removes the “shadow” almost entirely, and is only mostly noticeable the next morning, when I shave again.

And the act of shaving does give me dysphoria, but way less than before. I changed shaving creams, I changed the way I moved my hands while shaving, I changed the order of the parts of my face I shave, all of which has made it easier to not associate with how I shaved before.

But I still hate doing it, hate that I HAVE to do it, and resent the time it takes. And again, the whole face-constantly-feels-like-fire thing. But when I tell you I see no shadow after, and my skin feels smooth, and how MUCH that lessens my dysphoria… it’s all 100% worth it.

I still haven’t been able to start electrolysis/laser hair removal. Our insurance does cover it (yay!) but won’t okay it until my testosterone falls below some arbitrary number they set (boo). I suppose that’s under the auspices they think it’ll stop or slow enough on its own.

But… who knows when that will be? If ever? And in the meantime our insurance has decided all the pain it causes me to have it and have to deal with it is something I just have to live with. Which is some. fucking. bullshit.

I’d just go get it outside of our insurance, now that we’re vaccinated, but paying for it out of pocket is absolutely not an option right now, so I’m stuck with the fiery face shaving. And that’s a shitty thing to force a trans woman into.

PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS check-in.

This has gotten a LOT better! I can now usually find photos I really like, that feel like me and what I want to see (well, much more so anyway), without having to take two hundred to maybe find one good one. Now I can find one I like in every 10 or 20!

Which may still seem like a lot, but trust when I say it’s a vast improvement. I don’t despise looking through them, either! Far fewer of them spike my dysphoria like they used to. And sometimes I catch my own reflection in the mirror and it makes me smile.

IT. MAKES. ME. SMILE?!? That alone is just a monumental signifier to me that things are getting better. Mile and miles better. And I think that’s due to HRT, to my hair, to my clothes, to the happiness and confidence I can see in my own eyes now. It’s remarkable and entirely new.

BODY HACKING check-in.

Still running four 5ks a week, still doing push-ups beforehand. I was shocked to see in the original post I was at 170 push-ups before each run last year… because I’m now at 270! But let me tell you something…

My arms barely look more muscular now than they used to. Part of that is not being able to see them as easily due to fat redistribution from HRT, but it’s also because HRT has made it so that I have to basically work twice as hard as I did before to see the same results.

Not hyperbole! HRT affects everyone differently, but it’s had a huge impact on me in that regard. Also I’ve been using the same running app for a very long time, and have probably a thousand activities tracked in there. And look at this.

My AVERAGE pace is one minute slower per mile than last year. And let me tell you, it’s RARE I can even hit that average time. It’s definitely still in the process of slowing down even further. And hitting that time makes me feel like I’m gonna DIE.

Whereas the old average pace was just my actual average… not pushing myself hard at all. And now, to get an entire minute slower, I have to push myself as hard as I can. It’s very frustrating, because I feel like I’m pushing so hard every day…

And then my app is like “this was your 725th fastest run” and I want to scream. There’s really nothing to be done about it, but I didn’t at all account for how frustrating that would feel on a near-daily basis.

CIS PRIVILEGE and bathrooms check-in.

I HAVE had to use public bathrooms a bit now (in the brief period we had where things opened up before we had to severely lock down again thanks to the delta variant) and it is FRAUGHT. It’s terrifying. Even when Susan accompanies me.

I will stop drinking HOURS before I have to go somewhere, and not drink anything at ALL while I’m out, to avoid using a bathroom that’s not all-gender or single occupant. Or if I don’t know what kind of bathrooms will be available somewhere.

Just think about intentionally dehydrating yourself for HOURS before you dare go anywhere in public, to try to minimize any possible harassment just because you have to pee. Please get back to me on how that feels.

PRIVILEGE (time and money) check-in.

I’m still as privileged as before, though I’ve already mentioned how money concerns have held me back from zapping the hair off my face for good. It’s still an issue for clothing and makeup and running shoes (and the tattoo I want!) too.

And time… I sink even MORE time in these days, because doing almost twice as many push ups takes twice as much time. Shaving EVERY DAY takes much more time than the three or so times a week I could do it before.

And I love my hair, and know how to take care of it now, and guess what that takes? I still resent (SO. MUCH.) how much time I have to give up to get through all these things, but again… dysphoria’s worse, so I’ll take it.

BODY HAIR check-in.

I am dismayed to tell you that while HRT has somewhat slowed my body hair growth (I think?), it’s not enough to have changed the hair removal that’s required. I still have to shave and then epilate everything once a week. EVERY week.

It’s so much that my epilator just DIED ON ME. Again, I’m using it 3-4 times as often as it was intended (for most cis ladies), and on like 2-3 times as much body surface area. I burned it right out.

And it takes just as much time to do it now as it did at the start, there’s really no way to make it faster. I resent this time sink MORE than any other. I find it infuriating, and it hasn’t gotten any easier or less annoying to do. Might just be the way things will always be. Alas.

HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES AND TRANS PEOPLE check-in. I continue to slowly build out my wardrobe, and am still trying to find out what my tastes are, and what looks good on me. It’s a slow process (especially due to money). I’ve found I don’t like some things I thought I would, and vice versa. It’s… illuminating.

CONFIDENCE check-in.

I definitely have more than ever, I see it and feel it in myself. I’ve only been around others in a very limited capacity, and in one instance (my first in a group setting with friends), it was outside and loud and I was masked and voice therapy made that untenable for me.

(More on that soon). The result was I didn’t say much, which didn’t make it easy to figure out how to act and talk in these situations as my true self. Definitely more experimenting and experience needed here, as covid allows.

HAIR check-in.

And HAIR 2 (my first haircut) check-in.

I’ve learned how to take care of it SO much better than before, and obvs I do have bangs now, and I love it more than I ever have. I’ve mentioned this in multiple threads, but it’s my favorite thing about my body and I just love it to pieces.

Related to earlier topics, the two photos in that first Hair thread give me really bad dysphoria now, especially the one that appears first. At the time those were the GOOD ones I liked! More on that at the end of this thread.

SPORTS check-in. Which is only because it’s being made an even bigger deal now, as everything surrounding Laurel Hubbard in the Olympics this summer has shown. So I’m just going to ask you to PLEASE READ THIS THOROUGH DEBUNKING OF THAT NONSENSE.

TRANS VOICES check-in. I’m still in voice therapy, one session every two weeks. I’ve come really far and learned so much, and I’m starting to really dig where my voice is going. It’s not as tough now as it was at the beginning.

But I’m still learning new techniques, and am only now figuring out to speak in ways people identify/label as “more feminine” with any kind of volume. The method my voice therapist uses, you learn the breathing and pronunciations first.

And this is why I mentioned above in the Confidence update that, at that outdoor social gathering, where everyone was talking AND we were all masked… it was basically impossible for me to be heard while speaking in the manner I’m learning.

The result being either I had to talk in my false old voice just to be heard, or I said as little as possible. I went with the latter because the former makes me feel awful. But in quiet, low-attendance settings, you can hear me fine. And it’s getting better!

I can’t wait for the day I have to call someone and they don’t call me “sir” without even knowing who I am. Ugh. Again, please, let’s just do away with gendered honorifics, hm?

LEGAL NAME AND GENDER CHANGE check in.

I have the judge’s decree officially changing my name and gender marker. EEEEEE I’m LEGALLY TILLY. And as you may have seen, my new social security card is now in hand. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Later today I’m going to submit my proof of ID docs to the DMV for a REAL ID, and once those are approved I go in with my SS card and the judge’s decree and that should take care of it. I hope! I can change… every single other thing in my life.

HRT check-in.

In addition to stuff mentioned in that thread, and already mentioned today, (body hair growth not really slowing, exercise being even more difficult than last year), there have definitely been other changes.

It’s changed the way I FEEL. Not physically when I touch things, but emotionally. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but it’s… different. I dig it. And I’ve been thinking about this all year, how to describe the feeling, and I still couldn’t figure it out.

So I started saving artwork that, when I saw it, I said, “Yes THAT. That is the way HRT makes me feel.”

And another.

I’ve been wearing the same size women’s running shoes as before, but now… my feet fit in them better! I suspect I’ve lost about half a shoe size. Which is kind of cool actually, as it means there may be more ladies shoes I will fit into.

Height? Okay listen. I don’t understand it. At all. I have been 6’2” my entire adult life. I am now 6’ and 1/2 inch. WHAT. HOW. This is a known thing that happens to trans ladies on HRT, but like… where did that inch and a half go?! 🧐

Breast growth continues. I’d like a lot more. Not necessarily anything ostentatious, but you know, I’m 6’ (APPARENTLY) and would like them to be more noticeable to make ME feel better, and help me be more often gendered correctly. Still hurt like mofos almost all the time.

Oh, and the day I first saw THIS was pretty spectacular. You can see it easiest in my running clothes, so that’s the photo you get.

Did you miss it? Look! LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!

That. Is. Entirely. New! I think I first noticed it a few months ago, though I don’t remember exactly when. My sides used to be straight like a wall all the way down. It’s VERY EXCITING! I guess some of the fat from the sides of my torso redistributed to my hips? SCIENCE!

Sadly there’s still nothing to speak of in my ass (ahem). There’s just nothing there. Won’t someone think of the children*?? (for all values of “children” that = my perpetually baggy bottoms in all my women’s jeans and shorts that my tiny little butt cheeks cannot fill out)

I see a lot of difference in my face. Well, to be clear, I think the differences are maybe subtle, but they’re a lot to ME. What do you think? I see it fuller and rounder, and it makes me so happy.

Here’s a side by side with a photo I liked last year that felt good at the time and now spikes my dysphoria, when it didn’t before! Because, to me, I’ve come a long way already. And there’s still so much farther to go. 

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com