Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
No; I don't consider myself a woman. I consider myself a male who takes estrogen and bicalutamide more or less as a cosmetic procedure and/or mental health intervention, while acknowledging the tradeoff that this will make it much more difficult for me to woo a physically and mentally hale wife. I have had this perspective unchanged since I first learned what transgenderism was and realized the category seemed to fit me (modulo the actually-being-on-HRT aspect, of course).
While I'm sure a same-sex committed relationship would have plenty of potential to be both fulfilling and mutually beneficial, I've always been absolutely sure that I want to have and personally raise my own biological kids. If a suitable man were to actually pursue me and be willing to accommodate the whole Dave Rubin style high-effort surrogacy thing, I guess I could in theory be open to that — I believe am “meta-attracted” enough to be on par with my fundamental gynephilia, not that it's a practical thing to compare anyway — but if I have to put in the effort to be the pursuer, then I want to at least be pursuing a relationship that has some inherent potential for the whole “having kids” thing to be relatively straightforward.
Of course, every straight male has the fantasy of being actively wooed by a suitable woman; but you don't need to plan for the case where everything simply falls into your lap and works out perfectly; it's the genuinely likely positive outcomes that need to be harvested on purpose.
I have medium length hair kept clean and brushed out but broadly unstyled, and I always wear men's button-up shirts with either slacks or jeans. I am currently undergoing laser facial hair removal so I don't have to shave as often; but I don't wear makeup, I go by a conventionally male name, and I don't engage in “voice training” or any other kind of intentional attempts at acting “Queer” or performing femininity. While occasionally I will so-called “male fail” (people mistaking me for a woman, at least until I speak,) I'd like to think I barely even register on “gaydar”.
^I don't know whether that addresses your confusion. If it doesn't, I think I'll need a more specific question. If it seems like I'm intentionally dodging your request for my underlying ethos with an incoherent stream of nominally relevant but disconnected facts, I promise that I am not trying to be obtuse.
It may be the case that this “false advertising” strategy — that is a quote; I have been accused of it IRL, though not by anyone I actually dated — of simply dressing and acting a minimally surprising way while trying to find a partner, will prove a huge waste of both my own time and my prospective partners' time, and that my only actual shot at finding an excellent, willing life partner (of either sex) is to embrace some more flamboyant identity than the absolute-maximally conservative option, but I want to at least shoot my shot with this approach first as it feels the most natural to me.
Interesting. Thanks for being so forthright. As a straight male who has been wooed, it's not my fantasy and I'm not a fan. Just to get that out there.
I don't have much to offer, I'm afraid. Way different Weltanschauungen. Miles apart. But then perhaps I'm miles apart from many here, in different ways.
Probably IRL we could sit down and maybe I could straighten you out. Just kidding. We could have an interesting chat though, I bet.
I didn't click the embedded link. Maybe I will on my computer tomorrow.
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It's so strange to see /tttt/ rhetoric on here.
Do you take HRT from a prescription? Or DIY?
Sorry to mince words, but I believe I kept my post pretty free of rhetoric. I gave a true, relevant, and politically neutral description of the situation and why I'm approaching it the way that I am; and I imported two minor pieces of jargon which already breached imgeboard containment and made it into the wider internet lexicon 3 years ago and 13 years ago.
(If your choice of words wasn't meant that specifically, and you actually meant “jargon” or “ideas”, just ignore this; I'm only taking umbrage with the possible implication that I'm at least in part running some kind of scripted dialogue tree or other regurgitation that's been optimized for Persuasion. If you didn't mean “rhetoric” in that way, I apologize for my misunderstanding.)
Started DIY; currently DIY; though I spent a year or so with an MD supervising / writing scripts at one point. That was no value added and I got bad vibes from the doc anyway (in 2018 she had never even heard of bicalutamide despite allegedly being specifically an endocrinologist and prescribing HRT for other MtF patients; she tried to switch me over to spironolactone, which is known to cause long-lasting brain fog and may actually cause problems with breast development).
I may check out one of those trans and queer focused “telehealth” providers (doc-in-a-box / pill mill) now I'm 26 and could use a prescription to foist 80% coinsurance for this cosmetic maintenance medication off on my coworkers and employer via health insurance… thanks, Obama!
While I'm generally pretty skeptical about credentialism, since I've seen even well-regarded doctors make pretty bad mistakes, and especially trans-related stuff you tend to either get vastly over-hesitant (like your mentioned brain fog combo, I've also seen docs prescribe combos that have known cancer risks) or under-cautious, it can definitely be worthwhile to have a second set of eyes for a lot of the endocrinology stuff.
You're far enough along that you're not likely to see the 'whoops I accidentally a whole order of magnitude' level problems that come up in newbies, but even people who have good access to blood testing for things like liver function often find themselves least able to think through the numbers if there's a problem.
Sorry, you've probably already considered these tradeoffs, but the downsides are severe enough that I'm bound to offer it anyway in case you haven't.
Yeah, I did specifically add a hepatic panel during the first few months for the just-in-case on the rare bicalutamide allergy (and I add a metabolic panel to to boot, just ‘cuz).
Perhaps, though at least the specific doctor I did use — who was not marketed as a “pill mill” as far as I could tell — definitely wasn't a value-add.
Shopping around and trying non-“pill-mill” MDs to find one that is a value-add sounds like an untenable and unaffordable hassle while I'm not in range of a known-good(asterisk) option like Dr. Powers, versus my current strategy of just doing (self-serve blood work) + (DIY or pill-mill) + (keeping an ear to the ground on a few major transgender subreddits and the Transmaxxing discord channel).
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Jargon is a better word, I didn't mean anything by rhetoric. And it's not just the terms, I feel like your viewpoint is also very similar to the depressed repressors there, but I guess that has also (tragically) spread outside of the board.
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