At this point in my transition
(is still a transition) everything for me, being a women that is, is very much normal and almost taken for granted!!!
I used the word ‘almost’ because I can never take this for granted after all I’ve gone through – what I mean is that daily activity as a woman is not questioned by me nor looked at with this “oh wow – I’ve made it” type of wonderment.
There are occasional dysphoric moments, for example, seeing a reflection of myself when my hair is blown back and my face seemingly looking too masculine or interpreting a look from someone as evidence I’m not “passing”. These are rare and for the most part I now walk through life with the assumption that everyone’s first impression of me is as a female.
In other words, I have a confidence now. In situations where there are people that know that I’m a trans-woman, I have no issue being open and sharing, as long as they respect me ‘as a woman’! And that is becoming more and more the norm!
Most everything has stabilized. Even my weight is under control... It was very hard to lose weight and so very easy for me to gain it. This is very different from before hormones. As a result, I’m now down about 44 pounds from when I started to live openly as Trisha. My breasts have grown perhaps just a little where they can nearly fill a B cup, my aureoles are more pronounced and yes I definitely need to wear a bra. I would also say I have some curves in the right places that I didn’t have before.
Every now and then I wake up in the middle of the night and adjust the blanket – taking it off a bit because I got too hot only to put it back on later because I got too cold. For a while I thought this was outside temperature changes (in Maui I have all the windows and the sliding door to the lanai open in my bedroom – Lisa and I both loved the fresh air). But this was happening too often for this to be that. It’s night sweats – mini hot flashes. Cis women that I know that are post-menopausal have said that ya, they never really go away. Not as intense, but still there.
As mentioned previously, everything has pretty much stabilized, probably around 2 to 3 years ago, physiologically when I stopped my usage of hormones. For those of you that are within those two years – trust me – it actually does get better (that is so hard to believe when you are going through those first years). Physiologically, I'm now equivalent to a woman that has had a hysterectomy: I probably need to take estrogen again. After about 3 years, my body just fell right into that rhythm – it is absolutely amazing what hormones do and the effect they have had my body. They really do switch the body over, and not just external features, but a lot more.
I never thought my male face would ever come close to passing – this was a huge concern of mine and was a cause of a lot of dysphoria for me (one of many …). I’ve had some electrolysis (there are less hairs on my face than most women have!). This helped, of course, but it was the estrogen that built up a (hate to say this) ‘fat’ layer under the skin that caused my weight gain. This makes the face, arms, legs (everything) much softer and more feminine. I can’t believe the before pictures of me compared to how I look now. I also can’t believe how soft my skin is now ..
One other thing to mention: I will sometimes get this certain feeling when I’m in a store or restaurant or group of people, I’ll be concerned whether I’m ‘passing’ or not, or perhaps just an un-comfortableness. I will usually excuse myself and leave. Just recently someone was badly beaten up in Portland. Then another incident down south in the Willamette valley. To a certain extent, I think it’s important to be concerned about how we look and ‘passing’. I think there is a healthy side to this. This is similar to what a lot of natal women experience as well, regarding how they dress and how they are seen.
Well, in the interests of getting this finished and posted, I’m going to finish here. I can include more details in my
next post.
Trisha Roberts
March 19th 2020
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