Fuck, yeah, that’s always a rough one.

Honestly, I really struggle with using women for porn, and porn happened to be how I came to recognize my desire to be a woman and enjoying women. You’re allowed to recognize the exploitation of women in porn and that yeah, porn effects how we are socialized to view women. If you used it to cope, it’s understandable to be conflicted over losing an easy relief. But we should recognize that yeah, the way you may subconsciously objectify women in porn is something you can empathize with, and so understand why we have to stop doing that to women. Nobody expects you to like, punish yourself if you do it, but yeah that discomfort can be a safe learning space for self-respect.

A lot of us can understand the confusion that also comes with that socialization. We really are taught that it is just a nasty kink, and that gets mixed up in the desire to be a woman, no matter what that means or where you have to go to safely fantasize about it. It is honestly sucks to have to process that as you start to see yourself as a person, and it’s not gross to feel like you have to pretend it is some kink a little because it is overwhelming. You can trust that you won’t need to do that as you grow into yourself.

As far as the male masturbator thing goes, that’s totally valid if you do actually not want to use them anymore. Some people don’t like it even if it feels good, because yeah, it may give them some dysphoria. That also doesn’t mean it always has to give you dysphoria, maybe you’ll find that you have fun being butch sometimes, who knows? Just keep track of whether it just feels good, or fulfilling.

It is really demoralizing to feel lonely in a room full of people. There is that growing issue with queer communities where, for a number of reasons, the culture is less about solidarity and support than it is belonging. I’ve always felt a bit of a disconnect from queer communities just because of my indifference to what is imagined to be queer culture, and preference against clubbing.

One thing that I notice a lot of trans women struggle with is the fact that being “presentable” as a woman takes a lot of work; for everyone. Cis women are raised to develop the habits and skills that are necessary to take care of your hair, do makeup, skincare, etc., and so a lot of trans women get that wave of dread when the initial joy of realizing themselves settles in. Yeah, like, you don’t need to voice train or go through the bureaucracy to get the laser hair removal, and so it starts to feel like work just to be yourself.

I don’t know about you, but decades of being closeted and oppressed has kind of eroded my daily energy levels, and has inspired a trauma response in me when I feel like this happiness could be taken away from me, even if by my own inaction. Being a student while you’re learning all those skills, trying to find a version of you that you can socialize with, and recovering from a lifetime of pain is understandably an unfair and exhausting position to be in.

Oh yeah, they’ll get real stiff when your breasts are developing; I’ve had the same issue. Like others have said here, sports bras do help to just smooth everything out so they’re not poking through. TomboyX is a popular brand (I’m not a huge fan of their quality, but it’s tough to find trans-friendly underwear elsewhere), and you don’t have to buy sports bras from them, but they do sell bralettes that allow you to wear a bra without needing to have fully developed breasts. Some of their bras even have pad slots if you’d like to have breasts while you’re out of the house, or want that support as they come in.

It is both unfair and relieving that a full night’s sleep can actually make everything easier. It’s so easy to forget that eating, drinking, and sleeping actually effect your mood and energy levels when you’re, y’know, trying to not be part of your body the entire time.

I’m going to save this and send it to a friend or family member who trusts me dearly, while they’re having a bad trip.

That’d be just lovely. I might be lucky that I’m more butch – some old men think that I’m just a young man who finally dresses right – and so boymode for me may not be as traumatic as it is for more femme people.

wow, ecofascism speed run right here. “Humans,” deserve it? Human entitlement? You sure there isn’t something more specific than that which doesn’t also construct humanity in a way where colonized people who have fought this the entire fucking time aren’t naturally deserving of suffering because of some innate, human behaviour that they must also have?

Yes, I’m sure it feels like “strawmaning” or unfair or whatever because you don’t mean to say that, but this is the narrative you just accepted. Think about who would benefit the most from that narrative, those colonized people, you, or the fucks who actually have power in this system and intend to commit even further genocide on colonized peoples to keep this all going? Which one of those three would most benefit from the assertion that this is a result of “human entitlement,” and not a specific system built to benefit a narrow group of people?

Had to boymode for an event with my partner’s family, which wasn’t a ton of fun. I don’t know about any of y’all, but I feel like we should get at least a week off every time we have to do something like that.

I don’t even know if it was the gendered element of crying. Certainly that was an element, but I’ve never really wanted or cared about appearing masculine enough beyond like, understanding I’d be punished for defying those norms. The way we teach and allow men to defend themselves often also forces them to use aggression and anger, or they’ll be left to defend themselves from other men who take gentleness as weakness, and are always anxious about their position in the hierarchy. Unfortunately, even if you live in a place that allows some marginal deviation from those gendered norms, most men are kind of stuck with other men, and if you don’t get along with them (as many trans women obviously don’t), you’re defending yourself a lot. So, it’s also just a survival coping mechanism to use anger over sadness when these are emotions that are so often interlinked and cooperative.

I honestly have just always had a hard time crying, even when I wanted to. I mentioned it elsewhere on this thread, but it felt like there was a literal block in my eyes that kept me from doing it. Being trans just also makes you have to clamp up a lot, and maybe there’s a psychosomatic element in how much relief you can safely indulge in before you’re in danger. I don’t want to discount the gendered socialization by any means, I know we all have to suffer through untangling that from ourselves, but it is always tough to tell if I had internalized a behaviour, or adopted one to secure my own sense of identity (like not getting along with men because I refused to be like them, and did not let them behave the way they all let each other behave).

Oh my god yes, it’s like I was cut off from an entire realm of emotional and bodily understanding. I felt these emotions the entire time (and worse), but there was no way of externalizing them.

Pretty much the same here, it’s like that valve was blocked and now all the pressure releases .

Yeah, it’s another injury forced on us. But, it also allows you to foster an optimism for the unbelievable in a way that most people are highly discouraged from ever hoping for. Some of you may meet this with humour, but try accepting the discomfort and learning how to live with it, use it, and get excited from it.