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. 😉
