Thank you for your supportive comment! Informative, and it made me laugh at the end :). I live in a small city in Alabama, USA. We’re definitely on the lighter end of possession of trans resources, and people around here can be pretty transphobic. However, it’s also a growing college town, and I have a friend from high school who I’m trying to reconnect with that transitioned here. So, the resources are definitely available, but they’re probably few in number.

Thank you for sharing resources! It’s really gratifying to have such support! Do you know of any gender therapists I can reach out to online, by chance?

Thank you for giving such a throrough response, there’s a lot for me to respond to here!

I don’t think my name is very me, so I’m probably going to change it. I used to go by Citra but that was more of an alter-ego, a less “normal” name, rooted in self-denial, that I used while crossdressing in college. I don’t think I care about getting gendered or named correctly. It’s extremely gratifying, yes, but I don’t think being deadnamed or using the wrong pronouns will bother me, which I honestly think is a healthy, even necessary, view to have as a trans woman because it’s gonna happen.

I love hearing your positive stories about those early transition growing pains, I’m so grateful to have such a human take on transitioning right now. I already have moments like that, and I really think that the awkwardness of not knowing exactly how it’s done at first is an endearing aspect of not just transitioning, but being human as well.

I’m equally excited and scared to start living as a woman. I know women (not to mention those of the trans persuasion) have so many problems that I not only don’t experience firsthand as man, but are also often concealed from my gaze entirely. But I’m so ready for that. Challenges are challenges, and people are sexist and transphobic, but I hope it will be more fulfilling to actually be going through a woman’s struggle than it will be difficult.

Personally, I don’t think bottom surgery is something I’m interested in or need to feel like a woman. It scares me a tad bit, and I’m not sure the procedure itself has advanced enough to the point where I’d be comfortable with it even if it was something that I felt I needed. Losing sexual pleasure is really something to which I’m averse. Not that I would ever try to tell someone else that it’s wrong for them or wrong in general, those are just my feeling on the matter. I don’t want to force you to wallow in your what ifs and regrets, but I was wondering if you had any other things you wished you had done differently so that I might be able to apply your advice to my own journey?

Obviously the physical stuff like softer hair and skin wasn’t completely there pre-transition; but, on the topic of the parts of your personality that you said you now love, do you think those aspects were always part of you or driven by your journey into womanhood? If they were always part of you, were they something that you viewed negatively while living as a man?

Thank you so much again for your thoughtful response. I already feel immediately included by this community, and it’s heartwarming.

I’m so happy for you! If my mom ever told me I was a pretty girl, I’d cry. And also same… I kinda wish I didn’t spend my high school years internalizing homophobia and transphobia. I legitimately used to think that apathy was the key to getting through life… lol. Beginning this next step of my life has really made me realize how much I care about everything when I’m trying to be a girl. I can’t bring myself off the couch normally, but as I’ve started to view myself as a girl, my mind has been racing with diets and workout routines I can start, clothes I want to buy for myself, decorations for my space, and different looks I can try with makeup. How are the hormones going? Sending much love your way.

EDIT: typo

Oh wow! Thank you so much! Looks like one of those therapists is only an hour away from me, so I could potentially even see her in person!

Thank you! That was a lesson I had to learn the hard way, but I think I’m finally there.

Lol, I’m not sure a goth phase is in my future, unless girl puberty just sucks. Not that goth isn’t beautiful, I just spent so long living in a pit that I’m overflowing with joy and gratitude and love and I want my fashion to reflect that! My fiancee is being very supportive of me. Tonight was the first night that she used she/her pronouns offhandedly to refer to me. She started seeing me as a girl when I came out, it’s just the first time she’s had the chance to use my pronouns as you don’t generally refer to someone like that to them directly. Anyway, it was just the most gratifying moment ever.

I love your name by the way, as soon as I came out, I had Christine and Kristen bouncing around my head (No, my deadname is not Chris).

I’ve tried a few distros now, and none have been so easy as Pop!_OS. I’ve switched back to Windows before, but not since this last time on Pop!_OS. It’s just so simple to use out of the box, they like to use flatpaks (which I LOVE), and the UI is so clean and intuitive that it would be hard for me to go back for that reason alone. Automatic. Fucking. Window. Tiling.

In regards to gaming, System76 puts in so much work on their end to make Pop!_OS a gaming beast. They even have a separate download of their distro specifically tweaked for compatibility with Nvidia cards, which is huge! I love using the terminal, but the Pop! Shop app that they inclue is such an intuitive way to find new apps (that are curated, specifically for ease of use with the distro) and easily check if there’s a flatpak version.

TL;DR Pop!_OS, hands down

Fucking awesome. I love my Dreamcast, but it stopped reading discs recently :/

Obligatory mention of New Vegas making sexuality a set of perks, just like in real life.