7 January - how my feelings are developing

I have been thinking today about how I am feeling, how I’m seeing myself, what I’m feeling about the future and so on. 

I haven’t yet begun hormone treatment or anything really, so there is no basis for this change other than mindset. 

I feel more a woman than ever. I feel more certain that I will transition. Unfortunately, I also feel dysphoria way more than ever before. 

Last night I slept in the new crop top I bought. It was still comfortable when I woke up and I kept it on for a couple of hours before the family got up, by which time I was barely aware of having it on, so I’m happy with the fit and comfort. This is actually my least pretty item of underwear, being entirely plain and made for comfort not attractiveness but it has taken on a greater significance for me than anything else I have. That’s because I bought it for a purpose and part of my transition journey. I will wear these when I begin hormones and start breast development. That is the single biggest thing that I have dreamed of since I was aged eleven and saw the girls at school change in this way and wished I was one of them. This is significant enough for me, but the bigger deal is that I feel sure that this is what I am going to do. I am going to transition, so I will start taking hormones, I will develop breast buds and hence I need to get some suitable underwear for that. Anything that I have bought in the past has been to try what it is like or how I look with a vague wish that I might one day do something. This is preparation for something that I am doing and that feels significant. 

Where this new found vertical come from I don’t know. It is probably a combination of the small things I have been doing to try and make myself more feminine and behave as a woman where I can. Taking them all together, I am feeling that I have started to live as a woman, even if only in a preliminary way. 

One of the small things I have done was to shave off all my body hair and shave my legs, which does make a huge difference to being able to see my body as female rather than male. It does grow back annoyingly quickly though so today I have had to go over myself again to get the smooth feeling back. 

Feeling feminine and being able to perceive myself with a female-looking body and legs is wonderful. 

However, it has also made dysphoria worse, and specifically genital dysphoria. If I look down my body, I have a feminine crop top giving me a little bit of shape, a smooth tummy and waist, female underwear, smooth long slender legs and toenails painted pink. And in the middle of this is an ugly bulge. My knickers are cute, but they don’t sit right on my body because of the hideous thing that they were not designed to contain. 

When I was hairy and looked masculine it didn’t bother me that much. Now, the more feminine I try to make myself, the worse it becomes. 

I know this is the opposite to how the trans medical pathway works, but I wish it were possible to have bottom surgery first rather than the last thing they do. It feels like it still being there whilst doing all the other feminisation makes it more incongruous with the rest of the body and a greater source of dysphoria. If I could have GRS first, then I would be like a cis-girl starting puberty and that feels like it would be better. 

Try to end on a positive though: I’m feeling more confident and certain that I’m doing this and more of a woman all the time. These are good feelings.