oof, sorry for my U.S.-centrism 😳 I usually try to be better than that.

Usually T & E tests are a bit expensive, would be surprising to me if they tested again, but I see why you wouldn’t take the risk.

is there a way to get tofu to take on flavor that doesn’t require a lot of effort? I feel like I have to marinade overnight and cook it in the sauce for an hour before it seems to taste right 🤔

I suggest using this injection simulator: https://transfemscience.org/misc/injectable-e2-simulator/

Enanthate will take longer to peak and longer to eliminate from your system, so you can inject less frequently which is nice. I sorta wish I had legal access to enanthate, my only realistic option through a doctor is estradiol valerate.

Once you turn 18, going to a Planned Parenthood should get you access to a Rx and blood labs if that’s something you would like. You can also get a referral to an endocrinologist if you can find one that works with trans folks.

I hate to say it, but DIY seems like a good choice.

It’s insane that your parents test your blood for estrogen, that feels abusive and like something that should be illegal. What doctor is providing those blood tests? It is against medical guidance and a whole lotta science to not treat gender dysphoria, and even worse than going against medical advice, it seems like a form of abuse to intentionally withhold treatment and to use blood labs to ensure you aren’t getting treatment.

Have your doctors / parents / whoever actually engage with the medical and scientific literature, e.g. here’s a jumping off point: https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/

EDIT: I’m not a lawyer, but searching around I found that at your age you can probably legally reject the blood test, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mature_minor_doctrine

If the doctors try to force you anyway, they are probably taking on legal liability.

Of course - can’t wait to hear how your gardening experiences go, please share updates and photos!

haha, I had never heard of this song - thanks for sharing it!

Well done! It’s a scary and difficult position you are in, but you are handling it bravely and making what seems to me like huge sacrifices to accommodate the difficult feelings others are having. I can really relate to that.

I am so sorry your community and wife are not more supportive, no trans person should be forced to debate theology with their pastor or having long talks with friends calming fears about their transition.

I feel like you put words to some of my feelings - I also feel exhausted by being trans sometimes, and I wish I could “stop being trans” the same way you feel. Usually when that is going on, I try to pull back on some of the pressure I put on myself to try to pass or feminize. Avoiding mirrors, not shaving, not changing my voice, etc. It’s difficult because then the dysphoria is worse and I don’t necessarily feel better, but it can put off the obsessing perfectionism that I find so exhausting for when I am able to better handle it.

And so I don’t ask people to call me Amber, she/her, because I don’t feel like I deserve it.

This feels like a major red flag to me. Do you have a trans-affirming therapist you could work with? Do you feel anyone else has to earn their right to their pronouns or name?

It strikes me that you are making false promises to everyone, that you can continue to be the man-shaped person they see but that you are not. I understand that feeling, I was desperate to stay in the closet rather than come out because I didn’t want to burden people, make people feel uncomfortable, etc. Asking any one to refer to me with a new name or pronouns was too much, I felt selfish and ashamed. But it’s not too much to ask someone to call you by your name or pronouns, and I don’t feel it is too much when other trans people ask me to do that for them. Nobody has to “earn” the right to have their name. And it was a mistake when I told some conservative Christian family members they didn’t have to update how they referred to me when I first came out, because they felt entitled to that and it was harder to set that boundary later when it became increasingly more painful and difficult to handle being referred to with my deadname and the wrong pronouns.

It strikes me you are putting the illegitimate feelings of others before your actual needs, which is not a compassionate or kind way to treat yourself. If you treated someone else that way, we would think you were acting monstrously, no?

Insisting on maintaining all my relationships and support network is holding me back. My wife working her way through her own theology and gender issues is holding me back. And I can’t lose those, so I limp along, dragging the shattered remains of my masc alongside me.

Besides therapy for the gender dysphoria, have you considered finding a therapist that specializes in religious trauma? I think that would be appropriate at this point. You can be a Christian and be trans, of course, but not all Christians are trans-affirming and it sounds like that is something you are having to navigate right now (being in a community and family that is not trans-affirming for religious reasons). Having a therapist who knows how to help with religious trauma could be valuable, just a thought.

I second cowboycrustation’s suggestion that you consider finding a more accepting Christian community, even if it doesn’t have to replace your current community, you could find helpful resources there.

I wish you luck Amber - stay strong, you are deserving of love and like anyone else you deserve to be who you are. ❤️

I think cucumbers (and relatives like watermelon, squash, etc.) don’t transplant well due to their sensitive roots, so if you grow them in a large plastic pot, don’t expect to move them around or plant them in the ground later.

It sounds like you have a good approach to the gardening - most beginners take on too much and get overwhelmed. Starting small is really smart. Being clear and realistic about your goals is also a great sign.

Growing in the hotter south I always had trouble with cucumbers coming out too bitter, maybe due to the heat. I haven’t grown them much since, but I have heard from others that cucumbers can be really productive if you give them the right place (needs enough sun, water, and space).

thank you!!

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I live in a dangerous transphobic place (in the southern U.S.) and I socially transitioned months before starting HRT later in life (I’m only 7 months into medical transition, and almost a year since socially transitioning). You definitely don’t have to take HRT to transition socially, some people never take HRT and only socially transition (I would work with your therapist on why you feel you don’t deserve to socially transition). When I socially transitioned I did not remotely pass in the way I looked or the way I sounded, and I still don’t pass most of the time. (I think sometimes I pass now when just walking around in public, but even at a distance lots of people can tell I’m trans. I think I just went from “man in a dress” to “that person looks trans / gender-ambiguous”.)

All the anxiety you talked about was present for me, and you are right, it is crippling. I remember at one point googling like “how to deal with feeling so vulnerable and scared” and things like that. It was truly overwhelming. I thought I was going to be assaulted the first time I wore a dress out of my house (which was mostly in a car driving and then in the waiting room at therapy to talk about my gender dysphoria¹). But what I found was that almost nobody cared. The worst of it was just intense stares in places like grocery stores or restaurants, almost always from hyper-masculine looking men. It is rude, but it’s not the impending death my anxiety tells me it is. The reality of being seen as an “abomination,” as you call it, in public is radically different than how you think it will be, and tbh most people just don’t care if you are trans.

What I can say is that with exposure to situations like that, over time the anxiety lessens significantly. I felt panicky the first time I started to change my voice at work. I felt panicky the first time I wore a dress in public. I felt panicky the first time I came out to people at work or in my family, etc. But now, six months later, I get mild to moderate almost performance anxiety before speaking at work. It is mostly in the anticipation where the anxiety presents still, the waiting when I know I need to speak and the feeling that I won’t be able to produce a natural sounding feminine voice. You just get used to it, you get used to looking trans and not passing and sometimes people looking at you. (You probably won’t have nearly as much of a hard time as me, being so much younger, especially if you start HRT soon.)

What helped me was to recognize that because I couldn’t perfectly pass, I should relax while I’m in-between and still early in transitioning, so I can actually more effectively train my voice and feel comfortable in social situations. Perfectionism, the demand that you never slip and let anyone know you are trans, is unrealistic and counter-productive to transition. The tension and anxiety caused by that perfectionism get in the way of actually using a passing voice, for example. I get why we all feel that perfectionism, but at least for me passing is so far away that it was helpful to let that go as a strict requirement. Instead it’s a goal that I intend to orient towards, but which I recognize I will continue to fail at. Focusing on the failure doesn’t help me reach the goal, so instead I focus on what I can do to help get closer to the goal without getting so attached to the outcome that I undermine progress.

It’s hard to give advice, I don’t know you or your situation. I think if I hadn’t socially transitioned when the iron was hot (i.e. right after my egg-cracking), I am sure I would be having a lot of difficulty deciding to socially transition later. So I guess my tip to deal with the anxiety is to “just do it” and keep doing it and know it gets better. It is important to stay within “threshold” (i.e. not push yourself so much that you completely break down), but you might be able to handle more than the anxiety makes you think you can handle.

A part of my envies you, transitioning at 17 would have been much more ideal for me in terms of being able to pass. A lot of masculine features didn’t appear until my 20s, and it kills me that I didn’t transition younger. I think about the whole life I missed, not just as a woman but due to the depression and problems the testosterone caused me. Remember that you are doing something really kind to yourself, it is a gift to your future self. And remember you are not alone - lots of us are going through the same thing you are.

Oh, and I guess that does bring me to a certain point: starting estrogen can be destabilizing in some ways, but for me it massively helped my mental health, especially after a couple months of injections. I didn’t find bicalutamide (an anti-androgen) helpful for my mental health symptoms, and spironolactone has lots of reported negative side effects including creating mood issues so I refused to take it. I use estrogen monotherapy as my “anti-androgen”, i.e. sufficiently high levels of estrogen will block testosterone from being produced by the body. Estrogen is pretty safe when injected (oral & sublingual routes are less safe, though maybe most people are fine taking them; I just don’t think oral would be safe or reasonable for monotherapy, it’s too much).

You may or may not be like me, estrogen may or may not help your mental health. But before HRT I had regular horrific nightmares, anxiety, depression, constant passive suicidal ideation which at times became more acute and became intrusive active suicidal ideation, and a general unhappiness / grumpiness all the time. Estrogen literally reversed all of it. Estrogen most immediately solved my suicidal ideation, my unhappiness, and my depression - within a week or two of injecting, my motivation and energy were unusually high and I was getting things done that I had been putting off for literally years. I felt naturally happy for the first time since I was a child, and I realized I felt happy to be alive and no longer felt passively suicidal which hadn’t been true since I started puberty. The anxiety continued to be a problem for me but after a few months even that subsided dramatically. I think it takes a while for the body to adjust to new sex hormones, or at least it did for me. I still think it is adjusting and I have off-days sometimes, so it is not a silver bullet - it just made a big difference for me, made me a much more functioning person.

Not all trans people experience this, and estrogen doesn’t fix all mental health issues. It just really helped mine, and who knows - hopefully it helps you too.

¹ By the way, I found the therapist by searching online for therapists that are trans-friendly or deal with gender issues, I would advise the same since you may need the therapist to write letters for you if you elect for surgery (which is something I didn’t think I wanted when I started transition, but which changed pretty dramatically over the months, so keep your options open), and they may need to refer you if you decide to get an endo once you are 18 and no longer subject to your parents. I also recommend looking for a therapist with a PhD in psychology in particular, not all therapists are equal. Also, having a therapist that isn’t trans-friendly just seems like a bad idea. Transition will be a big part of your life and a therapist that isn’t accepting is not going to be a good therapist for you. At the very least having the conversation early about what they know about trans people and whether they are supportive or not will help you evaluate whether it is a good fit. You should also know, in places like Missouri, an autism diagnosis is used to deny HRT, so consider the cost / benefits of getting a formal autism diagnosis depending on where you live and what kind of legislation may be enacted. Trans panic is in full swing, so I just encourage being strategic (which is contextual, again - I don’t know your situation).

I wish you well - good luck in your transition!

thank you!!

If you want to gain weight it helps to incorporate high-calorie foods that don’t stimulate the over-full feeling, so something high in sugar like soda or ice cream. Obviously eating enough of that can cause metabolic disorders, but over time eating these kinds of foods will be fattening, though it can take a bit of time as your basal metabolism will increase and burn up the extra calories at first. Just be moderate I guess, obviously these are unhealthy tips, lol.

I have the opposite problem though, I struggle with losing weight and not over-eating (even when I’m eating really healthy foods). Fasting has helped me lose weight, personally.

It’s probably not a healthy tip, but I think there were some studies that showed being overweight led to more breast growth. It sorta makes sense, the breasts are a place where excess fat is stored. That said, being overweight creates lots of other health risks, so it’s probably not good to target that as much as fat cycling where you shed and put on weight might be part of a strategy of transitioning.

Have you talked to your doctor about it?

Just reading briefly, it’s normal to have low prolactin levels (less than 25 ng/mL) for women who aren’t pregnant. If you were trying to prepare to breastfeed and your levels remained low that might be something to talk to your doctor about. However, I wouldn’t worry about it for normal breast growth.

The things you should focus on to promote good breath growth are things that keep you in good health generally, like

• eating a healthy and diverse diet (e.g. incorporate more salads with vegetables and nuts, choose less refined sources of carbs like whole wheat instead of white bread, etc.),
• staying hydrated (keep water by you all day and drink it regularly),
• avoiding drug use (especially tobacco and alcohol),
• keeping good sleep hygiene (helpful PDF),
• regularly exercising (both aerobic and strength training, aim for 1 - 2 hours of intense aerobic activity per week),
• reducing stress (including worrying about your prolactin levels, lol; meditation can help with stress reduction & helping to identify and redirect unhelpful thoughts; recommended reading: Judson Brewer’s Unwinding Anxiety, and for a meditation manual, The Mind Illuminated by John Yates).