Feeling More Feminine
A short booklet to help transfeminine people ease their dysphoria.
(Disclaimer: This booklet is based on personal experience and community knowledge. Every trans woman’s body, transition, and relationship with femininity are different.)
For many trans women, estrogen isn’t enough to relieve all of our dysphoria. Femininity is more nuanced than simply having female hormones, and that is what we’ll be exploring throughout this booklet.
Feeling feminine is not completely dependent on simply looking feminine. In my experience, it is also influenced by two non-hormonal factors: psychology and aesthetic detail. The good news is that both of these factors are actionable, meaning we can take action to improve our femininity, rather than just waiting on the hormones to have more of an effect.
When you paint your nails or shave your legs, the result makes you feel more feminine, but the process itself is also highly gender-affirming. This is an example of where psychology factors into femininity. For many trans women, the process of dressing up, grooming, and styling can itself be deeply gender-affirming.
Dysphoria is different for everyone. Someone might have facial dysphoria, but not have chest dysphoria, or vice versa.
The areas that most commonly cause dysphoria, though, are usually the face, hair, chest, hips, hands and feet, muscles, voice, and genitalia. We will assess feminizing methods for each area one by one.
Hair
Head and body hair are probably the most difficult things to feminize and manage for trans women. Learning to style is hard, shaving leaves bumps, and hairstylists can be evil. But you can navigate these challenges.
See how you look with your hair up.
Wearing your hair up changes how your face is framed. Some people discover that ponytails or buns suit their face much better than leaving their hair down, while others realize the opposite. You won't know until you experiment.
Hair ties are incredibly cheap, and there are a million things you can try with your hair as a beginner. Ponytails are the easiest first step, and as you get more comfortable with working with your hair, you can try buns and braids! It isn’t for everyone, but it is important to try things when you are new to femininity. You might find your signature look this way.
If you're self-conscious about your hair, becoming a "hat girl" might be worth considering.
As a hat girl myself, there is no shame in wearing a hat if it makes you more comfortable. There are so many cute hats — hats with bows, spikes, flowers, designs, etcetera. Hat girls wear bandanas and headbands too!
Wearing a hat keeps your hair in place so you don’t have to constantly check your phone camera or feel insecure when it gets windy. It also complements your outfit, and can really set the entire vibe.
Even if you don’t want to be a hat girl, I still recommend looking at cute hats and trying a few.
Try wigs and extensions!
Okay, so this isn’t really making your hair look more feminine, but it can help you feel more feminine regardless.
Whether a hairstylist screwed you over, you don’t like how you look in hats, or your hair simply refuses to cooperate, you can skip all that stress with wigs. The best part about this method is that you can be a completely different person every day. You can go long or short, put your hair up or down, and you can do any color you want!
Wigs let you stop waiting for your hair to catch up with your identity. We don’t want to spend years waiting to be feminine, and hair can take a long time to grow to the length we want. Wigs and extensions allow you to have feminine hair without waiting through the long, excruciating process.
Once your hair is long enough, you can even practice cutting hair on wigs to learn how to cut your own hair. It’s hard to find a hairstylist you can trust, so many women cut their own hair. You can put wigs on a mannequin head to start if you prefer, then you can put wigs on yourself and cut them in the mirror — giving you hands-on experience without risking your own hair!
Can’t forget about body hair!
Shaving can leave a million bumps and ruin your self image. I have experience with this. Luckily I found the perfect fix.
Instead of shaving up or down against your body hair, shave from side to side. This reduces the risk of irritating your skin, while giving a closer shave than shaving downwards.
While shaving, it is good practice to have a protective barrier that prevents the blade from damaging your skin. I highly recommend Aveeno Shaving Cream (not sponsored). Then after shaving, you must cover the area in non-scented lotion, and I recommend Aveeno lotion as well. Pat dry your skin with a towel, don’t rub it. You may need to reapply lotion to the area a few times between the next shave, to prevent delayed bump formations.
Hips
Estrogen helps us have more feminine hips through a slow process called fat redistribution. Body fat is generally redistributed downward during this process to your hips, butt, and thighs. If you eat consistently and get good sleep, you will give your body the necessary resources to effectively feminize your figure.
Aside from hormones and lifestyle, there are aesthetic elements to help feminize and accentuate your hips.
Get a big collection of belts.
Belts are the best hip accessory. Not only are they cute, they also have a place on almost any outfit and add greatly to your aesthetic. They make your hips more prominent, and can be used whether or not you have belt loops.
There are belts with rhinestones, glitter, skulls, cool buckles, and so much more. You can stack a second belt on top of your belt to add even more fashion points — this is a common practice of mine, and it is also popular in fashion subcultures like “Y2K” and “McBling”.
Collect chained accessories!
There are cute chained things that you can clip to your belt loops on your hips. Fluffy poof-ball hearts, little stuffed animals, pants chains with all sorts of designs, and even chained wallets! All of these are great accessories that can bring an appealing look to your hips.
Try harnesses.
While harnesses are often used with the thighs in mind, there are several harness designs that specifically accentuate the hips as well. Harnesses are, in my opinion, way underused in outfits. I absolutely adore them.
There are sexy harnesses that connect from the neck all the way down to the thigh, and there are also smaller harnesses that only cover specific areas. Certainly worth a try.
Face
Estrogen will help feminize your face, but like other body parts, estrogen alone doesn’t always achieve a fully female-passing face.
There are a few relatively simple things we can do to feminize our face, and these methods require us to adopt a certain mindset: beauty is pain.
Becoming more feminine can take a lot of work, learning, and patience. But practice makes perfect. These methods may seem difficult, but are very rewarding and become much easier and a natural part of your life over time.
Makeup.
Some people who do makeup are really talented. But you do not need talent to do makeup well. This section is designed specifically for beginners, and the makeup routine I’ll be discussing can be done in less than 5 minutes.
For a basic everyday look, you don’t need to learn a thousand different fancy words like contour, bronzer, mascara, etcetera. You only need a few tools to complete a cute, beginner-friendly look.
This is my personal makeup routine, but it is extremely simple and could work for any beginner. We start with eyeliner. I use liquid eyeliner but it isn’t required. It is hard at first to focus on writing a line on your eye, but I promise that it is easy after a few tries. I put it across the entire length of my eyelid, but some people like to cut the line a little short. It’s a completely stylistic choice.
After the eyeliner, it’s time for eye shadow. I love using black glittery eye shadow, but you have the whole rainbow to choose from so you should try different colors too! It is okay to wipe the brush across your eyelid to get the job done faster, but it will be easier to just pat it when touching up small areas. After the eye shadow, you can apply mascara, but it isn’t required!
Next, use tinted hydrator. I use Wet n Wild (not sponsored). It greatly feminizes your face by concealing blemishes and giving your skin an even tone. I put one small dot of it on each cheek, one on the chin, and one on my neck, and then pat the tinted hydrator all across my face and neck. You don’t need too much of it! It is also hydrating for your skin, which is a huge advantage if you plan to wear makeup every day.
Next, just add some lip gloss and we’re finished! Now that you’ve got a basic makeup routine down, you can explore tons of tutorials online to try fun things like eye wings! But just a simple everyday routine is all you really need to achieve effective facial feminization with makeup.
Facial piercings.
I highly recommend trying them. I can’t emphasize enough how big of a difference a single facial piercing can make for your facial femininity. Piercings on your nose, lips, eyebrows, tongue, and even your cheeks are all amazing ways to immediately feel more feminine.
You can stick with one signature look, or you can build a massive collection of jewelry for your piercings. It gives you so much stylistic range that you didn’t have before.
Try eyewear.
Eyewear isn’t for everyone, or even necessarily for everyday. But a cute pair of shades can greatly help with facial insecurity, or simply be a cute little addition to your style!
Shades of all kinds can be super cute, but so can glasses! I recommend seeing how you feel about your face with glasses on. If you already wear glasses for your eyesight, see which feminine pairs you like!
The beauty of eyewear is that we not only have the ability to cover our eyes, but we can literally change our eye color as well! While no eye color is inherently feminine or masculine, contacts let you see which colors feel personally more feminine for you. I’ve been thinking about getting pink contacts lately!
Chest
Estrogen and progesterone help greatly to form breasts. The time it takes can be excruciating though, and there is no guarantee of full satisfaction when your breasts are fully formed from hormones. Like other parts of the body, trans women have figured out ways to add appeal to their breasts.
Consider getting a pair of breast forms.
Breast forms are fake breasts that you wear under a bra. They are much cheaper and safer than surgical implants.
To be transparent, I haven’t tried them myself yet. I’m going to though.
There are both expensive and inexpensive pairs available online, ranging from roughly $20 to $100, and I recommend buying the expensive ones if your wallet allows for it. They are designed with the purpose of being invisible under clothing, and they add multiple cup sizes to your chest.
Trans and cis women alike both use breast forms to feel better about their bodies. There’s no shame in trying.
There are so many cool bras waiting for you to try on.
Fashion shouldn’t be simple or boring, especially when we’re desperately fighting our own natural disadvantages. Standard bras at the store are okay, but I encourage you to experiment.
You can find amazing stuff online. Bras that incorporate chains, mesh, gems, chainmail, and more. You might get addicted to them.
It’s also worth trying both padded bras and sports bras. Padded bras increase the perceived size of the chest, and conversely, sports bras tend to compress the chest, but have a distinct feminine aesthetic of their own that is worth trying — especially for the sake of comfort.
Hands and feet
Unlike the face and chest, the hands and feet change very little with hormone therapy. Femininity here is completely dependent on your body, and also the effort you put in.
The methods for making both of these areas feel feminine are incredibly intertwined. Bracelets and anklets, nail polish and gems, rings, and all sorts of cool gloves and socks.
Beyond just accessories, it is also incredibly helpful to consistently use lotion on your hands and feet. Soft skin is very gender-affirming and achievable. Exfoliation also can help give your feet a distinct feminine glow.
Voice
Arguably the most dysphoric part of ourselves. For most us, even if we begin to like looking in the mirror, we are still reminded of our insecurities every time we speak. Trans men get natural voice changes from testosterone, but we get nothing.
Unlike the rest of this booklet, there is no accessory or glitter to fix this issue. There are only two methods to achieving a feminine voice: vocal training and vocal feminization surgery.
Many guides will say that anyone can train to have a feminine voice. But this isn’t necessarily true. It is especially difficult for trans women to take any progress if they can’t afford years of voice training classes. Doing it alone is difficult, and some people just have much larger vocal tracts than typical cis women, leading to years of effort without success.
The bittersweet truth is that the best option for some of us is to get vocal surgery. Roughly three quarters of all vocal feminization surgery patients report being satisfied¹, with only a minority of them getting revision surgery. Videos of trans women before and after surgery are astonishing, and give us a real chance to sound the way we want.
Sadly though, it is not a magic procedure, and while you will have a femininized vocal tract, you will need to do some training to avoid masculine speaking mannerisms and adopt feminine ones. It can also be expensive, but there are some states that offer transgender medical procedures completely for free with Medicaid, and I was lucky to be born in one (New York). It is worth considering moving to a trans-haven state, because states like New York provide low-income individuals with completely free healthcare and dysphoria treatment.
The mannerism differences you will learn in training are usually resonance, pitch, thin vs. thick voice, breathiness, and more. You will learn to stop dropping pitch at the end of sentences and instead raise it, among other things. Achieving a distinctly feminine voice is a lot of work and can be a lot of money too, but it might be the last step you need to work towards to fully feel feminine.
Muscles (focusing on legs)
When you’re on HRT, time will feminize your muscles, but of course, we hate to wait.
The best way to feel more feminine in these areas is to accessorize them and cover the parts that stick out.
You can completely hide the blemishes and marks on your legs with pantyhose!
There are near-completely transparent pantyhose that you can wear on your legs, hiding all the bumps and imperfections. Even up close, you can barely tell at all that you’re wearing them. It's an absolute life hack.
Though I recommend transparent pantyhose for when you want to show off your legs, there are a million different designs to do and I encourage you to try them. Fishnets with skulls and spiders, cloth tights with lace, and tons of other things that can make you learn to love your legs!
Leg warmers!
The calf area can be a common source of dysphoria. Testosterone causes a lot of muscular growth with very little effort, which is why our calves can take a while to feminize after a lifetime of male physical development.
After the 80s, leg warmers stopped being a public obsession, and over time it instead became adopted as a favorited accessory in alternative sub-genres.
They can match a skirt and form the foundations a full outfit, and simultaneously hide your muscular insecurities. I love wearing them.
Thigh harnesses!
Many fashionable women prefer seeing their thighs covered in leather straps. I wish more people did it.
You can easily add style points to your outfit and nullify your insecurity with an inexpensive harness. They are aesthetically compatible with many looks. They often feature chains, cloths and ribbons, and cute buckles!
Genital Dysphoria
Not all trans women have dysphoria in this area. But for those that do, there are a couple gender-affirming methods to utilize before you are able to get surgery.
Tucking it.
Tucking can be super uncomfortable, but it is a great example of beauty being an uncomfortable process.
It doesn’t remove the problem in your mind but rather it hides it from your eyes, making you dwell on it less. It also makes you pass more to others.
Try receptive sex.
Not all trans women are bottoms, or even switches. But if you are struggling with feeling feminine, being the receptive partner during sex can be deeply gender-affirming for some trans women and ease genital dysphoria.
Bottoming can be highly stressful for the first time, and the stress can ultimately ruin the experience. It can be equally gender-affirming to try practicing alone, which is always recommended anyway for anal sex.
Toys, lube, and maybe a supportive partner are all great ways to help you feel like a woman. It might not be for you, but it can be a fun coping mechanism.
Conclusion!
If you’ve read this far, I am very grateful!
I hope you have gained some useful tips from this booklet that you can apply to your own transition to help you feel more feminine.
It is important to remember that transitioning is different for everyone. So is fashion, dysphoria, and bodily preferences. This guide is not meant to be a list of requirements for femininity, but rather as a tool to figure out how to cope with your dysphoria. Always try your best to be patient with your body and your hormonal changes.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading!
Reference:
Nolan, I. T., Morrison, S. D., Arowojolu, O., et al. (2019). The role of voice therapy and phonosurgery in transgender vocal feminization: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, 30(5), 1368–1375. https://doi.org/10.1097/SCS.0000000000005476
