THE SEARCH FOR MANHOOD

This is where I'll be documenting my transition. Mike, he/him

[everythingisliminal]

When did you start HRT?

full moon

waning moon

new moon

waxing moon

see results

Voting ended onSep 21, 2025

I'd love to hear your reasoning!

[kindlysirwolf]

still waiting to get on HRT but this was interesting to think about!

honestly excited to see what the sky is like when i start, but leaving when up to chance. ive been wowed by checking the chart of the moment for things i did without consciously choosing the time, but have usually felt meh about when ive tried to elect a time.

once i scheduled a haircut when mars was on the MC. cause y'know, planet most associated with masculinity. thought other chart factors balanced out malefic effects well enough. only time they've ever cancelled on me, the barber got heat sickness! so now im like. okay… imma just leave it up to the universe…

that's where im coming from as someone who's interested in Hellenistic astrology. if it's just moon phase, i think id go for a waxing moon.

it feels like it aligns with that sense of growth and upward movement. but id prob go for a more mature moon closer to full. my natal moon is just before first quarter and i feel like that really was ominous of how much struggle growth has come with, id want the omen of my HRT journey to say, "the hard part's done, now it's time to watch things come to fruition"

[kairosrhys]

Pastel Skies and Quiet Paths 🌄🌳

[hungercityhellhound]

Things People Don’t Mention About Top Surgery or Mastectomies

There is reluctance to do the surgery if you live alone, even if you have a good support system. One of the most stressful things was the hospital constantly asking about who would be looking after me, picking me up, etc. I really felt the bias towards people who are married and against people who are single. I don’t think it was intentional but it was definitely there. (Please read more about this situation here) That being said you will definitely need a robust support system of some kind to get through everything in the first 4 -8 weeks or more after surgery. 

All your pill bottles will have safety caps and you won’t have the strength to open them on your own without a lot of struggling.

There are soooo many medications. Take them as prescribed and when they say take the level of pain meds you need to manage your pain, do it. I got opiods and ibuprofen. If the pain is bad 5-7+ on the 1-10 scale take the stronger meds. Pain can slow healing by causing stress on the body.

Drains are a pain in the ass. Every hour pushing the hoses so they don’t clog. Major drag but they are very important and if they get clogged it can cause issues

Sleeping sitting up, prepare for this. Lots of pillows or recliner or something. Practice for a week or more before surgery to get used to it. 

Sleep as much as you need. Don’t feel like you should stay awake or whatever because you are supposed to or it is day time or whatever. Listen to your body.

Drink lots and lots of fluids. You may think you are drinking enough but you probably aren’t. The fluid in the drains and the medicines and peeing all the time and sweating from the tight wrap. You need to replace all of this fluid. I think I have been up around 80+ oz the past few days.

The month before and a month after surgery eat a high protein and higher calorie diet. It will help with surgery and recovery. You need the energy and the protein to recover. 

Cut out added salt, caffiene, alcohol, and nicotine before surgery and during recovery. All of these can increase fluid retention, slow healing, or be dangerous with the meds.

Your chest will feel very strange. At first you can’t feel anything and then the skin feels tight everywhere and still strange. The recovery process feels real weird. Your whole torso feels kind of bizarre and new.

Ask all the questions. No question is stupid. It’s trauma to your body ask all the questions. YES all of them.

The tube (intubation) from surgery irritates the throat. Coughing from this sucks so damned much because of the binder and the chest tightness and what not. Find lozenges (Both cough drops and just candy) that you like. I say candy because too many cough drops can upset the stomach and you don’t need that after anesthesia and with all the meds. Also get popsicles.

Take everything out of packages you can before surgery. They are damned hard to open. Those paper cartons holding the apple sauce and snapping apart pudding cups and pulling apart pill blister packs.. ugh I should have taken them apart before the surgery.

Scissors are your friend and every package is an enemy. Seriously, get a good pair of scissors for packaging.

Also, skip 2 liters of pop, gallon of milk, etc. They will be too heavy to pick up after surgery. You can be more independent if  you get smaller size things.

Timers are your friend. All the phone timers forever. Also, handwritten or some other chart type to keep track of drain cleaning and taking meds. You will be sleepy and forgetful the first few days. Use other things to help you keep track.

Take stock of how your lights go on and off. Can you reach them while pretending you are a T-Rex. If not, especially ceiling fans and that, put long strings on the pulls so that you can operate them while you can’t raise your arms.

Also check your doors to make sure they don’t stick. You won’t be able to tug hard on doors or drawers or whatever.

Get yourself some treats. Food related or clothing or whatever. Treats will help.

Before surgery plan out and prepare at least a week of meals. Be sure to include some that are easy on the stomach like crackers, rice and chicken, etc. Just in case you have stomach upset from the anesthesia or meds. Gentle foods include starches and chicken/tofu that is low fat and low spice so that it is gentle.

Soft fuzz free and easy to get on clothing is essential. I went out and got a couple of those shorts and button down shirt pajama sets. Life savers. Also, get a size or two bigger than usual to accommodate drains and padded bandages and things. 

Strange pains, you will probably have them. 

Be sure to do the arm exercises as directed by your surgeon and watch your shoulders hunching. The shoulder hunching is from the chest tightness but you don’t want your back to start hurting. Try to sit up as straight as you can.

Pump action soap dispensers will be too hard to use the first few days.

Weeks before surgery, start teaching yourself how to do things without your arms; like standing up, getting into and out of bed, squatting, getting up from chairs, etc. Practice doing things with your elbows next to your chest like a t-rex; getting food and drinking, brushing teeth, taking meds, etc This will be very important

I am sure there are more but I thought some of you might benefit from the things I have learned so far from going through surgery.

[101koach]

[carrotkake]

[demilypyro]

this is stupid just take it

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

https://twitter.com/vagina_museum/status/1628046312275935232

[rhinco]

when cis people talk about my pre-trans self its he/him and my name. when i talk about my pre-trans self she's a young girl and i killed her and dug her grave with my bare hands and one day i will lie down with her again and our bones will intertwine. you understand

[roach-works]

i casked of amontilladoed her. sometimes i go down to the basement and lean against the last couple bricks missing from the wall and we share a drink. she was so, so tired, you know? and it’s very quiet down there, and she’s safe. the wine is very sweet.

[mueritos]

Hello!! I am calling for transmasculine individuals and their partners to take part of my research into sexual health and sexual education for transmasculine communities! Yes, this also means transmasculine individuals who have not or won’t medically transition! If you are interested, please see above, and I highly recommend going through the intake form on desktop to allow yourself easy access to important documents related to my research. You can access the form below, and if you have any questions, I am happy to answer them through inbox, pm, or email :)

If you are not eligible for this project, please share it! I would like to have a wide range of participants to aid my research ^-^

RESEARCH INTAKE FORM

[transman-pheonixwright]

Okay but this is what I mean when I say that nobody is going to be liberated until people stop being so possessive over the bodies of trans men and transmasc+ people.

[spacelazarwolf]

te/rfs are literally just incels but with added feminism

[prof-grace-aspen]

And they can never prove why the trans man is "ugly" without showing their whole fucking ass.

"he's hairy now" - but I thought cis women not shaving and having body hair and celebrating it was part of feminism?

"but he has a beard!" - so do you not care about cis women with natural facial hair? Just gonna ignore the histories of cultures who historically found facial hair on women beautiful?

"he's fat" - so fat liberation isn't part of your feminism?

"he's balding" - Half the cis women on my dad's side of my family went bald. Are we shaming women for this now?

"he has acne" - so did you as a teen. was it helpful to call you disgusting and ugly? didn't think so. Body shaming isn't feminist.

"top surgery is disgusting" - so cis women breast cancer victims with double mastectomies are disgusting?

"bottom growth/surgery is disgusting!" - your obsession with other people's genitals, especially people who have no desire to fuck you in the first place, is fucking weird. But also - guess intersex women are gross now too!

It's all just body shaming that is both sexist and racist at its core.

[neverlove-anchor]

It's really disgusting how we are at the same time treated as a tragic loss while also being separated from our own bodies. We, the trans person, men, have deprived them of a beautiful woman they felt entitled to. How that is not incel shit with pink smeared on top idk

Trans men and mascs pre everything or the ones who don't transition are poor victims. Oh, poor naive innocent (+autistic most of the time, cause why the fuck not) little girls who didn't know how to deal with mysoginy. But as soon as we transition we are not only traitors, but thieves, we are stealing the women that were rightfully (in their own opinions) theirs by exercising our right to bodily autonomy. I'm so sick of this

[queeranarchism]

Trans history: whatever happened to the other T?

I don’t know how universally relevant this is (I guess no part of queer history ever is) but I wonder how many trans people know the history of T&T groups.

Like, in the 90′s and 00′s in the Netherlands almost every trans related groups was a T&T ‘Transsexual and Transvestites’ group and that seemed to also be a quite common thing in other north-west European countries for as far as I can see. Maybe beyond Europe too? I’m not sure.

People who called themselves transsexual and transvestites at the time felt that they had many experiences in common that made organising together valuable and many agreed that there was a large grey area of overlapping identities. With very little information available, a lot of trans women identified as transvestites first, before identifying at trans women (in that period often using the term Male-to-Female transsexual and transwoman without the space between the words).

Then, in about 2007-2012, things changed. Transgender became more popular than transsexual and crossdresser largely replaced transvestite. In those early days, the term transgender was often understood to include crossdressers. The transgender umbrella is from that time:

Back then, the word transgender was seen by many as the umbrella term that would unite all the struggles against gender roles. But that grouping together was far from uncontroversial and a lot of heated debates took place over how broad or narrow the transgender umbrella term should be. Some feared too wide an umbrella would take attention away from transsexuals, others feared it would be confusing, some groups that had previously only had transwomen and transvestites did not appreciate the new presence of transmen and transmasculine people in their transgender community, some felt that it was very important to distinguish binary-identified transsexuals from all sorts of weird non-binary identities.

Those who took part in the debates probably remember the specific standpoints in more detail. For me, I just remember how in 2008-2012 all the T&T groups started changing their names to ‘transgender groups’ and then slowly but surely focussing more on only those transgender people that wanted some kind of transition, physical or social. Eventually, transvestites (or crossdressers, as the common term was by then) disappeared entirely from the transgender groups and a lot of transgender people forgot about the earlier wider meaning of transgender as an umbrella term.

Within that same period, there started to be a LOT of new and fairly positive media attention for transgender issues, specifically transition related atttention. The media was no participant at all in the ‘what does transgender mean’ question but the questions they did ask were ‘are you on hormones yet?’ and ‘did you have the surgery’? Since that was a lot better than ‘so are you mentally ill because you want to be a woman?’ a lot of people who fitted the hormones + surgery narrative eagerly accepted this ‘positive visibility’ and did not question the narrow focus. This further cemented the view that transgender meant transition.

And the transgender activists? Well, let’s just say many of them, knee deep in a struggle against terrible health care and cruel human rights violations, leaped at the opportunity to seize the momentum and finally make some changes and many didn’t really give much thought to the slow disappearance of transvestites from the newly named ‘transgender’ community.

So where are we now, in 2018?

The transgender community seems to have largely forgotten about their T&T history. The terms transvestite and crossdresser both seem to be in decline, as are the communities that meet around those identities. Younger people who don’t fit the gender binary but also do not desire social or physical transition, are now more likely to identify themselves as some kind of genderqueer and nonbinary or just ‘not into labels’ or just to wear whatever they want and rock it. Some of them find their way back under the transgender umbrella after all. Which I guess is some kind of a happy ending.

But then theres the question of recognizing our legacy. I don’t think a lot of these young people realise that, had they been born 20 years earlier, many of them would probably have found a home in the transvestite community. I don’t think a lot of young transgender people recognize older transvestites as their elders, who paved the way for them. I often get the impression that they view the dwindling groups of 50+, 60+, 70+ transvestites with an element of disdain, as people who held on to a regressive binary identity, instead of as like - their badass grandfather-mothers who build parts of trans history.

[queeranarchism]

Over the last 24 hours, some trans people have responded to this with some truly nasty comments about transvestites and crossdressers, mostly accusing them of stuff like ‘degrading femininity’, ‘fetishizing’, or ‘giving trans people a bad name’. Invariably, the people writing these comments were young. Invariably, their only frame of reference seemed to be stigmatizing media portrayals and they clearly have no idea what they’re talking about.

I am not going to dignify these comments with a response because they’re too disgusting to reblog, I do not think they would listen and frankly reading them fills me with far too much emotion to write coherently.

I just wanna say: this is what happens when we are so quick to forget our very recent history. Despite the many debates and divisions that have existed in the past, few trans people could have had these completely off-the-wall misguided ideas 15 years ago because if they travelled in trans spaces they would have met so many transvestites and crossdressers. They would chat and hang out and probably make friends. They would swap experiences, share hardships and learn to recognize transvestites and crossdressers as siblings in the community of gendernonconforming and marginalized people.

My heart breaks for the young crossdresser out there today who might enter a trans space looking for their community of supporting likeminded people, only to find out that they are not welcome and even despised. I can only hope that if this happens, some older trans people will talk some sense into their younger community members and remind them of the long road transgender people and crossdressers have walked together, the battles we fought together, the crossdressers who fought for trans rights and the trans people who fought for their siblings too because we understood those struggles as interconnected.

When we forget where we come from, we fail to recognize members of our own family, and we are all lonelier and more divided as a result.

[queeranarchism]

#huh this is fascinating#does anyone have any sources about this stuff beyond that image?#i mean i believe op just fine but it’d be neat to see more about these sorts of groups#google was….extremely unhelpful

Actually, I have more! But first, a little google advice when researching recent post-internet history: type in phrases from the time you want to find, in this case stuff like ‘transsexual’, ‘transgender’, ‘transvestite’, ‘transgenderist’ (no really that was a word people used). Click Tools > time > custom range and set a range you want. Like maybe 200 to 2010? See if that helps. 

ok, now my stuff, ill start with some more from the Netherlands

This is a 1975 party ticket to celebrate the 5 year anniversary of the Transvestite and Transsexual workgroup and contact group (meaning they did activism and community meetings).

This is another 1975 document: a brochure of the National Contact Group for Transvestites and Transsexuals, which, according to the content, strives towards self-acceptance, emancipation and education. Their ‘target groups’ are listed as transsexuals, intersexuals, transvestites and men who wear skirts. Believe it or not, for a while man-in-skirt was treated as an identity label for gendernonconforming men, who formed communities with other men-in-skirts.

There’s more recent stuff to be found too. 

This 2012 poster has it all. It announces a transgender information day with information for transvestites, transsexuals, crossdressers and part-time women.

Something in English? Alright, here’s an image from 2014 when, for a short time, people tried to make trans* with a * the most inclusive term like the + in lgbt+:

Something older in English too?

This is a 1994 transgender umbrella, from when the concept was still quite new. You’ll notice that the language here is pathologizing. This is the only source on my list not written by a trans person but by a cis therapist.

And here’s a 1990 leaflet showing some terms considered ‘respectful’ by many community members then.

Even older?

Here’s a beautiful 1971 article from the Detroit Gay Liberator, (Volume 1, issue 8, January 1, 1971) titles ‘transvestite and transsexual liberation’.

There is a gap, as you’ll probably notice. A lot of 70′s stuff has already been archives and a lot of 2010+ stuff is easily accessible online, but the early internet stuff is harder to find and not as prominent in archives yet. Still, there is much more like this out there. www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net has a lot of it.

What you’ll find, again and again, is that the exclusion of transvestites from the language of trans community and trans rights is very recent. We walked most of this road and fought most of this fight together.

[queeranarchism]

I’m not going to respond to every person in the notes because … a lot to unpack there a lot of the time… but just in general: if you’re writing something along the lines of “okay but transvestites and gendernonconforming people are cis and do we want cis people in our spaces? etc”, you are missing the point.

The word ‘cisgender’ is new but the idea it is communicating, the idea of the ‘not-trans’ or ‘non-marginalized-not-us’ is not new at all. And for most of trans history, transvestites and gendernonconforming people were definitely considered ‘us’ and the idea of including them in the ‘not-trans’ seemed ridiculous. It was obvious that transvestites and gendernonconforming people shared in the same oppression and benefited from the same liberation.

Those who pushed a more limited concept of trans, one without transvestites and gendernonconforming, did so impart because they wanted to set a trans-cis binary in which trans could be clearly distinguished from cis without messy grey areas of gender nonconformity.

In pursuing that goal, they crafted a narrative in which trans people suffered transphobia, but transvestites who had to hide who they were or face social exclusion, loss of employment, street violence, etc. did not. The early 2010s internet had a lot of really nasty stories of imagined privileged rich transvestites sipping cocktails in villas while lobbying for their own interests while homeless transsexual youth were dying on the street. Those stories were bullshit and no such power-imbalance between the two groups existed but these stories helped cement the idea of a more privileged group unjustly claiming space in marginalized groups (if you have any experience with exclusionary movements this should sound familiar)

tl;dr: The conceptualization of who was included in ‘trans’ directly impacted who was included in ‘cis’. If transvestites hadn’t been driven out of the concept of trans, it would never occur to you to call them cis.

[rowark]

(X)

[goomymegpoid]

I wish this feeling upon everyone who wants to wear a dress, its really the best

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[treeshidingleprechauns]

This tiktok about someone’s pre-transition self is so so SO tender and I just want anyone who has transitioned and may be mourning their old self to see this and to know it’s okay. It’s okay to miss that person you once were, it’s okay to wish you had embraced what you had and who you were before transitioning. It doesn’t mean you regret it, and it doesn’t mean you made the wrong decisions.

It’s okay to think about that person, it’s okay to mourn them, and it’s okay to wonder. The person you were before transitioning may have been a trick of the light, but it doesn’t mean they weren’t special while they were here.

Everyone’s experience is different… but if you find yourself feeling this, just know it’s okay. You don’t have to completely block out every aspect and memory of who you were before. It’s okay if you do, but you don’t have to.

[desarea-doodles]

♥️♥️♥️

[sistertaxon]

being in your 20s is like (unlocks repressed memory of being transgender at age 6) (unlocks repressed memory of being transgender at age 8) (unlocks repressed memory of being transgender at age 4) (unlocks repressed memory of being transgender at age 10)

[the-bright-path-deactivated2021]

[jamesreborn]

I checked and gender is still an illusion. Happy TDOV babes. 💕