I always wondered why that line resonated with me so much... now I get it.

How exactly do you shave your back?

Sitting in my underwear, torturing myself with my new toy, I thought: "What I'm doing now is pretty fucking girly. I love it."

I can make all the sounds, but maintaining a feminine tone is still pretty hit-or-miss. Since I spend all day at work talking to my team online, I figured it would be good to use that time for voice practice. (I'm already out, so hopefully they won't think I'm going insane)

I've been slowly pushing the pitch up over the past few weeks to avoid straining, and with a pitch tracker going it looks like I'm sitting at around 150 Hz right now (for reference I usually aim for 200 Hz when training, which I can comfortably manage for short periods). Not quite target pitch, but at least I'm not dropping out of the androgynous range too often. End-of-day huskiness is slowly getting better but my resonance is all over the place.

Anyway, how do you all get your practice hours in? Any fun anecdotes? I'm still in awe of all the trans women on Youtube with perfectly passable voices.

I'm not complaining, mind.

Hello, everyone. Hopefully I'm not doxxing myself too badly if I reveal that I live in Japan, which is not a great place for trans healthcare.

The standards of care here are still from the stone age, and date from a prosecution under Japan's widely reviled eugenics laws (fortunately repealed in... 1996). Yes, that's right: the guidelines themselves state they're to protect medical practitioners.

The key requirement is to jump through enough hoops to convince your doctor that you really do know what you want, and then do it all again with another doctor, just in case the first one was biased towards the patient. The hoops include, potentially, genital exams, karotypes, interviews with family and coworkers, and RLE. There's no set timeframe, but six months to a year seems to be the standard. Only then can you access any gender-affirming care, including HRT.

Now fortunately there is a loophole. Any treatment started outside the scope of the guidelines can be taken over by the evaluating doctor concurrent with the inquisition. And, as it happens, I'm not personally bound to follow anything.

So, with the sound of a month's supply of my new favorite hormones in convenient gel form hitting the mailbox, I'm ready to start DIY! Hopefully my doctor (who I'm due to see for the first time in October) will be cooperative. From the sound of it a lot of people are using the same trick...

If you want to be a girl, you are one.

It took me a while to understand what people meant by that (or maybe I just couldn't accept it?). The difference between "I'm a girl and I like it", and "I want to be a girl" is simply one of perspective.

So it's almost exactly two weeks since my first session. I went to one of the high-power places that needs a medical license (at least in this country), but my somewhat light-colored hair and total lack of pain during the procedure made me really worried. The first week or so showed no progress, the hair seemed to be growing as normal. Then it got a bit thinner, or maybe I was imagining it?

But no, just today, it's been a whole day and almost no stubble or shadow! About 80% has just vanished (most of what remains is on my upper lip and beneath the jaw). I realize that the dormant follicles and so on are going to wake up soon, but I've still got several sessions to go.

So if you've just started and had the same worries as me, really: wait two weeks!

I am unreasonably excited about this. Sorry, past self who waited so long for his beard to come in: you don't need to worry about trying to look masc any more!

(Happiness to despair)

1. Dressing fem feels so good!
2. Everything that fits is in the wash.
3. Guess it's boymode today
4. I can't even just no

So I seem to have gone from "this plain T-shirt is secretly from the women's section, nobody will notice!" to "goddammit I'm dressing like a man I feel so ridiculous" without realizing. Um.

Happy ending, though: I forgot to unpack the skater skirt and stripy socks from my Trans Starter Pack™. Very un-stylish but who cares!

It's super cute, but not so feminine as to contrast my face.

It hides the bits that stick out where I don't want them to.

It fakes the bits that don't stick out where I do want them to.

It's comfortable. It's (a little bit) spinny.

I'm never taking it off! That is all.

Crying Menhera-chan

Top caption: Called the clinic to book pre-HRT counselling

Bottom caption: What if I'm not trans enough for them to give me hormones

PS Image uploads still broken :(

I was going to make this a meme, but image uploads are broken.

So after spending way too much money and buying All The Things on Amazon, I've noticed a pattern.

1. Browse clothes
2. "Oooh, that's pretty!"
3. Check size
4. Shucks, too small
5. Buy it anyway