Social LGBTQIA+

Bella said:
Hey all, Bella again. For those who don't know me, im a 17yr old tgirl living in most C+ / B- tier city in the nation (Colorado Springs). I wanted to post an update while also asking for advice. This will be in the style of my last "serious post" for the record, so sorry if it sounds like all of a ramble. Got a lot in my brain and just need to let it out
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the time of writing this post, its now been just about 7 months since I started Estrogen (which, give or take, I have taken about 205 pills since then, since I've missed a few days) . I've decided to play it safe for the most part about it all. I've been on 2mg / 50mg for the entire time and don't plan on bumping up my dosage atm because of both my issues with paying for it and not wanting the effects to be that noticeable for the time being, since I still live in my extremely socially conservative evangelical household.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly, HRT has been a mixed experience for me. The first month and a half felt great, and I felt on top of the world, but since then I've kind of just felt, well I guess the term is meh? About it all..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TW: Discussion SH and ED (though in a positive light) for the next part.
On the one hand, Estrogen has been great for me in a few ways. The mental clarity for the first twoish months was great, and I have noticed some chest growth and slowing of body hair growth which is always nice. Its also helped me better handle my issues with SHing and my ED fairly well, and while I still struggle with both of those things its now a much less consistent thing for me. It feels good in that sense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the other hand, Estrogen has had its downsides, which I feel like not a lot of people talk about, although I feel like this is because not a lot of people have the same experiences I have had in my life. In a sense, I feel both guilty being on E while also feeling like I am wasting the opportunity from it. I feel guilty because I feel like I'm wasting it. In all metrics but on the medical standpoint, I'm not transitioning. I can't socially transition safely yet. The lack of motivation to do barely anything anymore means I have basically near given up on even attempting to train my voice to sound even vaguely fem and not awful and masculine. I have exactly one (1) IRL connection in my life who I talk to often who knows Im trans, and even then I have not seen them in months due to various circumstances. I don't even own any more feminine clothes anymore because, well, to make a long story short, I had to get rid of them. It makes me feel wasteful of it, honestly. I feel like.. I don't deserve it. I know people in much different positions than me (be it they are older, socially but not medically transitioning, having parents who actually love them but aren't socially or medically transitiong, w/e) who absolutely deserve this medicine more than I do, yet somehow I'm the fcking idiot on it. I get there's "being stealth" and stuff but honestly.. I don't know. It just doesn't.. feel like that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I thought Estrogen was going to help me deal with my dysphoria better or something, but honestly? In a weird, completely twisted way, I feel like its has barely changed anything -> even making it slightly worse? I want to be a woman so badly, and I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, and in a sense I feel like I should be. Estrogen should be making me happier with myself. Estrogen should be helping me deal with my dysphoria better than it does atm. Instead, I feel like all this medicine going in my body is nothing but just placebo to me. It's supposed to make me feel like a woman more, but it doesn't. In my mind and in the mirror I still see a man taking some fucked up medication to mutilate himself, and I hate it. I don't like the feeling at all and I just want it to stop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So I guess my point with this post and all is how am I supposed to deal with these feelings? How do i stop feeling completely guilty about the opportunity I was given with my medication and how can I get myself to like myself more even in a situation I find myself in?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm sorry for being in a ramble again and ruining the mood the previous messages had. I hope everyone takes care of themselves.
Click to expand...
Don't blame yourself for not being able to "properly" transition under your circumstances.
It's not your fault when it's not safe for you to socially transition yet. As long as you're dependant on your family, it's the right choice to be careful.
Remember to live a little tho. If you can hide clothes or makeup somewhere, absolutely do experiment with it.
Also E takes time. Since the changes happen gradually, you won't notice them right away unless you're looking for them
 
Bella said:
Hey all, Bella again. For those who don't know me, im a 17yr old tgirl living in most C+ / B- tier city in the nation (Colorado Springs). I wanted to post an update while also asking for advice. This will be in the style of my last "serious post" for the record, so sorry if it sounds like all of a ramble. Got a lot in my brain and just need to let it out
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the time of writing this post, its now been just about 7 months since I started Estrogen (which, give or take, I have taken about 205 pills since then, since I've missed a few days) . I've decided to play it safe for the most part about it all. I've been on 2mg / 50mg for the entire time and don't plan on bumping up my dosage atm because of both my issues with paying for it and not wanting the effects to be that noticeable for the time being, since I still live in my extremely socially conservative evangelical household.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly, HRT has been a mixed experience for me. The first month and a half felt great, and I felt on top of the world, but since then I've kind of just felt, well I guess the term is meh? About it all..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TW: Discussion SH and ED (though in a positive light) for the next part.
On the one hand, Estrogen has been great for me in a few ways. The mental clarity for the first twoish months was great, and I have noticed some chest growth and slowing of body hair growth which is always nice. Its also helped me better handle my issues with SHing and my ED fairly well, and while I still struggle with both of those things its now a much less consistent thing for me. It feels good in that sense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the other hand, Estrogen has had its downsides, which I feel like not a lot of people talk about, although I feel like this is because not a lot of people have the same experiences I have had in my life. In a sense, I feel both guilty being on E while also feeling like I am wasting the opportunity from it. I feel guilty because I feel like I'm wasting it. In all metrics but on the medical standpoint, I'm not transitioning. I can't socially transition safely yet. The lack of motivation to do barely anything anymore means I have basically near given up on even attempting to train my voice to sound even vaguely fem and not awful and masculine. I have exactly one (1) IRL connection in my life who I talk to often who knows Im trans, and even then I have not seen them in months due to various circumstances. I don't even own any more feminine clothes anymore because, well, to make a long story short, I had to get rid of them. It makes me feel wasteful of it, honestly. I feel like.. I don't deserve it. I know people in much different positions than me (be it they are older, socially but not medically transitioning, having parents who actually love them but aren't socially or medically transitiong, w/e) who absolutely deserve this medicine more than I do, yet somehow I'm the fcking idiot on it. I get there's "being stealth" and stuff but honestly.. I don't know. It just doesn't.. feel like that.
Click to expand...
Hi! I'll give my perspective, which is one of multiple.

I understand where your feelings are coming from, I have had experience with similar feelings, and they are completely normal and expected, but a good starting base is that they are incorrect thoughts. You do deserve HRT, and you are already a woman. Of course, dealing with the feelings is not as simple as saying that, but understanding the truth rationally / surface-level can be helpful even before you fully internalize it.

Another good rational-logical starting point is that you did not ruin the mood at all. You used this space for its intended purpose with thoughtful and vulnerable perspective.

The fact that other people don't get access to Estrogen is not your fault. You deserve it because you are a trans girl. We all deserve to chase happiness, comfort, and self-realization, to live as our true selves and pursue our best lives. That other trans girls do not get Estrogen is a failing of society, not you.

Your impulse to sacrifice something so critical to you, just so someone else you don't know can have it, is rooted primarily in not valuing yourself enough and thinking you don't deserve it. Sacrificing and helping others can be great and healthy, but only when these actions are rooted in healthy views of yourself, others, and ideas. As you continue growing and learning and understand how to value yourself more, your impulse to change will change into a healthier form. Sacrifice rooted in self-diminishment just eats away at you and allows others to exploit you. Nobody and nothing is entitled to you eating away at yourself, to you destroying your heart, for its sake. Great sacrifice can be noble, but it must come freely, and not from obligation. Our lives and very selves are all more precious than that.

I plan to talk about your feelings of liking yourself more and doubting your womanhood in another post.
 
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Bella said:
I thought Estrogen was going to help me deal with my dysphoria better or something, but honestly? In a weird, completely twisted way, I feel like its has barely changed anything -> even making it slightly worse? I want to be a woman so badly, and I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, and in a sense I feel like I should be. Estrogen should be making me happier with myself. Estrogen should be helping me deal with my dysphoria better than it does atm. Instead, I feel like all this medicine going in my body is nothing but just placebo to me. It's supposed to make me feel like a woman more, but it doesn't. In my mind and in the mirror I still see a man taking some fucked up medication to mutilate himself, and I hate it. I don't like the feeling at all and I just want it to stop.
Click to expand...
Your reaction is not weird at all.

Estrogen is a helpful tool to internalize and accept the truth – that you already were and are a girl. But it is just a tool, and only one tool. We need combinations of tools that meet our many wants and needs. I think Estrogen is part of your winning combinations, that you should keep taking it, and finding a good set of other tools alongside it will support it.

You're in the phase of life where you're learning what combinations of tools work for you. Your taking Estrogen has been part of this process. Alongside taking Estrogen, you can learn more about what other tools work well alongside it in your combinations.

I spent much of the past 5 years intensely searching for tools, and here is some of what I learned.
  • Tools often feel most helpful a short while into their use, and less helpful after. It is empowering to discover a new dimension of yourself or solve a problem, but this high doesn't last forever. That is normal and healthy.
  • Some tools are still useful, or have potential to be useful, after this high. These tools should stick around. Some tools were valuable in the moment of the high but won't be after, and these are OK to move on from. Both types of tool interactions are normal and healthy. It's good to both keep some tools stable and change other tools around.
  • Different parts of ourselves often link into each other. Helping one part of ourself helps others. This isn't just physical-mental links, like diet, exercise, and outside time helping us clear up our mental world. Different mental dimensions often support each other - or strengthen each others' dysfunction.
  • Searching for tools takes a lot of personal investment and a lot of time. Doing whatever you are internally motivated to do - even if it feels silly, or not enough - means a lot. After all, making progress in one area often helps another area. You get stronger over time.
  • Healthy support of you, both from yourself and from other people, is helping your journey to becoming the person you want to be, not what other people are hoping you'll be.

Learning what combinations of tools work for you, and facing obstacles on the way, is not being an idiot. That's growing up. You don't have the answers because you're finding them now, and you can't have them before you've found them!

You're so young, and with so much potential. You're 10 years wiser than your 7 year old child self. There will come a time you're 10 years wiser than the you of today. And then 20. And then 30. And more and more and more.
 
Bella said:
Hey all, Bella again. For those who don't know me, im a 17yr old tgirl living in most C+ / B- tier city in the nation (Colorado Springs). I wanted to post an update while also asking for advice. This will be in the style of my last "serious post" for the record, so sorry if it sounds like all of a ramble. Got a lot in my brain and just need to let it out
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the time of writing this post, its now been just about 7 months since I started Estrogen (which, give or take, I have taken about 205 pills since then, since I've missed a few days) . I've decided to play it safe for the most part about it all. I've been on 2mg / 50mg for the entire time and don't plan on bumping up my dosage atm because of both my issues with paying for it and not wanting the effects to be that noticeable for the time being, since I still live in my extremely socially conservative evangelical household.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly, HRT has been a mixed experience for me. The first month and a half felt great, and I felt on top of the world, but since then I've kind of just felt, well I guess the term is meh? About it all..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TW: Discussion SH and ED (though in a positive light) for the next part.
On the one hand, Estrogen has been great for me in a few ways. The mental clarity for the first twoish months was great, and I have noticed some chest growth and slowing of body hair growth which is always nice. Its also helped me better handle my issues with SHing and my ED fairly well, and while I still struggle with both of those things its now a much less consistent thing for me. It feels good in that sense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the other hand, Estrogen has had its downsides, which I feel like not a lot of people talk about, although I feel like this is because not a lot of people have the same experiences I have had in my life. In a sense, I feel both guilty being on E while also feeling like I am wasting the opportunity from it. I feel guilty because I feel like I'm wasting it. In all metrics but on the medical standpoint, I'm not transitioning. I can't socially transition safely yet. The lack of motivation to do barely anything anymore means I have basically near given up on even attempting to train my voice to sound even vaguely fem and not awful and masculine. I have exactly one (1) IRL connection in my life who I talk to often who knows Im trans, and even then I have not seen them in months due to various circumstances. I don't even own any more feminine clothes anymore because, well, to make a long story short, I had to get rid of them. It makes me feel wasteful of it, honestly. I feel like.. I don't deserve it. I know people in much different positions than me (be it they are older, socially but not medically transitioning, having parents who actually love them but aren't socially or medically transitiong, w/e) who absolutely deserve this medicine more than I do, yet somehow I'm the fcking idiot on it. I get there's "being stealth" and stuff but honestly.. I don't know. It just doesn't.. feel like that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I thought Estrogen was going to help me deal with my dysphoria better or something, but honestly? In a weird, completely twisted way, I feel like its has barely changed anything -> even making it slightly worse? I want to be a woman so badly, and I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, and in a sense I feel like I should be. Estrogen should be making me happier with myself. Estrogen should be helping me deal with my dysphoria better than it does atm. Instead, I feel like all this medicine going in my body is nothing but just placebo to me. It's supposed to make me feel like a woman more, but it doesn't. In my mind and in the mirror I still see a man taking some fucked up medication to mutilate himself, and I hate it. I don't like the feeling at all and I just want it to stop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So I guess my point with this post and all is how am I supposed to deal with these feelings? How do i stop feeling completely guilty about the opportunity I was given with my medication and how can I get myself to like myself more even in a situation I find myself in?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm sorry for being in a ramble again and ruining the mood the previous messages had. I hope everyone takes care of themselves.
Click to expand...
many people have said good and thoughtful things both here and to your previous post so i dont have a ton of input but

yeah E takes time. but really, you probably wont notice a lot of changes even if you ARE looking for them. everyone is impatient with their own progress, it came free with the dysphoria - odds are other people may notice changes better than you. ofc perfectly normal to be frustrated about it, but as mentioned above, your self perception is intrinsically warped. you could live in lib city with rich gay parents with all your friends in fifteen polycules and start to transition at 12 or whatever the fuck and you would still deserve it. its not about circumstances being greater or lesser, seeking out the things you need isnt playing into some imaginary zero sum game. you are being productively proactive about your transition, which is good! anyway, very happy for all the girlies who rave about HRT like its magical fairy dust, but the reality HRT is not a panacea even if youre juiced to the max and physically transitioning for most of us is a slow hot mess. work and save to get the hell out, grind to get a scholarship, exercise, take care of your diet, seek out safe spaces in your city, tap into gender neutral clothing, find more queer people to talk to online, play the deranged horse gacha game that every trans person except for me seems to be on, anything you can manage to make it a little less miserable is worth it. if being trans has done anything for me its at least given me something to work towards. just remember to zoom out and look at the big picture sometimes
 
Bella said:
Hey all, Bella again. For those who don't know me, im a 17yr old tgirl living in most C+ / B- tier city in the nation (Colorado Springs). I wanted to post an update while also asking for advice. This will be in the style of my last "serious post" for the record, so sorry if it sounds like all of a ramble. Got a lot in my brain and just need to let it out
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the time of writing this post, its now been just about 7 months since I started Estrogen (which, give or take, I have taken about 205 pills since then, since I've missed a few days) . I've decided to play it safe for the most part about it all. I've been on 2mg / 50mg for the entire time and don't plan on bumping up my dosage atm because of both my issues with paying for it and not wanting the effects to be that noticeable for the time being, since I still live in my extremely socially conservative evangelical household.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly, HRT has been a mixed experience for me. The first month and a half felt great, and I felt on top of the world, but since then I've kind of just felt, well I guess the term is meh? About it all..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TW: Discussion SH and ED (though in a positive light) for the next part.
On the one hand, Estrogen has been great for me in a few ways. The mental clarity for the first twoish months was great, and I have noticed some chest growth and slowing of body hair growth which is always nice. Its also helped me better handle my issues with SHing and my ED fairly well, and while I still struggle with both of those things its now a much less consistent thing for me. It feels good in that sense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the other hand, Estrogen has had its downsides, which I feel like not a lot of people talk about, although I feel like this is because not a lot of people have the same experiences I have had in my life. In a sense, I feel both guilty being on E while also feeling like I am wasting the opportunity from it. I feel guilty because I feel like I'm wasting it. In all metrics but on the medical standpoint, I'm not transitioning. I can't socially transition safely yet. The lack of motivation to do barely anything anymore means I have basically near given up on even attempting to train my voice to sound even vaguely fem and not awful and masculine. I have exactly one (1) IRL connection in my life who I talk to often who knows Im trans, and even then I have not seen them in months due to various circumstances. I don't even own any more feminine clothes anymore because, well, to make a long story short, I had to get rid of them. It makes me feel wasteful of it, honestly. I feel like.. I don't deserve it. I know people in much different positions than me (be it they are older, socially but not medically transitioning, having parents who actually love them but aren't socially or medically transitiong, w/e) who absolutely deserve this medicine more than I do, yet somehow I'm the fcking idiot on it. I get there's "being stealth" and stuff but honestly.. I don't know. It just doesn't.. feel like that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I thought Estrogen was going to help me deal with my dysphoria better or something, but honestly? In a weird, completely twisted way, I feel like its has barely changed anything -> even making it slightly worse? I want to be a woman so badly, and I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, and in a sense I feel like I should be. Estrogen should be making me happier with myself. Estrogen should be helping me deal with my dysphoria better than it does atm. Instead, I feel like all this medicine going in my body is nothing but just placebo to me. It's supposed to make me feel like a woman more, but it doesn't. In my mind and in the mirror I still see a man taking some fucked up medication to mutilate himself, and I hate it. I don't like the feeling at all and I just want it to stop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So I guess my point with this post and all is how am I supposed to deal with these feelings? How do i stop feeling completely guilty about the opportunity I was given with my medication and how can I get myself to like myself more even in a situation I find myself in?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm sorry for being in a ramble again and ruining the mood the previous messages had. I hope everyone takes care of themselves.
Click to expand...

Most changes don’t happen until you’re in year 2-3, and even then, they happen so gradually that you might not be noticing it at that point in time. There are also lots of other factors that come into play with how hormones affect your body. I didn’t notice any changes until I was a year on hormones, and I was on a higher dosage than you. This is a marathon, and you have to be willing to do the long run to see the changes.
 
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hope you all are having a good summer! that guy clearly wasn’t. anyways, here’s a pic of me and bae:
We broke up so im deleting this but just imagine me and then a carbon copy of me who is wasian
i came out as gay to my mom the other day so that's pretty awesome :)
 
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Hey all! I'm transfem!! (I think) :3

I'll prefer she/her but I won't be able to transition irl (or even change the pronouns on my discord bio to she/her because people irl have my discord) anytime in the foreseeable future because of where I live, the relatively hostile climate towards LGBTQ+ people here, traditional Chinese values & the fact that people I know irl are generally bigots so don't worry too much about pronouns.


Never really thought about my gender too much until recently when I nicknamed myself "Princess Cresselia" in a couple of discord servers with friends & I loved feeling be cute & being treated femininely. After this, something hit me a couple of days ago that I might not be cis, from then on, after talking with a few friends online, I came to this conclusion & came out in some very supportive discord servers like the Smogon Diplomacy discord & among the EiPP community.

There were definitely clues before this- for one, I enjoyed playing female characters more in video games- always told myself & people irl I was playing them based on mechanical reasons (F!Byleth in fe3h being able to autorecruit Sylvain, F!Alear in engage being able to take better advantage of some personal skills, May in Emerald having to read less dialogue from the rival, Zelda in ssbu being a fun character to play etc) although looking back these advantages were frankly quite minor & I was probably making excuses solely to have a reason to play the female character rather then actually playing female characters because of the mechanical benefits.

I also always loved the color pink & cute things- my parents disliked this & people irl thought I was weird for liking the cute Pokemon more then the edgy ones so I pretended for years my favorite color was blue/red & that I disliked cute Pokemon/characters in video games. Sounds super silly now, but then it felt like something I had to do. This facade only really came off not that long ago when I accepted that my favorite Pokemon was Cresselia & that Rosado from fe engage is one of my favorite fictional characters ever

I still have some doubts though. Rationally I definitely think I'll be happier female & I would 100% click a button that would turn me into a girl & make everyone I know think I was a girl the entire time, but obviously that is not possible irl. I don't feel like a girl whenever I look into the mirror or talk & it makes me feel like I'm just pretending online sometimes & it feels like shit.

My irl environment also sucks a lot- I hear slurs daily at school & basically every person there is extremely bigoted despite my school being quite progressive for a school in HK. My parents found out I was trans after my mother went through my Discord dms because I slipped up a bit irl, and she called me brainwashed & called the friends who were incredibly supportive of me bad things that I know they aren't. We had a massive argument and I ended up kicking a door really hard & broke a toenail after the terrible things she said about my friends & her calling trans people mentally ill. She did end up saying I'll always be her child regardless though so idfk what to think, but this argument still fucked up my irl pretty badly and I have been emotional & grumpy & useless & ridiculously sleepy (napping for 3 hours+ for like 3-4 days in a row) ever since it happened. I know logically this can't continue but sleeping to cope feels so fucking good because I can just pretend nothing ever happened while hugging my pillow.

With that said though, people online have been amazingly supportive of me in contrast to how fucked up things are irl. It might be unhealthy, but I feel much closer to people I know on the internet as compared to irl. Shoutouts to people in the EiPP community who have been nothing short of perfect & amazing & made me feel as comfortable as possible: SwiftIsSlow teamo Mossy Sandwich OM Munchy_Axolotls FrootLoops007 Sabby60 YashGreninja and plenty more people who don't have/use smogon are some of the greatest people I've ever interacted with & I count myself lucky to know you all. I also deeply appreciate the circus/smogdip community: LonelyNess a fairy Celever Dead by Daylight pulsar512b sunny004 Alice Kazumi StupidFlandrs48 Blazade Magic Mayhem Maiden JALMONT Da Letter El and many more - you all are so cool & supportive & it warms my heart that I'm able to interact with you. Finally, shoutouts to ionnss USN and tkhanh sundays for being great friends in APTH & my entire Smogon journey. I truly love all of you.

Apologies for the textdump- but it felt nice getting that off my chest and even though it won't solve my probkems venting it out did make me happier & its better then bedrotting like I've done for the past couple of days. Thank you if you read all of this- truly appreciate it.
 
Lechen said:
Hey all! I'm transfem!! (I think) :3

I'll prefer she/her but I won't be able to transition irl (or even change the pronouns on my discord bio to she/her because people irl have my discord) anytime in the foreseeable future because of where I live, the relatively hostile climate towards LGBTQ+ people here, traditional Chinese values & the fact that people I know irl are generally bigots so don't worry too much about pronouns.


Never really thought about my gender too much until recently when I nicknamed myself "Princess Cresselia" in a couple of discord servers with friends & I loved feeling be cute & being treated femininely. After this, something hit me a couple of days ago that I might not be cis, from then on, after talking with a few friends online, I came to this conclusion & came out in some very supportive discord servers like the Smogon Diplomacy discord & among the EiPP community.

There were definitely clues before this- for one, I enjoyed playing female characters more in video games- always told myself & people irl I was playing them based on mechanical reasons (F!Byleth in fe3h being able to autorecruit Sylvain, F!Alear in engage being able to take better advantage of some personal skills, May in Emerald having to read less dialogue from the rival, Zelda in ssbu being a fun character to play etc) although looking back these advantages were frankly quite minor & I was probably making excuses solely to have a reason to play the female character rather then actually playing female characters because of the mechanical benefits.

I also always loved the color pink & cute things- my parents disliked this & people irl thought I was weird for liking the cute Pokemon more then the edgy ones so I pretended for years my favorite color was blue/red & that I disliked cute Pokemon/characters in video games. Sounds super silly now, but then it felt like something I had to do. This facade only really came off not that long ago when I accepted that my favorite Pokemon was Cresselia & that Rosado from fe engage is one of my favorite fictional characters ever

I still have some doubts though. Rationally I definitely think I'll be happier female & I would 100% click a button that would turn me into a girl & make everyone I know think I was a girl the entire time, but obviously that is not possible irl. I don't feel like a girl whenever I look into the mirror or talk & it makes me feel like I'm just pretending online sometimes & it feels like shit.

My irl environment also sucks a lot- I hear slurs daily at school & basically every person there is extremely bigoted despite my school being quite progressive for a school in HK. My parents found out I was trans after my mother went through my Discord dms because I slipped up a bit irl, and she called me brainwashed & called the friends who were incredibly supportive of me bad things that I know they aren't. We had a massive argument and I ended up kicking a door really hard & broke a toenail after the terrible things she said about my friends & her calling trans people mentally ill. She did end up saying I'll always be her child regardless though so idfk what to think, but this argument still fucked up my irl pretty badly and I have been emotional & grumpy & useless & ridiculously sleepy (napping for 3 hours+ for like 3-4 days in a row) ever since it happened. I know logically this can't continue but sleeping to cope feels so fucking good because I can just pretend nothing ever happened while hugging my pillow.

With that said though, people online have been amazingly supportive of me in contrast to how fucked up things are irl. It might be unhealthy, but I feel much closer to people I know on the internet as compared to irl. Shoutouts to people in the EiPP community who have been nothing short of perfect & amazing & made me feel as comfortable as possible: SwiftIsSlow teamo Mossy Sandwich OM Munchy_Axolotls FrootLoops007 Sabby60 YashGreninja and plenty more people who don't have/use smogon are some of the greatest people I've ever interacted with & I count myself lucky to know you all. I also deeply appreciate the circus/smogdip community: LonelyNess a fairy Celever Dead by Daylight pulsar512b sunny004 Alice Kazumi StupidFlandrs48 Blazade Magic Mayhem Maiden JALMONT Da Letter El and many more - you all are so cool & supportive & it warms my heart that I'm able to interact with you. Finally, shoutouts to ionnss USN and tkhanh sundays for being great friends in APTH & my entire Smogon journey. I truly love all of you.

Apologies for the textdump- but it felt nice getting that off my chest and even though it won't solve my probkems venting it out did make me happier & its better then bedrotting like I've done for the past couple of days. Thank you if you read all of this- truly appreciate it.
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I said it on Discord before but I’m really proud of you that you’re far enough in your journey of self-discovery to be able to talk about it openly and publicly.

It’s really sad to hear about the situation you’re in, where the people you have exposure to hold these bigoted beliefs, and it’s absolutely understandable that you need to take into account all of these factors when evaluating when you can embrace the person you truly are.

But trust and believe that when you’re in a position where you can safely and confidently embrace the woman that you are that a social network will form around you, trans people and people who accept trans people find each other and you will be in a position to thrive.

It’s hard to have hope for the future in general but things should work out, most parents’ main concern is that their children are happy, and as you enter the stage in your life where you get more freedom you’ll have the ability to prove it to them no matter what gender you are. Your mother already seems to have approached acceptance, so when it becomes evident how amazing of a woman you are she should get on board with your current identity.

And yeah, don’t apologise for the textdump. It’s an amazing thing to be this open and vulnerable with people, give credit to yourself for getting to the stage where you can do that.
 
Lechen said:
Hey all! I'm transfem!! (I think) :3

I'll prefer she/her but I won't be able to transition irl (or even change the pronouns on my discord bio to she/her because people irl have my discord) anytime in the foreseeable future because of where I live, the relatively hostile climate towards LGBTQ+ people here, traditional Chinese values & the fact that people I know irl are generally bigots so don't worry too much about pronouns.


Never really thought about my gender too much until recently when I nicknamed myself "Princess Cresselia" in a couple of discord servers with friends & I loved feeling be cute & being treated femininely. After this, something hit me a couple of days ago that I might not be cis, from then on, after talking with a few friends online, I came to this conclusion & came out in some very supportive discord servers like the Smogon Diplomacy discord & among the EiPP community.

There were definitely clues before this- for one, I enjoyed playing female characters more in video games- always told myself & people irl I was playing them based on mechanical reasons (F!Byleth in fe3h being able to autorecruit Sylvain, F!Alear in engage being able to take better advantage of some personal skills, May in Emerald having to read less dialogue from the rival, Zelda in ssbu being a fun character to play etc) although looking back these advantages were frankly quite minor & I was probably making excuses solely to have a reason to play the female character rather then actually playing female characters because of the mechanical benefits.

I also always loved the color pink & cute things- my parents disliked this & people irl thought I was weird for liking the cute Pokemon more then the edgy ones so I pretended for years my favorite color was blue/red & that I disliked cute Pokemon/characters in video games. Sounds super silly now, but then it felt like something I had to do. This facade only really came off not that long ago when I accepted that my favorite Pokemon was Cresselia & that Rosado from fe engage is one of my favorite fictional characters ever

I still have some doubts though. Rationally I definitely think I'll be happier female & I would 100% click a button that would turn me into a girl & make everyone I know think I was a girl the entire time, but obviously that is not possible irl. I don't feel like a girl whenever I look into the mirror or talk & it makes me feel like I'm just pretending online sometimes & it feels like shit.

My irl environment also sucks a lot- I hear slurs daily at school & basically every person there is extremely bigoted despite my school being quite progressive for a school in HK. My parents found out I was trans after my mother went through my Discord dms because I slipped up a bit irl, and she called me brainwashed & called the friends who were incredibly supportive of me bad things that I know they aren't. We had a massive argument and I ended up kicking a door really hard & broke a toenail after the terrible things she said about my friends & her calling trans people mentally ill. She did end up saying I'll always be her child regardless though so idfk what to think, but this argument still fucked up my irl pretty badly and I have been emotional & grumpy & useless & ridiculously sleepy (napping for 3 hours+ for like 3-4 days in a row) ever since it happened. I know logically this can't continue but sleeping to cope feels so fucking good because I can just pretend nothing ever happened while hugging my pillow.

With that said though, people online have been amazingly supportive of me in contrast to how fucked up things are irl. It might be unhealthy, but I feel much closer to people I know on the internet as compared to irl. Shoutouts to people in the EiPP community who have been nothing short of perfect & amazing & made me feel as comfortable as possible: SwiftIsSlow teamo Mossy Sandwich OM Munchy_Axolotls FrootLoops007 Sabby60 YashGreninja and plenty more people who don't have/use smogon are some of the greatest people I've ever interacted with & I count myself lucky to know you all. I also deeply appreciate the circus/smogdip community: LonelyNess a fairy Celever Dead by Daylight pulsar512b sunny004 Alice Kazumi StupidFlandrs48 Blazade Magic Mayhem Maiden JALMONT Da Letter El and many more - you all are so cool & supportive & it warms my heart that I'm able to interact with you. Finally, shoutouts to ionnss USN and tkhanh sundays for being great friends in APTH & my entire Smogon journey. I truly love all of you.

Apologies for the textdump- but it felt nice getting that off my chest and even though it won't solve my probkems venting it out did make me happier & its better then bedrotting like I've done for the past couple of days. Thank you if you read all of this- truly appreciate it.
Click to expand...
shit comrade, sorry for the circumstances.
no matter what, you will always be valid.

vishy fishy said:
Can I see your rainbow permit
Click to expand...
officer I'm bisexual I swear!
 
bit of a weird question but i was wondering if any londoners in this thread had any recommendations for queer spots to hang out at? i'm travelling there soon! would prefer spaces that aren't focused around alcohol, but if you really like a gay bar by all means send it my way also. would also love to know any websites for queer events and other things to do. i am asexual also so if there's any ace-specific stuff, you can lemme know about that as well!

dms are open too if you guys wanna suggest something but don't wanna post it in a public thread for any reason at all, can dm me here or on discord @ mega_gengar :D thank you so much!
 
So I heard a new word for the first time on the Internet the other day and while I never thought I’d say this out loud, I guess life is full of surprises because this one word alone might explain at least half of my problems with real life relationships.

The word in question is “fictosexual”. Enjoy this moment in history while it lasts, folks, because this one of the only times in history you will ever see me willingly type the word “sexual” into a keyboard in any context out of fear of my devices’ spell check system and the purity of my brain. The way I word this word described in… I want to say it was a TikTok video talking about character writing, is simple enough to understand- it just means there’s attraction to fictional characters going on.

It might be helpful if I provide some context of the situation and why I’m posting about this. I’m sure growing up we all had things like fictional crushes and, dare I say the word, ships we liked, thing along those lines. As luck would have it, along with all the other things these games did for me, the Pokémon Ranger games, of all things, introduced me to the idea of character shipping and relationships in general. I will not specify which character, but there was one in particular as far back as junior high school that was a topic of discussion. The problem? This was right around the same time I was playing junior high soccer, and it was a co-ed league. Normally that wouldn’t have anything to do with this, but there was an ongoing rumor turned inside joke at the time that me and some of the girls on a rival team really liked each other. Whether or not anyone actually did was never confirmed, but because the idea of crushes and relationships was relevant at the time, this in turn led to a second inside joke, this time with my best friends, that me and the fictional character in question liked each other with one friend in particular dropping an innuendo so clever I didn’t even recognize until a few years later. This… this is where things get messy.

Time went on as normal for a while, well, aside from the pandemic, anyway, and during the time stretch from the second half of 2020 to the first half of 2021 I was starting to develop a crush for someone in the high school grade below ours. It was also during this time that I started releasing chapters of my first-ever Pokémon fanfic as part of my celebration of ten years of being a Pokémon fan, alongside ten years of Guardian Signs’s release in North America in October 2010 right around the exact time I became a Pokémon fan. You might be able to see where this is going. My 2021-22 college year, and the summer break beforehand, were… uh… not great, to put it mildly? They were so bad that I scrapped the rest of the fanfic outright and lost all motivation to want to talk to my crush again going forward. The whole year put a massive damper on my view on relationships and for a while now I’ve genuinely started asking myself if I’ve been aromantic or something similar this entire time.

And then I took another look at my old story documents (I prefer to type my writing before sharing anything), and I noticed something. I couldn’t be aromantic. Without realizing I was doing it at first, I was coping with my own social anxiety by reading and taking inspirations from other people’s older stories and one-shots from the 2010s, and if you know anything about the Pokémon Ranger fandom… let’s just say there’s a lot of freaking shipping going on. My “canon storyline”, so to speak, had always been designed around the idea of me as a self-insert protagonist not unlike “Satoshi” from the anime or, more recently, Arven’s character in Scarlet & Violet. Suffice to say, the end result of almost five years worth of scrapped writing, yearly Pokémon releases on Switch, and me questioning my own views on relationships was me starting to prefer how things were in my own literal fantasy land- that is, the fictional world, over the real life equivalent of these things which has been ruined for me. But can you really blame me? All manner of relationships would be ruined for you too if you got to hear some of the absolutely disgusting things I thought I’d never hear at a a school like mine, if you know what I mean. :worrywhirl:

If you’ve read this far and still haven’t figured out what I’m trying to say here, first of all, thank you for your extreme patience, and most importantly, yes, there was a time when I actually gave some thought to the idea that I liked fictional characters more than real people. It doesn’t help that a certain character from Legends Arceus feels like a blatantly obvious attempt at mocking me, what with her choice in Pokémon, allegiance to the clans, and the fact she’s a shy, short (the hair is short, I mean) blonde haired flute player… yeah, you’re not fooling anyone, Brain. One of my friends was very quick to point out the similarities between You-Know-Who and both myself and that crush I had for a while, but I think what my friend was actually trying to do all along in 2022 was introduce me to her character in the game as a way to help me cope with the disaster of a 2021-22 year that was unfolding. So yes, a fictional character did unironically save my life from my depression worsening, thank you very much.
 
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