Transgender AMA
 

i'm really bored so if anyone has any questions about being transgender i would be happy to answer you :) (i would love to answer questions any time; i'm not just answering them because i'm bored)

also i would have made this thread in the AMA subforum but i don't think that forum shows new posts on the main page

Re: Transgender AMA
 

how old were you when you started undergoing the transition? because i wouldve never guessed you were transgendered when i met you.

Re: Transgender AMA
 

i started taking hormones when i was 19 so it's been about five years now

also thank you :)

*edit* i also have been getting electrolysis since about three years ago although i haven't been getting it recently

Re: Transgender AMA
 

wud u describe urself as a spiritual person/religious or neither :v?

Re: Transgender AMA
 

How much $ is electrolysis?

Re: Transgender AMA
 

What was figuring out you wanted to go forward with it like for you? I'm curious of like how you approached telling yourself it's what you felt you needed to do to feel comfortable with who you are.

This is likely worded super shitty, and if it is, I'm sorry, I can't word it any better in my head x.x

Re: Transgender AMA
 

i'm jewish and i'm religious but i almost never go to temple

it depends on the electrologist you go to and how much they charge and whether or not you have insurance

i go to a really well-known electrologist so she charges $100 (it might be $110 now) an hour and my insurance doesn't cover facial electrolysis the last time i checked, but i think Kaiser and some other insurance companies cover all forms of electrolysis

if you go to an electrologist who isn't as experienced and isn't as well-known, it's probably a lot less expensive like $60 or $40 an hour, but if they don't have a lot of experience with transgender mtf clients they probably won't do a good job since they're not used to getting rid of course, thicker hair i think on a regular basis

Re: Transgender AMA
 

are u cute

Re: Transgender AMA
 

it's worded fine :)

well i always felt that i couldn't express myself as a girl because it wouldn't be accepted by society, so i never told anyone how i felt except for my mom, but she kept think it was a phase and even though i told her i connect more with girls than boys, she kept saying that girls can be just as mean as boys and that girls can be the same way as boys, and when i cried telling her how much i didn't want to have facial hair she just thought it was because most boys didn't like facial hair

i'm not trying to blame her, i'm just saying that that's why i felt like i couldn't express myself and why i didn't tell anyone else until 10th grade when i told my dad and brother and 12th grade when i told my best friend and my creative writing class

so until 10th grade i didn't feel like i could express myself as a girl and i kept how i felt to myself; however even though i always detested my body since i was little i didn't know i identified as a girl until 7th grade when the class was doing an assignment about what it would be like to be the opposite gender for a day and i thought to myself, "i'm already a girl" and smiled to myself

also in high school even though i kept my feelings to myself i tried to be more feminine by practicing "walking like a girl" and changing my writing to be "feminine handwriting" and even using more "feminine words" which is silly because i've always been a girl and i don't need to change the way i do anything to be what society views as feminine

so by the time i was almost finished with high school i had enough of hiding who i really am and not expressing myself and i promised myself i would start expressing myself as a girl as soon as college started and i started wearing feminine clothes and taking hormones a year later and changing my legal name and telling all my teachers to call me Rebecca until i could finally change my legal name at my college

that's an opinion

Re: Transgender AMA
 

if gender is a social construct in and of itself, then how can you feel like another social construct?

i don't mean this in a way to illegitimize your feelings or identity. this was something i was always curious about

Re: Transgender AMA
 

I might also be able to give a hand on some questions if drizzle gets overwhelmed.

Except for the social construct question because frankly I haven't delved much into gender studies, so I can't help much there.

Re: Transgender AMA
 

damn, you stole about half of my 2nd question

guess I need a new one

...

has your transition gone well outside of your family?

How readily did the teachers call you Rebecca?

Re: Transgender AMA
 

because being a girl makes me happy; maybe it's because being a girl is a way to express that i'm female and that i like being female; i'm not sure though

you can still ask the second half of your 2nd question if you want :)

my transition went really well outside of my family; i was never bullied or openly made fun of (although sometimes people were either laughing or staring behind my back before i looked like a girl i think, although i didn't pay that much attention) and i was never put in any danger and for the first year before i started taking hormones people just thought i looked weird or didn't notice probably but no one said anything and in two years or so everyone saw me as a girl anyway

also all the teachers called me Rebecca all the time since i e-mailed them before class started and asked them to call me Rebecca

also tosh you're transgender?

Re: Transgender AMA
 

was just wondering what you thought of certain genders that don't have an equivalent in the West

Re: Transgender AMA
 

How and when did you choose Rebecca to be your name?

Re: Transgender AMA
 

like what? i've heard of a third gender in a religion in India i think which i think is really cool but i forgot which religion exactly or what the gender is called

my mom wanted to name me either Rebecca or Megan if i was born physically female and my dad originally wanted to name me Ariel after The Little Mermaid but my mom wouldn't accept that so he was going to name me Ariana instead but i don't like any of the other names besides Rebecca and i love the name Rebecca

Re: Transgender AMA
 

there's probably too many to list so I suppose I'd change the question to the concept(?) of having different genders in different cultures

was always something that was neat to me but I'm not exactly sure how to phrase/ask a question about it I suppose

Re: Transgender AMA
 

Rebecca is a great name!

Re: Transgender AMA
 

i think it's wonderful; i like that there are different genders in different cultures especially when people don't identify with the genders in society and they feel like they don't belong

thank you :)

Re: Transgender AMA
 

Another trans person coming in with a question to another:

What is your experience with body hair like? I am kind of manic about it, a more minor case of TTM/DTM, though with electrolysis that should be a lesser issue for you.