I'm already very far in voice training actually, it's just really hard to do it right when either speaking loudly, or being nervous.

I'm doing okay in general but not great right now. Tests really are free for me and I can pretty much do as many as I want. But I exist with transphobic parents so that's not happening for a year or more.

I've come out in some places now and lost some of the fear. But now I have a different problem, namely that my voice still sucks because it turns out doing all voice training quietly in my room to avoid being heard, means I can only do the new voice quietly -_-. So now I have to somehow translate that to a more usable voice and make it less dependent on confidence (right now it collapses whenever I'm not confident enough).

Usually T & E tests are a bit expensive

US-centrism again. It costs nothing for my family here. :P

It’s insane that your parents test your blood for estrogen, that feels abusive and like something that should be illegal.

its a part of the blood test that i do for vitamin d regularly so i dont get a severe deficiency. T and E were both tested last time on request of my parents to know if maybe something was wrong with my hormone levels to cause my transness. turned out to be false of course. no idea if it will be tested again but i consider it a 50/50 chance.

EDIT: I’m not a lawyer, but searching around I found that at your age you can probably legally reject the blood test, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mature_minor_doctrine

this is only a thing in the US and i am in germany also it would be super suspicious to my parents

And so I don’t ask people to call me Amber, she/her, because I don’t feel like I deserve it. Once I’m over there, then I’ll ask. Once I malefail.

I do the same, and it is corroding me very significantly.

can confirm, especially the eating me alive part. plus i have controlling parents to the point where i have had to buy HRT illegally and am not even able to take it until the next parent-controlled blood test is done. luckily i wont have another one of those again since ill be turning 18 before that. also im kiiind of worrying about how i will hide how much money i spent on the HRT (which i had to do using shady gift-card-to-crypto exchanges because my bank accounts are monitored :| )

(i read all of this but do not have any comments except for on one part)

I am also doing monotherapy as that is the only option I have. I do DIY-HRT and none of the sellers i have access to sell anything but estradiol anyway, so this is an easy choice.

FYI, I will be going on Estradiol Enanthate. I'm still not 100% sure when it comes to how I'll be dosing things, and I cannot start yet because I have a parent-controlled blood test scheduled for a month from now (the last one before I turn 18). I do already have all the injection supplies and the estradiol itself though!

If you were looking for support in your friend and they ended up hurting your feelings, you could try to express that to them. That you were seeking validation and help from them but their behaviour/answer wasn’t what you expected from them made you feel rejected.

I have, and they didn't take it super well. I also don't think I can currently deal with the mental distress of interacting with them further.

Or, id you think they’ll be confrontational and want to avoid that, you can also write a diary of your feelings.

I've been writing a detailed diary for over a year now :P

The thing is, thinking that way actually impedes your ability to pass. Passing is not a product of any individual thing but many things, and how people perceive and respond to you depends on lots of factors many of them do not do with physiological gender signifiers. I spent years denying myself everything I ever wanted. I wore loose baggy clothes, I didn’t try with my skincare or haircare, I would obsess about the way people perceived me and tear myself apart in the mirror over every little detail. I was making myself miserable, and holding myself back and being so obviously insecure about these things actually made me less likely to pass. Fully embracing my style and showcasing my curves and my skin has made a massive difference in the likelihood of me passing. I rarely do not pass anymore.

look at you literally describing me!

It’s okay if you can’t today, or if you still want to wait.

is it? i feel two conflicting things:

• if i start now i have a higher chance of being happy
• if i wait i will be more secure and sure that this is right and have a higher chance of being happy

💚

i did this today (i woke up at 3pm) (it is 4pm i havent had breakfast)

I believe there are, but even there I'd be too scared to go / come out. (Honestly considering I have had a 75% rejection rate, including another trans person, this isn't too surprising.)

Dysphoria is not what makes someone transgender!

Yeah I know. I've already cut off ties with that friend mostly.

Going to queer events and making new friends would be a great way to expand your support network. Depending on the size of your town, you’re probably going to run into the same people pretty often and you’ll get to know them over time.

Funnily enough, I have been to a queer event. Except then I just stood on the sidelines the entire time, always far enough away for nobody to notice I'm even there.

I find Linux to be MUCH easier to use. Granted, this is unusual, especially for an i3wm user, but hear me out: Although Linux has a very steep learning curve and using it seems very hard at first, this difficulty is short-lived. Getting anywhere is significantly faster and requires fewer steps, and the "simplicity" of windows quickly turns into complexity when you actually want to multitask and keep having to resize and click through dozens of windows.

Of course, I also really like the freedom of actually owning my system, and that of tinkering with all the software on it when I am annoyed at something not being how I'd like. Privacy is a nice bonus, but honestly the lesser concern since I already have none anyway by owning a phone and being too lazy to degoogle it.