I sent her a coming out letter while I was in school. Later I saw that she sent me a message but I was too scared to look at it at first.

She said that she need some time to clear things in her head but will always support and love me, that she will help and that everything will be good. She also said that we will talk about this when we are alone.

It made me so happy. Knowing that at least one person will support me makes things easier. It's such a big step.

Edit: After I finished my launch she hugged me, we stayed like that for a long time. From her breathing I knew this is hard for her as I expected. She said same things she said in her messages and added that she is happy I told her how I feel.

I decided to come out to my mom by sending her a "letter" to make it easier for me but I'm not sure is it good enough. Main things I want her to understand are how I feel, that this didn't happen overnight and that it's a big problem for me. This is what I wrote (translated to English):

"Something is bothering me for some time now, I want to explain everything here. It’s hard for me to start conversation about this so to make it easier for me I wrote it. I know this will be hard for you and I want to give you as much time as you need to process it. Only thing I want is support, all of this is already very hard for me so if we made negative atmosphere it would become even worse. So, I’m pretty sure that I’m transgender. I don’t know what you heard about trans people in media so I’ll try to explain how I feel. To put it shortly, it’s awful. I don’t feel good in my own skin. Whenever I’m not distracted by school or hobbies I feel really bad. I don’t like how I look and sound and how others see me. I can’t dress how I want. I feel like I’m wearing a costume because of others. A costume that I want to remove but can’t. I feel envy towards women, sometimes I can’t even look at them because of it. As times goes things become worse and my wish to do something about this is growing stronger but I’m scared. I’m scared of potential reactions of others, especially family members, and that I would be rejected. I wanted to come out to you first because I think you won’t disapprove me immediately and at least try to understand me. Like I said, support is really important to me at the moment. If people reject me things would become worse. I want to go to a therapist as soon as possible, that would be the best solution, but I wanted to tell you everything first. I don’t want to do something like this behind your back. I also want to tell you that this isn’t something recent, I’m just able to better understand my feeling now that I’m older. For years I wondered how it’s like to be a girl, I wanted to experience it for a short period. I had dreams where I became a girl. I thought it’s normal and that everyone experienced it from time to time. Anything that has something to do with changing gender was interesting to me, especially male to female. I thought it’s just a fetish. When I realized there is more to these feelings I tried convince myself I’m just making it up and that I can’t be trans. It was hard for me to accept myself as transgender but after some time I couldn’t find a different explanation. Stubbornness and fear were only reasons why I couldn’t accept myself. I’m sorry for not telling this sooner, I want you to understand that it’s hard to talk about this. I’m scared that others will reject me but I also want to do something about these feelings in order to be happy. And, again, support means me more than anything. I’m sure that you have feelings of loss while reading this. I’ll always be me, things like this won’t change that. If you blame yourself for this, please don’t do it. You and dad, or anyone else, aren’t blameworthy. No matter what you did in the past I would get here at some point. If you read all of this, I want to let you know it means a lot to me. When you are ready to talk about this just tell me, it’s easier now that I shared these feelings with someone. This should remain between the two of us, others shouldn’t know about it at the moment."

Is this good? This is really important to me so I want to approach it in a right way and feedback would be really helpful with that.

Important note: Verbs and adjectives are gendered in my native language. I used masculine forms because I feel like that would make things a bit easier for her. Should I keep that?

I thinking about trying to start with HRT earlier than I previously planned. My plan was to start transitioning after I become financially independant but when I think about that it would take at least 5 years until I start taking hormones but 6 years looks more realistic. Not sure that I can wait that long. This options isn't out of the question because it may actually be the best one but I'm not so sure about it anymore.

Main problem is that I really want to be feminine but my musculine body is getting in my way all the time, no matter how feminine I feel from some things my body still brings dysphoria. I can't feel like myself because of it.

I searched for stories of trans women from my country to get more information about the way trans women are treated here and it looks like situation is better than I tought, coming out might not be as bad as I expected. From what I heard even older people in rural areas were supportive of trans women.

When I look at my situation only person I could come out is my mother if I approach the conversation in a right way. I know that it would be hard for her, but if I explain to her what being trans actually means and how I feel about myself she might come around it. Not really sure what's the best way to do it. I can try giving some resources to her but that wouldn't be that easy because she knows only 1 language and it's not english. Connecting her with other parents of trans girls could also work. Also, I'm not sure is it good idea to don't force her on using different pronouns and name at first to make things a bit easier for her.

One important note is that even if I decide to come out that won't be now because I'm not ready for it yet, I would wait for some time (not too long thou).

Reason why I'm talking about coming out here is because doing that first would make medical transition easier. In my country, gender affirming care is only available in capital. Since I'm 18 going there isn't really a problem but the fact that it would mean going there often and I don't do that normally is a problem. If I started seeing a therapist my parents would quickly think that something is odd basically forcing me to come out, that would be much worse than coming out when I'm ready. I'm still considering starting without anyone knowing but in that case I would quickly come out to avoid worst case scenario.

Basically, I'm not sure how to go with this. Should I wait? Should I come out (and how)? Or should I start in secret and come out quickly after that?

In case it matters, gender affirming care in my country includes seeing a psychiatrist for at least a year, after that you start with hormones and after 1 year of hormones and more talking with psychiatrist you can do SRS. After SRS you can change gender marker and name (you can't change musculine name to feminine one before SRS).

Just venting a bit.

I expected that dysphoria will increase with more euphoria but not this fast. Before, I had dysphoria because of my presentation, fat distribution and chest but things that didn't bother me at all started to feel wrong and I just want to get rid of them. This mainly includes body hair, genitals and facial hair.

I also need more euphoria. At this point I put on feminine clothes every time I go to the bathroom (it's the only place where I have complete privacy). It seems like I'll have to buy some women's underwear to feel more comfortable (so far I only put on my mom's clothes that is going to washing machine). I'm kinda scared to go and buy it myself, ordering online is pretty risky until I come out.

I started cross-dressing while I'm alone at home and few minutes ago I was doing that. There was a dress I wanted try and I did it now (I love it) but when I finished for today it was pretty hard to take it off because it wasn't made for musculine body (first time having problem like that). I was scared that I won't able to take it off by the time someone returns, they would be shocked. At the end that didn't happen but now I want to come up with a way to explain everything to my parents if such scenario actually happens and I need some help with that (important note is that my parents are pretty religious, not extremists thou). Smartest idea would probably be to just stop cross-dressing but it gives me so much euphoria, can't really give up on that.

Only idea I have for now is just to explain everything, that I'm trans and what that means, but I'm not sure how to do that in a way they would understand. There is probably a better way to go about this, any recommendation or story from personal experience would be useful.

Ammount of courage I got from comments on my first post here is insane, without that I probably would never do what I did. This will be a long post with a bit of rambling.

While I was alone at home I put on my mom's bra and got some mixed feelings. Bra was great and I'd like to wear those things but it made me feel dysphoric because my body is too big for it. I wanted to put on more of her clothes (dress or something like that) but decided to don't do it in fear that she will relize someone picked up her clothes. This is my first time actually thinking about fashon, normally I just wear clothes that is comfortable and I hate amything formal (even jeans are too much for me).

After that I installed FaceApp and used gender swaping filter on one photo of me. Normally I don't take photos of myself, never saw the appeal, but I love this edited photo. When I look at it it feels like that's who I am. It also looks like I'm wearing a dress there because wind changed the shape of shirt on my arm and rest of it is covered by hair, it made me love the photo even more when I saw it. It also helped me relize one important thing about my beard. I never shave because not having beard feels so wrong but now I relized that feminine face looks even better. Only thing I don't like about the photo is jaw, it still looks musculine.

I'm also playing games more than before, they allow me to feel more feminine. I even started using feminine forms of verbs and adjectives (this doesn't exist in english) while playing making me feel even more feminine.

So yeah, there is no way to deny it at this point. I'm a girl. I'm slowly accepting that. It feels great and awful at the same time. Can't wait to see what future holds for me after this. This is a big weight off my shoulders. I didn't pick a feminine name yet, any tips on that would be really helpful.

I'd like to come out to people in my life but it isn't safe. In country where I live most people are very religious and everything that has any connection to LGBT is considered bad. I pretty much know how my parents would react to this. When I came out as atheist to them they were devastated. We had a long talk where I tried to explain my position but they couldn't understand. After that we never talked about that and they behave like they don't know anything. Best case scenario with this would probably be them deadnaming and missgendering me. With other people it's even worse. Sometimes I hear people talking about stoning LGBT people to death so I'm scared that coming out would put my life in danger.

I thought about HRT for few weeks already and it's something I deffinitely want. From what I could find on the internet it looks like our gender affirming care is decent but there are two problems I see with it. First is that there aren't many specialists and literally all of them are in the capital. That basically means that if I went to therapist there is a really high chance that they won't have any experience with trans people. Second problem is that hormones for feminizing HRT aren't available in my country and our health care system doesn't cover them so buying from other countries is only option and it's more expensive. Going to another country is also option, I actually tought about that even before questioning my gender because of me being an atheist in a very religious conutry, but it looks like that would mean waiting more to start HRT.

I basically decided to wait untill I'm not dependant on my parents to come out and start medical transition, it's safest option and things may change to the better in near future. At least I don't have much problems with dysphoria at the moment, I mostly just feel euphoria, but I'm aware that dysphoria will become worse over time.

Thanks to everyone who read all of this, it means much to me. I just wantend to share this to someone and this is safest place to do it.

Few days ago I made a post here about me questioning my gender identity and comments there gave me a courage to experiment a bit. I decided to try playing some video games as female characters to see how it goes. I found that to be safest way to do it because it isn't about changing my appearance. Results are different than I'd like to admit but I will share them (as well some other ways I'll experiment with gender in the future) as a way of documenting.

I wanted to start with something more subtle so I picked Pokemon, more specifically Emerald version that I didn't play before. Gender of a character doesn't do much to change experience since it's a pretty old game. Most notable thing that I got from here is little animation before each battle where your characters moves on the screen, it felt kinda nice to have a girl there.

Second game was Bayonetta. This was my first time playing this. Only reason why I picked this is because I knew that main character is a female and I wanted to try it. Unlike Pokemon it is much more obvious that main character is female so my feelings about that were stronger too, it was pretty comfortable. Feelings I got from playing as a female character were actually the best part of the game for me (at least from a small part that I played).

Last game I picked is Palworld. Unlike first two games I already played this one for about 2 hours total with a male avatar so this was a great way to compare expirience. To be honest, it was better playing as a female and I got more motivation to play the game again. Gameplay itself was pretty much the same but with that one change it felt better. I deleted my first world with male avatar and will continue playing on this new one.

While doing all this I remembered few games where I already used female characters for pretty much no reason but didn't think about it until now.

In Mario Kart Wii I always use Daisy. Best character and vehicle combinations in this game use Funky kong and Daisy with Funky kong being better one. Funky kong was my first main but at one point I wanted to try Daisy and continued to use her, she felt better to play but I couldn't explain why.

While I was playing Super Mario Bros Wonder I switched my character to Daisy at one point for no reason and completed one world with her, returning to playing Luigi after that. In Mario games where you can use more characters I normally just pick my favorite one and use it entire game, Luigi is my favorite character from Wonder's roster and I'm not a Daisy fan so this didn't make any sense at the time.

When I played one mobile gacha game I mostly used female characters. My character choices were based on the playstyle and I used some male characters too but something always felt kinda off with them.

What I got from all this is pretty interesting and something I didn't expect to this degree. Honestly, I have a hard time seeing myself picking a male character in the future in any game where you have choice. And I can say for certain that there is no sexual attraction here (like playing a female character just to looks at her but), while playing there weren't any thoghts like that and I don't feel any kind of attraction towards fictional characters. Combining all of this with me having few experiences that I can describe only as physical dysphoria in those few days things become much clearer. Next step for me will be to try using she/her pronouns online and see how that goes but I want to wait a bit so my brain can process everything. While I'm aware that this showed that probability of me being trans is really high (maybe even 100%) I still can't admit that to myself, all of this is just too mindblowing to proces.

I have a problem with Borderlands 2 and Portal. If I run native version game crashes soon after launching. If I run Windows version with Proton game doeasn't launch at all. I tried solutions from ProtonDB but none of them worked. I'm new to Linux gaming so I'm not sure what to do.

I have Intel i9 11th generation CPU, Nvidia 1650 GPU and 16GB RAM.

Fix: I installed lib32-nvidia-utils. Now I can run native version of Portal and Windows version of Borderlands 2 with Proton 7.0-6 (haven't tried other versions of Proton).

It's been around a month since I started questioning my gender. I'm really confused on all of this, seeing a therapist would help but that's not an option for me at the moment (don't want to go into details about that here). Biggest source of confusion for me is the fact that there are some strong signs that I'm trans but at the same time I don't feel like a woman (nor anything othet than a man). Does this happen to trans women before egg crack or any form of transitioning? This question is a huge roadblock for me at the moment in terms of questioning, it feels like I won't get anywhere with this without finding amswer to it. It probably won't be final answer to everything but even if I'm trans transitioning would't be safe for 4-5 years so I have enough time to explore my identity.

Edit: Thank you all for responding, it's really helpful. Now I'm a bit more sure that I'm trans but I'll try to experiment in a safe way until I'm able to talk with therapist about this.

When I turn on my PC it gets stuck on bootloader, I can't do anything in it. As you can see on the image I don't have dual boot setup. I haven't changed any configuration recently. Any ideas what's the problem and how to fix it?

Solution: I put USB UEFI as first boot option in BIOS.

I got "2061: Odyssey three" as a gift but I didn't read first two books. Can I start with 2061 or should I read 2001 and 2010 first?

I played a bit with qutebrowser recently and I love it's keyboard driven nature but it is based on QtWebEngine which is based on Chromium and I want something based on Firefox. I know that there are extensions for Firefox that bring Vim keybindings but qutebrowser is much better in terms of that. So, is there any Firefox based browser similar to qutebrowser?

I'm planning to set up Nextcloud server for personal use but I never did anything similar so I have 2 questions:

1. Is there a way to turn on server remotely? I don't want to have it turned on all the time because I don't need that and I want to reduce power usage.
2. Can I access my Nextcloud from anywhere or do I need to be connected to the same wi-fi or something similar to that?

These are probably trivial questions but again I don't have any experience with stuff like this.

Recently I finished Asimov's Foundation universe and now I want to try something from other authors. Two series I'm most interested in are Dune and Hyperion but I'm not sure which one to read first. Any recommendations?

Edit: I decided to go with Hyperion first and after that I will read Dune. Thank you all for commenting.