irotsoma

It's not that a friendship is a separate thing, though. And many of my flings or shorter term romantic relationships end up in platonic-only relationships. But it's the developing of those platonic connections during the other relationships that ends up being valuable later. Something as simple as having a good conversation as you cuddle in the aftermath can trigger a bond.

And topping is definitely a burden in some senses as it requires you to act first, but I usually see it more as pleasing the other person rather than taking pleasure from the other person. Equally, bottoming requires giving over control, but should include more than just receiving the actions of the top. There needs to be some amount of comfort in communicating while in the act so you both are getting your needs met. The bottom is responsible for creating that comfort and opening the communication by responding honestly to the acts of the top. And the top then adapting what they take.

My point being, as a switch myself, I rarely find good tops or bottoms, but with the right person it is actually a dynamic role. I find the best sex is with other switches where we take turns. Of course this requires a more "feminine" type of sex that estrogen made more easy for me to get into where sex is an opera, not a single scene. That's where building the platonic connections can help a lot. It takes time to write not just an opera, but a good opera.

And yeah I agree. I have a therapist who is also non-binary and neurodivergent like me, and that helps a ton. I never got anything out of therapy until I understood these things existed in me and sought out treatment by those who understand it at least in part. These traits require much different kinds of therapy, IMHO.

And as for what types of men, I'd say, those who are good at communication of their needs as well as listening to mine. Or at least the lack of open communication about emotions and needs is the most common reason I don't date cis-men.

Yeah, I'm aggressively non-hierarchical in my relationships. I feel like hierarchy breeds resentment, so I don't have relationships beyond acquaintanceships with people in hierarchical relationships, so anchors don't generally work well in that. Not that it's not possible in some senses, but it's unlikely to manifest in a healthy way IMHO.

Makes it really difficult to find others who have similar views. Plus being AuDHD creates issues with my socializing style.

But it results in more emotionally driven support when you don't have to prioritize one person when another is in desperate need of something I could otherwise easily offer if I hadn't spent all of my spoons on an explicit primary or anchor partner. But that's just what works best for me.

It's rough when you're in a needy phase. It may be worth reducing the number of partners so you have some energy to create a real partnership which requires more effort. I like to break relationships into components. Usually acquaintance/platonic, romantic, and sexual. Each relationship can be any combination. Acquaintanceship is just general hanging out without really caring deeply about the other person. The platonic/friendship part replaces that and tends to be the hardest because it's more about solid connection, really caring what happens to the other person, supporting them and being supported by them when things get difficult as well as enjoying the connection when things are good. This is something I've noticed most cis-men don't have with each other due to societal toxic masculinity.

Romantic is then more about individual acts of romance, planning romantic dates, making out for long periods, that kind of thing. And it requires some level of physical and/or emotional attraction usually and is about fulfilling those kinds of needs over a medium term. It is best when the types of needs of both parties align, so you're fulfilling theirs at the same time they're fulfilling yours.

And sexual is obviously more fleeting and is better with physical attraction and matching needs, but mostly is just about fulfilling very immediate needs.

Each relationship has some combination of those things. But I find that I need at least one with strong platonic connection or I get lonely. That requires energy in both directions over the longterm to work, so it's the most rare. These you really need to nurture as they are the most valuable IMHO, and easiest to lose if you take more than give. Sexual you can find easily in clubs or whatever and can be fleeting, and romantic takes a lot more to find, but tends to be easy and shorter lasting without the platonic.

So dating cis-men tends to lack the platonic part in my experience due to toxic societal norms. So although I'm pan, I also tend not to date cis-men.

Didn't see mention of it for sure but are you neurodivergent? Seems typical of big city friend making issues for neurodivergent people. I'm AuDHD with very good masking skills, even from myself for most of my life. Getting treatment for the ADHD has helped a lot vs just treatment for generalized anxiety which was just a symptom. But that's a bigger conversation.

Overall, the best thing for me was finding an extrovert who created groups and latching onto them making sure to put a lot of effort into showing up for their events so I would get invited regularly and eventually become an essential member of the group. I had 3 of them going for a while. I stuck with the group that had been around for a long time and they mostly survived COVID. The other groups, one is coming back, sort of, but timing has been difficult with all that's going on with my transition.

The one that survived happens to be a Wiccan group. Most are atheists, actually, and so the ceremony is more just a way to bring people together and connect with nature a little rather than the supernatural stuff and is always optional with this group. But Wicca is also very feminist compared to all of the major religions, which is a positive. And this group in particular doesn't enforce gender roles. They don't care if a man or woman or enby becomes the ceremonial May Queen or King for example. I'm agender even though I'm transitioning to feminine physical parts due to physical dysphoria issues. So not having strict gender categories helps me a lot.

Anyway, my point is, find a group with a strong extrovert at the center that has regular meetups whether that's Wiccan sabat holidays or monthly meetings, or whatever, try to find one that is already meeting regularly. It might be harder to make your way into an established group, but it's more likely to stick around longer term which is more important. Then be very careful to show up for events early on. Plan things so you're sure to have enough energy for mingling. And most important, make sure you show up if you RSVP. Bring reliable will make you an essential member of the group over time.

As for the group itself, it may take attending several to find one that is accepting of you, but keep trying and don't get discouraged by the first time. It takes showing up a few times and building familiarity for it to feel more comfortable.

I have a pretty aggressive ad blocking and reddit, YouTube, etc. Don't like that. Also, I dumped most of the social media that explicitly spies on you or implemented policies that LGBTQ+ and immigrant hate speech is excluded from their moderation topics and thus allowed. That all was motivation enough for me.

I do still often need to see some posts for information that is only there for the most part. So I use the LibRedirect plugin for Firefox/Ironfox so i don't have to log in for read-only purposes.

Not really my thing. I definitely want to have as natural of a body as close to what it was supposed to be as possible, but with the way the fetus's life is now given priority over a mother's, it's just not worth it to me.

Yeah I will say the hormones are easier here. I had thought the clinics also helped them coordinate surgery, but I don't really know well, just going off of something I read and it's possible that it was just one clinic that happened to offer that service, too.

For hormones here the hardest part is finding a therapist and/or psychiatrist to write the letters and in some places, finding a doctor willing to prescribe and monitor and fill out a support letter and all the paperwork to get prior authorization for the off-label-use dosage since you need more than a cis-woman which is often all that's covered by default and often isn't covered at all by default if your birth gender marker is M. When my plan changed this year I had to start getting the prior auth every 6 months because I exceed the max covered dosage by 3x.

I was lucky to have a primary care doctor that was experienced, though she moved on now. And I found a list of therapists willing to write the support (gate-keeping) letters with only a single, virtual appointment, though I had to pay cash and needed 2 of them (one at least PhD level and one at least MA level) for the surgery. For me the hormones only required one and could be MA level, though. I was on waiting lists for both therapists and psychiatrists at the time, so that list saved me. There's a shortage of mental health providers around here, too.

And the letters technically are supposed to require the mental health providers to know you well, but a lot of providers know that's just gate-keeping. And, some insurance still requires the even older WPATH recommendations that you get one that does and one that doesn't know you. My insurance is only one version behind, though, using version 7, but some use 6 or even 5 still.

It's not much better in the US and there isn't a unified "gender clinic" to coordinate things. And travel for surgery and recovery is expensive, especially when most insurance doesn't pay for that and things are so spread out in the US, so most have no option or if near a major city are stuck with the one or two overbooked options close enough to them that they can get a ride to.

I had to travel to another major city to even get on a waiting list for my first surgery since in the major city where I live, the one clinic that has a surgeon was totally unresponsive on how long their waiting list was after taking my doctor's referral.

And I had to pay around $4,000 for a month at an AirBnB plus flights, food, and necessities we couldn't fit in the now strict 50lb weight limits on luggage for me and a care person. I couldn't bring a carry-on since I wouldn't be able to carry it on the way home and you can't put the heavier liquids in there anyway like soaps, shampoos, hair products, lotions, etc. And paid several thousand out of pocket to cover deductibles and coinsurance despite having the most expensive health plan my company offers which costs about $400 every other week from each paycheck despite the fact I work for said insurance company. And that was only one surgery.

Next surgery is a 1 year wait for a consult and no clue how many years before surgery and another one is at least a 3 year wait for consult and at least 4 year wait for surgery after the consult. I can't afford to travel again for those. Had to take out a home equity loan for the first one. And I still have to pay for the mental heath visits for the gatekeeping WPATH letters each time both for the consult and again for the surgery since they each expire after a year. I really wish there was someone to help coordinate it all. For example, if I end up with the waiting lists ending too close to each other I'll have to go back on the beginning of the list assuming the surgeon is still scheduling new surgeries because you can't get too many too close to each other and they're totally separate offices.

And traveling internationally is too dangerous right now with my passport being forced to be my birth gender and my genitals not matching for the x-ray, so unless things improve it is likely I'll be too old to get most of the surgeries by the time I get through the lists. I'm already starting later in life due to lack of care. Plus I need other small surgeries for some unrelated issues which I can't find providers for in my insurance network taking new patients and can't afford to schedule too far out, just in case I get to the top of the gender care surgery wait lists.

Make sure to do a test during peak and a test during trough.

I do that and then average them. They are always significantly different and i use patches which give a more steady dose than injections.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced that the values most doctors who are not specialists use are correct for trans people. If you aren't seeing an endocrinologist with at least a little specialty in sex hormones, I'd do that and see if they can recommend the right levels for your body rather than the general numbers that were always very conservative, and came from cis women's levels rather than what trans people need since there's usually no funding to research trans people.

I was lucky enough to start HRT with a general practitioner with a lot of experience with trans people during her residency and most of her career. But she moved on to another specialty due to the difficulty making ends meet as a good doctor. I'm on the lookout myself for an endo with good experience to consult one of these days.

Yeah, I have an X on my ID so even though it's technically valid for air travel, I brought my passport instead which has my AGAB and wore really loose fitting clothes. Fortunately I didn't have to go through the x-ray that would give away that my body parts don't match my passport.

I wiped all of my devices in case I was detained, not that I have anything to hide, but I don't want to out any of my friends as trans for them to get targeted.

And I've been staying away from public bathrooms despite having a hard time holding my bladder due to some medical issues retaining salt and water. Considering getting a catheter or something for when I'm in public for more than a few hours because dehydrating myself all the time isn't good for my health.

It's really scary right now even living in a fairly progressive leaning state. I won't even think about traveling to my hometown to visit family where it's more conservative. I'm really hoping on the flight back I'm able to slip through security again. It's going to be a lot of paperwork to get my birth certificate changed to what isn't actually my gender since that's not an option, but more closely matches my body parts.

It's sad that just existing means you are classified as a terrorist and have to avoid interacting with society to survive.

Stay away from the US if you can if you are trans, intersex, non-binary, or even cis if you just have some facial traits that make you look a little less like your AGAB. It's only getting worse every day.

It will go the opposite way. The far right justices already have multiple times shown they don't care about precedent or the intention of laws, only finding strict literal interpretations that fit their ideological views to take away rights.

Again, adverse effects doesn't mean death, the fact that the description you posed has that last sentence is the alarmist thing and only applies to certain drugs, of course.

The difference in absorption rates between oral and rectal administration can be as much as double or triple or more in some cases. For example I remember reading a study from the 70s or 80s on methylprednisolone. The absorption rate orally was about 90%, but rectally was only around 35% likely due to bacteria in the rectum decomposing the drug before it could make it into the blood.

So, over the long term the difference in dose could have a significant impact on health. Getting 3 times more or less of any drug, even something relatively safe, will likely mean "adverse effects". With estradiol this could mean greatly increased side effects for overdose like nipple soreness or mood swings, or greatly decreased effect for underdose meaning testosterone takes over again and hair loss and body hair growth restart. These are "adverse effects", but are not likely to be deadly, but still considered overdose/underdose.