erotador called me a girl about a year ago while responding to one of my posts here. It was the first time I’d ever been gendered correctly on purpose. I think I was pretty sure by then, but the euphoria it gave me made it impossible to deny.

I know that isn’t the full answer to the question, I just remembered that moment and I’m feeling so damn grateful rn

im so gay 😳 god help me

Teared up a little looking at your photo. I’m so glad you’re in this world. I would be so lucky to know you

me🥲irl sigh

thank you for girlmoding for me 🥹

Here’s an indoor routine that I developed when I was stuck indoors and kept up for like 4 years. It’s probably not optimal, but it is almost entirely equipment-free, and it kept me sane and in decent shape.

Arm+core day:
Bicycle crunches
Pullups (find something you can hang on to, or a sturdy table)
Pushups (if you can’t do a full pushup yet, do the ‘assisted’ variety, i.e. put your knees down)

Leg+core day:
Bicycle crunches
Squats
Lunges

Aim for 2-3 sets.

Either exercise till failure (i.e. until you can’t do another consecutive rep), or set a timer for each exercise and do as many reps as you can within it. Try to keep beating your previous number of reps, but don’t expect that to happen every time.

Alternate arm+core and leg+core, maybe taking a rest day in between if necessary.

If an exercise is too hard, google e.g. “pull-up progression”. If it’s too easy, look for advanced versions.

The internet is your friend for any other information you might need. Lots of great tutorials and stuff on YouTube in particular.

P.S. going outdoors for exercise will probably feel better. Worth trying to get permission.

Even if you get diagnosed but can’t commit to therapy and/or medication, the diagnosis can be helpful on its own. It allowed me to finally take the way I was feeling seriously, as well as overcome a lot of counterproductive ideas, like that I just had “the wrong mindset” or “wasn’t trying hard enough to be happy”. If that’s as far as it goes for you… well it’d be better than nothing, right?

Lot of boomers in the comments continuing to live up to the stereotypes by finding new and infuriating ways to completely miss the point

Seconding the suggestion to see a mental health professional about your mental state.

Saying that I’m dead inside doesn’t seem fitting, it sounds too negatively connotated. I just got nothing inside, it feels like. I just do stuff in autopilot, not feeling anything about it in any way. In retrospect I don’t know when the last time was that I sincerely laughed about something or was really sad or angry about stuff, it seems like I just go auto-pretend in order to act appropriately or look interesting to others.

This sounds a lot like how I experienced depression at its peak. You may not suspect that you’re clinically depressed if you’ve never really experienced anything else your whole life. Same principle as gender dysphoria.

A bit of a background info: I look terrible. Not just in the regular mtf dysphoria i-don’t-look-female terrible, but also the just generally ugly human being way. I die inside a little everytime I look into the mirror and avoid cameras like the plague.

As much as the beauty industry wants us to believe that beauty is a tangible goal that we can reach by spending enough on clothes and makeup and beauty treatments; as much as modern Nazi-adjacent *cel ideology wants us to crush our own spirits by believing that beauty is genetically determined and immutable; as much as both only survive by convincing us to care about it at all - it is very much a subjective thing that lies in the eye of the beholder.

In my experience, peoples’ own opinions about their looks tend to have little overlap with what other people actually see. And what other people actually see is like 50% due to their own mental state and preferences/biases. In any case, I seriously doubt people find you as ugly as you feel, simply because it’s unlikely that anyone cares that much about what some stranger looks like. Even if I don’t find you attractive, I don’t WANT to feel repulsed, so why would I bother paying any attention to your appearance?

You don’t control what other people see. You CAN control what you see. Look for the parts of yourself that don’t disgust you completely. Learn to love even the smallest fraction of yourself. Do appearance-related things that make YOU feel good, that feel authentic and true to yourself. Things that make you feel like your body is truly YOURS, regardless of whether it’s beautiful or not.

I’m not even out, I certainly don’t pass, and I honestly doubt I ever will to other people. That doesn’t stop me from looking in the mirror and seeing fragments of the woman I’ll be one day. It’s taken me years, and progress has been too slow to actually notice it, but it’s definitely happened.

I’m still dealing with shitty parents myself. What ultimately helped was distance - spending less time around them and more time with people who wouldn’t treat me like garbage. Eventually, after getting used to dealing with stuff without my parents around, I became a bit more confident about my own worth and validity, and less affected by their disapproval and scorn.

I’ve had to move back in with them recently, and the improvement is really clear - while they’ve only gotten worse as people, they’ve mostly lost their ability to make me feel like shit all the time.

To be clear - none of what you’re going through is right or fair. Parents being intentionally cruel to their children is absolutely reprehensible behavior, and the fact that it’s so common is an indictment of our system of raising children. You have all my sympathy.

People here are going to tell you that you should aim to end your relationship with your father. I used to think that was going too far, and that people should only do it as an absolute last resort. But what I’ve learnt is that when someone you’re close to hurts you for long enough, they make it impossible to keep loving them - and then the relationship ends on its own, whether you want it to or not. Without making any conscious effort, I’ve become so closed off from my parents that even their touch now feels like a stranger’s. I can care about them as fellow adults, and I do want the best for them, but the parental relationship is just gone.

It sucks, and it hurts, but there was nothing I could do to stop this from happening. My parents were old enough to know that hurting a loved one would damage the relationship. They chose to do so anyway. Your situation isn’t the same as mine, and maybe your dad will come around eventually. But I’m telling you all this because I don’t want you to feel bad about whatever you need to do to take care of yourself.

you’re so pretty

❤️🥹❤️

Hello from a fellow transfem. I’ve been stuck in the closet for years and at this point who knows if I’ll ever make it out, so let me preface this by saying that I can’t offer any help, or answers, or anything honestly. Feel free to ignore the rest of this if you don’t have the bandwidth for my bullshit. But I guess even screaming into the void is preferable to whatever the hell I’m doing with my life right now, so here goes.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. My life right now isn’t even 1% as hard as yours. Nobody is coming after me, and the abusive family I’ve been stuck with my entire life can’t really hurt me the way they used to anymore. I have food and shelter and time on my hands.

I’m just… stuck. Unable to transition, unable to work on myself. There’s plenty of things I could do right now to alleviate my dysphoria or increase my chances of survival as an out trans woman, but I can’t get myself to do any of them. All I want to do is waste my life away, numbing myself with content, refusing to engage with the world or my feelings. The same way I’ve been for years, long before I knew I was trans.

It’s ridiculous, really. I’ve known for years that I’ll either come out while I’m alive or in a suicide note, and I decided years ago that suicide wasn’t an option. But here I am, doing nothing. I’m stuck.

I think I keep coming back to this site because I’m desperate for queer community, even though I know I don’t have the courage to reach out or open up. But apart from my own bullshit, what can I even say to you? You’ve faced everything I’m afraid of, every fear that keeps me locked in place, and it hasn’t stopped you. You’ve honored the parts of yourself that I can’t even face. What do I actually have in common with the trans community I love and yearn for so deeply?

I guess all I can come up with is… thank you. For your post that got me to express myself for the first time in weeks. And, though my opinion feels so worthless that I feel disgusting typing it out - it really matters to me that you’re staying alive despite everything that wants to kill you, and I really hope you’re able to heal and thrive some day. I haven’t been able to feel that way about myself for a while, so my vague, senseless, one-sided love for queer strangers I’ve never met is really the only thing keeping me going right now. And today, you were the one who let me have that. So, thank you.

God damn he’s cute. I don’t even like men. Just… I love this so much

If this ends in Tucker Carlson running for president we’re SO cooked.

He has the messaging skills and charisma that Trump never had (he was the most popular TV show host for a while), and he’s been an ardent white supremacist for decades (vs Trump’s half-assed self-interested bigotry). He could probably make white supremacy look like a sensible option to even the Trump-averse right-wing establishment types, and to the corporations and billionaires that hate Trump for what he’s doing to the economy.

Recently I’ve seen him co-opting traditionally leftist concerns about housing and affordability, and unless the Dems do the unthinkable and actually field popular candidates, that’s going to win over even MORE people than Trump ever could with his blatantly fake populism.

Add in the usual caveats about how things don’t need to turn out this way, etc. I’m just scared.

Fuck organized religion.

Huh?

I don’t really feel like talking about it, but I’m just going to note that I strongly disagree with your opinion in this post. I think it’s natural to experience existential dread over how little our actions matter in the grand scheme of things, and wonder whether our fellow human beings - or ourselves - are worth the effort. I do not think it’s arrogance, privilege or narcissism to feel that way. If someone had suggested that to me back when I was in OP’s position, I would have slipped even deeper into despair. I’m not attacking you, I just want to point out that there is space for different perspectives here.

I want you to know that I feel incredibly seen and validated by this post.

I’ve never had the chance to meet people like you in real life, so I’ve had to hold on to the few instances in which I’ve seen my feelings reflected in media. The one instance I keep coming back to is How To Be Hopeless by Carlos Maza. It’s an absolute masterpiece of a video essay, written from the depths of the personal and existential despair of a man who dedicated his adult life to fighting far-right extremism, and was rewarded with the end of his professional career and the victory of his serial harasser. Its message has become a core part of who I am now, and when I experience the kind of despair you’re describing, I return to it. It’s saved my life before. I cannot recommend it to you strongly enough.