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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • There’s definitely just some variance in terms of how much it bleeds and whether it hurts. I haven’t really noticed any pattern in terms of injection site; I think there are a lot of factors. Holding the vial and maybe rolling it between your hands can help warm up the liquid, which makes it a little bit easier to both draw and inject.

    The needle size will affect these things too – the thinner the injection needle the less blood I’ve seen, but then it takes a little longer to inject. Do you know what gauge you’re using to inject with?

    I found the whole process very stressful for the first several weeks, but eventually it just became routine!


  • When you’re ready to make big changes, definitely look into threading as an alternative to waxing, a lot of folk find it less painful in the long term. (But it still really stings at first! :) )

    Having thick/full eyebrows can be an advantage, since you have more to work with. I have the problem that my upper eyebrows are a bit too sparse, which makes them much more difficult to shape.




  • I mentioned this in another recent thread, but I spent a lot of time looking through reddit threads where transgirls talked about body hair.

    What I thought was interesting is that:

    • while you do get a lot of responses that say it only somewhat reduces body hair
    • there were several folk who said it eventually did pretty much stop growth in many places (especially the torso), but that it took 3-4 years.
    • One thing generally agreed on was that no matter what, hair on the legs/forearms will stick around; that’s typical for cis women as well. (There’s a lot of variability where cis women will have noticeable hair, but almost always on the legs/forearms.)

    In online spaces you’ll generally see a lot more folk in the 0-2yrs range of HRT (because they’re newer and have more things they want to talk about.) So my guess is that the long term reduction in body hair is larger than you’d think just skimming threads like this one.

    I’m at a bit more than 2 years, and it definitely has reduced a lot on my chest/shoulders/back/butt/upper arms, but I still have to shave occasionally (especially chest/butt). For now I’m content to see if the rest goes away on its own.


  • Will I be able to go more than one day without shaving my body hair without looking at my chest and arms in disgust?

    I’ve previously been curious about this, and I waded through a lot of reddit threads looking at all the anecdotal answers.

    A pretty fair number of folk said they eventually saw a large reduction in body hair on the torso especially, but that it took 3-4 years.

    You’ll also see a lot of folk on 2 years of HRT saying it gives only a little bit of reduction.

    Hard to draw a strong conclusion here, but it seems hopeful! (I’m two years in and see some reduction, but I still have plenty of hair. Pretty sure it grows back much more slowly now, but since I didn’t shave my body pre-HRT it’s kind of hard to tell.)




  • This doesn’t seem to be normal, but I found laser maybe two order of magnitude more painful than electrolysis

    From reading other’s accounts, I find laser more painful than typical, and electro less painful. I once even came close to falling asleep during an electrolysis session.

    I had a mix of dark+white hair when I started. Laser did get a bit more bearable over time, but I think that’s just because there was almost no dark hair left to zap.

    Other than the pain, laser was better on most other dimenions (My skin recovered faster, the sessions are shorter and less often, you don’t have to skip shaving for a couple of days, etc.)







  • What sometimes helped me with these things is to visualize doing them first – to kind of run through what’s going to happen in your head. You could even kind of write out a short script of what you’re going to say, and practice it in your head!

    Also, don’t stress it too much if you back out a few times. I think I even got as far as starting to dial the number once before getting too anxious and abandoning it once. Because it’s something you want to do, you just have to keep trying and eventually you’ll be ok! :)





  • That’s always been my take too.

    A tip I got at some point was that if you feel smug/self-satisfied about posting something, it’s probably just better that you don’t. Trying to win internet points by owning bigots is not making the world better, and it certainly never made me happy either.

    But you do want other, uninformed folks to be able to see how flawed the bigots arguments really are, and if you have the energy its worthwhile putting that out there.