dandelion

Get your HPV vaccine, and if post-op, see a gynecologist!

when dilating, often I have a lot of pain around what I suspect are certain scar rings in my neovagina, basically areas where it's much harder to push past, almost like a sphincter but without control to tighten

I have discovered that after pushing painfully past certain points I can experience painful burning sensation, but if I pull the dilator out, put a horizontal ring of lube on the dilator around the threshold of how deep it goes in, and then put the dilator in, I often manage to get the same depth as was painful before but experience less pain and burning. I think this is twofold, maybe relaxing and re-inserting helps reduce tension, and maybe the lube at the edge helps prevent pain from pushing deeper.

Was wondering what people think about the label "lesbian" and what it means, and who should or shouldn't use it.

There was someone on Bluesky who was upset when they learned I sometimes identify as a lesbian because I'm a woman in a long term relationship with a woman, even though I'm technically bisexual. (I've only ever dated women, would only ever want to date women.)

They said I was appropriating the label "lesbian", that I was lesbophobic, and that I was communicating that it's shameful to be bisexual. (For clarity, I don't hide that I'm bi, I will identify that way in some contexts, and in others I will identify as a lesbian - usually I identify as lesbian around straight people, and among LGBT+ folks I'm more likely to identify as bi or communicate more about my sexuality; tbh it doesn't come up much, and my sexual orientation not a big part of how I like to identify).

I tend to think a label like "lesbian" communicates a sexual or romantic relationship between two women, so I'm surprised to interact with someone who was so rigid about the label that it cannot apply to someone who is even capable of opposite-sex attraction ...

I'm not sure I would ever date a man, so sometimes "lesbian" or "sapphic" are labels that feel more accurate to who I am than a term like bisexual, which implies more openness than I actually have. It's also irrelevant for me since I'm in a long-term monogamous relationship with a woman, from the perspective of others in my life, I have been and will continue to be a lesbian ...

I just wonder where the rigidity comes from, and why the person thought I was lesbophobic. I wasn't able to ask her or learn about her perspective, so I was hoping someone would help me understand wtf just happened, lol

Feminine-named hurricanes (vs. masculine-named hurricanes) cause significantly more deaths, apparently because they lead to lower perceived risk and consequently less preparedness.

...

We use more than six decades of death rates from US hurricanes to show that feminine-named hurricanes cause significantly more deaths than do masculine-named hurricanes. Laboratory experiments indicate that this is because hurricane names lead to gender-based expectations about severity and this, in turn, guides respondents’ preparedness to take protective action.

underestimate a female hurricane and die, I guess

so, I should start by saying vaginoplasty significantly reduced my genital dysphoria, and in general has helped me feel more like a woman - it's overall quite clear it was the right choice for me (and same with transition overall).

... but I've struggled a lot with continued bottom dysphoria and anxiety that I made a mistake or the surgery was problematic or wrong in some way

for example, my labia continue to look and feel like scrotal tissue, and I feel insecure about this - they can sag and look wrinkly at times, which makes them look scrotal to me.

I also seem to have no labia minora as far as I can tell, or perhaps it's too early post-op to tell, the clitoral hood is just a tighter part of the same labia majora - so maybe as swelling goes down there will be more of a sense of inner folds vs outer folds?

Anyway, lots of insecurity and concerns that my genitals are still male. Any time I'm aroused and my clit becomes engorged, it feels so much like an erection that I become dysphoric and I struggle to stay in the moment and maintain arousal.

Last night I had a dream that a stitch popped or something changed in my recovery overnight, and I woke up with my labia sagging even more and bunching into an empty scrotal sack, and my clit when engorged would become erect and push out several inches into an erect penis. It was very distressing in my dream, I was panicking and trying to find a private place to capture photos to send my surgeon. (In some ways this nightmare was clarifying or affirming - knowing my unconscious is not secretly coveting having male genitals again makes me feel more confident I made the right choice.)

I guess I never expected to have so much bottom dysphoria post-op, or to struggle so much to see my vagina as female. Sometimes I even wonder if this is what it's like to be a trans man, to "feel male" internally and to have female genitals (though obviously this isn't how trans men feel, trans men generally want to feel male in body and mind, something I don't experience - and my "feeling male" is more like insecurity and imposter syndrome than whatever trans men experience).

It still hasn't been six months since my surgery, and I'm so early in my transition in general - I just trust it will get better over time ... but right now anyway, I am struggling more than I expected with challenges I perhaps naively expected or hoped the surgery would just immediately solve.

I have noticed that the dysphoria I would feel when I lay on my back and twist my lower body in a way that allows me to feel the length of my clit embedded in me, and it would feel like my penis was sewn onto me, has gone away - with the healing I think inflammation has gone down and I no longer notice that sensation of length in me, and when I do twist or pull in a way that seems to engage my clit, it feels more "normal" and doesn't create dysphoria. So already the dysphoria I had earlier in my recovery is subsiding, which is good!

I think this was mostly a vent post / brain dump, but I did want to ask about others' experiences - I wanted to invite general sharing of what surgeries were like for others (esp. what wasn't expected or isn't commonly discussed).

If anyone has advice for me, I'm completely open. Thanks for reading 😊

joined bluesky to stay in touch with a friend

I've never understood Twitter, but I think I'm starting to understand

getting pulled in kinda makes me feel like I should be on mastodon primarily instead, so I was wondering what the "Blahaj" of Mastodon is, what server should I join?

was trying to find out if we are intentionally defederated, I don't see any hilariouschaos communities showing up in the Blahaj search, so I assume they aren't federated - just not sure why and was hoping to learn the lore 😅

Just wondering what the experience is like for cis men who have experienced estrogen dominance...

I've read that there are accounts of side effects in men who take estrogen for prostate cancer and who experience depression.

There are also the famous cases of Alan Turing and David Reimer. Was hoping for more first hand accounts of what the cis male experience is like on estrogen.

Just wondering if anyone has experiences they're willing to share. Thanks!

this is along with name, race and other demographic information

They don't have a gender field, and it really feels like they are just reducing sex and gender down to "you are what you were assigned at birth", and then hiding behind amorphous medical "reasons" as justification ....

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/49471032

Why or why not?

In my experience, dysphoric thoughts can be contagious in a way, a particular, dysphoric way of seeing can transmit to other dysphoric trans people who may have not have considered that way of seeing.

(I am of course not implying gender dysphoria is contagious, just that my experiences with dysphoria have in the past caused other dysphoric people to have worse dysphoria.)

So as a precaution, I'll put my cognitohazard dysphoria thoughts behind a spoiler.

These feelings have improved somewhat over time, and it's only been three months since my surgery, so it's still recent-ish. I don't know how long these dysphoric feelings will continue, but I assume they will get better.

I guess I'm looking for reassurance, or at least someone else who has had similar experiences to chime in on theirs.