So this week I’ll hit 11 years on hormones and did hit 5 years post bottom surgery (thinking of writing up a post on my reflections actually), so take what I say with the grain of salt that times have changed, I transitioned fairly young, and the exciting parts are far enough in the past for me to have mythologied it in my memories.

The most important thing is to move forward when there’s moving forward to do and be patient when there isn’t. Every step you take has a wait period before it’s satisfying. Whether that’s wait lists for hrt and surgery or waiting for the effects to kick in, or even just the time it takes to learn your style or how to do makeup or voice training. So much is out of your power, so be expedient when you know what you want to do/try.

If you’re going to want to lose weight and to start hrt, do so while waiting on hormones. When you start them you should eat when hungry. Your bust line will thank you for that.

Get to know other trans people (IRL, go to support groups or PFLAG or something, internet trans communities are not sn effective replacement, though you can make irl friends through them), especially other trans women. The people already in your life may be wonderful and awesome and supportive, I still cherish my friends from before transition and many of my post transition friends are cis, but there are two things here. Firstly, you’re going to want some people in your life who can understand what you’re going through, especially when it comes to experiences like transmisogyny. And second, we’re all kinda annoying as shit about it at first because this is the most exciting new life changing experience where we’re finally being ourselves. And it’s good to share that with loved ones, but make sure you have other things on your mind as well and that you talk to your loved ones about them too.

Having other things going on for you also means you don’t get hit with the “now what” at the end. I’ve seen people who kinda forgot everything about themselves but their gender during transition as they devoted all their focus to it, but at a certain point you’re just there, no longer transitioning, but having transitioned. Those people can find themselves feeling lost and empty at that point because they’ve not engaged in their other hobbies in years.

Oh also there are trap communities. Not like the offensive word for trans woman, but like cognitohazard. I’m going to not include ones I just dislike and think are nuts that happen to have a lot of us like the rationalists. Places like 4chan’s LGBT board is filled with self destructive trans people who hate themselves and other trans people. Then there’s places like the trans surgery subreddit which is both a useful tool and also filled with people who traded dysphoria for dysmorphia. My cis ex would browse there while we were prepping for my bottom surgery and she got increasingly frustrated at women who passed perfectly talking about how they need more surgery to ever pass for cis. The youtuber contrapoints has a video titled “incels” that touches on these sorts of communities. In general avoid masochistic epistemology (“it’s true because it hurts”).

Oh also you can’t do targeted fat loss it’s a myth and everyone should lift, but wait until you’ve been on hormones for like a year or so to ensure you get feminine muscle growth.

If I think of more I may add it as a reply. But I’m absolutely open to answering any questions you have.