tuckingandotherskills:

This blog is aimed at DMAB (that’s designated male at birth) trans people. We’re tired of playing second fiddle to DFAB trans people in the queer community and having our spaces flooded exclusively with pictures and advice about binding, packing, testosterone, how to cultivate facial hair, etc. etc.

So here is a blog for you, DMAB people, where we’re going to be talking about tucking, padding, oestrogen, obliterating facial hair, makeup, clothes, and anything else your cisgender parents didn’t teach you, and your queer community was too busy elsewhere to fill you in on.

Some of the advice here will relate particularly to trans* women to do with passing, going stealth, transitioning and so on, but for the most part we’d hope that our advice will be as helpful to DMAB nonbinary trans* people to consolidate their knowledge on how to express their gender too!

cassket:

A couple of weeks ago a young butch friend of mine asked me if I would help her out with her art-school homework. She said she was doing a photo project, taking pictures of older butches. You know, like, documenting her elders.

Sure, I thought to myself, I know several older butches who I could hook her up with. A couple of them have moved to the Sunshine Coast, like they do, but I could certainly track them down, no problem. 

It slowly dawned on me that she was referring to me. I was the older butch she wanted to document. At first this realization made me laugh, and then it made my right knee ache, like it does.

I am 42. She is 21. I can’t help but do the math. I had been out of the closet for three years already by the time she was born. I was navigating my way through the gender binary blues when she was learning to do up the Velcro straps on her first-day-of-school shoes. She has probably never dialled a rotary phone. 

More and more at my shows, young butches and barely whiskered trans guys have been coming up and telling me that my books and stories helped them get through high school, or even junior high. They thank me for being a role model. This makes me feel simultaneously honoured and terrified. It makes my heart sing to know that they had what I didn’t even know I needed when I was a kid: someone they could imagine growing up to be like. It makes my heart pound to know that this means I now have to somehow be worthy of this kind of respect. 

How can I possibly be a role model when I feel like I am just now starting to fit into my own skin? When I am still stretching and bending the space around me to make room for myself? How could I possibly give advice away when I just got my hands on it? (read on)

(via pansexualpride)

A reader writes: “I’ve had an idea that I might be transsexual for a number of years now…

“My problem is this – my sister is in the middle of transitioning. She has started hormone therapy, and is very happy, but our parents are still having some difficulty…

“I’m terrified of bringing it up, because I feel like there might be an official tally somewhere in their brains that monitors the number of transgendered children they can deal with, and that the limit is one. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.”

Submitted by deafeninghush:

Advice and side effects warning to anyone who binds. (Written by Joey, beta’d by Jamie.)

The post also contains a link to this survey for anyone who has ever attempted to bind. Whether you take it to help us out or to prove us wrong on the side effects, your input is highly valued :) (Survey created by Jamie, beta’d by Joey)

A post by Silly Trans Woman:

“This article is really for people who are either just starting their transition and have little to no breast development or anyone else really who wants to look like they have natural breasts. Before I started hormones I tried all of the tricks I could find on how to make it look like I had some cleavage… Unfortunately, I never had any real success until I bought some good breastforms.

What is a breastform? Well basically it is a prosthetic breast. They come in different colors and all shapes and sizes… (read on)”