Last week I got myself a tape measure, figured out some sizing things and ordered a cheap dress online. It looked good, and for the first time in my life I felt beautiful. I felt like I could actually pull of a transition and not look like an ugly man in a dress. I giggled and cried and it felt so good. The next day I went to the mall, got my ears pierced, bought all the girly things I was brave enough to in person. Then I paced around mac like a weirdo until I worked up the courage to go in and ask for help picking makeup. They were great and super helpful getting me some basics. When I went home, I put my dress on, and thought I’d take it slow and just put on some lipstick and paint my nails. When I saw myself, I felt like an ugly old man in lipstick, and it fucking ruined all the euphoria from before. I know I can get past that, do my makeup better and find something more comfortable, but I wanted to hang on to that feeling forever. I saw the woman I know I am inside for a moment and wanted the rest to just happen. It’s not gonna be that easy though, is it?
Cisgender woman here, so my advice is only in relation to makeup. Lipstick is like the icing on a fancy cake. Some days or events you just want to be a cute cupcake rather than a 3-tier fondant covered cake.
If I don’t fully make up my face but then add lipstick, it looks quite harsh and unflattering. Similarly if I made up my whole face but didn’t use lipstick or mascara - it would look odd. This may be what you saw in the mirror that day. So please don’t be disheartened.
Start with light, day makeup. Little bit of mascara, a hint of blush and some tinted lip gloss. That’s one cute cupcake. Work your way up to that fancy cake!
Wow I have a lot to learn lol. Thank you so much! 💕
I just had a headstart on all this, that’s all! You’re lucky in that you live in the age of YouTube tutorials…when I was coming up I just copied the magazines and my mum. To very questionable outcomes!
Don’t feel like you need to spend a lot of money while you’re experimenting either - drug store/supermarket brands are perfectly fine:)
Youtube is a life saver for sure. I’m sure I’ll have a few questionable outcomes soon enough though lol.
Another cis woman, and my advice is similar. As the previous comment says, lipstick on its own is way harsh on anyone! Hold off on lipstick (try some lip gloss instead! You presumably missed out on the lip gloss era of your childhood that many girls go through after all) and for now maybe focus more on the eyes, specifically eyeshadow and eye liner. As far as makeup goes these are relatively gender neutral compared to say lipstick or mascara, so they might be less dysphoria-triggering. Check Google images for searches along the lines of “men with eye makeup” and you’ll find a good spread of masculine, feminine, and gender-queer inspo. Generally I recommend makeup newbies (with light or mid-tone skin) start with neutral tones for eyeshadow: a medium brown, a dark brown, and a gold or copper for some fun. For eye liner pick something in the browns: a little lighter if you have light hair and a little darker if you have dark hair. Black can be really harsh unless you have black hair, and navy and other colors are expert-level makeup. If you have darker skin, however, it’s actually easier to jump into bright colors because you’re working with a dark “canvas,” which makes for better contrast. Not to say that blue, purple, and green are off-limits for light-skinned folks, but you have to worry more about skin tone clashes so it’s trickier than sticking with neutral colors at first. Reds and pinks are intermediary difficulty and a good first color to play around with. Regardless of color start with a light application; like the other comment says, you’ll look unbalanced if you apply one element of makeup heavy without applying everything heavy. Also it’s really common to get bad advice at the makeup counter, so while they can be helpful in guiding you if you’re completely lost, take what they say with a grain of salt and trust your own judgement of what looks good. Also keep in mind they can only recommend what they stock; as an example I’ve needed to bring my own eyebrow powder before when having my makeup professionally done for a special event because too many times I’ve found anything other than one specific shade from one specific company looks really weird on me.
Tl;dr: don’t despair, makeup is hard
This is really helpful, thank you!
As a recent hatchling (about 5 weeks ago) my experience is no it won’t be that easy. But it does get easier. Sounds like you may have gone at it a little fast but that’s ok! Don’t worry about how you look. Try and focus on how it makes you feel. It’s going to take some time to explore and find out what you like and don’t like.
Those moments of euphoria will come back. And you will have moments of dysphoria. For me, those dysphoria moments got more intense now that I knew what they were, but they’re slowly becoming fewer occurrences.
It’s a marathon girl, not a sprint. No matter how hard we wish we could just press a button and be a woman, it doesn’t happen that fast.
Try and find those moments of your transition you enjoy and slowly build from there ❤️
Love yourself and explore what makes you happy and you’ll find your peace. ❤️❤️
Thank you, this was grounding <3
Of course! Trust me, I think we’ve all been there. Hell, I had a similar breakdown about HRT a week or so ago. Sometimes that dysphoria hits hard and its hard to see a way out of it - but you already found your way out. It just takes some time to get there but you WILL get there.
I have found trying to focus on things that give me the most dysphoria and working on addressing that first. So for me, the biggest source of dysphoria is all my body hair. So I’ve come up with a shaving routine to help address it and it’s helped me both have more moments of euphoria and the ability to better appreciate them when they come ❤️
Yeah, I still had a burst of dysphoria after bottom surgery related to having to diolate 3 times a day.
This is great, I’ll keep this in mind as I plan some next steps.
So, here’s a thing. You’ve grown up surrounded by transphobia and internalised it. It’s the work of a life time to undo that. So my advice to you is to just try and keep that in mind. The voice telling you that you’re “a man in a dress” is what years of internalised transphobia looks like.
There is no easy trick to make that voice go away, but you can remember what it is when it sounds in your head, and take away a lot of its power, and you can give yourself permission to go easy on yourself :)
You’ve got this
Going easy on myself is gonna take some practice. Thank you 💕
HRT is gonna be your friend.
Same girl, I’m still totally hung up on passing, even though I know I’m still questioning whether I am trans or not. Even though cis people don’t get euphoria when they see a picture of someone their age passing, or thinking about being referred to with she/her lol. it’s gonna take time but we’ll get there queen 👑
You’re god damn right we will.
As your standard middle aged SWM I wish you the best and don’t give up. I know you might be worried about people judging you for whatever reason, but to others you are an inspiration. You might not realize, but you are making the world a better place. If everyone had the courage to try and pursue the things that make them happy or make them feel whole we would live in a much better world. Don’t be discouraged, just keep loving yourself and be who you are.
❤️
Yep, buckle up, it’s the wildest rollercoaster ever.
There will come a day when you see your true self in the mirror without makeup, without a dress or anything else. As women we’re just super critical of ourselves and the expectation of “ideal” femininity so high that almost nobody can reach it. When you try your damnest to look for an ugly man in a dress, but all you’ll see is a woman, then you’ve come full circle. That is attainable.
The further along I get, the more women confide in me, and when you’ve heard enough perfectly lovely gals call themselves hideous because they have wrinkles or peach fuzz on their face, then you realize we’re all fighting a similar fight.
