Transfem
A community for transfeminine people and experiences.
This is a supportive community for all transfeminine or questioning people. Anyone is welcome to participate in this community but disrupting the safety of this space for trans feminine people is unacceptable and will result in moderator action.
Debate surrounding transgender rights or acceptance will result in an immediate ban.
- Please follow the rules of the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance.
- Bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated.
- Gatekeeping will not be tolerated.
- Please be kind and respectful to all.
- Please tag NSFW topics.
- No NSFW image posts.
- Please provide content warnings where appropriate.
- Please do not repost bigoted content here.
This community is supportive of DIY HRT. Unsolicited medical advice or caution being given to people on DIY will result in moderator action.
Posters may express that they are looking for responses and support from groups with certain experiences (eg. trans people, trans people with supportive parents, trans parents.). Please respect those requests and be mindful that your experience may differ from others here.
Some helpful links:
- The Gender Dysphoria Bible // In depth explanation of the different types of gender dysphoria.
- Trans Voice Help // A community here on blahaj.zone for voice training.
- LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory // A directory of LGBTQ+ accepting Healthcare providers.
- Trans Resistance Network // A US-based mutual aid organization to help trans people facing state violence and legal discrimination.
- TLDEF's Trans Health Project // Advice about insurance claims for gender affirming healthcare and procedures.
- TransLifeLine's ID change Library // A comprehensive guide to changing your name on any US legal document.
Support Hotlines:
- The Trevor Project // Web chat, phone call, and text message LGBTQ+ support hotline.
- TransLifeLine // A US/Canada LGBTQ+ phone support hotline service. The US line has Spanish support.
- LGBT Youthline.ca // A Canadian LGBT hotline support service with phone call and web chat support. (4pm - 9:30pm EST)
- 988lifeline // A US only Crisis hotline with phone call, text and web chat support. Dedicated staff for LGBTQIA+ youth 24/7 on phone service, 3pm to 2am EST for text and web chat.
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If you have dark hair and light skin, laser is a great option for hair reduction, and it can be a cost and pain effective way to reduce how much electrolysis you will require after. For this reason, it's fairly typical for people who make good candidates for laser to do laser first, then follow-up with electrolysis.
I personally find electrolysis more painful and harder to tolerate for various reasons. With laser, a whole area is treated at once and the hair falls out in a cycle. It doesn't take much time for the laser to zap you, and I can be in and out of a laser session in 20 - 30 minutes.
With electrolysis, you pay by hour and they go hair-by-hair, so it takes a very long time for a small area to be treated, and you have to come back regularly to try to clear an area. For example, you might have an hour of electrolysis once a week. Not only does this make it more expensive, it also means you have to withstand a much longer exposure to pain, where laser might be 10 - 20 minutes of pain once every 5 weeks, electrolysis means pain for an hour once a week.
So I endorse taking the laser-first approach. They're both very painful in my experience, and I really struggled to cope with the pain (despite consistent feedback that I have a high pain tolerance by hospital staff and physical therapists over the years).
Even after 20+ laser sessions I still have facial hair, though now the hair is sparse enough I can shave with one of those portable electric face shavers marketed to women. I continue to need laser sessions, I actually need to schedule one because I've missed some treatments.
At some point I will finally switch to electrolysis, once the laser techs think they can't do anything more for me.