Coco

Mom is level 2.

Dad is level 4-5 depending on the day.

My wife’s parents are both level 6. Haven’t talked to them since we came out.

Very excited for Dawntrail. My FemRoe game remains strong!

It’s a very nerdy one.

In Final Fantasy XIV, there’s a race of little dudes named Lalafell. Their naming scheme makes for repeated and rhyming couples between the first and last name.

I made a Lalafell boy years ago named Cocozan Cozan.

After playing for a bit, my wife’s character and mine got married. I decided to change my character’s last name to hers, so the Cozan was gone. We always joked about the height difference, though, since I was a little guy and she was a taller race. So I joked about making the tallest character I could, which I believed at the time to be a female Roegadyn.

We quit playing for a while and then returned to the game a few years later.

When we came back, I decided it was time for a change and used an item that lets you change your appearance permanently. I ended up finding an old saved appearance from when I was joking about Fem Roegadyn, and just went with it.

The name Cocozan was no longer appropriate, given the lore, but I found out I could drop the Zan and it would fit fine.

So I became Coco.

It was absolutely amazing being called Coco and she/her by folks online. It wasn’t the only thing that did it, but the whole thing absolutely helped crack my very thick egg.

I ended up stealing my character’s name IRL, and now I have a very nerdy origin story.

It’s a shame, really. A non-centralized internet has existed before and must exist again if it’s to remain useable. It’s sad so many have given up because of early internet struggles. Things are even far less painful now than I remember them being in the past.

Lol, much happier now than before. Thanks! 💖

Lol, it’s me. Pre-transition I was very potato, and now I’m very rabbit. Potato to rabbit pipeline.

They’re both running against fascists, lol.

James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”. “Had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.

A little bit more emphasis during Star Wars that Vader wanted the Storm Troopers to aim poorly and let them get away. It would have solved decades of jokes and arguments about Storm Trooper weapon accuracy.

Animal Crossing New Horizons. Game came out right at the start of a pandemic and within two weeks I was girl moding in game.

Took me a year and a half to understand what that meant exactly, but the game let me explore what it means for me to be femme and try on different looks.

I probably would have figured it out without Animal Crossing, but I bet it would have taken way longer.

A house and a home are not always the same thing.

I can relate to this. I play Final Fantasy XIV and changed my character to female, probably because my egg was cracking already.

But having people call me “she” and “femme” and being happy about it… It felt amazing and definitely shattered whatever egg was left.

Being too homosexual.

FFXIV

That’s the hard part. Find out what makes you happy and pursue that. Try different stuff and experiment.

In my experience, the euphoria I felt at the beginning was huge. From small things like making a femme character in a game and dressing her up in little outfits. Shaving and having a smooth face would do it, too. Big smiles and glee.

Over time, the feeling of being constantly awash in dysphoria lessened, and those feelings are a bit more “normal”, in a way. Like … Making a femme character now is the default. It’s who I am and almost always what I will spring for.

Also, I got laser hair removal and my face is much smoother by default now, and I only have to shave every few days to cut off the white hairs.

Those feelings of joy are still there, but they’re so common it takes something huge to make me feel the same “level” of euphoria I did in the past.

But dysphoria hits harder imo since it’s much more rare.

HRT helped me a lot with this, less because of the physical effects, and more the mental. I had a lot of depression start lifting when I started HRT and it helped me feel things more strongly. The euphoria hit harder, as the dysphoria faded.

Huge disclaimer here, tho. “your mileage may very” is VERY real. No one account from any other girl’s HRT journey was just like mine.

The hard part will be figuring out what makes YOU feel the best and push towards that. This is your journey, and if that journey needs you to just reduce your dysphoria a bit before you can find your joy, then take pleasure in that feeling of being you.

Always remember also that gender isn’t binary. Testing out new looks can be helpful. Maybe your euphoria can be found in more gender non conforming looks, or nonbinary aesthetics. Maybe not idk.

The good news is that it’s up to you. Good luck, cat! <3

Mine was Scamper the Penguin.

A lot of it comes from Tiktok culture. YouTube has started doing it too.

Videos that say “kill”, “rape”, “died”, etc are all deprioritized by the algorithm if not demonetized entirely.

People have been editing subtitles to avoid these words, and the behavior spread.

This is what I use. I just downloaded Mint Cinnamon yesterday. Not sure if that means anything.

Happy to help. And tell your wife she def knows what she’s talking about. 💖

I had an appointment to start HRT in January 2022 and chickened out. I was 32 years old at the time.

After three months and some therapy, I went back and started officially in March 2022.

Sometimes you aren’t ready, and that’s okay. Give yourself some time and some love. You deserve it.

And trust me, here at age 34, I can tell ya that no clock has run out. I love myself more than ever and I still have so much more growing to do.