Read part 1 here. Topics: Introduction, Names, Estrogen, Genes.
Changes
A week after starting HRT I stopped smelling like a man. My body odor changed from burning cheese warehouse to unnoticeable, or wet hay at worst. This made me so happy! Sometimes I'd return from the gym covered in sweat, and I'd still smell only my perfume on my wet undershirt.
During the 12th week, I quickly gained a noticeable amount of fat on my butt. In the 22nd week, I noticed that my feet shrank, which I expected, based on other trans women's experience. Consider that I'm not a skeleton, there's more to a body than bones. There's a lot of connective tissue between the many bones in your feet.
What surprised me was that my torso also shrank. I needed a smaller band size when I bought a bra. Well, unfortunately, I don't really need a bra yet. My breasts only became firmer and just a little bigger. Which was to be expected at my age. They'll take more time to grow, and I'll have to wait a year from now before trying other medication, like progesterone, the other female hormone, which tends to add fat to your breasts. At the moment, I'm just happy to keep them at the same size while I'm losing weight.
As you might expect, I've become more emotional. I'm more of a people person now, which should allow me to choose from a wider range of employment opportunities. That's a pretty confusing experience when you're only twelve years from retirement.
Feeling more at home in my body made me tolerate pain and allergies better. I need less hayfever medication and I stopped taking painkillers for my toothache until I lost another tooth.
I'm trying to keep this SFW, but trust me, these days I feel like a woman in every way, wink wink, after I'd had a eunuch phase for a few months in the beginning, and again after increasing my estradiol dose. When I'm in the mood, I'll need to work harder to build excitement than in the past, which is worth it for the overwhelming release at the end.
Going forward, my most urgent need is hair removal by laser or electrolysis, especially from my face and back, but preferably all over. Yeah, I know, women can have body hair. I just want to change everything I can change, if I can afford it. It's going to be expensive, or a struggle to get it covered by insurance.
At the moment, I use makeup to cover up my five o'clock shadow. I think I've become pretty good at this, but it's annoying to do this whenever I go out. Especially because I prefer to wait until the last moment, so I can't ruin it.
Shopping for clothes has become more fun, and my taste has become more colorful. I don't have the patience to go thrifting, but I did find cool stuff at clothing swaps organized by trans groups.
Community
For my family, it took a while to get used to my transition and my new name, but they've always been supportive. My friends, the Hive folks I told and my clients when I still was freelancing have been sweethearts. The most heartwarming reactions I received were from two married Muslim women and a cis lesbian who wrote a book about how unfriendly she is. When there's a human connection, people will follow their heart regardless of what you'd expect from their demographic. Ironically, the first place where I felt accepted as 'one of the girls' was in the powerlifting classes at the gym I used to go to before I went broke.
Long before I realized I was trans, I was in touch with trans people via Tumblr, a bi group IRL and the Ethereum community. On social media these days, I mostly hang out with those who migrated from 4chan to Reddit to Twitter. My IRL trans friends are more on the woke side. We're lucky to have an active trans association called Trans Utrecht & Beyond (TUB) where I live. They have a number of English-language chat channels and organize various social events like board game nights, but will also join protests. 25-05-2025 was also the first day I visited a TUB event.
Representing TUB and Treny at the Pride Walk in Amsterdam this summer
While I'd expected that I'd have to carry pepperspray in my purse, which is illegal here, I haven't received any openly negative comments on the street, even though I'm out there on my bike delivering food around dinner time every weekend. Other trans people, even here in the Woke Zone, do not have the same experience. I guess I don't look like a vulnerable target for bullies.
My worst experience was receiving an anonymous complaint about "a man in the women's locker room" (where no one ever undressed) while I worked in a warehouse. The management, which had approved me going there, just passed through the complaint without taking a position. Then I went back to the men's locker room and stopped working there a week later. I was disappointed, because I did enjoy working with younger women from across the world (Spain, the Philippines, Pakistan and Tunisia).
Me flying the lesbian flag at the Walk of Love, Utrecht's pride march on 3 October
Lesbian
Once I became a woman, I immediately lost any interest in dating men, which had been nothing but a way to avoid acting like a man myself. Sorry guys! I've been very friendly, you have no reason to complain.
The best dream I ever had was when I imagined that I was a lesbian as a nine-year-old child. It felt like paradise, with soft bodies melting into each other. At the time, I didn't know this was possible to achieve for me. Now I still imagine the same bliss when I think about a woman's body.
One thought which puts me at ease is that most lesbian women around my age will have pretty low standards for femininity. On my part, I love all kinds of body types, but I'm going to need a confident bitch who doesn't mind getting into fights for fun. If you've met me before, you've only seen me drive with the handbrake on. It's going to get wild!
How Woke Grok sees me
I haven't started dating again yet, but I'm getting close, and I did start to connect with the lesbian and general queer community. As a cautious first step, I joined a queer open podium to perform as a stand-up comedian.
Debate
A friendly warning: you'll get a distorted view of the trans experience from news reports, propaganda and debates, even when you only listen to trans people and the few allies who know what they're talking about. It's like how the average crypto nerd who has heard of Hive only knows that it's a Steem fork. That's not the whole story! There's more to our existence than conflict.
For example, I'll want to talk about exercise, which is a big part of my social life and has been essential for me to improve my fitness before starting hormone therapy. But I get sick of hearing about trans women in women's sports, while there are more laws banning them than actual trans competitors. A more relevant problem is that millions of young trans people across the world are bedrotting to avoid dealing with a hostile environment. Not only would exercise improve their physical and mental health, it would also generate the growth hormones which trans men need for muscle growth and trans women for breast growth and general fat redistribution.
I'm not a typical trans person. No one is. We have more diversity than cis people, because we have all the same differences plus different ways to be trans. Please listen to other transgender and nonbinary people too. Every single one has a story to tell about overcoming obstacles in order to be themselves. Feel free to ask me any good-faith questions in the comments.