Emrie

I literally cannot transition without talking to a gender therapist. The gender therapist MUST officially diagnose me with gender dysphoria in order for me to transition. So yes I'm going to talk to a therapist. Which is what happens. Not necessarily a whole year, and it depends on the country you live in. I know the US has "Informed Consent" clinics where they let you take HRT without therapy but you'll need a therapist anyways for surgeries, and only if you're an adult. Countries with universal healthcare require the diagnosis to cover the HRT, so if you wanted to do it without it, you're now paying out of pocket. And you can always stop HRT if it doesn't feel right. You feel the effects of it very quickly so you can quickly tell if it's not right. If you've only been on HRT for a few months, you won't really even have any (or maybe just a few) consequences on your long-term health. I think the biggest one is you can become sterile after like a year. Beyond that, your body will just go right back to producing your hormones normally like before. I think a lot of conservatives really don't understand the actual reality of transgenderism and transitioning. People don't just wake up one day and decide they want to change their gender. It's a lot harder and there's much more due process than they think. Not saying you're a conservative, Leo, but it's just a feeling I've got from the arguments I hear conservatives talk about. As to your point on whether I'm kidding myself, we'll see what the therapist says, but, I don't think so. I've been improving my life for more than 8 years now and there's always been something missing. At the very least you can be happy I'm actually getting myself exposed to this new experience and seeing how I feel. Which was exactly what you said to do to build a happy life.

And that's what I did, actually. That's what I've been doing, for years. That's what I'll continue to keep doing forever. I can absolutely tell you that transitioning is the deepest thing I want right now. I want to have a woman's body, to have a woman's name, to dress in women's clothes, to be seen and treated as a woman by everyone. More than anything else in the world. Maybe it's not *the* deepest thing I'll ever want in my life, but I don't care. It's the deepest so far, and by miles. Like MILES. -- Also just to clarify, someone trans doesn't just wake up one day and makes the decision to transition, it's a lifelong thing. I have always been a girl, since birth. There's a distinction between being trans and transitioning. Being trans isn't a decision, you just are, from birth. Transitioning, changing your body to match your gender, that's a decision. And transitioning is done with the assistance of many different medical professionals from many different fields. To your point, we have gender therapists. The therapists are essentially gatekeepers, preventing people from hormone treatments and surgeries unless it's right. But they're helpful, and they're here to help those who seek to transition. Maybe indeed I want something else, or my lifelong poor mental health comes from other trauma or something else, and that's what I'll be clarifying with my gender therapist. I have ... strong doubts it's anything else, but maybe it is, and I'm not closed off from it. Or maybe I am trans but maybe I need to heal from some other stuff before really being able to transition safely.

I already have that. I mean you really just said "maybe you just want friends" to someone who's telling you they've been living as the wrong gender their whole life? Really? Hell yeah. I mean I would've let them smash before, but they're not into guys.

Oh no, anyway. Clearly you've never experienced gender dysphoria, yeah. Clearly. You have no idea how bad it gets. I mean, okay, your profile says you're a man. Try and imagine what it'd be like to live your entire life in the body of a woman. To look in the mirror and see a woman's body ALL THE TIME, to have every single person on the planet always think you're a woman, to treat you like a woman, to sound like a woman, to literally just be a woman at all times for the rest of your life. You really think you could just "accept" it? I don't believe that for one second. For me, I can't wait to be a woman for the rest of my life, literally the dream, and I wish I had known sooner, in fact I just wish I was born in a female body in the first place. My life would have been a lot better. I mean you might as well ask me "Have you tried not being trans?" And to that I would say "I don't know, HAVE I? What have I been doing for 27 years!" Yeah, for like 3.5 years now I've lived away from my parents, with my own job. I'd even argue it's finally the independence from my parents that allowed me to explore myself more deeply, realizing I'm bisexual first, transgender now. Thanks for your whole message, I didn't quote it here but the whole message was awesome. To answer this specific phrase, yeah no lol I could not care less for them. If my identity was so fragile that a couple random messages on a forum could threaten, then yeah maybe I wouldn't be trans. But that's certainly not the case here.

@Jannes I want to thank you, deeply, for this, actually. The decision to go through a full medical transition is not a small one. And, if I'm honest, I haven't made it yet. It's a very long process that involves many medical professionals, a gender therapist, a separate psychiatrist, an endocrinologist, of course also the surgeons who will perform the operations, if it even comes to that. All of these people have to agree that, yes, I have gender dysphoria, and yes hormonal therapy and potentially surgeries are needed to heal it. And we're looking at years here, like at least five. I can see that like I've made a single forum post and it can seem that I almost just woke up one day and decided I'm a girl now, time to make radical life changes to my body. But that's not at all what's happening here. I've been questioning my gender ever since I learned I could have a gender different than the one I was assigned at birth. Even before that, when I was a kid, I fantasized about having been born a girl. Those feelings got repressed, of course, but they were there. I've actually somewhat tried what you mentioned up there, I identified as non-binary, presented masc, but still allowed myself to act as feminine as I wanted, and do all the girly stuff I wanted. But, ehh, didn't really work, still felt like something was missing, or I was just felt too masc still. Maybe my therapist will tell me to go do that some more, and better, and maybe it'll be enough, or maybe it won't, we'll see. Regardless, I'm going through a really powerful experience, and I'm solidifying my gender identity and expression, and I can only come out better from this.

When the Happiness video came out, I started visioning a happy life for myself. And one evening coming home, I saw a group of girls having a blast on a girls' night out. And it kinda looked like one of them was a trans woman (I'm making an assumption here of course, but it was harmless as I didn't interact with them, would have changed instantly if they corrected me, and also it was really helpful to me). I ... literally cried, on the street. It was an incredibly powerful and meaningful moment because it made me realize that I wanted to be that trans woman in that group, to have a group of girl friends, and that this was an absolutely critical, probably the most important, component of my happy life. I had to change my body to be that of a woman's body, I had to make relationships and be treated as a woman by other people, I just had to accept and actualize who I deeply am on the inside. And I knew it's right because I knew I would face discrimination, I knew I could potentially be disowned by my parents, I knew it would be a long and difficult process, and maybe, after a few or a lot of sessions of therapy, I would realize I'm not trans. But regardless, it was all worth it, it was just an absolutely critical important step for me to go through. So I could finally have a definitive answer on what my gender actually is and start to integrate it and let it shine fully in the world. Since that night, I've been extremely emotional, sometimes even crying at work (like in the building, I would be on my break, reading a trans story or even just listening to a song). It's been absolutely amazing and powerful and just incredibly meaningful to me, to be able to fully explore my gender and who I deeply am on the inside. And difficult, too. Doubting my transness, being fearful of fully labeling myself as a woman, because ... would other women really accept me as one of their own? (caring about other people's feelings - very manly). And tonight I watched the "Masculinity vs Femininity" video, from 7 years ago. It helped solidify even more that I'm a woman, who was born in the wrong body. I am all about soaking in life, surrendering, going with the flow, feeling emotions, and breaking logic to save feelings - I mean, not completely, it's a spectrum, but I lean way more for feelings than for logic. So thank you Leo, I want you to know you've been a guiding light in my life, you've brought me from a completely hellish life deep inside of a hole at the bottom of a dark cave, and I think I'm starting to see the outside world. It's beautiful, scary, and just absolutely amazing in every way.

That was an amazing video, thank you Emerald for sharing it. Instantly subscribed to the guy, looks like he makes a lot of great content. I am really glad to hear him talk about this stuff and I agree on all fronts. Once again, the patriarchy harms us all, and I really loved that he talked about the societal changes that do affect even what makes someone attractive to others. And I think it ties back to what Leo said in his How to Get Laid series, ultimately it's about being yourself, but you have to learn to be yourself, and that can be hard especially since we're groomed to be lonely and emotionally maladjusted men.

Sounds good, I'll try these. And on these days I can do supersets where I'm doing two exercises at once back to back. What do you think of this? Monday: Ab Machine 4x12 Squats 5x5 Deadilft 1x5 Tuesday: Bench Press 5x5 Barbell Row 5x5 Wednesday: Leg Press & Calves Superset, 4x12 for each exercise Hamstring Curl 4x12 Deadlift 1x12 Thursday: Bench Press 3x12 Lat Pulldown & Bicep Curl Superset, 4x12 Triceps Machine & Lateral Raises Superset, 4x12

Actually this has been my main concern for the past few months, I'm definitely thinking I'm not hitting enough muscles. I've had very good progress in the beginning but not as much any more. It'll definitely take me two or three times at a given weight before I can increase it. I would argue that biceps are hit pretty well with the bench press and the barbell row, and hamstrings by the squats and deadlifts (I do two sets btw). But it might be worth adding some exercises specialized in them. Thing is I can really only do ten total sets per workout otherwise it starts to get too long. This is the video I saw regarding minimalistic training I guess that's been my approach yeah, even if unintentional. And yeah I'd say it doesn't work well for advanced trainees. But it's decent for newbies and intermediates. I'd say I'm still a newbie.

Oh btw yeah I didn't mention at all. There's a lot of really interesting science on minimalistic training. You can get a lot out of very little and it's a super valid way of exercising for people who only want or can work out once every four or five days.

Found this video on overtraining. Very informative. I've never heard anyone recommend more than 48h of recovery. Do you have any studies that could prove me wrong? It's worth pointing I started with twice a week, then increased to three times a week, now four. Then I added the cardio. Over a course of two years. It felt right every step of the way. I give myself three minutes of break between sets if I complete them, five if not, and I get pretty close to failure, I'd say typically 1-3 reps left in the tank. But thanks for your input, if I feel unhappy with my gains in the future, I'll look into potentially lowering how much I work out.

Do you have any data to back that up? I hit every body part between 3 and 10 sets a week, I have only one cardio workout, and I never hit the same body part two days in a row. These are very standard numbers. Personally I don't feel any pain, tiredness, or anything negative from this. And I see strength, muscle mass, and cardio improvements.

Here's mine: Monday: Ab Machine 3x12 Squats 5x5 Deadilft 1x5 Tuesday: Bench Press 5x5 Barbell Row 5x5 Wednesday: Squats 3x12 Deadlift 1x12 Calves Machine 3x12 Thursday: Bench Press 3x12 Barbell Row 3x12 Triceps Machine 3x12 Friday: Sprinting Saturdays and Sundays are rest days but I'm still typically very active. I go hiking, skiing, swimming, or any other activity, it's typically very low effort though. I like this workout routine because I have big compound movements as well as isolated exercises and I think as a whole I train the entire body that way. Also switching between 5x5 and 3x12 allows me to work both for raw strength in the 5x5 as well as more volume in 3x12. And I also still have a sprint workout so it's not all about just big muscles, I do cardio to keep myself healthy. What are y'all's workouts?

How do I squat 100kg in nature? Gyms provide all the equipment for all the exercises that I simply don't have in nature.

Yeah I did. For, I would say almost a year, I would tell myself to stop drinking, every single day, while I was still drinking. Then one day, Leo made his series of videos on how to get laid, I loved it and was like "it's time to make some changes". I decided to move to a different city and stop alcohol. And I did both of these things. Was kinda easy I just said "no" every time I wanted to drink alcohol. What was worse was dealing with everyone asking me why I don't drink. This is always how things happen in my life, something external happens, and I make sweeping changes. Up until a few months ago, I was eating a lot of unhealthy food and never cleaning my home. Then I sprained my ankle, my grandmother came over, cleaned the apartment and cooked me healthy food, and ever since, both my diet and my home are very clean. This was, again, after like a year of telling myself I shouldn't eat so much unhealthy food and I should clean my apartment.