Hello little buns! It is Stef, welcome back to my home! It has been - wait for it - it
has been! FOUR! MONTHS! on estrogen now and I really - okay, I feel like I say this every
single time, but I really feel like things are starting to kick in. But I've got good
reasons this time, I've got a lot of things that I've noticed, um, that are drastically
different from four months ago that I really want to highlight. But, again, before I get
into the nitty gritty and the guts of, you know, what I've noticed, I want to give a
few disclaimers. Number one being, everyone is going to experience HRT differently, so
if you are also four months on estrogen and you're not noticing the same changes, it's
not because either one of us is doing it wrong, it's because our bodies are different and
that's just how it works. The next disclaimer is please, if you're a trans person looking
for advice and learning about experiences, I'm glad you're here, just make sure you're
not using my videos as a guide for self-medicating because I am not a doctor and I'm not here
to tell you about how to self-medicate, I'm just here to share my experieces, okay? So
number one most important thing that you need to know is what I am actually taking. So I
am taking, once a day, 100mg of Spironolactone which is my testosterone blocker. It's got
a lot of applications but that's what it's used for in regards to hormone replacement
therapy. I'm also taking 2mg a day of Estrace which is my estrogen, it's the actual hormone
that's causing the changes. So the Spironolactone blocks testosterone and the Estrace does its
work! By the five month update, that should have doubled. Both of those pills should have
doubled, but I don't know, that's up to my doctor who I'm seeing in a few days, we'll
see what happens, but ummm, hopefully those will be going up very soon. So, as usual,
I want to start with physical changes and this is where I've started to notice a lot
has changed. My skin is not even comparable to what it was before - it's not only softer,
now it's actually lighter in colour as if it's like, refreshing itself more often, it's
more radiant, it's brighter, it's very strange. My face, I've always taken good care of so
I haven't noticed a huge change in my face in terms of the skin, but the skin on my body
has changed completely and it's very different. It's like a different person, it's awesome
and it's bewildering and it's bizarre. But at the four month mark my skin is definitely
nothing like it used to be, which is great. I love that. I've also started to notice structural
differences - I probably shouldn't say structural because that implies bone structure, I'm actually
talking about fat redistribution, I'm starting to notice differences in the fat distribution
in my body and in my face. So with my face, there is one particular thing that is very
different to me, and that is, before I started hormone therapy - let me just get my hair
out of my face here - before I started, I had a very clear, like, square here. Right
here. Not even the whole jaw, my whole jaw is kind of square, but right here I had a
very clear square and when I talked it was almost like a muppet - not a muppet, a puppet
mouth - a little bit like a puppet mouth. And I feel like it's, it's still, like it's
a mouth, WHATEVER, but it's completely different in the way that the fat sits in the front
of my face. I've also noticed my cheeks have a lot more fat in them, umm... they used to
be kind of like, gaunt, and I wouldn't have any, like, weight in my face, but now the
weight is sitting in my face and it's rounded out a little bit, from the side you can kind
of see, like... cheeks now. (slapping sounds) (SLAPPING SOUNDS INTENSIFY) Whereas before
it was kind of like, it was like the cheekbone and then it was like BOOOOOH, it was like,
concave, and now it's kind of rounding out and that is, something I'm definitely seeing
is a recurring theme for my body. So in terms of body shape, not, again, not a big difference
but I'm noticing that the weight is starting to shift down. Again, not a huge huge difference
but you can see that I kind of have like a, narrower, different kind of figure. In regards
to body changes I have finally ordered my first steel-boned corset, for waist training.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding waist training but the bottom line is, as
long as you're safe about it and you slowly, you take it very slow, you're gonna be fine.
Of course, there are different individual reasons based on your self, your own body,
that might make it not good for you, but I know based on my own body, and my own autonomy,
that it will be fine, I'm not going to hurt myself. I would say if you're interested in
trying waist training, just do some research, talk to people that have done it, just make
sure you have a lot of perspective and a lot of information. Because if you do something
wrong, it can hurt you pretty seriously. So the waist trainer I ordered, I'm not going
to promote the brand because I don't know if I like it yet, uh, I haven't received it
yet. So my waist right now is 32 inches, the smallest part of my waist, right here, right?
Is 32 inches. And the person I ordered it from reccommended you go 6 inches down from
your waist if you're trying to waist train. And you don't go all the way - you don't lace
to the 6 inch difference right away because that would crush your organs. What you usually
do is you start at like the 1 or 2 inches, you pull it in a little bit and over time
you get tighter and tighter and tighter until your body naturally just kind of adjusts to
it, you know what I mean? So I'm going to go, ideally from 32 to 26 inches over the
period, like, a very long time. It's not gonna be in a month I'm not gonna have a 26 inch
waist that's not how this works, but um we'll see what happens when I get there, we'll see
how the rest of my body changes and we'll go from there. I will you keep you updated
on, on the waist training adventure as well in these videos. So, another physical thing
I've noticed that really impressed me is my neck, to me, appears thinner, it appears more
delicate. My shoulders appear smaller, like lower, not necessarily thinner, not narrower,
but shorter. Because before I had a very prominent muscle that would come from like, my neck
to here, like a, it's a very... like body builders have it it's some crazy shit. So
I feel like, my neck, instead of going like WHOOM, now I actually, I have a shoulder.
I have a ledge. Which is interesting. So I'm just hoping that changes continue to occur
in those areas and that over time, my neck, my shoulders and my back continue to slender...
to slenderize themselves? Like, more? Slenderize? Is that a word? I think it's a word. I've
also noticed, and I don't know if this has any factual backing whatsoever, it might just
be the place that I went to, but I've noticed I can buy a shoe size smaller than I used
to. I used to buy like a 10 and a half or an 11 in women's and now I wear a 10 or a
9 and a half, and I don't know if it's just the shoe store I went to or not, so if you
have any information or if you are also on HRT and you've experienced this as well please
let me know, because from all the research and watching that I've done I've never seen
a girl say that her feet shrunk, so I don't know if that is even real or if it's just
the shoe store that I went to, because I definitely got a size smaller than I normally did. I
feel like that is all the things I've noticed physically that have changed since my last
update, I do want to talk to you a lot about my mental health though. So I've noticed between
the 3 and 4 month mark, my mental health has improved a lot, and it's not even like, I've
never had diagnosed depression or anything like that, I've always struggled with anxiety
and panic and everything like that just out of, like, a sheer survival instinct, but I've
noticed that I'm not necessarily more confident but I'm more comfortable. For the first time
in my life - not my life, for the first time in my life since I've started transitioning
- I left my house with just powder on, which is like, to me that means no make-up, okay?
Which is really impressive, to me, I didn't go shopping, like I didn't do a long thing,
but I like, I took an Uber home. And to me I'm impressed that I didn't wear make-up in
the Uber, that's probably pretty pathetic to other people but for me, since I've started
my transition, I haven't been able to go outside without make-up on because I don't feel like
people will read me properly, and that's something that's really not good for me. So that's kind
of exciting, but in general, like not even to deal with the make-up thing, I'm just so
much more comfortable, I feel like I've learned how to take care of myself better. My hair
right now is not particularly impressive but like, before I started transitioning, I didn't
even know how to brush my hair properly. You'd think that a make-up artist would have known
how to brush their hair properly but I didn't know what I was doing. Why? Why did I not
know how to brush my hair? Now, if you look at my hair-care update video, I feel like
my hair has changed so much, not even in the way, like, not even the hair itself, not physically,
but the way I take care of it and the way I take care of myself is SO MUCH BETTER and
I kind of want to highlight the point that when you start transitioning, you're not gonna
be perfect, you're not gonna know how to do everything, and trying to tackle everything
at once, trying to tackle your dysphoria in every region is going to be very, very overwhelming,
so I feel like what would be better, and I feel like what I did do in hindsight is focusing
on one thing at a time, okay? Because it's never gonna all happen at once for you, unless
you are like Caitlyn Jenner and you have a team of like thirty people there to help you
transition extremely smoothly. It's not gonna happen that way. So I would say just focus
on one thing at a time, and what I have focused on for the past couple of months has been
my hair, how I do my hair, managing facial hair, I've just dealt with hair over the past
couple of months and I've seen a lot of change, so that's my tip of the day I guess. I wanna
talk about facial hair too, I have now been to three laser hair removal appointments,
and I have a noticeable difference in facial hair growth, I probably grow half of what
I used to - it's still pretty much everywhere but it's like half the density, and what the
technician actually noticed is the first time I went in I had very irritated skin, I had
lots of bumps, lots of like - I don't even want to say scabs, lot's of bumps, it was
very irritated skin, it was like very uneven, and the last time I went in, she said it was
incredibly different, like it was a huge improvement and that meant she could also do more for
me, right, because if the skin gets too irritated during the procedure they have to stop, but
because my skin is getting better, they can do longer treatments therefore I can lose
more hair more quickly, right? So that's great. *knocking on door in the background*
One moment! Where's my bag?!
*door opens* Stef: Hi, I'm so sorry.
Pizza Guy: How are you? Stef: Good, good thank you!
Pizza Guy: You are my first customer! Stef: Oh, good!
Pizza Guy: My first day. Stef: You first day?
Pizza Guy: Yeah. Stef: Well I'm sorry I'm late to the door.
*both laughing* Well that was my pizza, so that's gonna happen
in a second. So I have covered physical things, hair, my mental health, I'm not trying to
uphold the cisgender norms or cis norms or heteronormative norms, whatever, I'm not trying
to uphold these things, I found I'm a lot more comfortable, I guess, with my physical
movements, and the way I carry myself in public, I feel like I've changed a lot in that way,
I guess I've absorbed a lot of feminity I don't know how that works. But I'm noticing
I get read correctly more often, I don't get misgendered nearly as much as I used to, and
that does have to do with the physical changes and the way I do my hair and the way I do
my make-up and all this other stuff, but I definitely feel a lot more comfortable like,
going in public, going on dates, I feel way better about all of that stuff than I did
before. I've gotten a lot more comfortable, and I just hope that if you're also pursuing
HRT, as the months go on, you will too feel a lot more comfortable than you used to. So
I hope that continues and I continue to get more comfortable and then eventually maybe
I'll be able to dance in public, I've never done that before in my life for the record
I've never danced in public, I've never even been to a club, like maybe one day. Maybe
at the year mark, we'll see. That is all I wanted to update you on, I do want to talk
about my GoFundMe really quickly though. It has just hit $22,000 dollars. I believe, or
it's very close to $22,000 Canadian dollars. I mentioned in the two month update kind of
the breakdown of everything but I want to reiterate it because it's been a couple of
months and I'm seeing some confusion surrounding everything, and I'm also going to be changing
something and I want to let you know about that. So the GoFundMe goal right now is about
$82,000 dollars, which was covering travel, hotel, food, like it covers everything, I
never expected to reach the full goal, and that's why I'm gonna be changing it, but basically
I wanted to have the potential to get everything covered, but I only really wanted the actual
medical procedures to be covered. What people are not understanding I'm finding is that
it includes SRS AND Facial Feminization Surgery, it's not just my SRS that is on the GoFundMe.
There is no way, anywhere in the world, that you're going to find an SRS surgeon that's
going to charge you $82,000 Canadian just for the surgery. That's not how this is working.
My SRS procedure is supposed to be somewhere around like $25,000 or $26,000 dollars. My
FFS, my Facial Feminization Surgery, is somewhere around $45,000 dollars. So, when you combine
those, that's about $70,000 dollars and then it's twelve grand to cover flights, to Asia,
hotel in Asia and Boston, Boston's more expensive, honestly, but the point is, it's a number
higher than I expected to reach, and even though that is the case, the vast majority
of it is still the procedures. That being said, I'm going to be changing it. So, I plan
on implimenting this change at the five month mark just so it's clean and then I'm not changing
it halfway through the video, halfway through the two videos. So what I'm gonna be changing,
basically, is the priority of things. My plan originally was to get SRS first about a year
or two into hormones, and then get FFS about a year after that. What I'm realizing is,
SRS is not, like, while it's very important to me in a dysphoria way, it would make me
more comfortable, it's not nearly important in my life, in what I do, in everything, as
Facial Feminization Surgery. What I'm gonna be doing, is I'm gonna be getting FFS first,
as soon as I can because there's no reason really to wait for that. What I thought originally
was I should wait to see how my face changes and everything before I put a scalpel to it,
but all that's gonna change with hormones regarding my face is the fat, right, the fatty
parts, and all that's gonna change with the FFS is the bone structure, so they're not
really going to coincide at all, I'm not getting cheek implants, I'm not getting anything like
that, so it doesn't make sense for me to wait for the fat to move before I get the bone
moved, does that make sense? So my plan is to change the goal of my GoFundMe from $82,000
including flight, all this other stuff, to $45,000 to just cover the FFS procedure. And
then when the time comes to get SRS, I will either do a whole other separate thing or
I will be having enough of an income to pay for it myself. Hopefully the latter is the
case but I don't know where I'll be in life, I have no idea what's gonna be happening,
all I know is FFS is definitely more important to me, because it's going to enable me to
live my life, to go outside, to go to a place, without worrying that somebody is going to
be vicious towards me. Because they're not going to see what's in my pants if I'm going
to, I don't know, the deli, right? They're gonna see my face. And the reality is, I don't
have professional lighting and a full face of make-up on with thick lashes all the time.
So while this angle and this lighting might be great, real life is not like that. And
I still endure a lot of harassment for my face. I like my face, I really do, I do experience
dysphoria in some parts of it which is why I'm getting the surgery, but I'm mostly looking
forward to living a mostly hassle-free life with my face. I hope that's not too much to
absorb. That is everything I wanted to talk about, I, I, I've had a wonderful time with
you, I, I just really like your company and I just, I really want this to happen more.
So until next time, please, just be yourself, be cool, it's gonna be okay, everything is
fine, I love you, and, you know, just be cool man. Just be cool. BYE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!
*kissing noises* I have been on estrogen for three months now,
it has been quite the journey, and I want to bring you some of the things I've been
noticing, changes, you know, I just want to update you monthly, so this is the three month
mark, we're gonna talk about it. Before I get into all of the things I